The Power of Crowdsourcing

Last year I took a class on Milton's Paradise Lost and searched aimlessly for an audio recording of the twelve book epic. After asking every English professor, Miltonian academic, every librarian I finally gave up.

So when I read "The Wealth of LibriVox" by Michael Erard I was fascinated with the innovative concept of a virtual audio library. I ventured to this new domain of Crowdsourcing, typed in Paradise Lost and low and behold there it was before me like the gleaming Holy Grail!

That being said many can argue that this open source medium of audio books breaches every copyright law yata yata yata... I come from the school of thought that it doesn't.



Erard writes " there’s a huge literary stockpile of out-of-print books trapped by copyright that the mass market can’t justify re-releasing but which might be attractive to niche groups" and it is these "out-of-print books" that have suddenly been reborn.

Another factor to consider with the phenomena of open source sites is the freedom to be creative and make your creativity accessible to the public without someone who claims they are "experts" in that particular field and prevent you to go any further with your creativity because they simply don't like it!

Many times these so called "experts" are right but what about the brilliant individuals that slip away from the experts' discouraging criticisms. There are so many struggling artists, designers, musicians, writers who simply want to be heard, seen, read; who want to make thier ideas an actuality.

Crowdsourcing sites like LibriVox, iStockphoto, and YouTube have revolutionized the struggling artist movement and have transformed into mediums where talent is discovered. Sure initially you don't get paid for your creativity but atleast you get it out there. And once your discovered and your appreciated, the money will come.

While reading the "The Rise of Crowdsourcing" article by Jeff Howe, I discovered a site where you could actually design your own shoes and have them made called Open Source Footwear. There have actually been ten cases where shoes are being manufactured based on the designs of individual contributors!

To me this is mind-boggling. I have always wanted to design my own shoes and now thanks to this site I can.

And so who best to describe this new world but Milton himself:

"The world was all before them, where to choose
Their place of rest, and Providence their guide
They, hand in hand, with wandering steps and slow
Through Eden took their solitary way" (Paradise Lost XII)

Enough said.