Opsound

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Opsound calls itself "a gift economy in action, an experiment in applying the model of free software to music." Opsound aggregates links to music hosted on other servers, as well as providing discussion forums and organizing real-world events and concerts. It has published one CD by the artist Catalpa Catalpa entitled "Hardoncity".

Critics contend there is no quality control, but creator Sal Randolph maintains that the idea of uncurated content is vital to the concept of Opsound, which has no desire to compete with more commercial ventures. Lawrence Lessig has often mentioned Opsound when discussing Creative Commons, citing its structure and licensing as a positive aid to enhanced collaboration and communication between artists^[1]^[2]. A complete redesign and recoding of the site has broadened access to the various genres through the integration of a tag system, and ease of use for the contributing artists has also been significantly enhanced. The site provides an online stream of randomized material from the pool, giving listeners a chance to hear the scope of the project for themselves.

Their website facilitates open content music by indexing songs and aiding a community. They are similar to MP3.com, but they do not have advertisements. Opsound is more inclusive than Magnatune, and has no facilities for money transfers.

Opsound does not host works, leaving that to others such as the Internet Archive's Netlabel collection. Metadata includes descriptions of songs and artists, track numbers, and indexed keywords associated with songs. All songs are available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike license (typically version 2.5, but sometimes only older versions of the license). Some songs are licensed under the more liberal Attribution license. Popularity charts were added around the end of 2003 and the beginning of 2004. A redesign of the site was implemented towards the end of 2005.Popular artists include aa , Binary Beats, and the Evolution Control Committee. There are plans to add software for so-called "microlabels" to allow people to create their own albums from the sound pool.