In the first Let’s Talk episode of the new year, Angela Johnson and B Crittenden chat about new works that have entered the public domain as of January 1, 2021 and differences in arts policy and funding between the Trump and Biden administrations. This episode was recorded before the inauguration, so we will continue to watch what happens in Biden’s first hundred days in office. Then, AMT Lab Chief Editor Lutie Rodriguez joins the conversation to discuss cybersecurity for work-from-home settings.

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Angela: Welcome to the Let's Talk series of Tech in the Arts, the podcast for the Arts Management and Technology Laboratory. My name is Angela Johnson, the Podcast Producer. 

B: And I'm B Crittenden, the Technology and Interactive Content Manager. 

Angela: Each month, we review trending stories and discussions with topics such as streaming, artificial intelligence, marketing, social media, inclusion, fundraising, and much more. Our goal is to exchange ideas, bring awareness, and stay on top of the trends. In this month’s episode, we will discuss new works that have entered the public domain in 2021; changes in funding, programming, and policy from the Trump and Biden administrations; and finally we will talk with the Chief Editor of the AMT Lab platform, Lutie Rodriguez, about cybersecurity in a work-from-home setting.

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Angela: Happy New Year. Welcome to 2021. How is the new year treating you, B?

B: It’s good, thanks for asking. This is out first Let’s Talk of 2021. Starting the new year with a good one, so I’m excited.

Angela: I think a fun way to kick off the new year is to talk about something that happens every year, but we don’t talk about it that much, and it’s Public Domain Day…

B: Woohoo!

Angela: …which is January 1, when new works created 95 years previously join the public domain, meaning that you don't have to pay to use them. So, to provide some context: when Disney was first starting to make movies, they used a lot of public domain stories and fairy tales. But then they wanted to continue to make money on those stories and fairy tales on their own movies and stories and characters, etcetera. So, they basically lobbied Congress to enact what is known as the Mickey Mouse Law, which extended public domain to 95 years so that they could retain the rights to the characters, because Mickey Mouse was entering the public domain and they didn't want that to happen. So, this year is apparently especially robust in terms of works entering the public domain, the most popular or exciting of which, I guess, is The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald. We get works by Virginia Woolf, Sinclair Lewis, Kafka, Gertrude Stein, Agatha Christie, Edith Wharton, Aldous Huxley. Nineteen twenty-five was also apparently a banner year for musicians because we now get music by Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, Duke Ellington, the Gershwins, Fats Waller. And we even get movies by Buster Keaton and Harold Lloyd. So, we get so much more content in the public domain and it's very exciting.

B: I really enjoyed looking at the list of all the works that have entered the public domain because I think it provides a really interesting snapshot from that period of time, just in terms of highlights of what was created in 1925 and how it kind of reflects what was going on. I mean, at this point, we were well in sort of Jim Crow era, and yet we have a ton of these amazing works by African American creators. We have, obviously, The Great Gatsby, which is, to this day, one of probably the most famous pieces of literature, at least in the U.S.

Angela: I was especially surprised by the amount of music that is available now. I think that's really cool. It's weird because it doesn't seem that—like, obviously, it was a long time ago—but like, it's crazy that now all these works are free, like Duke Ellington. I don't know if I realized Duke Ellington music was from the ‘20s. I guess Ma Rainey makes sense. A little plug for Ma Rainey’s Black Bottom. Viola Davis, always great.

B: Well, I think that's another thing about looking at the list of works, is that it kind of contextualizes everything, seeing it all together like that.

Angela: Yeah, like, it's not like…it's the ‘20s. And I think when we think of the ‘20s, we think of like, flappers, and we think of The Great Gatsby, but like, the time of The Great Gatsby was also the time of Duke Ellington and Ma Rainey. And it's like these disparate worlds that existed at the same time. I think that's really interesting. And also, I think that that is still happening now. Even more so. Like, honestly, I think content is just becoming even more niche. And, like, all of these separate worlds are existing at the same time. And so then there's even less…there's not really one piece of art that can represent an entire society. And that's even more true today than it was in 1925.

B: There are so many different channels to be, like, sharing what people are creating that it's harder to have like a unified understanding of what's defining us at a given time.

Angela: Yeah.

B: One thing I did want to point out, as we're looking at, like, this list of works, is that this is just a really small, you know, handful of works that have been pulled out of all the works that were released for the public domain this year. And that, apparently, only around 2% of copyrights between 55 and 75 years old retain their commercial value. And that, you know, between 75 and 95 years, that percentage is even lower. So, most of the works that are released to the public domain, it doesn't mean a whole lot, because no one is really like trying to use them anyway. But I guess this is just a very slim selection of works that are now available for public use.

Angela: This is so much music. I don't know. I took a blues and jazz class in college. So I'm like, “Oh, I know a lot of this music. Cool.” It's crazy that so much of it is public domain now. Wow. Okay.

B: And I think also what we're going to see is, and this is kind of the point of copyright law, is that by allowing people to protect their work for a given period of time, you're motivating people to be creative, because then they're able to create art on a professional level, retain the ability to monetize it and sort of maintain it in its original form. But the whole benefit of works going into the public domain is that now we're not only able to share them more freely, but we're also able to adapt them. And so, how will The Great Gatsby be adapted?

Angela: It doesn't need to be a movie with Leonardo DiCaprio. Now it can be like…

B: Yeah, exactly.

Angela: …like a weird indie film version of The Great Gatsby, because it's public domain.

B: And I think that's where a lot of arts organizations and just creators in general can start taking artistic liberties with these works. And that's kind of exciting, both in terms of, like, the style, and then how they're distributing it. What sort of media they're using to share it with people.

Angela: For sure. I think we're going to probably be hearing—especially with the music—I think we're going to be hearing a lot of these works more just because, “Hey, they're public domain. We can use them.” So just in terms of soundtracks, in terms of covers, in terms of so many different things, it'll just be—I think there will just be greater access. And I think that's really cool.

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Angela: 2021 is also exciting in that we will have a new presidential administration. We thought it would be interesting to look at the differences in arts funding and policy between the soon-to-be-previous Trump administration and the future Biden administration.

B: So to start us off with our second topic, if we're looking at, like, a high-level comparison between the Trump administration and the Biden administration, one of the most referenced components is that the Democratic Party's platform actually mentions the arts and culture, whereas the Republican Party's platform doesn't even mention it. So, the very existence of any sort of planning to maintain or enrich our arts and culture, we're seeing that now with a Democratic president. It's possible that we'll see more arts and culture just more, like, part of the conversation. As well as the fact that Trump himself aimed to eliminate federal funding on the arts in his budget proposals all four years that he was president, so.

Angela: I was going to mention that.

B: Go for it.

Angela: It seems as if, in the past four years and just in recent memories, as far I can tell, when it comes to the Republican Party, they either ignore the arts or seek to abolish them. In a statement from Americans for the Arts from February 10, they said that for the fourth straight year, the Trump administration has proposed to eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts, the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Museum and Library Services, and the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Clearly, both chambers of Congress have consistently rejected this unilateral effort on the administration's part. Every year that Trump has been in office, he has sought to eliminate public funding for the arts, and that is a problem. And I haven't found a lot of very specific ways that the Biden administration will seek to further funding for the arts, but they will at the very least, not eliminate it. So that is something to say. I think that's really—well, not to be too political—but I do feel as though Biden’s general stance on things tends to be like, “We're for this, but we're not going to be very specific.” And I think that's in contrast, even to Obama. In 2008, Barack Obama had a thoroughly outlined platform to support the arts, including increased funding for the National Endowment for the Arts, as well as health care and tax fairness for artists. So that is in huge contrast, even to Biden, who is clearly not going to eliminate the arts or seek to decrease funding, we hope, but doesn't seem to have a very specific plan of how he's going to help artists and support the arts.

B: Apparently, there is a Biden Arts Policy Committee, but it is a little unclear on, like, if this even exists currently or, like, what its mission is. One thing that I think is important to talk about is this Arts Policy Template that Americans for the Arts has provided to the Biden-Harris administration in anticipation of January 20th. They created it in September, and it's called “Putting Creative Workers to Work,” and it sort of acts as a template, as I said, for arts and government cooperation in the arts. It has a set of 16 actions, many of which could be activated through either executive action or with federal funding. And so a lot of these actions have to do with creating employment for creative workers, both in the public and private sectors. And then one section is titled “Integrating creative interventions into response recovery and resilience programs.” And then general support of access to arts, culture, and arts education. So one thing that I wanted to mention that sort of ties this, like, more policy-related topic that we have into technology was brought up in an article published on Forbes, which was written by Benjamin Wolff. He brings up the fact that this set of actions does include the private sector in addition to the public sector, which is pretty significant. And in this piece, he references the fact that corporations in the U.S. are starting to bring in creative workers with artistic backgrounds, and that this plan should work to try and increase that. So, one thing that he referenced was the Nokia Bell Labs, which has an Experiments in Arts and Technology Program whose mission is to create technology that augments human senses and enables new forms of empathic communication, interaction, and sharing. And so they're actually employing workers who have artistic backgrounds, and sort of fusing the arts and technology and bringing artistic practice into research and methodology in their company. So I think the whole point is that initiatives between Americans for the Arts and this new administration, they're trying to create opportunities for the creative economy across the board. The idea is that they need government support to like, be able to do that. Another thing they're trying to do is just have like a cultural adviser who has direct—who, like, works directly with the president.

Angela: What you were talking about before about, like, having more like artistic and creative people in like tech jobs, I think, is really important. Because, well for one thing, I feel like a lot of the people who go into tech fields are a lot of the same kinds of people and who also just think the same way, in a lot of ways. But also, like you need in every field, you need people who are good at writing, you need people who are creative. And those are the kinds of people that generally go towards arts, but when you are collaborating, and you're, like, bringing other people from different fields together, then that's when we get the good stuff. That's when we actually like are productive in every field.

B: And I should have mentioned this earlier, too, that due to the pandemic, unemployment among artists was greater than 60%.

Angela: So many artists are freelance.

B: Yeah, and 95% of creative workers in general are reporting a significant loss of income. So generally, we want to be promoting job creation for creative people, but especially now.

Angela: Mhm, especially since so many…like, when you are a freelance worker, then you don't qualify for unemployment benefits. And that just applies to so many artists who are just like, “Well, I can't work, but I'm not unemployed.” So they can't even, like, apply for the CARES Act, and it's been a really tough time for artists. We don't need to tell our listeners that. They know it. So hopefully, this new administration will do something to help take care of them. It seems like kind of a small issue compared to all of the other things going on in our country that need fixing, but it affects real lives. And when, you know, societies that value the arts are the societies that just generally are more productive and successful. More robust societies are ones that value the arts.

B: One thing I would say is, I encourage anyone in the arts to go look at the “Putting Creative Workers to Work” Arts Policy Template that Americans for the Arts created. There's a lot of information in there that we didn't mention today. So yeah, go take a look. We’ll link it in the show notes.

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Angela: For our third topic, we have a very special guest. It’s out Chief Editor, Lutie Rodriguez.

Lutie: Hi. Happy to be here.

Angela: Do you want to introduce yourself?

Lutie: Sure! My name is Lutie Rodriguez, and I am a second-year Master of Arts Management student at Carnegie Mellon in Heinz College. And I am also the chief editor for the AMT Lab platform.

Angela: Through the pandemic, as we have all been moving more and more online, a large concern has been with cybersecurity. In an article in the report from the security firm Malwarebytes, one of the biggest organizational challenges of work-from-home has been in the security and privacy features. Forty-five percent of respondents found that their company didn't analyze the security or privacy features on the software tools considered necessary for remote working. So, you have been researching this topic. From your research, what do you think is the biggest hurdle for remote work in terms of cybersecurity? And do you have any tips or ideas of how we should be addressing that better?

Lutie: Yeah, so I guess last year now, because of the pandemic, I decided to research cybersecurity for remote work in the arts. And I thought it was a really important topic just because everyone was kind of thrust into this new environment without really the chance to think about maybe some precautions that they would normally. And already the art sector is an industry that isn't as attentive to their cybersecurity as they could be, so the pandemic and remote work situation just exacerbated that problem. Within my research, I'd say the biggest problem that I think arts organizations face is just merely allowing employees to securely access organizational information that they need from a remote location, especially because in the arts sector, many people are still having to use their personal devices, just because arts organizations don't usually have the resources, especially small and mid-size, to provide everyone with an organizational laptop on short notice, like in this situation. And personal devices just don't have like the strong antivirus software or customized firewalls that computers would have when people are working in the office like normal. So yeah, I'd say that using personal devices to access information remotely is the biggest hurdle that organizations face. And in my research, I detailed some possible solutions, but I can't say that there's really a broad fix-all kind of situation just because it varies on the size of the organization and how many employees they have working from home, as well as what resources, both in expertise and money, that they have to invest in cybersecurity.

B: Yeah, I really appreciate your point, because in multiple jobs I've had in arts organizations, there's been a pretty casual approach when it comes to using personal devices, even before we were working remotely. I've worked in organizations where employees will bring in their own laptops to work, even if they do have their own PC in the workplace. And then a huge one is accessing email and other software for the workplace on your phone. It was another big one that just, I think culturally, if you are running around to meetings or if you are working from home, being able to, like, communicate with your coworkers during the day on your phone is important, but often, depending on what your IT situation is, tends to be overlooked.

Lutie: Right. Definitely. Personal devices are definitely something that needs to be addressed as far as cybersecurity. And one thing that's kind of more simple to do that doesn't really require, you know, investment in a new technology is just establishing a bring-your-own-device policy, or B-Y-O-D policy.

[Laughter]

Lutie: Yeah, it’s kind of a funny name. Which just kind of lays out what the organization is okay with employees doing on personal devices, if anything at all. Yeah, and there are different levels to that, like, the policy could be, like, “Don't access anything on your personal devices.” That's kind of impossible to ask, like you were talking about, B. Or, like, only use it to access email or something like that. And there are some resources out there that can walk nonprofits through crafting and bring-your-own-device policy.

B: I imagine they're included in your article, which was just posted on AMT Lab just a few days ago. I like how you framed these four recommendations for arts organizations when it comes to their cybersecurity. Would you mind just walking us through that briefly?

Lutie: Sure, I'd be happy to. So, in my research, I both just looked at reports and articles and blogs by professionals in the industry about cybersecurity for remote work, and I also talked to several IT professionals working in the arts nonprofit space. And through that, I kind of drilled it down to four areas of cybersecurity for remote work that arts organizations could implement and address. The first being conducting a remote security risk assessment, so just kind of addressing what kind of data that the organization is keeping and who needs to access that and how often, just because data is so valuable and so important. Yeah, that's often overlooked. The second being making sure to ensure secure network access, which I kind of touched on already, just providing a secure way for employees to access the information that they need. And the third, which I also touched on, is creating and implementing those policies and procedures for using personal devices. And then lastly, implementing employee cybersecurity training, because all of those technical implementations don't really work without getting employees on board and, like, informing them about why paying attention to cybersecurity is important.

Angela: I definitely think that that last one is really important because, especially during the pandemic, there's a level of which it's kind of like, well, convenience is key, because everything else is so inconvenient. And you're like, “Well, I just want to use my phone, because that's what I have here, and it's easier than trying to grab my work computer.” Maybe it's, you know, in a different part of my house or something. And it's just, like, why even bother. But there's a level to which you have to educate your employees on the risk involved in not using…and it's like even a personal risk to them, not just like a company risk. So I think that is really important.

Lutie: Yeah, definitely. All of the arts IT professionals that I talked to really emphasized working together with employees to figure out solutions, so that, you know, people working are able to access the information that they need and don't feel constrained, but at the same time, that it is safe for both the employees and the organization. Yeah, and there are some tools for, like, doing phishing tests and just sending out periodic reminders like PSAs about cybersecurity out there. So it doesn't have to be something that one person is having to think about all the time.

B: I will say it's much easier to get phished than I think a lot of us would admit. I think it's one of those things where like, yeah, obviously you don't, you don't, like, give your password to someone you don't know or an interface that isn't familiar. But when you're working through the day, and you're not really…your brain is somewhere else, and you're just trying to access something, and something looks relatively familiar, I think it's much easier than a lot of us would let on.

Angela: I think people are still kind of stuck in that, like, ‘90s mentality of phishing, where it's, like, really obvious what's going on, before people knew, like, how the internet worked. And now it's like, well, these look like—it's easy to make things look legitimate, even when they're not.

Lutie: Yeah, I actually wanted to talk about that, because while doing this research in the past few months, Carnegie Mellon, where I go to school, did a phishing test, and I totally fell for it.

[Laughter]

Lutie: Yeah, it was a good, like, wake up call for me, I guess, and it was a good example when I was doing the research because it was pandemic themed, which has been a big problem. Just with all those new kind of buzzwords that are new to our vocabulary, like “contact tracing,” “social distancing.” And so there are so many new things that Carnegie Mellon has implemented with like, you know, asymptomatic testing, blah, blah, blah, and so the message was something like “You have a new message in your quarantine portal.” And I was like, “Whoa, what's that? Have I been, like, missing out on this important pandemic safety tool?” So I clicked on it, and it was like, “This was a phishing test.” And, yeah, there was, like, a whole page pointing out all the signs that I missed. And also people just skim their emails a lot. Like, we get a lot of email, so if you open something, you're not, like, looking at all the little details.

B: Lutie, in your article, you referenced a statistic that, according to the FBI, their cyber division, they're receiving like a 400% increase of complaints of cyber attacks a day from before the pandemic. So, it's obviously a huge problem. 

Lutie: Yeah, it's crazy. It's just compounded. Everyone's doing everything online on their computers all the time, so just convenience-wise, it's easier for cyber attacks to take place. And also, there's just general nervousness and anxiety with the pandemic and everything going on. So, phishing definitely preys on people's nervousness.

Angela: And I feel like people are just more bored. So they're just like, “Oh, weird email, I'll click on that. I have nothing better to do.”

Lutie: I did see something cool after I finished my research and published this article, though, on TikTok, actually, related to cloud storage. This professor did a series of videos on blockchain applications, and one of those was for creating what is called decentralized cloud storage, or like a cooperative storage cloud where instead of having a central place where information is stored, and, like, if it was breached, then everything stored in that cloud would be put at risk. It is decentralized into nodes, where if one of those nodes is breached, it doesn't affect everything else, and just the information in there would be put at risk. So I thought that was really cool. Something to look out for more widely in the future, since we've seen like with Blackbaud, with arts organizations that use that, when Blackbaud faced a cyberattack, arts organizations had to deal with the ramifications of their information be being put at risk and having to contact donors and, you know, admit to that. Like, that's not something that an organization wants to do at all. So yeah, I think that decentralized cloud storage using blockchain could be really cool. Something to look into.

Angela: And I was reading an article on securitymagazine.com. You know, I just like to browse.

[Laughter]

Angela: No, it was research. It was about the cloud. And like, how that it can help with cybersecurity, but it also makes it more complicated. I have a quote here: “There are there are a lot of benefits to the cloud. But there are some pitfalls from a cybersecurity perspective, chief among them is the need for comprehensive security solutions that incorporate the cloud, as well as legacy infrastructure, given the shortage of cloud security expertise, and the lack of hybrid solutions that span cloud and legacy companies are challenged to build in system-wide security.” Also consolidation stuff. The cloud is really complicated and no one really understands it, so it's really hard to actually—like, it's more secure in some ways, but it's also hard to integrate that.

B: Well I think, with a lot of things, with access comes risk. And that's just something that we have to continue to figure out.

Angela: Like, we just needed to come up with new security. Like, we need to make sure that our security is keeping up with our new technology as we as we keep advancing.

Lutie: Yeah, I like what you said, B, like with access comes risk, because cloud storage is really helpful with this remote work environment because you just access the information/data you need from the cloud. But also, yeah, like we talked about it is risky. But it does eliminate, like, the physical aspects of storing, things being destroyed. Like, you don't have to worry about something being stolen or something being destroyed in, like, a natural disaster. So, I think we're heading in the right direction.

B: Thanks for having the conversation with us, Lutie.

Angela: Yeah, thanks for joining us.

Lutie: Thanks, guys. This was fun.

B: We will say that, I know we already mentioned this, but your latest—actually, as the editor, you do write a lot for the platform. So, anyone can find that on the website, amt-lab.org.

Angela: Thanks for listening to the AMT Lab podcast. Don't forget to subscribe and to leave a comment. If you would like to learn more, go to amt-lab.org that is A-M-T dash L-A-B .org. Or you can email us at amtlabcmu@gmail.com. You can also follow us on Twitter at Tech in the Arts, or on Instagram, Facebook, or LinkedIn at Arts management and Technology Lab. You can find the resources that we reference today in the show notes. Thanks for listening. See you next time.

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