Opsound – the Gift Economy in Action
Online radio, streamed music and mp3 downloads are certainly nothing new. The web is filled with independent broadcasters, but as online radio has become mainstream, so has the music, and there is often little different between online and traditional radio.
Opsound (
www.opsound.org), a pioneer of online music sharing, is a site where you are guaranteed to find experimental and cutting edge music. Where else can you choose from genres like
blip, found sound, math, microsound, shoegazer, spoken and even
undefinable? The brainchild of artist Sal Randolph, Opsound is not a commercial venture. It is “the gift economy in action.” Musicians and sound artists are invited to upload their work into the site’s pool of online music. Then, anyone can download, listen to and even remix and re-use the sounds — and it is fully legal and free!
Opsound operates with a “copyleft” license, the Attribution-ShareAlike License developed by Creative Commons (
www.creativecommons.org), which essentially means that the music on the site can be re-used and incorporated into other music, as long as the new music attributes the original author and is likewise released under the same ShareAlike License. In other words, the music is free and must remain free.
While Opsound is obviously not the place to find top-twenty hits, its online pool is full of lyrical, noisy, quirky and wonderful finds. It has a critical mass of high quality electronic sounds, and is also a familiar hotspot in the international electro community. Still, you will find a whole range of styles and genres there. Some of the newest additions to the pool include “Self-reflective Temper Management” by The Walt, a Dutch post-hardcore band, “Lying Down” an ambient composition based on the Alexander Technique, and a gorgeous country single “Dance with a Stranger.” Some music has a touch of the amateur and the obscure, but listening in to the Opsound stream, a randomly generated mix of the pool, is always a source of real finds from all over the world.
At a time when US Internet broadcasters are facing off with the record industry over royalties, and as their royalty rates threaten to rise between 300 and 1200 percent (see:
www.savenetradio.org), Opsound’s copyleft model seems like a recipe for survival. However, for Randolph copyleft is an artistic and ethical principle more than a marketing strategy, and her site of contributors is full of sound-makers who share her philosophy. A gift is free but carries the obligation to keep on giving. The result is a vital community of exchange — and creative surplus!
Links:www.opsound.org www.creativecommons.org
