<story><title>Museopen to set classical music &quot;free&quot;</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/musopen-raising-40000-to-set-classical-music-free.ars</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>orblivion</author><text>No, I think orchestras will get less work. I&apos;m still in favor of this, but let&apos;s not kid ourselves. This is obsoleting recorded classical music (unless you care for a specific orchestra).&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I just noticed that you mentioned the bit about orchestras sounding unique. Well, maybe I&apos;m not that into classical music, but this would probably satisfy me to a large extent.</text></item><item><author>Jun8</author><text>This is a FANTASTIC idea! The article notes that some opposition to the idea, I can&apos;t see how anyone can defend any point against this. The music is out of copyright, orchestras get more work, and the sound of each orchestra is unique enough so that different orchestras can still sell CDs of the same piece.&lt;p&gt;OK, this is it. This&apos;ll  be the first Kickstart project I will donate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>jerf</author><text>To the extent that that is a problem, it is a past-tense problem. It has already happened. This won&apos;t add to the existing problem in any significant manner.&lt;p&gt;The &lt;i&gt;real&lt;/i&gt; problem is that we don&apos;t need enough orchestras to actually sustain orchestras as an industry anymore, and the attempts to get around this fact are based in emotion, not fact or economics. I do not celebrate this, in fact I have the same emotional reaction many people do, but nevertheless I see it clearly: Classical music is not economically viable. We might as well record what we can while the orchestras still exist; at least the recordings will sound as good in 100 years as they do today.</text></comment>
<story><title>Museopen to set classical music &quot;free&quot;</title><url>http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/09/musopen-raising-40000-to-set-classical-music-free.ars</url><text></text></story><parent_chain><item><author>orblivion</author><text>No, I think orchestras will get less work. I&apos;m still in favor of this, but let&apos;s not kid ourselves. This is obsoleting recorded classical music (unless you care for a specific orchestra).&lt;p&gt;EDIT: I just noticed that you mentioned the bit about orchestras sounding unique. Well, maybe I&apos;m not that into classical music, but this would probably satisfy me to a large extent.</text></item><item><author>Jun8</author><text>This is a FANTASTIC idea! The article notes that some opposition to the idea, I can&apos;t see how anyone can defend any point against this. The music is out of copyright, orchestras get more work, and the sound of each orchestra is unique enough so that different orchestras can still sell CDs of the same piece.&lt;p&gt;OK, this is it. This&apos;ll  be the first Kickstart project I will donate.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>edanm</author><text>Classical music has always been cheap. Or at least, you could usually find a cheap recording of a piece, instead of going for a big-name orchestra.&lt;p&gt;Most people don&apos;t care, sure. But there &lt;i&gt;have&lt;/i&gt; been examples of giving away free books to cause excitement and arouse interest. Classical music is not hugely popular nowadays, but this &lt;i&gt;might&lt;/i&gt; help more people hear it and enjoy it, getting them to the place where they &lt;i&gt;do&lt;/i&gt; want several recordings of the same piece.&lt;p&gt;Then again, this is all hypothetical. I doubt anyone can predict what effect this actually has.&lt;p&gt;Edit: One last point. You can hear almost any piece nowadays with a quick Youtube search, and that includes any quality recording you want. For people just looking to hear a piece quickly, I doubt Museopen will have anywhere near the effect that Youtube already has.</text></comment>