There have been a couple of fascinating discussions on Publib regarding the new download service Freegal, which allows libraries to buy access to and then distribute a set amount of DRM-free downloadable music to their patrons.
That helps libraries avoid managing a CD collection subject to damage and theft and recognizes the way people listen to music today. When I reported on the new product (from Library Ideas) in March for LJ, I was particularly interested in how Sony agreed to a DRM-free deal.
But it’s clear from the Publib discussion that librarians are most interested in 1) the practical aspects of managing the service and 2) whether it represents a fundamental, perhaps dangerous shift in libraries’ traditional models, given that libraries are essentially a group buyer on behalf of patrons rather than a lender.
Managing the service
Given the potential unlimited interest in this service, libraries must set limits both per week and per patron, thus (I presume) generating some frustration and/or spurring some patrons to take steps to get to the front of the line. One library on Publib said its patrons are limited to three downloads per week.
I had heard at the Public Library Association conference that Freegal cost libraries about a dollar a download, but one person on Publib said the base level was $1885 for 1450 downloads. The price per unit likely declines if the purchase is larger.
The conceptual shift
“I’ve never heard of any public library buying books or DVDs to give away to patrons who ask for a copy,” commented librarian Steve Benson, noting that “the give-away model is a radical departure from past practice of a lending model. How does one justify giving away limited material resources purchased with taxpayer money?”
That question is still hanging out there; indeed, if libraries are vulnerable to elected officials criticizing them for lending DVDs of popular movies (and thus competing with for-fee services), they’re doubly vulnerable to the politician who says libraries are buying music as “gifts” for certain people.
Library Ideas founder Brian Downing later chimed in, suggesting that, while his company did not start out trying to make the music downloads permanent–did Sony agree because it was daring, or desperate, or both?–it is little different from DRM-free audiobooks that libraries now offer.
“The goal of the Freegal product was just one thing, to shake up the perception of what is available at the library,” he wrote, amplifying a comment he made in March, when he suggested that Freegal would help make libraries a community focal point on the Internet.
That prompted a response from media librarian Myles Jaeschke, who noted that the difference between audiobooks and music is that people want to listen to the latter again and again.
Downing also likened Freegal to the shift from reference books to databases. Jaeschke respond that the difference between the latter and Freegal is only databases have unlimited use.
The genie is leaving the bottle
So, there you have it. To fully serve their customers/patrons, libraries may have to offer unlimited downloads. But if they do that, they’re merely serving as a buying utility for digital content out there “in the cloud.”
(What about unlimited streaming? That would come closer to the database model, but it also would come closer to a commercial service like Pandora Radio, which allows you to create “stations” based on favorite music/artists and provides ad-supported listening for 40 hours a month.)
And if they do so for music, why not for movies? (After all, managing a DVD collection has its difficulties.) Yes, the transition to downloadable and streaming films/TV shows will take some years, but it seems inevitable.
And then we come to books. There are many virtues to physical books, but as ereaders become ubiquitous and/or people read more on their (larger-screen) smartphones, someone is bound to suggest a subscription model for books.
That’ll take a good while longer. Google Editions, the bookstore in the cloud that’s supposed to launch very soon, is purely a single-sale consumer model.
However, the institutional database of scanned books–yet unavailable, as the Google Books Settlement remains pending–would be a start on a model. However, for remote access, only higher education institutions could offer remote access to faculty at home and students in dorms without approval from the Book Rights Registry, as we learned in November 2008.
Shouldn’t those associated with the university gain remote access even if traveling? That would seem to be an inevitable tweak.
So the genie is making its way out of the bottle, isn’t it?
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We here at Midwest Tape have noted the great debate over Freegal as well. Check out our blog story on Freegal and subsidizing public music purchases here at http://www.mwtnewsandviews.com/2010/06/subsidizing-public-music-purchases.html.
Even if Freegal costs the libraries $1/download, it’s a waste of taxpayer dollars. I download songs from Amazon for that price (roughly,) & I get to keep & listen to them FOREVER.
If the base level’s actually about $1.30/song, that’s even worse. Taxpayers should educate themselves to avoid fleecings like this!
I also think the tax payers would be upset because they can’t rip the downloads to their computers like they can (albeit illegally) with the actual CD.
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While as a library patron I like getting stuff for “free”, as a taxpayer one
has to ask if such services are a deviation from the basic mission of the
public library, that is, does it contribute to maintaining literacy levels in
the general population. The vast majority of music and film collections
are really just for entertainment. Sure, sometimes important issues are
explored as in the case of documentaries, but even then, multimedia
materials tend to stimulate emotional responses rather than reasoned
reflection. Literacy is largely about reading and thinking about what
you’ve read. Whether the text is imprinted or displayed on an LCD
matters little. Audio books are an exception as the visually impaired
need alternatives to braille.
Libraries are inviting budgetary criticism by partnering with services
such as freegal. Public money would be better spent providing access
to the many on-line journals and reference databases which are normally
too expensive for ordinary citizens to subscribe.
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We are just starting to promote Freegal, coming soon to our library. However, we are spending no taxpayer money for this and make that clear on our promo. The entire subscription was a gift from the Friends of our library. I’m sure this will help make it more acceptable to the public and politicians!
JC
I just got a new library card because of this service. I had abandoned the library, but this is a great step into the digital age. I disagree with how Sony has artificially created availably, however I am impressed with there new business model. I hope other music companies take note in this and offer up these services as well. I just wish I would be able to get more then three songs a week. Basically a full album would take a whole month worth of downloads. I know myself I would be willing to pay a small premium to get a few more a week.
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This is a major step in the wrong direction for libraries. Subscribing to Freegal is a neon-red target which screams “waste” to taxpayers. I would block any effort to adopt the service, as it’s currently structured, in our tax-supported library. We don’t purchase books or movies only to transfer ownership of the item to the individual. We provide information and experiences to our taxpayers, not permanent possession of items. While it might be nice to get free music, this is not the role of the library or the taxpayers to foot this cost.
Can the library buy me an extra-large caramel macchiato to enjoy while I’m reading the latest James Patterson? What about a pair of fuzzy slippers I can rest my feet in while I read? Come on! Taxpayers should be- and will be- up in arms about this.
We expect a certain amount of circulation on an item which cost us a certain amount. To that extent, we are buying items that patrons can check out and frequently renew indefinitely–virtually the same access as home, unless they patrons are night owls–at a certain predicted total cost per user. I have no objections to the Freegal model on that count. However, the price structure for Freegal seems to be inefficient for libraries compared even to simply buying ever single title we ever have a request for.
@Deborah: I think you misunderstand. This provides all of the benefits of ripping CDs, only legally and without having to take the trouble of actually ripping the CD.
Interesting debate… I agree I had a hard time with the shift in providing free copies of songs, and think this only works well if you get the unlimited subscription as opposed to buying X number of songs to distribute. However, think of all of our database subscriptions we pay for and make freely available to our patrons. They get to print out or email themselves the articles and keep them, don’t they? We are “giving” away those resources for free every day for folks to keep. Music downloads can help us draw in the online generations, keep us relevant, and the ROI to the community for the investment can be substantial.
Freegal sounds incredibly expensive. Other services charge a lot less. Some offer monthly or yearly plans with lots of downloading for a lot less money than $1+ per song.
Just on the basis of it not being a good deal for the library, I’d be against it, let alone the other considerations. (If Sony were to donate the service, how much of a tax writeoff would they get? That might be one way to figure out a fair value. Or would they deduct more than $1 for each song downloaded?)
Since the marginal cost for Sony is so low, if a library is gong to buy this service, it should negotiate a much better price, and get quantity discounts.
The problem with stocking music CD’s is that they are a lot less durable than hardback books. The case is brittle, and the disc is too easy to scratch.
[...] The Debate Over Freegal: Does Innovative Free Music Service Represent the Downfall of the Library Le… [...]
I’m surprised so many libraries are adopting this service, not only because of its peculiar business model of buying materials for patrons, but because it’s basically buying into a monopoly. I can’t imagine many libraries are still maintaining physical music collections in addition to Freegal given the cost of Freegal. Libraries that have subscribed to Freegal have basically said, “We’re going with Sony to the exclusion of anything else.” I cannot fathom the same happening with books. Just because it’s an easy way to do things, doesn’t mean it’s the right way to do things.
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The Debate Over Freegal: Does Innovative Free Music Service Represent the Downfall of the Library Lending Model? | LJ Insider…
I think some of the problems with the debate about Freegal is it is a different sort of system then the pure system of loan or sale we have seen in the past. Also, I think some librarians do not fully understand the technical aspects of music circulation using physical CDs and music circulation using Freegal. I say they don’t understand because so few admit their patrons are already ripping full albums worth of music every time a physical CD is circulated. YOU ARE ALREADY BUYING MUSIC FOR YOU PATRONS TO KEEP!
Any library patron who is loaning out a CD is likely having that music ripping into the patron’s collection collection. So how is that a “fair use” for publisher or artist who produced the music? We have one copy and that copy becomes two…then three then six…then twenty…then a dog eats the disc.
That is the issue few librarians seem to speak about. Perhaps, some librarians do not understand how often their music Cds are being ripped, but ignorance is a thin shield. If you are a library loaning music CDs, I assure you 80% of the loans end with your patron ripping the whole album. It not like a book where photocopying the whole book is time and resources intensive, or even as technically difficult as ripping a DVD into MP4. A music CDs pop into a tray and 20 seconds later the CD is ripped, tracks are named, and the album cover is downloaded off the net. Imagine if there was a muchine taht took a book, scanned all its pages perfectly, and shot out a paper folio edition in 20 seconds — would we all say that was fair use if you patrons all owned one of those?
Therefore, like it or not, the current system of individual libraries or consortium buying CDs for their collections to loan out is a dirty business. Now understand I am not saying this piracy is fully the librarians or library’s fault? Maybe not, but as librarians we know (should know) that music is being ripped most of the time the CD goes out the library’s door. Yet where is the hand wringing over this issue, or where is the concern that our libraries are acting as a conduit for our patrons to STEAL on a large scale?
Freegal or not your patrons are ending up with the tracks on their computer or MP3s permanently. If you question you library “buying” music for patron using Freegal know you are already doing that when you buy one CD and circulate it.
There is no perfect answer, and I think we can all agree to that. Yet, I’m a librarian and it concerns me when we take the side of patron who we know are stealing, and yet sneer when a corporation or artist ask, “This seems unfair?” I’d love to see a fair solution, but a fair solution might not be CDs on our shelves. A libraries role is purest when it can ‘loan’ an item. It is not easy to loan music when it is in such a leaky container as a CD.
This is in reply to Linc’s post directly before mine.
I’m not so sure that 80% of all CD checkouts get copied. There’s also the likelihood that much of the stuff that gets copied doesn’t end up getting played.
The word “STEAL” in this context is different from what we usually think of as stealing, since the library gets back what it lent out. If you could similarly duplicate, say, a car for a small fraction of its customary value, what would happen? (Well, in that case, we would be in a very different world, and economics in general would work very differently. The ability to copy sound recordings has evolved over many years, getting easier each year until now it’s virtually free, both in monetary cost and in time spent doing the copying.)
One could also argue that major record labels often steal from their artists through creative accounting, bad contracts, and reneging on fair contracts.
What we need is a way to compensate artists fairly for the things they produce that benefit other people. How to do that is up in the air. The current system is broken and unjust in so many ways.
An aside: It’s not that hard or expensive to copy most DVD’s, even if you’re copying an 8 GB disc to a standard blank 4 GB disc. I’ve done it with an older computer worth very little (and somewhat slower than 1 GHz), a DVD writer obtained for free from someone cleaning out his basement, and free software. I won’t mention the software by name, but it’s not particularly hard to find. It’s given away by the original writers, and in some cases very actively supported by those writers.
Now, those new-fangled Blu-Ray DVD’s, that’s another story…
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[...]The Debate Over Freegal: Does Innovative Free Music Service Represent the Downfall of the Library Lending Model? | LJ Insider[...]…
Interesting article. Conversely I’m not convinced that I agree with many of the viewpoints expressed.
In response to LINC – some would argue that the record industry is a ‘dirty business’.
I would bet that a lot of people ‘rip’ CD’s from libraries just as they download ‘free’ music from the Web. There’s a whole generation of kids downloading illegal music, and I’m going to be a bit controversial here and say that I think it is a great thing.
There’s a more diverse range of music available now than there has ever been, its just harder to find. Rather than wasting our energy engaging in moral debates and worrying about the declining profits of major labels, libraries could be building networks with artists directly. Find out about the interesting things happening on a local level.
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[...] N. (2010). The debate over Freegall. LJ Insider. Retrieved from http://blog.libraryjournal.com/ljinsider/2010/07/19/the-debate-over-freegal-does-innovative-free-mus... Tagged music.Bookmark the permalink. « [...]
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[...] Cleveland Public library started an up-to-the-minute new service and a debate in July when it agreed with a music service called Freegal to give online patrons up to three free [...]
[...] Cleveland Public library started an up-to-the-minute new use and a debate in Jul when it concluded with a song use called Freegal to give online congregation adult to 3 [...]
[...] Cleveland Public library started an up-to-the-minute new service and a debate in July when it agreed with a music service called Freegal to give online patrons up to three free [...]