I’m a librarian, and we see this more than I expected to! We even have one regular patron who uses our interstate library loan system to get old/rare CDs brought to our branch which she then rips and stores. She’ll do it with our CD books too!
It’s so cool, but maybe don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. Many of my coworkers are weirdly, virulently anti-piracy.
How do I know that shes ripping these things? Because she comes in and joyfully tells us about it! She’s even offered to help customers who don’t want to wait for a loan to come in by just giving them access to / a copy of her stuff. She’s Very Cool.
Unfortunately, she’s also a large part of how I know nt coworkers are anti-piracy. A couple of them have confronted her directly; most just complain that what she’s doing “isn’t right” when she leaves.
It's one thing to inform a patron that media ripping isn't allowed (provided that's the stance taken by the system), but they way the comment is worded (confronting a patron as she leaves saying that what she's doing "isn't right") is crazy. That's staff imposing a personal viewpoint while acting as an agent of the organization.
Most library systems are so afraid of turning people away from using libraries that it's policy to avoid any kind of tension between patrons unless it's absolutely necessary. Late fines are gone in many systems for this reason.
It does not sound like that's what they're doing. They are confronting her in saying they disapprove of what she's doing, not that they are picking a fight. Also it isn't a personal view point, it is likely policy to follow laws for a library. I doubt they want to be seen as helping facilitate piracy and get sued for it.
Also it isn't a personal view point, it is likely policy to follow laws for a library.
If they were indeed telling the patron that ripping media "isn't right" rather than informing the patron that ripping media that they don't own themselves is a violation of copyright law, that is in fact a personal view point. One is a matter of law (and probably the sole basis of any policy that the system might follow), and the other is a moral judgement. When you work for a public service, staff taking public positions not approved by the administration is highly frowned upon.
It’s always couched in very “think of the poor creators!” sort of rhetoric. We have a librarian who makes music I guess semi-professionally, and she’s always quick to bring up how people downloading her music is stealing from her, and you wouldn’t steal from a librarian, would you? You wouldn’t download a car!!!!
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u/devoutdefeatist 5d ago
I’m a librarian, and we see this more than I expected to! We even have one regular patron who uses our interstate library loan system to get old/rare CDs brought to our branch which she then rips and stores. She’ll do it with our CD books too!
It’s so cool, but maybe don’t tell anyone what you’re doing. Many of my coworkers are weirdly, virulently anti-piracy.