Editor's Note: This story is reprinted from Assignment Zero, an experiment in open-source, pro-am journalism produced in collaboration with Wired News. This week, we'll be republishing a selection of Assignment Zero stories on the topic of "crowdsourcing." All in all, Assignment Zero produced 80 stories, essays and interviews about crowdsourcing; we're reprinting 12 of the best. The stories appear here exactly as Assignment Zero produced them. They have not been edited for facts or style.

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From religion, novels and back again. The strength of community and the dangers of crowdsourcing

Sarah Cove Interviews Douglas Rushkoff via telephone on May 18, 2007

Douglas Rushkoff is an author, professor, media theorist, journalist, as well as a keyboardist for the industrial band PsychicTV. His books include Media Virus, Coercion, Nothing Sacred: The Truth About Judaism (a book which opened up the question of Open Source Judaism), Exit Strategy (an online collaborative novel), and a monthly comic book, Testament. He founded the Narrative Lab at New York University's Interactive Telecommunications Program, a space which seeks to explore the relationship of narrative to media in an age of interactive technology.

We spoke about the notion of crowdsourcing, Open Source Religion, and collaborative narratives.

Sarah Cove: What is crowdsourcing for you?

Douglas Rushkoff: Well, I haven't used the term crowdsourcing in my own conversations before. Every time I look at, it rubs me the wrong way.

Q: Why is that?

A: I understand crowdsourcing as kind of an industrial age, corporatist framing of a cultural phenomenon. There's human energy being expended here. A company can look at that as either a threat -- to their copyrights and intellectual property or as some unwanted form of competition -- or, if they see it positively, then they see it as almost this new affinity group population to be exploited as a resource. And I guess what I'm undecided on and debating internally is whether this is fine. In other words, am I naïve to think this isn't the death knell for a community-oriented, collaborative, open source ethos? Has corporate America finally figured out the way to arrest this shift in the balance of power? Or do we let them believe they are doing this when actually it is human participation and collaboration going on, the kind of thing I would promote.

Q: So crowdsourcing is a new understanding of collaboration, a new business model, for corporations?

A: Well, on the one hand, crowdsourcing is nothing new at all. It's the way that the Harry Potter franchise has websites where people write their own Harry Potter stories and expand on that universe. From the franchise stance, as long as none of it is officially sanctioned, then let the users go crazy with it, give more people reason to buy more books. That's crowdsourcing of a kind, because it's part of what keeps that brand and that franchise alive. And there's nothing wrong with people doing that. They are getting more entertainment value out of being amateur producers of this stuff than they would purely as consumers.

Q: So when does crowdsourcing become a business model which depletes versus revitalizes the Commons?

A: We'll have to figure out where that line is. If you cross it, you realize, "I'm working, this is my labor now." At that point, do you get paid for your work or own some of the property of it? And what is the difference between just uncompensated labor and true voluntary fun? That's going to be up to individuals.

Q: So collaboration falls along a spectrum? If so, where does crowdsourcing lie?

A: I think that it finally gets answered when either people are able to create value from the periphery and benefit themselves from it, or it becomes another form of digital serfdom.

Q: What are the factors that determine where a collaborative project lies?

A: I think the question comes down to whether or not people feel they are doing something valuable, whether or not it's attached to some big corporation. In one scenario, it is possible for me to create a piece of software that is open source. I can charge money for it, and I don't need a corporation if I'm doing it on an open source platform. But on the other extreme, if I want to make a game for a PlayStation, I've got to get licensed through Sony and pay them money. It's really hard as a little developer to reap any profit from that.