Musopen Wants to Give Classical Music to the Public Domain

http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/Musopen/record-and-release-free-music-without-copyrights

by nsantos • 16 years ago

7 6 16 years ago

Right now, if you were to buy a CD of Beethoven's 9th symphony, you would not be legally allowed to do anything but listen to it. You wouldn't be able to share it, upload it, or use it as a soundtrack to your indie film- yet Beethoven has been dead for 183 years and his music is no longer copyrighted.

Wow, talk about missing the point: Beethoven has been dead for 183 years, but the musicians in the orchestra that recorded it certainly haven't been.

Having one random orchestra (even one with international renown) record the works of Beethoven, and releasing those to the public domain will only help people who want to re-use that single interpretation of the works in their indie film.

The whole project seems to me to be of minimal value; what they're really doing is hiring one orchestra to produce a very low budget version of some classic works, so that some future group of people can avoid paying the license costs for those (likely mediocre) versions.

nsantos• 16 years ago

I agree with your point, but I think it's an interesting project, nevertheless. Mostly, I'd like to see if there really would be enough people to make this happen. Also, chalk it up to morbid curiousity as to how good their results would actually be; there doesn't seem to be any hints as to which "internationally renown[ed]" orchestra they have their eye on.

In any case, the value of this project would be exactly how much people are going to assign to it. If nothing else, maybe I'd end up with more legit music in my collection. :)

magic52273• 16 years ago

the orchestra depends entirely on how much money we raise, and what pieces of music the donors want. I can hire the london symphony, but I personally would rather get something less well known and more music.

ZeroGravitas• 16 years ago

You could say the exact same about any "open" project. Open Access journals, open textbooks, Wikipedia, open source software. All redirect money from the people who are getting it now, all have been accused of being lower quality (most loudly by those in the previously getting money faction), all are dismissed as only being of interest to those who want something for nothing.

So lets look at the other side e.g. schools can easily download these works. It's not just the initial purchase money, though that would be enough for many poorer schools to simply not bother, it's dealing with physical CDs, or DRM'd downloads or accounting for licences when the licence holders group comes knocking, giving copies to the kids to use at home or on their iPods, letting them score an animated movie or documentary they are making. Once things are "free" options open up that are difficult to imagine when there is a fee, no matter how small.

magic52273• 16 years ago

What, though, is the alternative? Wait 100 years when we're dead, hoping that record companies finally release better recordings? Look at what happened with Naxos trying to use public domain records, they lost in NY. Studios will re-release recordings indefinitely making dubious improvements to retain copyrights or they'll just change the law like Disney has to 200 years.

I want to let artists, composers, film students etc use this music now, and something that is of decent quality. This is one of the best ways to accomplish that unless you have a better idea.

magic52273• 16 years ago

If you don't want to donate but want to help, we are also looking for votes from our Pepsi Refresh grant

http://www.refresheverything.com/musopen

Musopen Wants to Give Classical Music to the Public Domain

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