Editing Opsound (section)

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[[File:OpSound Logo.jpg|thumb|Logo]]
'''Opsound''' was a website which aggregated links to music released under [[Creative Commons]] licenses. Opsound aggregated links to music hosted on other servers, as well as provided discussion forums and organized real-world events and concerts. It published one CD by the artist Catalpa Catalpa entitled "Hardoncity."

Opsound was a social art project by [[Sal Randolph]], who created the site to provide a space for open, uncurated collaboration between musicians and sound artists.  It was described on the site as "a [[gift economy]] in action, an experiment in applying the model of free software to music."

[[Lawrence Lessig]] often mentioned Opsound when discussing [[Creative Commons]], citing its structure and licensing as a positive aid to enhanced collaboration and communication between artists.<ref>[http://www.glocom.org/special_topics/activity_rep/20031204_miyao_gf/index.html GLOCOM Platform - Special Topics - Activity Report<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref><ref>[http://lessig.org/blog/2003/07/ Lessig Blog<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

Opsound did not host works, leaving that to others, such as the [[Internet Archive]]'s [[Internet Archive#Netlabels|Netlabels]] collection. Metadata included descriptions of songs and artists, track numbers, and indexed keywords associated with songs. All songs were available under the [[Creative Commons]] Attribution-ShareAlike license (typically version 2.5, but sometimes only older versions of the license). Some songs were licensed under the more [[Liberalism|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. Some popular artists included _aa_, Binary Beats, and the [[Evolution Control Committee]]. There were plans to add software for so-called "microlabels" to allow people to create their own albums from the sound pool.