CD settlement is crummy, now it hits my library

Our library got our settlement CDs today. This is, of course, particularly poignant because we do not have a music collection, we have a book on tape/CD collection. Now we have a music collection and it is bad, very bad indeed. Andrei Codrescu has an essay on the wrongness of this settlement for public libraries. Music industry, shame on you for dumping your unwanted products on the public libraries of the country in an effort to clear your warehouses and supposedly make good on what you did wrong. Remember when they were calling this CD dumping a computer glitch? What ever happened to that defense? [thanks robert]

more on the doj document destruction request flap

Here’s a summary of events surrounding the Department of Justice’s order to destroy government repository documents, and their subsequent rescinding of that order. I’m happy to note that my Senator who is the ranking Senator on the Judiciary Committee is one of the co-signers on a letter [pdf] asking Ashcroft exactly what the DoJ was up to.

We seek clarification of your initial destruction request because it defies logic that federal statutes could be considered solely internal to the Department’s deliberations and not useful for any other purpose.