Anyone Else Frustrated by Library CDs?

Anyone here have access or use ‘Freegal’ through their local libarary? It allows you to download up to three unprotected mp3s per week (256kbps) from the Sony music catalog. Great way to preview some new music, but also to download some individual songs from soundtracks, reissues, etc.

 

Is Freegal legal?

 

With all the resources available to preview and download music on the web, I can't imagine having the ability to download 3 mp3s per week is going to get much attention.

 

I was kind of thinking that myself. Out of touch or what? Well done Sony.

 

Well I guess the distinction from other forms of downloading is that ‘Freegal’ is a legal source to obtain free mp3s if that matters to anyone

 

In an environment where people download 150 mp3s before breakfast and have 28,000 songs on their iPod, I doubt it.

 

my tax dollars paid for them.they soon get scratched,lost or stolen,so there
is no assurance you'll be able to do a second round of listening.best thing to
do is rip a copy & turn it back in so someone else can check it out.

 

The local library has one of the better machines to resurface CDs.
They try to buy what is wanted too.
One issue is stolen stuff. that is checked out and never returned.. They really do not have a very good means of replacing such discs.

 

That's actually not bad logic there.

 

i worked in the AV department at the public library.they let us have some
input in the purchases & we used our un-busy moments talking about music
& films.it was heartbreaking to see how quickly some of the great CDs we
got were trashed or went missing.

 

I think the Des Moines library doesn't buy Pink Floyd CDs as they are immediately stolen. They learned. Well, I live just outside of Des Moines. Not as much thievery here.

 

Our local library has loads of 80s UK first edition CDs that I thought I would never see again. Bands like Matt Bianco, China Crisis, Musical Youth, Bonnie Tyler, Kajagoogoo, KC and the Sunshine Band, Nena, Paul Hardcastle etc.
A lot of these CDs rarely show up on eBay these days. They even have that mega-elusive "Now Thats What I call Music 4 (UK)" in a Fatbox case.

 

Speaking of stolen, I once checked out the Beatles EP CD box and the one I really wanted to hear, 'Million Sellers' wasn't there. I checked out the Good Vibrations box and the disc with the SMiLE tracks wasn't in there. Someone was stealing the key discs.

 

For a library to have a collection that truly represented the history of Western music, including the contemporary music culture, a few thousand CDs would be required, not a couple hundred.

The local library here has what could be described as a random selection of pop/rock. I cannot figure out the thought process behind the collection. It doesn't cover even the recent few decades of Western music history, it leaves out entire genres (no new wave, no punk, no gothic, no electronica, etc.) but includes some others (country).

So it isn't a collection meant to educate, or to be comprehensive. It seems like random slivers.

I'm sure there must be some rich, OCD patrons who would willingly donate a more comprehensive collection to them, but like most libraries, donated items from the public end up sold to pay for other things - so there is no incentive for the public to help curate the collection and bring it up to snuff.

To their credit, my local library does seem to accept CDs from local artists which ARE added to the collection. That makes a lot of sense. Since a library cannot hope to have a collection that represents the entire Western world, they may as well try to represent their local area.

I am still totally amazed that libraries are legal.

 

Wow, that is terrific. I keep hoping a housemate will move in with a collection of 80s hits. Our local library seems to have skipped over the 1980s. There is a "new wave" section but it only contains Vangelis, no "new wave" artists.

 

What is so difficult about it? The person's credit card gets charged for the missing item, and then - what is difficult about the next step of buying a replacement? I'm serious because I see this all the time here too - discs that are missing are marked as having been stolen and marked as having been paid for by the person who stole it, and then nothing happens. The inventory is never replenished with the same item.

 

they are not replaced, due to the wise adage "screw me once, shame on you, screw me twice, shame on me"

 

I never understood what people do to discs. Like when I rent a movie from redbox. I have to wonder what on earth do people do to get them so messed up.

 

Libraries, at least here in Portland, do not require you to have a credit card. Anyone can get a library card.

 

I got my card more than 30 years ago, all I needed was ID or mail with a Portland address.

 

Funny...I was the one with the "has anyone ever found a DCC/MoFi/AF disc at a library?" post. I just went back to my local library this past afternoon, and one of the first discs I saw in the stacks was that same DCC Sinatra disc. So, I guess I answered my own question.

 

The Brand music & art library in Glendale right outside of ls Angeles as hundreds of thousands of CDs in every genre imagineabe. Candy store that I discovered several years ago.

http://www.brandlibrary.org/brand_pdfs/BrandBrochure2008.pdf

 

I don't see it that way, as long as you are using your computer purely for your own private use, and don't borrow the CDs purely for ripping purposes without even giving them a proper listen in their physical form first.

Anyway, I'll admit to ripping library CDs but I always make a point of also listening to them on my CD players at least three times before returning them (and £1/£1.50 for one CD a week seems a fair deal). There are many CDs I've ripped to my drive of which I often wish I'd still got the physical original, because I like having the liner notes in front of me and there isn't really enough space where I live for me to make loads of CD-Rs (and my car is too old to play non-physical media).