Stowe Free Library

This entry is an abbreviated version of a blog I shared with other Vermont librarians last February. I wrote it after an online training with OverDrive, the company which provides audio material for ListenUpVermont. During the training we asked about burning discs, multiples uses, etc. The trainer pointed out the symbols that indicate what permissions go with individual titles. Some titles may be burned; some not. After the training I brought up the issue of copying music from CD's. Stowe recently recieved a donation to purchase music and we've selected some great re-mastered versions of original Broadway cast recordings. Our patrons can listen to Ethel Merman in "Call Me Madam," or the original Broadway cast ( yes, before it was a movie it was a show) of "Dreamgirls." When I pointed out that no one is allowed to burn, upload, or download this stuff there was an interesting reaction. A couple of staff members got the point, but others saw no reason to rain on the parades of library patrons who borrow CD's to take home and burn. Since the technology is readily available to do it, and "everyone" does, it's up to the music industry to come up with a way to prevent it. I admit I have a personal interest in this issue, beyond the broadly ethical one. My husband's voice happens to be on two of the Broadway recordings we purchased, and every once in a while - less and less as the years go by - he recieves a royalty check in the mail. This is money that Actors Equity bargained hard for, and he and the other performers are entitled to it. Every time someone borrows the CD from the Library and copies it rather than buying it, that's money out of his pocket. Stealing. It's illegal. And as Jeffrey Seglin, who writes "The Right Thing" column in The New York times said, 'the ethical perspective...(is) the same as the legal one. Copying someone else's CD for your personal use means that the people who made the CD, including the people who wrote and performed the music, won't be compensated for their efforts. There's nothing right about that."