Slashdot Mirror
Video on Demand From the Public Library
ye oulde library lover writes "In light of the recent story about Wal-Mart and movies on demand, readers should know there is a free service available from some public libraries that lets you download movies and tv shows. The service is just beginning, so selection is pretty mediocre, but the sponsors, Recorded Books and PermissionTV, make some big promises. If your library ponies up the dough for the top service, you will be able to download movies on the same day as their dvd release. All you need is a library card. You can see one of the early adopters — Half Hollow Hills Community Library in the library's blog. Look for MyLibraryDV."
Don't torrents pretty much do that? So when it's a community initiative, it's piracy, but if the goverment does it, it's ...
There should be a "-1:Groupthink"
I am a network technician at the Huntington Public library in NY next school district over from Half Hollow. We are looking into this service too. we are doing testing. Its not bad but you have to install a client. There are a couple of services that libraries can use.
readers should know there is a free service available from some public libraries that lets you download movies and tv shows.
Yeah, it's called the internet.
The theory of relativity doesn't work right in Arkansas.
Why would individual libraries be doing this? Wouldn't make more sense from a power by numbers point of view to have 1 online library that holds and distributes all the content? Kind of like the library exchange program. If my library doesn't have a book, then I can get to have it shipped from another library that does have the book. There's no reason why each library should have to have their own system. There should be at least a state level (province level cause I'm in Canada) if not national level program. If they really got their act together they could have 1 huge international digital library. With ebooks and everything.
Anthropic principle: We see the universe the way it is because if it were different we would not be here to see it.
A good public library is one of the great resources anywhere. I love them.
Entertainment, information, fun, enlightenment, all for free.
Plus, even in these Internet days, you can still phone the library with a question and they will look up the answer!
Our local library has a really amazing collection of DVDs, both recent and classic and foreign films. Kind of like NetFlix without paying a monthly subscription fee.
It is inconceivable that one could create such an institution these days. No politician would ever - EVER - support the idea today. Can you imagine how the MPAA or RIAA would fight to prevent the free loans of their products? Could book publishers be far behind?
Libraries - gotta love them.
Three Squirrels
This looks like it could be a great service, but I can't help but think the movie industry will fight this one to the death. On the one hand, the libraries already have the right to loan movies for free (by law) as well they should be able to. On the other hand, the libraries are unlikely to have deep enough pockets to battle it out with the industry. And it is highly unlikely they will just pass on the chance to fight this one out. If this goes as well as it could (for us) it would severely undercut the industry, therefore destroying the profitability of film making in general. This of course would put the industry into its death-throes. I suspect the argument they could make will be something like "The library may have x copies of the DVD that they purchase. Therefore, x people may borrow the DVD at a time." That seems reasonable I suppose, but would also make this service a lot let useful, as it could be weeks before you get to view your video.
Here on long Island (where half hollow hills is) we have whats called "The Suffolk Cooperative Library System" It basically combines all the libraries in suffolk county into one semi unit. Our catalogs can be accessed by anybody in the system and books and dvds can be shipped between libraries. We even do some services as one unit. If it becomes a good service the whole system could offer it. I do not know how the rest of the country works though.
It'll have DRM for sure. Which leads to the REAL question: Does it run on Linux?
The Farewell Tour II
Great. Now my local library, already facing a funding crunch to purchase non fiction books... Has yet another way to waste scarce cash on entertainment. Libraries are supposed to supplement Blockbuster and Netflix, and do the things they won't because there's no money in it - not compete with them.
Libraries in their race to become relevant - are becoming meaningless.
My library has this and the librarians are clueless how bad this is.
The main problem is this the company and the librarians and the broshures they hand out say it's for MP3 players. well it's not: it only plays on WMA 10 compabtible devices. This means no ipods, very few Mp3 players even the ones that play the older WMA files. It won't play on a mac and it won't play on linux computers. And it won't even play on older windows machines that don't have WM player 10. Sure you can download it but is granny gonna do that?
Also the way the check out works is that you can check it out once for two weeks, renew it once for two weeks, and then you can never check out the same book a second time, making it essential to have multiple fake library IDs if you want to get through some long book.
Now given that the libraries have fixed budgets I'm sure this resulting in the purchase of fewer CDs . The 95% of the world that does not have a WMA 10 compatible "MP3" player is subsidizing this.
If you want to use it you have to not only buy a WMP 10 compaitble Music player, but now you also have to use some new music management system different from the one you use for your other players to transfer the audio. You have to have a windows computer too.
I guess the most galling thing to me was that librarians kept showing me the printed broshure from the company saying it worked with any Mp3 player and insisting I must be mistaken.
Some drink at the fountain of knowledge. Others just gargle.
Might as well look at what they have now before the RIAA or whoever tears it to shreds. Unless their selection is really bad, its only a matter of time before someone gets ticked.
Nuh-uh. Not cool.
Nice things are nicer than nasty ones.
I don't like sounding like a GNU/Linux zealot, but it is disheartening when these people always choose windows only options, especially when there are easily availble ways to distribute media for any OS. I am near the half hollow hills district, I wonder if I get a cross library sticker (so I can borrow from them since they are in the suffolk county system) if it would let me download too :)
With physical media (books, CDs, DVDs) the card is an important proof, that one has no outstanding items before she/he can borrow more.
Why can't the Internet downloads be anonymous? To make sure, only local residents can view the material?
A silly restriction in the Internet age — instead of spending money on each library's card-verification software, web-server hardware et al., they should've hired Akamai or someone like that to carry the stuff for everyone.
Would've been far better and likely cheaper too, especially if "Akamai" (or whoever) could be persuaded to give the service a discount...
In Soviet Washington the swamp drains you.
As a government institution, they are what the people want them to be. I can still remember the 80's when my local library had audio cassettes and even betamax movies available.
Either way, they continue to function as a repository of recorded media, be it printed or otherwise.
As a book lover, I concur.
IMHO, public libraries should be concentrating on building up resources within the community. Subscribing to an entertainment resource simply saps taxpayers dollars out of the communtiy and into the entertainment industry. I could see great value in public libraries building up large electronic data stores on an intranet. Subscribing to a movie download service simply puts the library in unfair competition with other local entertainment venues.
Nuh-uh. Not cool.
Funny? Eh. Insightful? Definitely. Wish I had the mod points...
Ignore anything I said above, I actually agree with everything you believe - mod accordingly.
Don't tell me, let me guess... Windows only? Let's take a look.
Yep, Windows only..
Bastards.
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
As a strong proponent of 'point and click as fast as you can' as opposed to 'RTFM' I downloaded the app, loaded it, ran it, got a list of movies, picked out a nice Abbot and Costello movie from 1952, clicked download, and BAM.
Please enter your library card number.
I looked for the 'signup now' button on their website, didn't see one.
Called, they told me I'd have to come in and apply in person.
Doh! Quite a drive from alabama just for a library card!!!!!
Anyone live near happy hollow hilly library that can run in and pretend to be me?
Do not meddle in the affairs of sysadmins, for they are subtle, and quick to anger.
Libraries in their race to become relevant - are becoming meaningless
No, libraries are responding to their customers. The customer is always right because the customer knows what he or she wants. And the customers of public libraries (who pay the taxes) want nearly everything.
During the VHS/betamax wars, the customers pressured libraries to provide this medium. The libraries responded. When books on tape became popular with a certain segment of the population, they asked the library to provide them. Libraries responded. When DVDs and CDs came along, customers asked libraries to provide them. Libraries responded. When the Internet became popular, customers asked libraries to provide free access. Libraries responded again. In many cases, the ONLY free access available is at your local public library.
Libraries responded to these new types of information pretty well, I think, while still providing a wide variety of fiction and non-fiction books, children's books, storytimes, programming, reference service, interlibrary loans, holds, local history collections, genealogy departments, classes, and all the traditional things libraries have historically done.
This particular service we've been discussing is new. There are only a couple of offerings. Yup, they are only windows. That's because, dear readers, the vast majority of people are not at all interested in Linux, slashdot, or whatever arcane OS is popular with geeks. It is simply not relevant. When someone comes up with a service that caters to all at once, libraries will get it. Many libraries are well aware of the MP3, iPod issues on some of these new services. But they are not going to wait until they've satisfied 100% of potential users until they implement, particularly on a trial basis, these new services. When LIBRARIES tell vendors their offerings are not good enough, the vendors will change. It happens every time. Libraries also generally have a vast array of "internet accessible" information you are not going to find with Google. This includes almost all periodicals and indexes, both popular and academic. Just go to your local library's web site and look at the list of "online resources." It's incredible. From JSTOR to Information Access, Proquest to Morningstar, Business Reference to Academic Index. That's a vast amount of information available.
If you don't use your local library, that's okay. They are quite busy enough already. I don't physically visit my library either; I do it all on-line. But criticizing libraries because they respond to their customers is crazy. If they didn't, they would already be gone. Lots of the criticism here is of organization that do NOT respond to their customers (e.g. Nvidia). You can't have it both ways.
"The man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them." -Mark Twain
How about a moderation of -1 pedantic.
Wow, the slashdot community meets it's twin! In a sort of Star Trek "Mirror, Mirror" way without the evilness. By that I mean that the Libraryhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Library community has been at the forefront of infotech since BCE putting the tech to real use for the general populace - making the info available. Tags? try the MARChttp://www.loc.gov/marc/overview.html/ based WorldCathttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WorldCat/, Deep Web? try your Nationalhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_libr ary/ Library or Consortia.http://www.library.yale.edu/consortia/ Come on slashdotters get in behind your Libraries and build the future!
Libraries are only "free" if you don't pay taxes. Or never WILL pay taxes.
I'm not saying I don't love 'em. But you have to realize that for those that aren't fortunate enough to get a significant amount of their budget from charitable donations, the money comes out of your pocket.
The library buys one copy and then can lend it out. If it wants to lend the same thing out to 2 people it has to buy 2 copies. If there was just the one central library, that library would have to have hundreds or thousands of copies of each item in order to accommodate all the people that would want to use it. The cost would be astronomical, this is why they choose this model, each library ponies up some cash to buy their members access to some content, the online library service then buys copies of things to accommodate these new members. If you RTFA you'll see that the library mentioned doesn't actually host the content so eventually the "1 huge international digital library" you envision could happen, but it still needs to be funded and paid for at the local level.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
Libraries are supposed to be about full access to all citizens, and this "certain Windows versions" only DRM excludes the poor ("welfare won't pay for a PC that can run XP"), the rich ("Dude, I bought a Mac"), and the intelligent do-it-yourselfer's ("just added a new node to my beowulf cluster of atomic supermen"). This is partly why libraries still loan cassette tapes and VHS when you have to go way out of your way to buy either new in a store (not counting the never opened collectibles in 2nd hand shops). WM10 DRM is discriminatory.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
A friend of mine and I had this same idea back in maybe 1998, we knew it would go nowhere without some form of copy protection (was "DRM" even coined back then) that just didn't exist at the time. Neither of us were good enough coders or marketers at the time to make what was needed and so we forgot about it. It's nice to see it happening, but I'm afraid the DRM here is going to exclude too many people, as someone already mentioned.
My wife would love to be able to download content instead of drive to the library, she timeshifts books on tape like mad because there is a waiting list for most things. You might get nothing for many weeks, then get 5 or 10 come up all at once. They only way to be able to listen to everything she wants to is to timeshift. If the same waiting lists apply to this online system, and the DRM prevents timeshifting, then the service would be completely useless to her. Also, she sometimes gets items to preview for appropriateness for my son, so if the can't be checked out again, this also wouldn't work, though I guess they could be checked out again under my son's card, but then the waiting list applies yet again. He also has homework and extracurricular activities so sometimes reading/listening to a long book in 2 weeks is simply not possible, in rare cases even the extra 2 week extension would not be enough. Of course, timeshifting "hard" media is a still a huge gray area, but advanced DRM should be able to know if your are actually playing the content and extend your checkout time by however long you aren't playing it. "2 weeks" is simply not useful, but maybe "2 full playbacks" might be, with no time restriction at all.
- Disclaimer: Information in this post deemed reliable but not guaranteed.
at our county system. About a dozen languages for download. Windows only "of course".
Not sure about other people, once I've seen a movie that is it for the most part. I've moved on. I think I have seen the same movie maybe 3 times in my life. I have a whole bunch of old VHS and DVD's that have only ever been watched once. In once case not even that.
Two weeks seems like plenty of time to watch something. This is the same policy for DVDs that they have at my library. I usually don't even have them a week.
You are so right when people who are there to help you have no clue. I'm running into that a lot. Worse they often look at you as if it is your fault. As if you are an idiot. Especially at hotels/motels/resorts that are supposed to have a wifi and it isn't working.
I havent used them yet, but I've them in the catalog. They basically expire in three weeks, but I'm not sure how they implement that.
If you have to run Microsoft software to make it work
...it's not free, just gratis, and then only for those who conform the the corporate giant.
If you have you cant copy it to your mobile media device to watch it during the commute
If there are restrictions on my freedom to use it the way I want to
Our public institutions should not be supporting corporate agendas, like "you must run Microsoft".
It's pretty hard to generalize the state of ALL public libraries from one. Yours may be screwed. Ours just had our best year of circulation ever (over 1 million physical items). Our in-library computer use statistics have gone up every year, our electronic database statistics (both in-library and remote access) have gone up every year, and our downloadable audiobooks which just started a few months ago are really taking off.
;)
On Sunday afternoons, we open the doors and fling ourselves out of the way to avoid the stampede. By 20 minutes after we open, all our public computers are filled, and they stay that way until we close. Our tables are packed with tutors and people working on group projects, the children's department is a sea of small, moving rugrats and their parents, and the phones ring off the hooks. We have people who come in every day and sit and read the newspapers and magazines in our reading nooks, and our silent study area has days that it's filled to overflowing (5 tables, 8 chairs with attached writing arm, and 8 carrels).
We sometimes accept volunteers in the Computer Center if they want to help out a few hours a week and we think they'll be a good fit to help the public with some of the very basic tasks there, like "How do I get to my next email message?". After four weeks of volunteering, one IT student told me, "I never knew libraries were like this."
It would, of course, help if our funding reflected our increased usage, but since many people seem to think libraries are outdated, it can be difficult to get that funding. Since most library funding is done on the local level, libraries in poor or rural areas are often particularly hard hit, hence why some libraries may be seen to be thriving and others struggling. But for all the talk of Google putting me out of a job, it isn't happening yet. (Hell, last Thursday I helped someone with his Java 2 homework.) It's simply giving me more ways to reach out to my patrons.
Now to wander back to the larger topic at hand... Our patrons would LOVE this service. We have huge waiting lists for the new releases, which we just can't afford to purchase in large quantities. A deal similar to the deals with some of the audiobook vendors we have where unlimited numbers of patrons can download movies would be awesome. It wouldn't be a copyright violation, as the library would be paying the fee to the vendor, which has presumably reached an agreement with the distributor to offer the movie that way. In other words, the movie dudes would have agreed to the setup. I'm pretty sure it would have the same hideous DRM problems we currently have with downloadable audiobook files of proprietary file formats, but if that's the only way to get a service, then I'd take it.
I should note that this would actually be done on a county-wide level. All the libraries in the county kick in for services like that and share the rewards, and each library would continue their own physical purchasing of movies as usual. This would really help out all the libraries in the county, as those who have the equipment to download and watch the movie do it that way, shortening the wait list from maybe 500 people to 350 on its release date.
I can't see our consortium getting this in the next year (we're still fighting with our audiobook downloads, darn those varying requirements!), but I can certainly see how it could be a valuable service. Of course, I can say that since I have absolutely no idea what the cost is. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.