Musopen

Musopen Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization located in Tarzana, California, launched by Aaron Dunn in 2005. It aims to "set music free" by providing music to the public free of charge, without copyright restrictions.

Musopen.org
The Musopen homepage as of 2019
OwnerMusopen.org
Created byAaron Dunn
URLmusopen.org
CommercialFreemium
LaunchedMarch 5, 2005

Mission and charitable activities

Musopen provides an online library of public domain music recordings and sheet music. It also raises money to finance classical music recordings which are released into the public domain.

In 2008, Musopen released newly commissioned recordings of the 32 Beethoven piano sonatas into the public domain.[1]

In 2010, the site organized a fundraiser via Kickstarter to commission recordings of a larger repertoire,[2] raising a total of $68,359, more than six times their initial target of $11,000.[3] In July 2012, Musopen announced that the editing of the recordings was finished,[4] after which the audio files were uploaded to its website and Archive.org. The final list of music was announced in August 2012.[5]

In September 2013, a new Kickstarter fundraiser was launched by Musopen to record the complete works of Frédéric Chopin. The fundraiser was successful, exceeding the funding goal of $75,000 by over $15,000.[6] All recording for this project has been finished and editing was completed in April 2015.

Online music library

Musopen operates under a freemium model, in that some content is available free of charge, but premium downloads (HD) require a subscription. Sheet music is available for download to all for free, and recordings can be played using an HTML5 player. Non-paying users can download music recordings but are restricted to 5 downloads per day; members paying $55 per year receive unlimited downloads of losslessly encoded music; and "benefactors" paying $240 per year may in addition request recordings (as of October 2018).[7]

See also

References
  1. "Musopen puts classical recordings, scores in public domain". Ars Technica. 22 May 2008.
  2. "Orchestra To Turn Copyright Free Classical Scores Into Copyright Free Music". Slashdot. 12 September 2010.
  3. Dunn, Aaron. "Musopen: Record and release free music without copyrights". Kickstarter.
  4. Dunn, Aaron (13 July 2012). "Done!". Kickstarter.
  5. Dunn, Aaron (15 August 2012). "Done and Done". Kickstarter.
  6. "Set Chopin Free". Aaron Dunn/Kickstarter. Retrieved 11 September 2013.
  7. Musopen Inc. "Sign Up". Retrieved 1 Jan 2014. (archived)
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