Originality pays, just not how you think
Copyright protects the artefact, not the idea. The new reward for originality is reputation that compounds — influence, audience, consulting. Not fair, but real.
Copyright was built for a world where the value sat in the exact expression: this arrangement of words, this image, this sound.
So how does a new idea actually pay? Not in the old way.
Copyright was built for a world where the value sat in the exact expression: this arrangement of words, this image, this sound. It protects the artefact, not the idea. But the idea is now the durable value, and copyright is mostly silent about that.
The market is not silent. Social media has become a rough reward system for ideas. When you publish a distinctive approach and it spreads, the payoff is not a licensing fee. It is reputation. That converts into speaking invitations, consulting work, job offers, and a growing audience.
Platforms like LinkedIn and Substack act as messy records of who put an idea into the world first.
Through reputation that compounds — influence, audience, consulting — an imperfect but real reward..
Copyright was built for a world where the value sat in the exact expression: this arrangement of words, this image, this sound.
But the idea is now the durable value, and copyright is mostly silent about that.
Social media has become a rough reward system for ideas.
I want to be honest about this. The system is not fair. It rewards timing and visibility as much as depth. It favours people who can narrate their ideas well over those who develop them quietly.
But originality is still rewarded, and the ways it gets rewarded are multiplying. When execution is cheap and everywhere, the scarce, valuable input is the one thing the tools cannot reliably make on their own: an idea that is genuinely new.
But the idea is now the durable value, and copyright is mostly silent about that.
Through reputation that compounds — influence, audience, consulting — an imperfect but real reward.
Copyright protects the artefact, not the idea. The new reward for originality is reputation that compounds — influence, audience, consulting. Not fair, but real.
This is the short version. Read the full-length essay, “Creatives and AI: A New Economy of Originality”.
This issue is part of Everybody's Smart, a newsletter on taste, judgment, AI, culture, cognition, and the future of professional work. New issues every 2 to 3 weeks, free on LinkedIn.
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