About intellectual work

intellectual work

When somebody invests time and energy in order to develop and then publish an idea.

This definition includes all application domains which can be artistic, scientific, educational, entertaining or commercial. It also includes all types of carrier medium: most commonly used media are text, images, sound, video and source code.

Intellectual work is creative work which does not result into a material object. It is just an idea or a collection thereof.

creative work

When somebody creates something new.

The result of creative work can be material and produce a unique object. This object is owned by its creator who can sell it or use it otherwise to earn money. And occasionally this can produce huge financial benefit to the creator.

The costs of developing and publishing an idea vary largely with the number of people who collaborated in the work, the time and money they invested, their skills, etc. A blog post of a guy describing his feelings after a concert is obviously less worth than the report of a five year study about a new drug against cancer.