Art should be free. Artists should be paid.

Newsflash

On September 7, 2001 The IRS granted 501(c)(3) public charity status to the OpenCulture Foundation, Inc. Donations to OpenCulture are now tax-deductible. We've posted the text of the determination letter.

Welcome to OpenCulture.org

OpenCulture is a new way to make books and music freely available online, while making sure that artists get fairly compensated. Using the Internet to let sponsors pool their resources, we purchase the right to enjoy and redistribute works of art on behalf of the public.

With your help, we will build a world-class Digital Free Library of books and music which can be freely downloaded and shared by anyone, anywhere. With your help, we will buy the rights to make the best new music and writing available to everyone, everywhere.

With OpenCulture:

• Artists win because they get paid up front, before their work is released to the Internet.
• Fans win because they can help make works by their favorite writers or musicians freely available to everyone.
• The public wins because more books and music are freely available online.

For now, feel free to have a look around the website. You can read about why we're doing this and how the system works. If you're interested in what we're doing, please sign up to be notified when we launch our service.

If you're a writer or a musician and think you might be interested in releasing a book or an album through OpenCulture, please let us know.