Even though it was not my shift at the reference desk, I was out at the desk talking to my boss about a couple of things. I don't remember anymore -- possibly my impending computer classes... or something to do with them.
An older man walks up and asks us if we can help him get CDs onto his iPod. Seems a normal enough question, I suppose, except for one key point. The CDs he had in his hand were ones he had borrowed from the library.
***Okay, here's my full disclosure: I personally would probably borrow a CD from the library and copy it onto my computer for listening. No, I wouldn't do that with hundreds of songs, but possibly a few.
However, as a librarian, a steward of copyright law and all that good stuff, I can't very well be ripping songs for people from library property. I explained this to the man, and he surprisingly was not upset. I say "surprisingly," because it seems like every time you tell someone they can't do something, they just get pissed about it with no regard for rules, laws, or general courtesy.
Anyway, even though he understood the reasoning behind it, the man proceeded to start talking about how no one actually monitored those sort of rules so it didn't matter if he copied anything anyway. As he put it, "those guys are probably sitting in a room in Brazil somewhere." I informed him that a friend of mine got a letter from the FBI once for pirating TV episodes. The gentleman seemed truly shocked, but not quite deterred.
Well, I still felt like I should offer the guy some help, so I decided to show him how to put CDs onto iTunes and his iPod for future non-library stealing use. He had brought his own laptop... which did not have iTunes loaded onto it, though he swore to me over and over that he put songs onto his iPod from the computer he had with him. I told him that we really need iTunes on the computer and I then downloaded it for him. But then he didn't know his Apple ID (of course), so I couldn't really help him further. Normally, I would be slightly dumbfounded and annoyed by this, but I was relieved on this occasion for getting out of showing the man how to illegally use iTunes.
As an addition to this story: While we were waiting for iTunes to download, the man asked me how it was that the library could help people put books onto e-readers, but not songs onto iPods. I explained to him that the library pays for a license to share the books with the public, and that the books do not stay on the e-readers forever. Fortunately, he understood what I was saying (because, you know, plenty of patrons look at me like I'm speaking Greek when I explain things like that), and he seemed genuinely surprised by what I told him. Apparently people think the library just has tons of free stuff that we are hoarding from the outside world... I don't know.
Oh, he also proceeded to show me several albums of pictures (stored on his computer) from Italy. Personally, I was proud of this 80-something year-old guy using his computer so efficiently.
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