“Sweat of the brow” is fundamental to a correct legal understanding of copyright. Copyright rewards and protects creativity but it does not protect hard work. You can labor for ten years over a phone book listing the numbers of every person in a town and (as a collection of uncopyrightable facts) it will receive no protection at all. Zero. Zilch. Anyone can copy and sell that phone book:
Copyright law doesn’t care if you slaved over that collection of facts…But: if you dash off a haiku in ten seconds while sitting on the toilet, shove it into your pocket and forget about it, and then your…kids discover that crumpled haiku after your…death, your kids will be able to claim a full 70 years’ worth of copyright over that forgotten triviality (the term of copyright for works of human authorship is life plus 70 years).
This is the uncontroversial and universally accepted legal understanding of copyright: all the copyright in the world for creative acts, no copyright at all for mere acts of labor. The “sweat of the brow” has nothing to do with a work’s eligibility for copyright.
But no media boss believes this. For media bosses, copyright is a pseudo-property right, designed and operated to protect their bottom line. The point of copyright isn’t to incentivize creativity, but rather investment.
— “Pluralistic: Formalities (31 Oct 2026),” Pluralistic
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The more important aim, however, is to show dilettantism as a way of living that offers more than we might think. It is a life liberated from specialisation, instrumentalisation and meritocratic bean-counting, as well as from a Protestant work ethic that is suspicious of pleasure for pleasure’s sake. Arguments denigrating specialisation in education and vocation are well known, as are those championing well-roundedness and the virtues of the liberal arts. Though similar in spirit, this defence of dilettantism is less about the purpose or outcomes of academic or professional life and more about making the mental switch away from the socially conditioned pressure to find your thing and stick with it to an open and exploratory pursuit of pluralistic interests.
— “In praise of the dilettante,” Aeon
[A] US startup called Reflect Orbital, which has an almost sci-fi aim to launch 50,000 satellites into space in the next decade to illuminate parts of the world at night.
In July, the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) approved Reflect Orbital’s proposal to launch an initial demonstration satellite next year, which will orbit the Earth and, via a 59ft-diameter mirror, reflect sunlight in 3-mile-wide beams in strengths from moonlight up to the brightness of the sun at noon.
The demonstration in California, undertaken earlier this month, showcased what this would look like on the ground, to the bewilderment of locals, one of whom called the lights “blinding”. Large mobile lights were erected near Mount Whitney, with Reflect Orbital comparing the radiance to that of a full moon.
This provided, the company said, a realistic simulation of one of the benefits of this technology: to help search-and-rescue teams and other emergency responders at night. Other planned uses include bathing crops in sunlight, replacing broken streetlights and even providing solar power for military operations, all summoned by the tap of a button on an app.
— “Sunlight at night: US startup’s demonstration of lighting Earth from space draws criticism,” The Guardian
The entire intellectual economy has been organized around the assumption that intelligence is expensive to produce and therefore must be carefully rationed. Education, professional expertise, research, consulting, software development, and knowledge work more generally are all shaped by the high cost of cognitive production.
AI is rapidly undermining that assumption.
We are moving toward a world in which an ordinary person can command quantities and varieties of intelligence that would previously have required teams of highly trained specialists. Just as I can enjoy food without knowing how to farm, I can increasingly enjoy the products of intelligence without knowing how to produce them myself.
The crucial economic question then becomes not how much intelligence people can produce, but how much intelligence they can find uses for.
And there is no obvious upper bound on that demand.
— “Cognitive Mercantilism,” Contraptions