CAA News Today

Each week CAA News publishes summaries of eight articles, published around the web, that CAA members may find interesting and useful in their professional and creative lives.

Eight Years Later, Google’s Book Scanning Crusade Ruled “Fair Use”

Eight years after a group of authors and publishers sued Google for scanning more than twenty million library books without the permission of rights holders, a federal judge has ruled that the web giant’s sweeping book project stayed within the bounds of US copyright law. Last week Judge Denny Chin dismissed a lawsuit from the Author Guild, ruling that Google’s book scans constituted fair use under the law. (Read more from Wired.)

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Controversial Copyright Case

The US Supreme Court, in an order issued last week, has decided not to hear the controversial copyright case between the photographer Patrick Cariou and the artist Richard Prince, who appropriated Cariou’s images of Rastafarians in thirty paintings in the series titled Canal Zone. (Read more from the Art Newspaper.)

SMU’s Major New National Arts Report: What Does Arts Leadership Do?

Southern Methodist University’s National Center for Arts Research (NCAR) has just previewed its inaugural report, a major effort drawing on the largest arts database in the country. Jerome Weeks reports some of the study’s conclusions are a little unexpected. NCAR’s purpose is to determine what constitutes success for an arts group and how can it be encouraged and duplicated? (Read more from Art and Seek.)

German Government Knew about Massive Art Trove Nearly Two Years Ago

The German government knew for nineteen months that a huge trove of art, possibly including works stolen by the Nazis, had been found in Bavaria, but kept quiet while prosecutors carried out their investigation. Jewish groups and lawyers for heirs who might have a claim to the works have criticized the secrecy surrounding the case, and the fact that the government only sprang into action after it was revealed by Germany media earlier this month. (Read more from the Huffington Post.)

Sunday Dialogue: Academia’s Two Tracks

A recent study of Northwestern University indicating that non-tenure-track faculty are better teachers than tenure-track faculty has been met with disbelief and derision—by tenure-track faculty and the American Association of University Professors. It calls into question the myth that the two-track system in academe is an equal opportunity merit system. It is not; it is in fact a caste system with the tenured faculty occupying the upper caste and the off-track faculty serving as the “untouchables.” (Read more from the New York Times.)

No More Digitally Challenged Liberal-Arts Majors

While I don’t think liberal-arts education should be at the service of employers, I do think it is important to enable our BAs to build careers that allow them to continue what they valued about their undergraduate experiences. Too many liberal-arts graduates, especially in the arts and humanities, struggle to find their first positions, and many end up in jobs that have few obvious connections to what they imagined themselves doing. Yearning to follow their academic interests and to be appreciated for what they have to contribute, they end up going to graduate school. (Read more from the Chronicle of Higher Education.)

How to Handle Your Inevitable Rejection: The Vitae Primer

It’s no secret that rejection is a constant and integral part of academic life, especially during job-hunting season. But that doesn’t make repeated knocks to your candidacy (or your psyche) any easier to take or less painful. There’s an abundance of advice on how to get an academic job and manage your career, but little is offered on how to manage your misery when search committees shut the door on your bids. (Read more from Vitae.)

Artist Asks: “What Do You Want to Accomplish Before You Die?”

In the midst of New Orleans still reeling from Hurricane Katrina, Candy Chang channeled her frustration and pain into building a wall. Unlike most walls, this one wasn’t meant to keep people apart, but to bring them closer than ever. Chang, an artist and designer known for thought-provoking, interactive installations, has been preoccupied with the idea of death since her mother passed away when she was fifteen. In 2011, Chang repurposed a wall of a dilapidated house to ask the simple question: What do you want to accomplish before you die? (Read more from Mashable.)