The RIAA HATES her! Local Minnesotan uses tax dollars to get music FOR FREE!

published: 2024-04-01

And no, I don't mean torrenting using the library's public Wi-Fi. These places have enough time sustaining funding without also having to fight your bullshit copyright legal disputes for you. If you have to torrent at the library, please use a reputable VPN like Riseup's.

If you live in the United-States-of-American state of Minnesota, you should know that your tax dollars already pay for an interlibrary loan service called MNLink. As it describes itself:

MNLINK is a statewide system that serves as a discovery and interlibrary loan interface for library patrons and staff. Through our participating libraries, patrons have easy access to the catalogs of most libraries in Minnesota. The system also provides access to electronic resources that are available to Minnesotans. This includes electronic journals, images, and ebooks as well as access to the physical books that are held in libraries.

While my local library doesn't carry music CDs, many libraries throughout Minnesota do. So if I've exhausted all my torrent trackers and still can't find a suitable FLAC torrent for an album, or I've found one but whoever's seeding it only has half of the files for some indiscernable reason, or I just can't be assed to turn on my VPN, I sign in with my library card and search for the album and then request it. The whole process takes less than five minutes. Then the album gets shipped from whichever library is storing the item at the time to my local library, where the nice librarian leaves a short voicemail telling me I've received an item and she'll hold it for me for nine days. And then I go and pick it up, and when I'm done, I return it to the library like any other item. I have yet to find an album I want that isn't in the catalog.

I was devastated when the library's ebook delivery system switched from Overdrive to Libby. The original Overdrive app for Android, whether intentionally or as a programming oversight, let you request an audiobook, download the whole thing, and then go into the Android folder on your device, find Overdrive's folder, and then copy the MP3 files (without DRM!) elsewhere so you could keep them forever. Libby... not so much, although browser extensions do exist that allow you to rip MP3 files from Libby's cruel uncaring hands. Even though Libby's catalog is smaller and harder to navigate, if I want an audiobook and it's not there... instead of weeping and dealing with shady piracy sites, off to MNLink we go!

The only snag in the MNLink system is that you have to talk to a librarian to set up a PIN number first. This is so that skiddies can't brute-force your library barcode number and request, er, items you might find morally objectionable (like a Christian having a copy of that "god delusion" book requested under their name) or just make you look like an asshole who requests hundreds of items and then never picks them up.

There are no apps to install and no credit card details you need to enter in a shady form somewhere. All you need is a library card in good standing from a Minnesotan library.

Your tax dollars pay for this! Use it!! Fuck the RIAA, and every other corporation that wants to lock access to art behind a subscription paywall or ads. One more win in the Land of Ten Thousand Ws.