"We are entering a difficult period for the arts," said committee head and Tory MP John Whittingdale. "They can't be excluded from the general need to find spending reductions and that does mean there'll have to be cuts."
Wednesday is funding judgment day, when 1,300 organisations across England will find out - in an email between 7.30 and 9.30 in the morning - how much money they will get - if any - from the Arts Council. Almost half of applications will be unsuccessful. Small, local arts organisations are at most risk of closure, particularly as they face a double whammy with many also facing funding cuts from their local authority.
Arts Council chief executive Alan Davey said, "Obviously there will be lots of very disappointed people. Some we can fund better, some will be cut and some we won't be able to fund at all. The arts in this country is a success story and define who we are as a nation as well as providing economic regeneration. We must support them."
In The Courts - A website that illegally sold Beatles songs online for 25 cents each has agreed to pay record companies almost $1m (£625,000) to settle a legal case BlueBeat.com, based in the US, streamed and sold music by The Beatles, Coldplay and others until it was sued in 2009. In the few days before it was forced to shut down, it had distributed more than 67,000 Beatles tracks.
Judge Josephine Tucker ruled that the site had violated the music labels' copyright and was unfair competition. BlueBeat had denied wrongdoing, claiming that owner Hank Risan's pioneering technique of so-called "psycho-acoustic simulation" allowed him to produce unique versions of copyrighted music.
The judge rejected that argument on the grounds that Mr Risan's versions were based on tracks he had purchased on CD. She labelled the justification as "obscure and undefined pseudo-scientific language [that] appears to be a long-winded way of describing 'sampling'."
Canada Calling - Arcade Fire won four prizes at the Junos this weekend as Canada's leading music awards event celebrated its 40th anniversary. "We're truly overwhelmed," said band member Richard Reed Parry at the gala, held in Toronto on Sunday night. Arcade Fire won two BRIT awards in January and were further feted in February at the Grammys, where The Suburbs was named album of the year.
Veteran artist Neil Young was named artist of the year and received two additional prizes. "It's just totally incomprehensible that I'm here," the 65-year-old told the audience. "But it's a great honour- I really appreciate it."
(Jim Evans)
