In Praise of IMSLP

[Philidor]

IMSLP is a brilliant, high-minded project which believes "access to our culture and the Arts is a fundamental right of every human being." Amen. Not surprisingly, that rubs up some music publishers the wrong way.

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[ongakublue]

I love it. Wonderful resource including Mahler symphonies, Debussy and so on. Scores you could pay a small fortune for. Also as a piano player I find fantastic choice

[Philidor]

One thing I love about IMSLP is its cooperative nature. It's made up of volunteers from all over the world.

Such organisations, based on cooperation not the standard hierarchical capitalist work discipline governed by money and contract law, are notoriously volatile. Especially one involving musicians who can be ahem touchy and egotistical.

Yet it works. IMSLP won the MERLOT Classics award for Music in 2009 and was named one of the Top 100 Web Sites by PC Magazine. It gets millions of hits a day and gives a huge amount of pleasure to thousands of people.

[Alex Daniels]

This sort of projects (including also Wikipedia, etc.) really makes optimistic for the future of Mankind. To me it means that given the technology and the opportunity, people will join forces for the common good!