Open Editions

Today, we’re excited to pilot Open Editions.

Artists can select Open Editions when creating their drop, where collectors can mint as many editions as they want within a specified timeframe (1, 3, or 5 days).

For now, we’ll be piloting this feature with a handful of artists, starting today with “5 STAR (with Kevin George) by Daniel Allan and “Sonhar” by RAC. Reo Cragun, Matthew Chaim, Oshi, bloody white, and San Holo are also dropping this week.

All Sound artists will have access to Open Editions in the coming weeks.

Introducing Open Editions
Introducing Open Editions

Why Open Editions?

Sound will always experiment with new and different ways to value music and connect artists with collectors. Radiohead’s “pay what you want” release of "In Rainbows in 2007 was a groundbreaking and inspirational example where the value of music was determined by artists and listeners, not by middlemen.

Open Editions better enables artists to expand their collector base while allowing more people to collect their music. If you’re a fan or you join a Listening Party and love what you hear, you should be able to collect without worrying that you clicked too slowly or that your connection is too slow.

We want artists on Sound to focus on their craft and create incredible music, not spend time worrying about the right number of editions for their drops. Range Editions was one step towards reducing the pressure to predict the perfect quantity — Open Editions removes it altogether.

Creating an Open Edition drop
Creating an Open Edition drop

In our upload tool, artists can select a Public Sale duration of 1, 3, or 5 days and specify a price per edition.

In the spirit of rewarding collectors, artists can enable a Presale phase for their drop. This Presale is also an open edition that ends when the Public Sale begins (wallets on the allowlist can collect as many editions as they want).

Open Editions are still scarce

Music is meant to be consumed by everyone. Even if a thousand editions are collected, it’s still scarce relative to the nearly 8 billion people on the planet.

@js_horne (Zora) has been a thought-leader regarding Open Editions and rightfully tweeted: “Limited by time is much more interesting than limited by supply.”

At Sound, the emphasis shifts to collecting to prove that you were a day-one collector.

What’s next?

We’re piloting Open Editions with a few artists to comprehensively test the feature before rolling it out to everyone: “5 STAR (with Kevin George) by Daniel Allan and “Sonhar” by RAC are dropping today, and Reo Cragun, Matthew Chaim, Oshi, bloody white, and San Holo will be dropping later this week.

We plan on launching Open Editions to all artists in the coming weeks, which will replace Range Editions as a minting format.

We’d love to hear your thoughts on Open Editions and look forward to continue evolving the mechanisms for how music is valued.

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