ArtsJournal: Arts, Culture, Ideas

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The Vast Scale Of Meta’s Use Of Pirated Books

 Internal communications show employees saying that Meta did indeed torrent LibGen, which means that Meta could have not only accessed pirated material but also distributed it to others—well established as illegal under copyright law, regardless of what the courts determine about the use of copyrighted material to train generative AI. - The Atlantic

Are There Too Many Books Being Published? Too Much Noise In The Clutter?

 More than 2.6 million books were self-published in 2023 – many of which are uploaded to the dominant platform, Amazon’s Kindle Direct Publishing – and they can’t all be masterpieces. Nevertheless, the idea that self-publishing is the preserve of hopeless hobbyists producing books no one wants to read is at least a decade out of date. - The Guardian

Alabama Library Board Cancels Funding, Fires Librarian Over Books On Library Shelves

The chair of the Alabama Republican Party said board members believe the Fairhope library is in violation of state policies to protect children from inappropriate materials. The books cited by the upset parents included “Sold,” a National Book Award finalist about a girl who is sold into sexual slavery in India. - CNN

Booksellers In France Protest Media Dominance By Placing Publisher’s Books On Lower Shelves

“Books matter,” said Thibaut Willems, owner of Le Pied à Terre independent bookshop in Paris’s 18th arrondissement and one of the booksellers taking a stand by limiting their orders of Hachette Livre books and placing them on lower shelves. - The Guardian

Trump Limited Access By Canadians To Shared Library On US/Canada Border. Now Anger On Both Sides

Coming at a time of heightened tensions between the two countries, the decision is prompting an outpouring of emotion in communities on both sides of the border, which in places has been marked simply by flower pots. - AP News

Suzanne Collins Of The Hunger Games Is Not Bowing To BookTok’s Whims

“Who are we if not citizens of the Capitol, tuning in to the show, priming ourselves for the emotional punch of the next death, feeling moved to send sponsor gifts to children who are stuck in caves and trees, awaiting the moments of their demise?” - Slate

Animals Memoirs Are All The Rage

Did a fox write this? - The New York Times

Hamline University Suddenly Announces It’s Closing Its MFA Program

Students and faculty at one of the only low-residency university creative writing programs in the country are shocked and horrified. - MPR

AI Is Honestly Crap At Telling Stories

Writing about your life? “To farm it out to a machine that trawls the internet and cobbles together a fake version of you is not just academic dishonesty, it’s a broader degradation of our memories and our humanity.” - The New York Times

France Cancels An Order For 800,000 Copies Of Beauty And The Beast For Schoolkids

And the illustrator is pretty sure he knows why: “The characters in the new books have ‘darker skin instead of blonde fairy-tale princesses.’” - BBC

Considering The Problematic Revenge Memoir

Admission of desire for revenge on the page also reeks of shame: it’s the thing that every writer—certainly every memoirist—grapples with but generally never talks about. - LitHub

Academic Research Publishers Increasingly Turning To AI To Check Peer Review

In 2024, more than 4,600 academic papers were retracted or otherwise flagged for review, according to the Retraction Watch database; during a six-week span last fall, one scientific journal published by Springer Nature retracted more than 200 articles. - InsideHigherEd

What Will Be Lost When Library Services Agency Goes Away

The agency provides financial support to a wide array of cultural and educational institutions, including art, science and history museums, zoos, aquariums, botanical gardens and historic sites. Libraries of all types – public, academic, school and research – also benefit from the agency’s funding. - The Conversation

Trump Appoints New Head Of Library Services (While Promising To Shut It Down)

"I am committed to steering this organization in lockstep with this Administration to enhance efficiency and foster innovation," Keith Sonderling wrote in a press release. - NPR

US Limits Access To Heritage-Listed Library That Straddles US-Canada Border

The Haskell Free Library and Opera House, built in 1904, has been declared a heritage site on both sides of the border and has long been considered a symbol of harmony between Canada and the U.S. The border line literally runs across the floor of the building. - CBC

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