It rose to prominence amid a viral crowdfunding Kickstarter campaign in 2010, which raised US$68,359 to record a wide variety of orchestral and chamber works.

Musopen, under the URL musopen.org, is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization which prioritizes "improving access and exposure to music by creating free resources and educational materials".

[M 3] Music from the site has since found its way into a wide variety of media, including TV shows, films, Wikipedia articles, and use in the One Laptop per Child project.

[5] Musopen was created by music producer Aaron Dunn (born 1983),[M 4] then a bassoonist attending Skidmore College of Saratoga Springs, New York.

[2][M 5] In 2010, Musopen received considerably more attention; the music critic Jim Farber remarked that it became an "overwhelming hit (literally and figuratively)".

[8] The fundraiser looked to record the symphonies by Beethoven, Brahms, Tchaikovsky and Sibelius, alongside a plethora of chamber music for public domain dissemination.

[16] It has also been likened to the Open Goldberg Variations, a crowdfunded project by Robert Douglass and pianist Kimiko Douglass-Ishizaka, to create a copyright-free recording of J.S.