Hugh McGuire’s goal is to make all public domain (expired copyright) books available free online in audio format. He’s created LibriVox to reach that goal, and it is a terrific open source, public domain project.
Volunteers suggest public domain books and record chapters. Finished books are cataloged and podcasted
LibriVox volunteers record chapters of books in the public domain, and then we release the audio files back onto the net (podcast and catalog). Our objective is to make all books in the public domain available, for free, in audio format on the internet. We are a totally volunteer, open source, free content, public domain project.
I think this is a terrific project, and the content will be very welcome on my long drive back to the bay area this week from Seattle. I also plan to volunteer and read chapters (I promise not to sneak in plugs for TechCrunch either).
Check out examples such as Jack London’s Call of the Wild and Charles Dickens’ The Christmas Carol.
Jon Gordon has an interview with the founder. Thanks for the tip Dave.
Nice! One of the very first things I did online was download The Red Badge of Courage from the Dartmouth Gopher site of public domain books.
I still think 200 years is too long before publication go in the public domain (they are call public-ations after all) but I suspect we’re lucky capitalism didn’t get it’s mitts in sooner and make it in perpetuity.
I have watched wikipedia evolve into being “THE” source for information even surpassing the big corporate hounds . This idea of bringing out of copyright books to the masses is just as huge an idea. Its fantastic to see new open and truely free services that are usefull becoming available to all.
The corporate hounds can stick it , they best make money from the Net citizens whilst they can cus their time is running out.
Ted adn Micheal – yeah, I agree. This is just terrific.
This is a great idea, I will definitely use it in the near and distant future. But my main question is where is the defensible competitive position? Think the rise of bit-torrent sites, sure the books are open to share so you won’t get shut down (provided the people who recorded the book have no problem sharing their content ie. their reading) and their is a bit of a first mover advantage for advertising on the site. However, a quick follow is not only foreseable, but also cheaper to do than buy the company.
As a non-profit, I absolutely love it and who knows Yahoo! secretly tried to buy Wikipedia. I just hope they keep the NOT-FOR-SALE sign on the door like wikipedia. NOTE: A mashup with wikipedia, librivox, and google print would kick some serious ass. A third party aggregator service leveraging these services and framing book advertising (think affiliate adverts for amazon) would be a great way to have people explore content.
I also hope the people who create the content have listener friendly voices. On that note I won’t be recording, but I will be supporting.
Mobile audiobooks might be an interesting idea … Live software may be the future; mobile access is key though. Google’s acquisition of Android is an evidence. Any enterprise that can take grip of this enormous, ripe market will be able to garner substantial profit. The emergence of cell phone jammers, however, pose more questions than many care to answer. For details, check out 安特易屏蔽器.
Audiobook streamed onto mobile phones may or may not be a viable idea. Live software may be the future; mobile access is key though. Google’s acquisition of Android is an evidence. Any enterprise that can take grip of this enormous, ripe market will be able to garner substantial profit. The emergence of cell phone jammers, however, pose more questions than many care to answer. For details, check out 安特易屏蔽器.
hi thanks for the write up. just a note to bradley – librivox is totally non-commercial, will always be, NOT FOR SALE firmly planted in our domain!
You ran an article about Librivox, a service that provides free audio downloads of books, and other articles have appeared on the internet, but nobody gives the url for them. I have been unable to find them on the internet. Searching keeps turning up articles about them only.
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http://www.audiobooks.net has over 400 free audio books. Some of them are actually quite decent.
Cool site for audio books. If you want to listen to audio drama http://www.newfiction.com/ is the best site.
I love audiobooks and podcasts, especially the free ones. I will be searching Librevox for the next few days looking for suitable audio for my new website Free Internet Marketing Audio.( I’m trying to build a resource of downloadable internet marketing audio.)
Great list of audiobooks here. I love Librevox. For those of you guys looking for fiction audiobooks, check out the link in my name.
Great list of audiobooks here. I love Librevox. For those of you guys looking for fiction audiobooks, check out the link in my name.