Libraries Balk at Free CDs

Multimillion-dollar music industry settlement disappoints many

By Alex Sinclair -- School Library Journal, 10/1/2004

Imagine getting thousands of copies of Whitney Houston's rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner" or Martha Stewart talking about Christmas. That's what libraries and schools around the country recently received as part of a $75.7 million class-action, price-fixing settlement against the nation's largest record labels and music retailers—and they're not happy about it.

Kansas Attorney General Phil Kline was so incensed that he rejected 1,600 of the 51,000 items delivered to his state, including recordings by Eminem and OutKast, which officials deemed inappropriate. Judy Hoffman, at the North Suburban Library System in Wheeling, IL, landed 1,500 recordings, including enough Celine Dion to fill an entire shelf.

Public Library Association President Clara Bohrer says the settlement, while well intentioned, flooded libraries with titles that failed to meet local collection needs and burdened many with the added expense of cataloging, circulating, and even repackaging many items. "It's sad that in the spirit of giving, what this really came down to was the record companies clearing out remainders," Bohrer says. "There are recordings that can be used, but we're talking about 10 percent of 2,000 CDs."

The good news is that libraries can sell 10 percent of the CDs to nonprofit organizations to boost their music collection or improve music programming.