Some people starve because they don't have enough food. Others because they're just stupid.

And probably will get it taken down or muted because Youtube's filter system isn't smart enough to know the difference.

Reading the criticisms levied against the site is like listening to those two elderly women who just like to complain: "Boy, the music at this place is really terrible." "Yeah, I know; and there isn't nearly enough of it!"

I think quantity needed to be more important than quality for this project. Sure, they need to have a minimum standard of quality, but the idea was to free as much music as possible. Some kid somewhere in the world would never have heard this music because he's not going to pay $1.29 for some music he's never heard (that they're not playing on the radio) and the sheet music isn't exactly jumping off the page to ensnare his imagination. However, something that's well-written and decently-performed on this site may get his attention and maybe someday he'll perform a better version and give back to us all. But that won't ever happen if he never hears it. That first exposure is key.

The first time I heard Scheherazade [musopen.org] it was in a movie (The Man With One Red Shoe). I didn't know what it was, but it got my attention. I was about seven. Years later I came across it again as a track that was tacked onto a $3 budget classical CD, and it got my attention again. I suggested it to the orchestra director in my high school and hundreds of people got to hear it. It's all about the exposure.

If you want to be a snob about the quality, go pay for a performance and share it with the rest of us so we won't have to live our lives not knowing what good music sounds like. Frankly, I prefer the Scheherazade recording on that budget CD to any I've found on iTunes. The first performance of a piece is often the one you like best, because it's the one you fell in love with. I have a very old recording of Stokowski and the NY Philharmonic performing Stravinsky's Firebird suite [musopen.org] that is full of hiss and crackle, but I prefer it over a clean-sounding recording of Bernstein and the Israel Philharmonic performing the same piece. Bernstein's performance, which is well-done, just doesn't sound urgent enough to me because I heard Stokowski's first. Perhaps what you're really concerned about is the possibility that the masses may come to prefer a version other than what you like.

There's still a lot to be added, so go ahead and donate [musopen.org]. Sure, they've got Stravinsky's Firebird, but not The Rite of Spring. The Rite of Spring was so radical and jarring to the ears of the "more cultured representatives of society" at its 1913 premiere in Paris that the audience began yelling so loudly no one could hear the music. Eventually the scene devolved into chairs being thrown and fires set. So go ahead, throw your chairs at this new site in disgust because it doesn't agree with your notion of how the music should sound. The music that stripped away the cultured veneer of those Parisans is worth hearing, and a public domain music site that so-ruffled the feathers of the "free-as-in-beer" and "information wants to be free" slashdot crowd is worth visiting.

which ones? the billionaire philanthropist that springs most easily to my mind is trying to eliminate malaria, solve the energy problem and thus mitigate climate change, and his wife's attempting to fix population problems in countries that can't sustain their birth rates.

but i listen to Beethoven every now and then i suppose...

All the better, enough complaints that legitimate music has been blocked may perhaps force them to come up with a better system.

More whining, it's getting old. Transcode it on an Apple computer if you must. Feh, what kind of geek are you.

Probably not. The reason they have such a draconian system is that music companies insisted on it in order not to sue all of YouTube into pieces.

I'm hoping one day Google will give the treatment to music companies that they're giving to broadband companies in Kansas city.

What do you expect from those who only care about getting something for nothing. Their attitude is that the musicians (and by extension, all content creators) should create art/music/films/games/etc. for the benefit of the rest of the rest of us as a hobby (after all, it is not necessary for them to make a living from what they do), and that they should just quit complaining and get a day job.

This statement has done nothing but fall on deaf ears of those who still actually attend live orchestras. To assume you would understand that niche industry's financial ebb and flow is an insult to the very snobs that continue to keep it alive. Do you honestly consider a digital recording even on the same stage as a live presentation when speaking to fans of this particular art? I know they certainly would not.

"Their attitude is that the musicians (and by extension, all content creators) should create art/music/films/games/etc. for the benefit of the rest of the rest of us as a hobby "

Not at all. We want them to get paid _once_ for their work, just like the rest of us.
You don't pay the builders, painters, cleaners of your house every time you use it, why should you pay for the background music there?

You are correct, I've actually played in professional orchestra's and solo piano performances that had been professionally recorded. Usually you play the song through a few times normally then someone, usually a conductor picks a few spots where mistakes were made. You then start the song a few measures before the mistake to let allow the acoustics and such play out as they recorded it again. Then some poor editor spends hours and hours piecing it back together the good parts and adjusting levels. Neither experience is very fun, after awhile all parties get sick of the song but the quality is there.

That all said there's something special and beautiful about mistakes and imperfections, its what makes a live concert better than listening to the recording and professional recordings of them kind of squeeze some of that magic out for the sake of perfection.

This makes no sense. He's giving his money away (the vast majority of it). He's repeatedly said that when he and his wife die, the foundation will give all of it's money away within X years (I think I remember the number being 10 or 20). When he makes more, he just has more to give away. So is this an evil plot to do more good?

I think he's doing it for the same reason that Carnegie and Rockerfeller did. He didn't want to be remembered as a Robber Baron so he went to work trying to buy his way into a better image.