Creating magnetic fields uses significantly more power. A magnetic field is generated by passing current through a coil. A relatively small 3 Tesla field using a resistive coils requires a large amount of power. The largest magnet in the world at the National High Magetic Field Laboratory has its own power plant and consumes about 25 percent of the power in Tallahasssee, when fully powered.
So no....using a small heat pulse to reverse a field is magnitudes less power. By the way, Nature and Science are probably the top scientific journals in the world. It wouldn’t be there if it wasnt significant.
I doubt the copyright police will be able to catch this stuff.
If people want to sell stuff on recorded media they will need to come up with some new way to do it.