Digital ownership

Own your stuff.

If you have photos, documents, notes, backups, websites, content, portfolios, or literally any other kind of digital media, you need to take stock of who owns it. Usually, the "someone" who owns it isn't you.

That needs to change.

Maybe it's the sleep deprivation talking (I'm writing this after a red-eye flight), but I'm emphatic about this for a simple reason: if you don't own your digital media, then someone else does, and they will use it to further their profit at your expense.

Some of the most recent examples include:

• Google Drive trains its AI on your saved documents

• Twitter/X and Meta trains their generative image models on the images that you upload to the service

• Instagram's privacy policy includes a disclaimer that says they can use any image you upload (even on private accounts) for advertising, publicity, or just for funsies, and you get no say in the matter (or any share of the money they earn because of it)

I'll say it again, in case it isn't obvious: if you don't own your data, someone else does.

And you might be fine with that. But so much of this is buried in fine print and terms of use, and most people don't know the extent of what it means to upload their files to an online service.