The arts isn't exempt from Trump's assault on the US government, more audiobooks are coming to Spotify, a new court verdict clarifies rights reversion is the US and more.
I am sure whenever you hear Trump you are thinking WTF now?!, and this time is no different. His ongoing assault on the US government includes the arts. Also, Spotify inks new deals enthusiastically adding more audiobooks even though bundled subscriptions are pushing down music royalties and we have a new court case on rights reversion is the US.
Also a month on from Meta dumping fact-checking and Australian young people are concerned about misinformation and Google quietly dropped its commitment to not use its AI to make weapons
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What's going on?
Here’s WTF happened this week:
Trump's attack on the arts
The entire US government is under attack from Trump and his attack DOGE Musk – including arts and culture.
The sweeping changes to the US federal government since Donald Trump’s second administration began are so numerous it is almost impossible to keep up with them. Between rapid fire executive orders and Trump’s government efficiency attack dog Elon Musk and his DOGE goons storming into government agencies all over the place, it is understandable that a lot of the attention has focused on alarming situations like scuttling the US Agency for International Development (USAid) based on evidenceless claims of corruption, DOGE’s access to sensitive data from the US Treasury’s payment system, targeting the Environmental Protection Agency’s Office of Environmental Justice and at least 12 other government agencies. It is hard not to see a cynical pattern of targeted, systematic dismantling of government agencies that have or could hold Musk and Trump’s businesses to account or that don’t align with their personal political ideology. We will wait to see what if any of the Congressional, legislative and judicial interventions that have been initiated in response to DOGE stick.
