Some of the music you mention wasn't part of this project and was recorded by a college orchestra. I did want to re-record it, next time maybe.

Noted. Next time (if there is one) we will include all the files separately. This happened because i uploaded everything in a zip to archive.org and they turned it into a torrent for me. This was done because people wanted to download everything in one batch. Separately, I went with Apple lossless because it is also now open source and most of our users use iTunes, and flac would confuse the hell out of them. However, I'll also try to include FLAC from now on.

Every single musopen piece added to youtube is marked as copyright infringement. Its very frustrating for our users, and despite my pleading youtube hasn't been able to accomodate our site.

We have a library of music that is unrelated to this project, that is one of them. Cheers, Aaron

As well as the Musopen String Quartet link: http://musopen.org/music/by/performer/Musopen-String-Quartet

Hi there. We actually did post all the original lossless recordings, including all the ProTools files. As for the mistakes, they are definitely in there. I wouldnt not call the recordings poor overall, but they do vary. What's important to me is 1) These are the first recordings every released into the world unencumbered by copyright restrictions 2) They are overall excellent performances. I would even argue many could be held up to some of the most notable orchestras Quality is ultimately subjective, so we have to realize part of this is legitimate mistakes, and a large part is also people just preferring recordings they already know, other halls, conductors etc. Regardless, given the ratio of money/ hours of music we got, the quality is pretty good considering.

Aaron here, founder of Musopen. I think you would be hard pressed to find any evidence that Musopen, or really any free online music service (spotify, itunes, rdio etc) is hurting symphonies. If there is a decline in attendance its because of a chance in musical tastes, not mp3s shared on the internet. I know from personal experience that I only became interested in classical music when a CD was shared with me (illegally!) and I began searching out more on my own. I now attend concerts because nothing will ever match the quality of the sound, or the experience hearing it live. I know that for a fact because I've spent way to much on my stereo system.

To everyone posting here, thank you all for the donations and thoughts. It was a long and challenging project but I am very proud of the end result. I'm considering a second project, if anyone is interested in hearing about it in the next couple of weeks, please make sure to follow us on Twitter/FB/our blog etc: https://twitter.com/ajdunn83 or /musopen or our blog at blog.musopen.org Thanks again, Aaron Dunn Musopen.org