All posts tagged: creative

Who Owns Your Mind’s Creative Work? Who Owned Dolly Parton’s?

Who Owns Your Mind’s Creative Work? Who Owned Dolly Parton’s?

Published by Jenni Sidey

Weddings, funerals, breakups at 2 a.m. — one song always shows up: “I Will Always Love You.” Whitney Houston sent it into the stratosphere. Lorelai Gilmore poured it out on Gilmore Girls. Yet it arose out of Dolly Parton’s soul in 1974, pure emotion turned into melody, lyrics, and musical history. So it’s Dolly’s song, right? It’s hers, she wrote it, she can license it, she can get paid for it. Right? Not according to attorney Stephan Kinsella. His 2025 article, “The Problem with Intellectual Property,” argues that Dolly shouldn’t have any rights to her own song. By that logic, she owns the paperclip holding her sheet music more than she owns the song itself. The movement to abolish your copyright Kinsella is a nationally known lawyer and libertarian writer. His claim: No one owns the creative products of their own mind — not a song, not a painting, not a novel. He puts it bluntly: “that all forms of Intellectual Property should be abolished entirely, not merely reformed; that IP rights are unjust and …

New Englanders get creative to turn an invasive crab species into gourmet seafood and whiskey

New Englanders get creative to turn an invasive crab species into gourmet seafood and whiskey

Published by Daniella Wilson

As morning fog cleared across Maine’s York River, Mike Masi and his two interns worked alongside a dock, sorting through a pile of the region’s most reviled crabs in search of a select few that might feature on a New England diner’s plate. The goal is to identify invasive European green crabs preparing to shed their hard exteriors. In this molting phase, the crabs have a soft, pliable shell like leather, making them highly prized by chefs. These soft-shell specimens command $3 each at market, compared to as little as 8 cents for hard-shell crabs, while their removal offers environmental relief to marine ecosystems. “Just about everyone hates them and we’re trying to turn them into a premium seafood product,” said Masi, whose company, shell+claw, stands as the sole commercial cultivator of the species. The 45-year-old former marine science teacher belongs to an expanding movement across New England striving to curb the crabs’ destructive footprint by creating commercial applications. Other ventures are incorporating green crabs into pet snacks, fish sauce, and even a distilled line …

Why AI Can’t Be Creative (Yet)

Why AI Can’t Be Creative (Yet)

Published by Jenni Sidey

Last night, I suddenly got an idea. I opened up Claude, the overly-friendly neighborhood AI bot, and asked it: “Hey buddy, write the most creative sentence you possibly could.” Claude almost immediately responded: “She kept her childhood in a jar of fireflies and opened it only on the nights the dark felt honest.” Cringe! Really, Claude? That’s literally the best you can do? So I decided to go even bigger and give it another chance. The biggest, in fact: “You know what, write the most creative sentence ever written in human history!” A few seconds later, Claude responded: “The universe wrote itself into being one lonely word at a time, and named the ache between the words you.” Bigger cringe! How can this be? The second prompt, which was about ALL OF HUMAN HISTORY, was even worse than the first. So this led me down a whole rabbit hole linking this to my lifelong research on the science of creativity and what you get is this 100% human-written post. Let’s go. The Origins of Creativity …

Mapped: America’s 10 most creative acts of noncompliance

Mapped: America’s 10 most creative acts of noncompliance

Published by Jenni Sidey

Before the United States was a country, it was a rebellion: against kings, taxes, and the general idea that someone far away has the right to tell you what to do. In that very foundational sense, there’s nothing more American than opting out, and this map is your field guide to the U.S.’s most creative acts of noncompliance. From California’s Slab City to Amish Country in the Midwest, this is the other America. Not the majority version, but an equally American one. It exists not despite its residents having opted out of the mainstream, but because they have. 1. The Amish Opting Out of Modernity Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana Seeking balance between God and the world. Nearly 50% of the residents of Holmes County, Ohio, are Amish, which means that large parts of the county look as if the 20th century never happened. Horse-drawn buggies clippety-clop past cornfields that have never seen a tractor. There is no Wi-Fi, no TV, no electricity. Bread is baked by hand. Barns are raised by hand, too. The Amish, an …

Is AI the New Creator in the Creative Process?

Is AI the New Creator in the Creative Process?

Published by Jenni Sidey

This post is Part 1 of a series. As a writer, sometimes an idea or curiosity just pops into my awareness. Suddenly there’s something there that I want to explore, ponder, and think more about, something that wasn’t there a few moments before, or maybe was there in seed form but had yet to bloom. When this remarkable event happens, my habit for decades has been to take a walk with the idea, to live with it and let it marinate in me, become what it needs to become. I do my part by thinking about it, and I simultaneously get out of the way and let the mysterious energy that is creativity do its part; I allow the spark of curiosity to grow into a fire, which, truth be told, sometimes happens and sometimes doesn’t. Once my own ideas have had time to germinate and bloom a bit, I might look to external sources for other ways to think about the topic, and gather more information from writings and research that already exists. How …

xTool’s New Printer Will Make It Easier Than Ever to Be Creative. The Preorder Is Live Today

xTool’s New Printer Will Make It Easier Than Ever to Be Creative. The Preorder Is Live Today

Published by Miika Tikkanen

While I understand the technology behind it, UV printing will always feel like magic. Buying a box that can bring all your magnificent ideas to reality? It’s magical, and it’s only getting better. xTool, a leader in innovative digital fabrication technology, has just opened the preorder window for its “print anything” O1 Omni printer. The tagline for the Omni is “From rigid to fabric. Print it all.” xTool says the print anything capability is made possible by a “flexible, innovative dual-printhead architecture.” Makers will be able to configure the system for dual-UV printing to unlock advanced multilayered effects using specialized neon ink, or choose a hybrid UV and fabric setup to give you as many material options as possible. The O1 Omni printer is available in three configurations. There’s the entry-level UV edition: $1,699 preorder ($2,499 retail price), the effect-optimized dual-head UV edition for specialized neon ink: $2,699 preorder ($3,299 retail price) and the ultimate cross-category hybrid UV and fabric edition for printing directly onto cotton or onto film: $2,799 preorder ($3,499 retail price). Possibilities …

Creative industries to get new monthly print tabloid mag

Creative industries to get new monthly print tabloid mag

Published by Sam Flores

Former editors of Design Week and The Media Leader are among those involved in the launch of a print-first monthly B2B magazine for the commercial creative industries. The Static will launch with a team of five, covering media, advertising and design in “tabloid-style” across ten issues a year. Around 17 of its 25 pages will be editorial content, with a promise to avoid “press-release churn”. Founder and publisher Claire Foss, a communications strategist who has previously written for the likes of Haymarket and William Reed, told Press Gazette she wants The Static to tell the stories not “being told” in the industry. She said: “We believe there’s a general feeling across the creative industries that we’re being underserved in terms of journalism and accountability.  “We know, because we’re all in the thick of these worlds, that there are stories that aren’t being told, and that the commercial pressures of an a purely online ecosystem have stung many publishing businesses in this space.” Subscribers will pay £12 a month per issue plus postage, with additional revenue …

Roadmap Writers Partners With Aevitas Creative Management

Roadmap Writers Partners With Aevitas Creative Management

Published by Daniella Wilson

Literary management company Aevitas Creative Management and Roadmap Writers, screenwriting education and training platform for writers, are launching an online education and professional development service geared towards authors. The service, Roadmap x Aevitas Authors, caters to new and emerging authors at various stages of their writing careers, according to a release. It will offer a variety of online courses and career development opportunities by dozens of literary industry professionals. Roadmap x Aevitas Authors’ programing includes one-on-one consultations, in-person meetings, contests, along with providing practical tools and insider knowledge for the publishing industry to aspiring authors. The program will service both nonfiction and fiction writers. “Roadmap Writers’ 10-year history of offering high-quality online and in-person courses to aspiring television and film writers and make them the perfect partner for Aevitas to establish this new premium educational service for aspiring authors, editors and publishing professionals,” Aevitas Creative Management co-CEOs David Kuhn and Todd Shuster. Roadmap Writers CEO Joey Tuccio and COO Dorian Connelley, “Aevitas Creative Management is one of the most dynamic and entrepreneurial literary agencies in …

Do You Have to Suffer to Be Creative?

Do You Have to Suffer to Be Creative?

Published by Jenni Sidey

The other night I started watching a documentary about Leonard Cohen, the poet/philosopher/musician who wrote the beloved song, “Hallelujah.” Given its haunting melody and poignant, stirring lyrics, many consider “Hallelujah” to be the inspirational anthem of our times. According to the documentary, it took Cohen seven years to write—seven years of constant revision, rethinking, rediscovering. But he emerged from this torturous process with a thing of great beauty. You’d think he would have been overjoyed to have created something so special that has moved so many people. But no; the face that stared back at me from the television screen was deeply etched with sorrow. I only saw him smile a few times throughout the whole documentary, and even then, the smile seemed to be cracking through a mask of pain. I finally had to stop watching—not because I didn’t enjoy learning about Cohen’s impressive body of work, but because I couldn’t help but wonder: Was he so gifted because of that pain? I took that question to bed with me and haven’t stopped thinking …

Creative ways to transform your home

Creative ways to transform your home

Published by Daniella Wilson

Your home should be your haven. If it’s time for an upgrade, take inspiration from these diverse products and experiences that bring a little flair to the everyday. Enjoy a year of days out and gardening inspiration (Royal Horticultural Society) Discover more with membership to the Royal Horticultural Society, where colour, beauty and inspiration can be found in every season. From just £55.99, members enjoy access to all five RHS Gardens and selected entry to over 240 RHS Partner Gardens nationwide, giving a plethora of day out options filled with stunning flowers. You’ll also get priority booking and reduced-rate tickets to standout events throughout the year, most notably the RHS Chelsea Flower Show. Membership also includes the award-winning The Garden magazine delivered through your letterbox every month, featuring guidance, practical tips and the latest must-know news from the horticulture world. What’s more, members can seek advice from RHS experts online, over the phone and in person, making membership an all-rounder service for keen gardeners. Join today at Rhs.org.uk Join now Enjoy better sleep on an …