LIBRARY MUSIC SERVICE HOPES TO GET THE BEATLES

If you want to stream Beatles albums for free using a library card, you have have to go through a few more hard days nights before you can get help.

As of Christmas Eve, the Beatles began streaming their albums on many of the major music streaming services, such as Apple Music, Spotify, Tidal, Google Play and Slacker.

But the Beatles aren't available yet on Hoopla Digital, the free music service available to anyone who had a library card for a participating public library. Sandusky Library offers Hoopla, and so does pretty much every other public library in the Sandusky area.

Hoopla spokesman Michael Manon says Hoopla hopes to offer the Beatles soon.

"We're certainly trying," he said.

While the Beatles are allowing their music on paid services such as Apple Music, they still haven't reached deals for services such as Hoopla, Manon said.

Whether a music service can offer music from a specific artist comes down to two factors: Whether the service has a deal with the record company, and whether the artist allows streaming.

There are two main digital music services offered by public libraries: Freegal, which offers streaming and MP3 file downloads of artists signed to the Sony family of record companies, and Hoopla, which has deals with the other record companies, including Universal and Warner Brothers. Ida Rupp Public Library in Port Clinton is one of the few libraries that offers Freegal, but just about every local library has Hoopla.

A library user who is careful to hold valid cards for both Hoopla and Freegal libraries can get just about everything offered by the paid services.

There are also a few artists that don't allow their music to be streamed, so they're not in Hoopla, even though Hoopla has deals with their record companies. They include Taylor Swift, AC/DC, Garth Brooks and Pink Floyd.

Rolling Stone magazine ran an article early last year on the ten biggest artists that don't allow their music to be streamed. The list current in January 2015 had Taylor Swift, Jason Aldean, Prince, Garth Brooks, Bob Seger, Tool, King Crimson, Pete Townsend, Thom Yorke and the Beatles.

But in fact, many of Prince's albums are on Hoopla. (The Rolling Stone article explained that Prince hates YouTube.)

Manon said that many major artists who held out against streaming are now on Hoopla, including the Eagles and U2. Hoopla also has bands such as the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin.

In the meantime, while Hoopla users wait for the Beatles, they can listen to solo albums issued by all four Beatles, including albums from Paul McCartney, John Lennon, George Harrison and Ringo Starr.