What do the name of the project mean?
It comes from Walt Whitman's poem Leaves of Grass:

Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)

It was chosen because it is a great line from a very American poem and it contains the contradiction that giving away these recordings will, for most of them, only increase the value to the authors and copyright owners.

What is Creative Commons?
Most of us are familiar with Copyright which gives the owner of a work (poem, recording, etc) full control over all rights to sell, copy, trade, re-use that work. Creative Commons is similar but allows the owner to specify which right he or she may be interested in granting. For example, an owner may grant the right to COPY or SHARE the recording at no charge, so long as it for non-commercial purposes (e.g., involving money). We are asking people who own certain recordings of poetry and drama if they will change their COPYRIGHT to CREATIVE COMMONS, specifically to allow people to COPY and SHARE their recordings.

Does that mean they can no longer make money on it?
No. They retain the commercial rights to the recording and can continue to sell CD's, cassettes and downloads or sell the commercial rights for other purposes.

But if it's available for free download, will anyone ever buy the recording?
In many cases these recordings are owned by foundations and other organizations whose primary interest is in making these recordings available to people; the focus is not in profiting off sales of the recordings. They currently charge money, of course, for cassettes or CDs to cover their incremental costs of distrubtion and administration. Enabling free downloads of this material would allow them to fulfill their mission, expand the reach and eliminate and cost burden.

In cases where the owner wants or needs to continue to make money from the recording, there are a number of ways to participate. Authors and publishers can choose to make a portion for the recording available under Creative Commons and at 'no charge'. People who try and enjoy the 'no charge' sections become that much more likely to purchase the whole recording. Even those who place the whole recording under Creative Commons can expect to see an increase in interest in their books, recordings and work overall.