Music from lawsuit finally headed to libraries

A nationwide antitrust case that was settled with big music companies finally will pay off for some Iowa institutions. As part of a consumer lawsuit over the pricing of compact disks of popular music, Bob Brammer a spokesman for the Attorney General, says the distributors began by settling with buyers. Last February, more than a million and-a-half dollars went to Iowans in refunds of about 13 dollars apiece, and now the companies are sending 57-thousand C-Ds to libraries big and small. Brammer says a committee of states selected C-Ds from the manufacturers, and Iowa sent its court-appointed administrator back two or three times to improve the selection. The first lists they offered contained far too many duplicates, up to fifty or 100 copies of the same C-D. There are still some “dupes,” he says, but more like five of any single one. Brammer says nothing prevents libraries from disposing of the music disks in any way they see fit. Libraries can take donations for them, or give them to patrons through local music programs. He says the smaller libraries won’t have many duplicates and if big ones do, they’re still getting hundreds of C-Ds. Brammer says the music C-Ds are going to large and small public libraries, college and university libraries, the Iowa Braille and Sight-Saving School, and some smaller D-H-S facilities that offer music for their residents. The recordings arriving right now at libraries around the state include holiday music, soundtracks, children’s, classical, rock, country, jazz and more.