Personal Creative Ownership is Over

In July 2025, CapCut users discovered what many already knew was coming. Buried in their updated terms of service was a familiar clause: upload your content and grant them an irrevocable, worldwide license to use it however they want.

The usual internet rage cycle ensued. Horror on Reddit. Corporate clarification. Then silence as users shrugged and returned to editing their videos.

As I watched from the sidelines, editing in DaVinci Resolve, I couldn’t shake a thought: Does creative ownership even exist anymore? And more importantly, does it matter?

This question affects every professional who shares their expertise online, whether through blog posts, videos, or social media. The rapid erosion of content ownership has implications far beyond cat videos and makeup tutorials.

The Music Industry Showed Us the Future

I witnessed the beginning of this transformation firsthand. In the late 1980s, I was a junior engineer in a recording studio when digital samplers revolutionized music production.

Suddenly, any sound could be captured and reused. A James Brown drum break. A Parliament Funkadelic bassline. The lawsuits were immediate and brutal, with artists suing for millions over seconds of borrowed sound.

We thought we were witnessing the death of original music. We were wrong about the details but right about the direction.

Music didn’t die, it became content. Content became product. Today’s hits are assembled from preset loops and auto-tuned vocals, while AI-generated tracks rack up millions of plays on Spotify. Finding genuine artistry feels like searching for a needle in an algorithmic haystack.

Now that same industrial process is consuming every creative field: writing, video, design, coding, and yes, professional expertise.

The Parable of the Viral Banjo Player

Let me share a story about my friend Colby.

Colby picked up the banjo and practiced until he developed his own distinctive style. He wrote an original composition that moved him to tears. It was a piece representing the culmination of years of dedication.

At a small gathering, he performed it for friends. Someone filmed it on their phone and posted it to TikTok. Overnight, it went viral.

Within weeks, AI had analyzed his playing style and generated hundreds of variations. These “improved” versions featured prettier performers, better production values, and optimization for maximum engagement. Colby’s original became a tiny signal lost in an ocean of algorithmic noise.

Now, I should confess: Colby doesn’t exist. I made him up. But his story happens every day to real creators and professionals.

Replace “banjo song” with “innovative therapy technique” or “unique financial planning strategy.” That blog post you spent hours crafting? Within weeks of going viral, you’ll see its ideas repackaged in AI-generated content, stripped of context and attribution.

Welcome to the Post-Ownership Era

Here’s the uncomfortable truth: we’ve entered a post-ownership era of creativity. Once your work enters the digital sphere, it becomes functionally public domain, regardless of what copyright law says.

Every blog post trains tomorrow’s AI models. Every video becomes raw material for content farms. Every unique professional insight gets absorbed into the collective digital soup.

You might argue that people have always borrowed ideas. True. But there’s a fundamental difference between human inspiration and algorithmic extraction.

When another professional reads your work and adds their perspective, something new enters the world. That’s cultural evolution. When an AI ingests your entire body of work and generates infinite variations, it’s just noise drowning out signal.

Technology: Destroyer or Enabler?

Before you assume I’m anti-technology, let me clarify: I wrote this article using AI tools. ChatGPT helped brainstorm ideas. Claude helped refine the prose. These tools are remarkable.

My entire career exists because of technology. I started as a drummer in a Canadian rock band in the 1980s. When that predictably imploded, I faced a choice: continue playing drums or pump gas for a living.

Instead, I pivoted to audio and lighting technology. That led to IT management, then web development, and eventually to Armoury Media. I’ve been in technology-assist mode my entire professional life.

Some claim technology kills creativity. In my case, it saved my career. Without it, I’d likely be that guy at the grocery store who “used to be in a band.”

Follow the Infrastructure

As someone more technician than artist, I pay attention to infrastructure: the pipes and cables that make creativity possible. Currently, those pipes flow in one direction: from individual creators to platform owners.

Consider the business model. CapCut provides easy editing tools for free. Instagram offers global distribution at no cost. ChatGPT delivers AI assistance without charging a cent.

Why this generosity? Because you’re not the customer, you’re the supplier. Every video edited, post published, and prompt written becomes raw data. They don’t just host your content; they study it, remix it, and use it to build the tools that will eventually replace the need for human creators.

The old music industry at least pretended artists mattered. Today’s attention economy treats creative work as bait—tools to capture, hold, and monetize human attention. The product isn’t your video or article. The product is your audience’s time and behavior, packaged and sold to advertisers.

Building Alternatives in the Ruins

Given this reality, why create anything? Why not surrender to the machines?

Because authentic connection still matters. Because mastery still satisfies. Because some communities value provenance over algorithms.

I see professionals building alternatives:

• Hosting their own websites instead of publishing on Medium
• Sending newsletters instead of relying on LinkedIn
• Creating courses they control instead of YouTube tutorials
• Building genuine relationships instead of follower counts

These creators trade reach for ownership, metrics for meaning. It’s harder. It’s slower. But it’s theirs.

Maybe we can’t stop the flood of AI-generated content. But we can build islands where creativity retains meaning, where attribution matters, where human connection trumps algorithmic optimization.

The Choice That Remains

Most creators will continue feeding the platforms. Convenience usually wins. We click “Agree” and move on. It’s human nature.

Platforms count on this, which explains why terms of service expand every few months, each update claiming more rights.

But alternatives exist. You can pay for tools that respect your ownership. You can build on platforms you control. You can create for communities that value source over speed.

Both paths are valid. One optimizes for reach, the other for ownership. One feeds algorithms, the other feeds culture. Neither is inherently wrong, they lead to different futures.

The Question That Matters

Remember Colby, our fictional banjo player? His story raises the essential question every creator faces: Why do you create?

Do you upload content to please algorithms and chase virality? Or do you contribute to something larger, a repository of genuine human creativity?

This distinction matters more than any terms of service. What survives isn’t the content with the most engagement. It’s the work that inspires someone else to pick up their own instrument and contribute.

Platforms will continue taking. Algorithms will keep learning. The commodification of creativity will accelerate.

But you still control what you create and where you share it. You decide whether your work serves your community or feeds the machine.

For professionals sharing expertise online, this choice has real consequences. Are you creating content to genuinely help clients understand complex issues? Or are you just feeding the content mill because that’s what everyone does?

That choice, between serving people and serving platforms, might be the last bit of creative ownership we have left.

Choose wisely.