[LINK] Ars: 'Musopen raises $40, 000 to set classical music "free"'
Roger Clarke
Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au
Tue Sep 14 11:54:54 AEST 2010
['Setting music free' is an attractive catch-phrase, because it's
short. But it's misleading.
[Copyright in the sheet-music in question has already expired. But
copyright automatically subsists in performances and recordings of it.
[Where copyright applies to a work, the 'public domain' notion is
problematical, and best avoided. (Aaron Funn should read the
literature surrounding Creative Commons, and FSF for that matter).
[What Aaron's really doing (which is a great idea) is using donations
to pay for recordings of performances, and then making them available
under a liberal copyright licence.]
Musopen raises $40,000 to set classical music "free"
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/musopen-raising-40000-to-set-classical-music-free.ars
A radio host recently "referred to me as a Communist," says Musopen's
Aaron Dunn. Music professors berate him by e-mail because his project
is "like Napster." Dunn's crime? Setting music free.
[Radio hosts we know about. Are there really "music professors" who
are that ignorant about copyright law? Okay, in the US, 'professor'
means Lecturer and above; and in German-speaking countries it can
mean secondary-school teacher. But even so ...]
In fact, though, Dunn's version of "freedom" looks little like
Napster. Instead of distributing a recording without permission, Dunn
raises money, hires orchestras to record terrific classical music ("I
was a bassoon student," he says) that has fallen into the public
domain, and then makes those recordings available to anyone, for any
reason.
Those reasons might include using Beethoven's "Für Elise" in an indie
film-indie filmmakers being some of Musopen's heaviest users-but Dunn
has heard from shows like Mythbusters who also needed a bit of
classical music for a segment. Wikipedia uses Musopen music to
illustrate its entries on classical music.
People are willing to fund the idea. "Someone offered me $1,000
yesterday and asked how much Smetana I could record," Dunn told me,
but funding for the part-time project has been sporadic to date.
To drum up the excitement and donor base needed to give Musopen
ongoing life, Dunn put the project on Kickstarter, seeking $11,000 to
"hire an internationally renowned orchestra to record and release the
rights to: the Beethoven, Brahms, Sibelius, and Tchaikovsky
symphonies. We have price quotes from several orchestras and are
ready to hire one, pending the funds." The project had a goal, a
deadline, and a sense of urgency, all elements that Musopen's
fundraising has lacked in the past.
With one day left to go, the Kickstarter projected has now secured
more than $41,000, much of it after recently being featured on
Slashdot. Intoxicated with the support and the promise of cash, Dunn
has big dreams. He could hire a "brand-name" orchestra like the
London Philharmonic, for instance. Sure, it would burn up all of the
money and only generate a single symphony, but what a symphony it
would be.
The other main alternative is to look "east"-Eastern Europe boasts
tremendous orchestras that will record for a fraction of the price
charged by their big-name Western counterparts. Hiring Prague's
terrific philharmonic would cost only $10,000 to $15,000, for
instance, but the recording wouldn't give Musopen the same cachet and
publicity-both important considerations as Dunn tries to turn his
baby into a truly sustainable organization.
And, as Dunn is learning, when you raise money socially, your donors
have... strong ideas, and they can be quite vocal in expressing them.
The donors will soon get to vote on how the money should be
allocated, with Dunn planning a blind orchestral listening test to
help people decide.
This is significant step up for Musopen. When we first profiled the
site back in 2008, most of its recordings came from groups like the
Davis High School Symphony Orchestra and Oldham Music Centre Youth
Wind Band-fine institutions, but not quite the same as a big
professional orchestra. Now Dunn is entertaining the idea of using
the London Philharmonic, even as he ponders his many other projects:
an open-source music theory textbook is in the work, for instance.
He has heard from musicians skeptical about Musopen. If it takes off,
they fear that Musopen will harm the market for orchestral recordings
and licensing, a key source of revenue for cash-strapped orchestras.
But Dunn isn't out to make life more difficult for musicians, and he
argues that "Glen Gould will always be the default" when it comes to
Bach's Goldberg Variations, for instances. As for their
bread-and-butter, live performances, Dunn hopes that more accessible
music will lead to more interest in live concerts.
Besides, any pain that such a model causes must be set next to the
huge upside for consumers, indie filmmakers, libraries, and
universities: free access to high-quality recordings of some of the
West's best music.
Dunn's highest hope now is that he might improbably raise more than
$50,000-five times the hoped-for amount-by the time his Kickstarter
project closes.
--
Roger Clarke http://www.rogerclarke.com/
Xamax Consultancy Pty Ltd 78 Sidaway St, Chapman ACT 2611 AUSTRALIA
Tel: +61 2 6288 1472, and 6288 6916
mailto:Roger.Clarke at xamax.com.au http://www.xamax.com.au/
Visiting Professor in the Cyberspace Law & Policy Centre Uni of NSW
Visiting Professor in Computer Science Australian National University
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