Lessig

Clearly who owns the IP is a big issue. However, I just traveled to the StoryCorps site, listened to some stories, and realized that this is one of THE most profound ideas I've come across in years!

I was really intrigued when I first heard of Steven Spielberg's "Survivors of the Shoah" project (www.vhf.org) but am personally aware of the countless stories of other people that are simply being lost to us. StoryCorps is a great first step (though it could be cool to make this thematic in nature: WWII veterans; family farmers; those that lived through the depression; native American's; hill people; what it was like to be an immigrant then and now; etc.).

Since I have a personal passion to restore, duplicate and archive family photos, films and documents, I realize daily how fleeting memories are and how inaccurate they can be. Capturing someone's life story -- even if only a synopsis of it in one of your StoryBooths as they come online -- is deeply important and can be a lot of fun too.

Though I have the technology to capture video and audio myself, most people don't and your idea will faciliate that AND potentially provide a national archive (NOTE: when viewing the StoryCorps site I immediately realized that -- as speech-to-text becomes better and better over time -- that the possibility of automating transcript capture and searchable databases will be quite possible).

Still...the question of who owns the IP (and what they can do with it) needs to be addressed. I concur with Mark Liberman that a Creative Commons license seems like a no-brainer option.