Re: [Videolib] Buying at individual vs institutional price?

Gary Handman (ghandman@library.berkeley.edu)
Thu, 29 Mar 2007 12:07:07 -0700

Here's my strategy: if I can find a source that sells it at home video
prices and has no two-tier pricing indicated, I get it at home video price
(unless, of course, I specifically need performance rights). If your
distributor indicates an individual and an institutional price, I think
it's the ethical thing to do to pony up for the higher price. This has
been a real problem in the past: e.g. Arab Film Distribution used to sell
home video thru Facets, but their own website indicated both institutional
and home video prices. Since I like these guys and want to see them stay
in business, I generally bought through their web site...but I could have
just as easily gone the Facets route.

Don't let anyone sell you performance rights you don't need. It really
pisses me off when certain distributors justify their higher prices for
institutions by waving the performance rights banner. Fact is, they're
generally charging higher prices because they can get it from institutions.

Gary Handman

At 11:36 AM 3/29/2007, you wrote:
>Would it be illegal and/or unethical for a library to try to buy a DVD at
>a lower individual price rather than a higher institutional price, for example
>by claiming that the DVD will be for individual use only or by reimbursing
>an individual staff member for a DVD purchased privately at an individual
>price, especially if the library does not want PPR?
>
>
>
>Thanks for any suggestions.
>
>
>
>Mike in Dubuque
>VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of
>issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic
>control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in
>libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve
>as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of
>communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video
>producers and distributors.

Gary Handman
Director
Media Resources Center
Moffitt Library
UC Berkeley
ghandman@library.berkeley.edu
http://www.lib.berkeley.edu/MRC

"In societies where modern conditions of production prevail, all of life
presents itself as an immense accumulation of spectacles."

--Guy Debord

VIDEOLIB is intended to encourage the broad and lively discussion of issues relating to the selection, evaluation, acquisition,bibliographic control, preservation, and use of current and evolving video formats in libraries and related institutions. It is hoped that the list will serve as an effective working tool for video librarians, as well as a channel of communication between libraries,educational institutions, and video producers and distributors.