It’s been a sad week in the world of entertainment and culture, with the loss of three creative forces: Music, film and philanthropic superstar Dolly Parton, actor Tim Curry, and Japanese artist Yayoi Kusama. Each poignant and profound in their own way, I thought I’d share some of their words as a way to remember them today.

From Yayoi: “O Time: hold still awhile. I have so much more work to do. There are so many things I want to express. But time just keeps ticking away, and the earth never for an instant ceases to turn.”

A lesson from Tim: “Whenever you have the chance, go and find a horizon. It opens up the brain.”

And finally, some wisdom from Dolly: “Don't get so busy making a living that you forget to make a life.”

“For years, Meta intentionally deceived the public about the addictive and harmful design features that have wreaked havoc on youth mental health. [This settlement] will put an end to these dangerous practices,”
Attorney General of Virginia Jay Jones, after Meta agreed to a $US16.68 billion ($AU23.23b) settlement to end legal action filed by 47 U.S. states over social media harms to children.

#2
The ranking of Australian period drama My Brilliant Career (based on Miles Franklin’s classic 1901 novel) on Netflix’s Global Top 10 English TV Show list.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese shared this 2011 photo following news of Dolly Parton’s death at 80. As Transport Minister at the time, Albanese intervened to get Dolly’s oversized tour bus into Australia after customs tried to block it. At a press conference on her arrival that November, Parton thanked him: “I don't know if he's here today but if he is, you can come up here and I'll smear lip gloss all over you.” They met days later at her Sydney show, which Albanese called a “magical experience”.

The Australian Recording Industry Association (ARIA) is introducing new rules for AI-generated songs.

If a song is 100% AI-generated, it won’t be eligible for the ARIA charts. Songs with AI-generated lead vocals or key instrumental components will also be considered ineligible.

A song that includes some AI-generated elements can chart, as long as it’s considered “AI-assisted” rather than fully AI-created.

The move comes after a suspected AI-generated track – DJ Josh Fawaz’s take on Madonna‘s ’Like a Prayer’ – recently made the ARIA charts. It’s expected to be removed once the changes take effect tomorrow.

Last month, Brisbane-based DJ Josh Fawaz’s version of ‘Like a Prayer’ went to number one on the National Radio Airplay Chart (not an ARIA chart).

The song is currently #4 on the ARIA Australian singles chart.

As the song climbed the charts, fellow Brisbane music producer Mitch Thomas (aka Needs No Sleep) alleged Fawaz’s music “is generated entirely with AI”.

Thomas said his songs sound “exactly” like music produced using AI platform Suno. Fawaz responded by telling Thomas to “stop having a little sook,” adding that he uses “AI as a tool”.

More broadly, in recent months multiple music industry bodies have cracked down on generative AI.

In March, Sony Music requested more than 135,000 ‘deepfake’ songs be removed from streaming platforms.

The global record label said some of its biggest artists were being targeted by voice-cloned tracks, including Harry Styles, Beyoncé, Queen, and Bad Bunny.

Earlier this month, Spotify announced it would label accounts which are either confirmed or believed to be AI-generated.

From this Friday, 100% AI-generated tracks as well as songs with AI lead vocals or instrumentals will no longer be allowed to appear on the ARIA charts.

Going forward, if ARIA finds a song was not “substantially” made by a human, shows signs of artificial streams, and/or infringes on copyright, it can choose not to count that song on the charts.

ARIA has called on “all parties who have a role in deciding the music played and promoted to Australian audiences, particularly radio, to support human artistry”.

TDA understands the change is expected to affect Fawaz’s ‘Like A Prayer’, though its past chart performance will not be removed.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.

This five-star musical is a royal reunion tour not to be missed.

The global smash-hit SIX the Musical is finally returning to Australia by popular demand. In case you missed it last time, it remixes 500 years of royal history into an 80-minute pop concert. It's on now at Melbourne's Comedy Theatre until October 4th, before heading to Theatre Royal Sydney from October 9th, and finishing up at Playhouse Theatre, QPAC from January 2027.

But don't just take our word for it: multiple publications have given it five stars, and it's been quoted as "SLICK AND SASSY" (The Blurb).

Don’t miss your chance to experience the soundtrack streamed 5.5 billion times!

Yellowstone co-creator Taylor Sheridan is facing a lawsuit over his flagship show, alleging he stole the idea.

TV producer and writer Lauren J. Salkin says she pitched Sheridan a show called Sovereign Nation back in 2016.

She alleges her pitch - which didn’t progress - is very similar to Yellowstone, including plot details and some of the actors cast.

Since its 2018 premiere, Yellowstone has been viewed by millions around the world and inspired spin-offs including 1883, 1923, Marshals, and most recently, ratings juggernaut Dutton Ranch.

Yellowstone centres on the Dutton family, owners of the largest ranch in the state of Montana that’s still all in one piece, i.e. hasn’t been broken up by sales over the years. Kevin Costner won a Golden Globe in 2023 for his portrayal of John Dutton – the Yellowstone patriarch who tries to manage his adult children, with whom he has a love-hate relationship.

Much of the drama revolves around the Duttons’ efforts to hold on to their piece of land, fighting off advances from property developers, an investment firm, and the neighbouring Native American group and lands.

It’s essentially a soap opera about cowboys and land and if your children can be trusted to carry on your legacy – Succession, with horses.

Before I explain the lawsuit, there’s two more quick bits of context you need:

According to Salkin’s court filing, she spent “more than a decade” developing an idea for a show called Sovereign Nation, set to focus on the power struggles over a reservation’s land and casinos.

Salkin copyrighted the idea in 2010, and by 2016-17 had begun shopping it around to different Hollywood companies and studios, including HBO and Elevate, which then managed Sheridan. Salkin says she asked Elevate if Sheridan would write for the show.

At the time, Sheridan, previously an actor, was making a name for himself as a screenwriter with three films: Sicario (2015), Hell or High Water (2016), for which he scored an Oscar nomination, and Wind River (2017), which he also directed.

The filing says Salkin submitted her pitch to Elevate in November 2016, and that Elevate responded in February 2017, saying while Sheridan “thanks you very much for your interest,” he would not become a writer for Sovereign Nation because he was “unavailable for TV projects.”

Salkin continued to pitch the show, including to HBO. At the time (late 2016-early 2017), according to the court filing and magazine profiles of Sheridan, HBO was considering picking up Yellowstone as a series, but ultimately passed.

Paramount picked it up in May 2017, and Yellowstone premiered the following year, at which point Salkin says she “recognised her own work.”

Salkin also alleges that in September 2022, an HBO executive told her the reason Yellowstone didn’t proceed at that company was because when he saw Sheridan’s pitch, he recognised similarities to her work, and “terminated Sheridan’s project”.

Salkin alleges Yellowstone uses several of the same plot points, character types, and even actors as her pitch. She says both shows have “a brilliant but volatile strategist driving the family’s political and financial maneuvering; an estranged son whose divided loyalties place him in line for succession; a tribal chairman whose authority runs through the casino; an enforcer who carries out extra-legal acts on the leadership’s behalf; and a corporate-political antagonist advancing competing development interests.”

Salkin alleges her pitch deck proposed specific actors for key roles: Danny Huston as a “corrupt political operator who supplies the permits, zoning access, and political pathways that enable the tribal development agenda,” and Gil Birmingham as the Tribal Chairman in charge of the reservation casinos.

Both actors appear on Yellowstone – Huston as a developer and Birmingham as the Native American chief in charge of the reservation casinos.

While Sheridan has yet to respond publicly to the allegations, he has given his own account of how Yellowstone came together in past interviews with The Atlantic (2022) and The Hollywood Reporter (2023).

He said he originally developed the idea as a movie, in the vein of The Godfather, before it moved into development as a series at HBO under executive Michael Lombardo. Sheridan says Lombardo handed the script back to him just before leaving HBO in 2016. Sheridan then shopped the project around until it landed at Paramount in early 2017, with the help of executive David Glasser.

If this were an episode of Yellowstone, either side might be able to carry out some Montana justice, but since this is the real world, it’ll be up to a court to decide.

Reporting by Lucy Tassell.