For centuries, the French have been known for ‘doing things differently’, for our creative flair and our boundless pioneering spirit (or at least I like to think so).

We certainly brought you Monet, the Concorde, Debussy and the croissant (sheer genius). While I’m at it, we can also take credit for the metric system (sorry to our US members!) and the not-so-humble cabaret. And then of course, there’s the bicycle and let’s not forget creme brulée.

But you can thank us for these things later. In the meantime, it seems only fitting that we also had a hand in creating Myows, the global platform to help creative folk protect the integrity and value of their Original Work through registering and managing their copyrights. But you knew that.

Even more fitting: as of today, Myows is available in French!

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“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation” – Herman Melville.

Whether they do it for love or for money, all creatives want their work to be original. Originality is seen as the yardstick of creative skill and talent. But for the purposes of copyright protection, what is the threshold of creativity that makes a work original?

Whether they are contemplating action against an infringer, or their own work is challenged, it is important that creatives understand the concept of originality.

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This is just a quick note to let you know that the votes are in. Our expert panel of judges (including Max, Dave, Jonathan Bailey (from Plagiarism Today), Adii (from Woothemes) and myself) has finally come to a decision!

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From what I can tell, Stephen is one of those guys who like to get involved, who see life as a positive challenge. He works tirelessly works to make things better, cooler and fairer. We like Stephen for exactly these reasons. His curiosity and determination to actually do relevant stuff reminds us of our own. After all, that’s why we started Myows. Stephen has helped us with technical issues in the past, participated actively in idea generation and debate and is one of those members who make this project worthwhile.

If you want to check out Stephen’s work – take a look at http://poxmedia.com/ and http://stephenlovell.me/ . Here’s what he had to say for himself during a recent Skype interview…
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We’ve launched our first community open letter at dear-google.com and we’d really like YOU to sign it. When it comes to addressing the big guys, there’s a fine line between ranting and sucking up. We hope we’ve trodden that line well, but we’ll leave that up to you to judge. Basically, we’re looking for new ways to create an online culture that’s  little more mindful of copyrights WITHOUT making it tougher to browse or use content. We figured this kind of dialogue may be a good place to start… Here are some excerpts:

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Jenelle Bautista, a Computer-Engineering student who hails from the Philippines. Jenelle is passionate about design and has been protecting the creations that she makes in her spare time on Myows. Jenelle recently used Myows to settle a copyright ownership spat. I love little success stories like this so I tracked her down – here’s a brief transcript of our conversation (with Jenelle’s blessing of course).

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Last week we received a very interesting question and we thought it would be good to post the question and our lawyer’s answer publicly. Here’s how it goes:

My name is Victor (UK) and i’ve just signed up for an account at myows.com. However i’ve as a upcoming house musician/producer i’ve got a question which has been bugging me for a while:
If someone approaches me wanting to remix a song of mine, how do i go about this and what role will my copyright play in this matter? Or in a case whereby I would like to remix someone else’s original work what do i do?? If there are cost implications involved, what would i have to pay for?
Please help
Kindest regards
Victor

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I’ve been asked to divulge the details behind the mysterious case that led to my involvement in the Myows project in the first place. The whole matter was fairly convoluted and I’m not entirely sure that the other party is to blame although a lot of other people seem pretty convinced. But here’s the story – make of it what you will. Just bear in mind that this is my opinion only!
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After a little consideration, I’d like to share a clause that we’ve got some great mileage out of at Engage… it reappears quite often in our client contracts. It may be of use to Myows users. It is (drum roll): The General Copyright Agreement. We use it on release forms, SLAs and project contracts amongst other things. It’s the copyright equivalent of Grandma’s allspice. It’s delicious and it goes on everything.

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