After years of conspiring to keep CD prices artificially inflated with minimum pricing incentives, the music industry coughed up a few million dollars and hundreds of thousands of music CD "gifts" to public libraries and schools. But librarians and school officials are not very happy that their end of the payout was heavily laden with CD singles of Whitney Houston.

The Puget Sound Educational Service District, serving 35 school districts, received 1,300 copies of Houston's soaring rendition of the "Star-Spangled Banner," a disc that includes only one other song, "America the Beautiful."

Other discs have raunchy rap unsuitable for school libraries, and some librarians said it looked like the music companies were dumping stale inventory.

Lucky for me, I received a cash settlement. But as I noted back in February, it wasn't even enough to buy a single CD.