The issue of whether Myows is trustworthy is an interesting one.

Okay, to be honest, it’s a little frustrating. But then I guess it’s always annoying to be faced with trust barriers when you’ve started a positive initiative and all you want to do is go out there and nail bad guys. Of course, these questions are only natural at the end of the day. So here is our response.

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A lot has been made about Myows’ role (or potential lack thereof) in the lives of our American users. This is partly because US copyright law works slightly differently from the rest of the world and partly as a result of the availability of USCO (The US Copyright Office) to those stateside. Of course, the two are linked. For those who are confused, allow me to clarify:

The question essentially is this: because USCO is available to US users and certain rights are exclusively granted to parties that register their work with this authority, what is the point of using Myows? Here’s my opinion on the matter.
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In Part 3 of the series on Copyright Basics for Graphic Designers, I will look at some of the main issues that arise when you take your work online and how you can continue to protect your copyright while exploring new ways of sharing your work with a wider audience.

The internet is not public domain

One of the first myths about content on the internet is that it is free for everyone to use, copy and share. This is a dangerous misconception which can lead to some messy disputes.

Take a recent example of a photographer who found that a mainstream UK newspaper had used one of his photos on the popular photo-sharing website, Flickr, without his permission. Although the photographer had clearly posted a notice on his Flickr page that “all rights were reserved”; the newspaper still assumed that because Flickr was a free-to-use website, it hosted public domain content which was free for anyone to use.

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I was recently on one of my more vociferous tirades… something to do with prolific creative theft, copying and piracy… about the flagrant disregard for the rights of fellow creatives (and their livelihoods). How can everyone be so dishonest and selfish? As always, reason found me eventually and calm returned. This time it came in the form of a lawyer friend… She rightly pointed out that in many (if not most) cases involving copyrights there is no clear antagonist, no obvious victim. Put simply: both parties often feel that they are in the right.

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In Part 1 of our series of articles on copyright for graphic designers, I introduced you to the basics of copyright – what it is, how it can be infringed and how to protect it.

In Part 2, I will look at the traditional ways you can make money from your creativity.

Copyright is like a picnic basket with different goodies inside. You may not want everyone to share everything in your basket, and instead you want to limit what they can and cannot do with your copyright. For example: you may allow one person to publish your work as is, while allowing another to adapt it and publish a new version.

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2010 starts with a BANG! We got a great review and a grand 9 out of 10 rating from the very respectable and Envato-owned AppStorm.

As usual, there’s little point in us telling you how easy Myows is to use, and how useful the act of uploading your work is, instead we’d rather you go read the review and hear how others interact with the app.

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If you are a designer, your bread and butter is your creative work. Unfortunately, the internet and other digital technologies have made it easier for copycats to steal your work or pass it off as their own. The law of copyright is there to protect you. But if you don’t know how copyright works or how you can use it to protect your work, it is pretty useless.

In this series of articles, we hope to arm you with some working knowledge on copyright and how you can use it to protect your creative work.

What is copyright?

Without getting into the legalese, copyright is basically the right to stop other people from copying, publishing or adapting your creative work without your permission.

Looking at from the opposite angle, the owner of the copyright in an original work has the exclusive right to copy it, publish it, display it, distribute it, or make new works from it.

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Today I will demonstrate how quick and painless it is to use Myows to protect the copyright on a design.

For the 1 minute demonstration, I’m using a flyer I designed today, but it could as well be a logo, picture, or any kind of file.

The simple act of uploading my design guarantees that I have irrefutable proof of my date of possession in case an unscrupulous designer copies my work, then claims it as his own.

I could also upload sketches and source files as supporting documents, but that will be for another video!

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Top Site Tally features the best websites on the net and surprised us this morning by picking Myows.com as Site of the Day for the 9th December 2009.

We’re very happy about receiving this award. The competition was fierce; but in the end our copyright protection app won!

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