A cultural difference is reflected in visiting not your mother's LasVegas

Las Vegas Strip

Carol Forsloff-----Years ago when folks went to Las Vegas they looked forward to that special meal in a casino, played a few slot machines, and took in a show for an inexpensive vacation that had a little magic that was affordable and didn't break one's personal bank, but those days are gone in a Las Vegas your mother, and surely your grandmother, would not recognize and likely could not easily afford.

The Strip is all that glitters in the night where its glorious lights and majestic buildings line up in a fashion that makes the proverbial jaw drop, even as it all is a reminder that they weren't built by businesses seeking visitors who relish the good deal but those people willing to set aside all of that for the quick fix of the quick buck won and mostly lost.

Want to spend your children's inheritance as fast as possible? This is the place to begin. Visit a headliner show, if you can get there on a night when someone you want to see is available and doesn't require a major physical and financial effort to get there after all. The Donny and Marie Osmond show is highly acclaimed by Las Vegas insiders and outsiders alike, but at the usual $150 per person price tag (not counting the taxes and other fees) most middle-class folks would have to make serious choices after getting the bill back home. Other shows are also pricey, ranging at the minimum of $75 each for the cheap seats and in the several hundreds for the best.

A four-day trip turns out to be two days and partial days spent traveling, finding where to go, thumbing through event brochures, checking baggage and standing in endless lines for food, show tickets and entry into anything. This Disneyland for adults isn't for the person looking for rest and relaxation or just a vacation on the cheap. Instead it's for someone seeking excitement and who has endless energy and funds as well. For the food is just as pricey relative to the shows on the Strip, and those relatively cheap meals that were the temptations for folks to go to the casinos and try things out no longer exist. Every square inch of the casino territories is dedicated to making money, so there isn't even a coffee pot in the room let alone potable water, as everyone in the know knows not to drink from the tap in Las Vegas town. Add water to the price.

A journalist and spouse went to the city that sleeps only during the day for many folk to spend time with family and entertain at a locally-sponsored party and event. Food with family and free food at a party can substantially help a budget be less excessive than it could have well been for the couple lost in the inebriating textures of Las Vegas. Still the venue was overwhelming, of the nature that made rest a four-letter word of the past.

Expect, if you gamble and do that only minimally, to easily spend with that round-trip, airfare and hotel included at a lesser price, if you can get it, of $560 from Portland, Oregon, for just one show at $200 for two for a lesser-than-major-celebrity show, $125/day for food that includes one sit-down meal and otherwise fast food, which comes slowly after long lines of waiting, $100 each allowance for gambling, t-shirts for the happy couple at $40, a couple at $6 and counting for soda ; and that not-your-mother's Vegas turns out to be a high-priced rendezvous indeed. It is not easily affordable for the folks back home at the grand total of $1500.

We did it for less without the gambling and drinks, but the magic that brought folks from anywhere is slowly disappearing along with the water table, both in short supply. But if you like that and fighting crowds that are like the worst at the midday hour at the Chicago airport at Christmas than leave your mother home.

Copyright suit against US Post Office reveals underlying problemsrelated to copyright laws

Carol Forsloff - Copyright issues continue to create questions for both the artist and user of artistic material in some cases, where artists, visual or performance, maintain their creative work not properly remunerated, including the artist of the famous war memorial stamp depiction of the Korean War while others claim fair use.

In this most recent case, the artist Frank Gaylord, who designed and created the sculptures that are depicted on the stamp that commemorated the 50th anniversary of the peace-signing agreement of the Korean War, is suing for a 10 percent share of the $30.2 million earned by the sale of the stamps. The US Postal Service, it is alleged,  licensed the photograph taken by John Allie, but Gaylord maintains it never got his permission to show his "The Column" art work on the stamp and retail merchandise.

Whereas outright plagiarism is often considered the major threat to an artist's work, and most other artists condemn what they also see as a theft of creative work, there are  far more subtle issues that sometimes swing issues into a no-man's land of controversy where folks no longer know when they may be cited, even for such a simple thing as posting a family video of a child's dancing to a familiar tune for the entertainment of other family members and friends.

In the case of a man called Tony, who runs a music store in the Portland, Oregon area, his daughter had been at Disneyland and was photographed with some of the Disney Characters. Tony's child was so delightful and animated during the video photography that the video put on YouTube became an overnight sensation with 7 million hits and counting. But later, when Tony videoed his little daughter dancing in the living room, he was cited for copyright infringement, as the child was dancing to music from the television set.  The music itself was copyrighted, and Tony's video-taping accented his daughter's dancing. But the copyright was maintained so that the publishing company is free to advertise on the video itself.

Cover songs are often used by musicians to demonstrate their musical abilities to potential employers or for simple entertainment of friends and the public. These days, since YouTube allows the uploading of material in many areas outside of the creative ones, the competition for page views has increased dramatically, so that many musicians find their quality work, including original tunes, at the bottom of a seemingly bottomless dumpster that contains YouTube videos suggestive of incest, rape and some that depict physical violence on many levels. Yet, despite YouTube's written standards, these questionable videos remain a part of the video family, while Tony's video received a citation. Furthermore, many folks may present a cover song and receive no reprimand at all, whereas others doing the same thing with the same song will be asked to take the video down or to allow advertising. The more popular the channel, it appears, the more apt the publisher via YouTube, will respond with a citation of third-party content to allow advertising and prohibit any remuneration by the user. This sometimes includes old gospel songs, classical pieces, and other tunes thought to be in the public domain.

And these citations come with no explanation except the reference to the copyright section of YouTube's Terms of Service.

Tony's video is one of thousands that are not direct and purposefully done depictions of another artist's work, but it reflects the questions that show the problems in the copyright laws and their applications. While direct copying of another person's song is justified  in the mind of the musician by listing it as a "cover",  the application of the rules is ambiguous at best, as many are allowed through the gate, so that cover songs are considered legal by those who do them, while an unlucky group is cited for doing far less.

Most artists want the original owner of creative material to be rewarded for the work and for its use. On the other hand, it is impossible to perform a piece of music written after 1923 without risking a YouTube warning. It is simply a matter of who gets lucky.

In the meantime, the US Post Office is now unlucky, in the sense it too is now on the copyright ropes for having allegedly crossed the line on copyright laws with a photograph that included an artist's sculpture. That might likely mean that some happy tourist who takes a picture of his family in the doorway of a room containing paintings could be cited for copyright infringement by one of the painters even if the focus is not on the paintings but the family vacation and that museum or gallery experience.