Guilty pleasures
By NewsPress Now
Jay-Z’s Made In America festival canceled for the second year in a row
Jay-Z’s annual Made in America festival, held in Philadelphia over Labor Day weekend, has been canceled for the second year in a row.
The festival announced the cancellation on social media and its official website Wednesday. A specific reason was not outlined, and a representative for Made in America referred questions back to the statement.
“As purveyors of change, the Made In America executive production team is reimagining a live music experience that affirms our love and dedication to music and the work we do. We promise an exciting return to the festival,” the statement read, without providing a timeline for the festival’s return.
A lineup had not yet been announced.
“Since its inception, this groundbreaking festival has celebrated music and community — from creating a space for fans to connect, to uplifting local small businesses and shining a light on important causes. It has strived for accessibility, eliminating barriers through affordable tickets and location,” Wednesday’s statement said.
In August 2023, a month before the festival was scheduled to take place on the Benjamin Franklin Parkway with Lizzo and SZA as the headliners, Made in America announced the festival would not happen “due to severe circumstances outside of production control,” according to a statement then.
“This decision has been difficult and has not been made lightly nor without immense deliberation,” the organizers said in 2023. At the time, they said they were looking forward to returning the following year.
When the festival was abruptly canceled last year, then-Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney expressed disappointment but said the city would “look forward to bringing Made in America back and bigger than ever to the Benjamin Franklin Parkway next year.” A spokesperson for Philadelphia Mayor Cherelle Parker did not immediately return comment about this year’s cancellation.
The festival began in 2012 and, up until 2023, had been held every year since except for 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic.
George Carlin estate settles with podcasters over fake comedy special
LOS ANGELES | The estate of George Carlin has agreed to a settlement with the media company it sued over a fake hourlong comedy special that purportedly used artificial intelligence to recreate the late standup comic’s style and material.
In the settlement agreement filed with a federal court Monday, and a proposed order from both sides that awaits approval from a judge, the podcast outlet Dudesy agrees to permanently take down the special and to refrain from using Carlin’s image voice or likeness in the future without the express written approval of the estate.
The settlement meets the central demands laid out by the Carlin estate in the lawsuit filed on Jan. 25.
“I am grateful that the defendants acted responsibly by swiftly removing the video they made,” Carlin’s daughter Kelly Carlin said in a statement. “While it is a shame that this happened at all, I hope this case serves as a warning about the dangers posed by AI technologies and the need for appropriate safeguards not just for artists and creatives, but every human on earth.”
George Carlin, among the most influential standup comedians of the 20th century, died in 2008.
In the audio special, titled “George Carlin: I’m Glad I’m Dead,” a synthesis of the comic delivers commentary on current events. A companion Dudesy podcast episode with hosts Will Sasso and Chad Kultgen —- the company and the two men are the defendants in the lawsuit — was released with the men playing clips and commenting on them.
Messages seeking comment from Kultgen and Sasso were not immediately returned.
At the beginning of the special posted on YouTube on Jan. 9, a voiceover identifying itself as the AI engine used by Dudesy says it listened to the comic’s 50 years of material and “did my best to imitate his voice, cadence and attitude as well as the subject matter I think would have interested him today.”
The plaintiffs say if that was in fact how it was created — and some listeners have doubted its stated origins — it meant Carlin’s copyright was violated.
The lawsuit was among the first in what is likely to be an increasing number of major legal moves made to fight the regenerated use of celebrity images and likenesses.
Carlin estate lawyer Joshua Schiller of the firm Boies Schiller Flexner LLP in a statement calls the settlement “a blueprint for resolving similar disputes going forward where an artist or public figure has their rights infringed by AI technology. Our goal was to resolve this case expeditiously and have the offending videos removed from the internet so that we could preserve Mr. Carlin’s legacy and shine a light on the reputational and intellectual property threat caused by this emerging technology.”
The AI issue was a major sticking point in the resolution of last year’s Hollywood writers and actors strikes.
Disney shareholders back CEO Iger,
rebuff activists
SAN FRANCISCO | Disney shareholders have rallied behind longtime CEO Robert Iger, voting Wednesday to rebuff activist investor Nelson Peltz and his ally, former Disney Chief Financial Officer Jay Rasulo, who had sought seats on the company’s board.
The company had recommended a slate of directors that did not include Peltz or Rasulo.
The dissident shareholders had said in a preliminary proxy filing that they wanted to complete a “successful CEO transition” at Disney and align management pay with performance. Despite their loss, they declared a victory of sorts following the vote, noting that since Peltz’s company, Trian Partners, started pushing Disney in late 2023, the entertainment giant has engaged in a flurry of activity, adding new directors and announcing new operating initiatives and capital improvement plans for its theme parks.
“Over the last six months, Disney’s stock is up approximately 50% and is the Dow Jones Industrial Average’s best performer year-to-date,” Trian said in a statement. Shares in Walt Disney Co., which is based in Burbank, California, were down about 3.4% in Wednesday afternoon trading.
The activist group previously said it wanted to see Disney achieve “Netflix-like” financial performance, specifically citing a 2027 target for Disney to raise a profit margin measure called EBIDTA — earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization — to levels of 15% to 20%.
But Disney is already operating at that level. In the quarter that ended in December 2023, Disney’s EBIDTA margin was 18%, according to data compiled by CapitalIQ. For the previous fiscal year that ended in September, Disney’s EBIDTA margin was 16.5%, according to the same data.
Disney announced in November 2022 that Iger would come back to the company as its CEO to replace his hand-picked successor, Bob Chapek, whose two-year tenure had been marked by clashes, missteps and weakening financial performance.
Iger was Disney’s public face for 15 years as chief executive before handing the job off to Chapek in 2020, a stretch in which Iger compiled a string of victories lauded in the entertainment industry and by Disney fans. But his second run at the job has not won him similar accolades.
Tilman Michael
to become Metropolitan Opera chorus director
NEW YORK | Tilman Michael will become chorus director of the Metropolitan Opera next season following the retirement of Donald Palumbo after 17 years as chorus master.
Michael, 49, was chorus master at the National Theater in Mannheim, Germany, then has held the same job at Oper Frankfurt since 2014–15. He spent 10 years assisting the chorus master at the annual Richard Wagner Festival in Bayreuth.
Michael worked with Met music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin in 2019 during performances of Shostakovich’s 13th symphony with the Rotterdam Philharmonic and the choir of the Bavarian Radio Symphony Orchestra. Nézet-Séguin and Thomas Lausmann, the Met’s director of music administration, approached Michael for the job last year.
Lausmann attended a performance of Verdi’s “Don Carlo” in Frankfurt and Michael traveled to the Met to listen to the chorus in Verdi’s “La Forza del Destino” and Puccini’s “Turandot.” His hiring was announced Tuesday.
“The Metropolitan Opera House is a special house and one of the most important opera houses in the world,” Michael said. “Of course, New York is a very, very, interesting and vibrant city which offered I think many opportunities.”
The orchestra and chorus are central elements of the company, which presents up to seven performances of four works in any week and 18 operas during a season. The chorus has 74 regular members plus 85 extra choristers.
Michael spent a day working with the Met chorus, as did other candidates, Met general manager Peter Gelb said.
“Yannick and Thomas were convinced that he was the right person for the Met,” Gelb said. “He was one of the leading candidates from the beginning who was invited to come to the Met and to try out, to have a working session or two with the chorus.”
—From AP reports
