In our last episode, I responded to Michael Kaiser’s frustration with “new models” chatter. Well, this week he’s back with New Models, Part 2, and you knew I wasn’t going to just sit here (even if I am supposedly on vacation!) Kaiser once again criticizes the critics for a lack of specificity:

Michael Kaiser is fed up with the ceaseless chatter about the need for “new models” in the arts.

Perhaps the hottest lingo in Silicon Valley these days is “big data”. Once upon a time, the only folks who needed to worry about massive, unstructured (or semi-structured) data sets were scientists running weather simulators or investment banks designing high-frequency trading strategies. Not anymore.

Last week I told you why Fractured Atlas is opposing SOPA and PIPA, a pair of bills in Congress that claim to protect the rights of artists but would be both ineffective at that goal and damaging to the technical fabric of the internet. We were the first major arts organization to take this stand, and we took some heat for it, but I believe we also moved the needle on our community’s understanding of these complicated issues.

For a few months now we’ve been tracking a couple of ostensibly artist-friendly bills in Congress that are designed to enhance the ability of copyright-holders to enforce their rights online by shutting down websites dedicated to piracy of intellectual property. Think MP3s, movies, and filesharing (and some more nefarious stuff, too, like Russian websites that sell complete digital albums for a few bucks and never pay the artists).

Yesterday, the US Supreme Court strongly affirmed that the first amendment’s free speech protections are broad and may not lightly be curtailed. The case at hand dealt with a California law that would have punished retailers for selling violent video games to minors. By declaring the law unconstitutional, the court struck an important blow against censorship, and we in the arts community should consider this an important victory.

So Rocco really stepped in it. The NEA Chairman is under siege because he dared to suggest that perhaps there’s an oversupply of arts organizations relative to the (well-documented) dwindling demand. He’s not the first to bring this up, but it surprised a lot of folks that he used his bully pulpit to express an idea that many in the arts community find repugnant and misguided.

by Adam Huttler, Executive Director at Fractured Atlas NPR ran a feature on Fractured Atlas on this morning’s Morning Edition. You can listen online if you’re interested. Thanks to Asian Pacific American Film Festival and Catalyst Theater Company for saying nice things about us!