Wim from sitebase.be is a popular developer on the envato marketplaces.

Thanks to your votes his OWIT WP Plugin – that allows you to protect the copyright of all your WP Media files – won a cool iPad in our 4-Step API Challenge.

Well done Wim, thank you for the picture and you’re very welcome!

But those are all my own personal happy feelings and pleasant thoughts, (probably a fair amount of ego in the mix too) shared only by my business partner and the most ardent of our team members. It’s not a public thing – at least it wasn’t until the wonderful folk at ‘ngage’ (ngage.co.za) got hold of us. (In fact their lawyers got hold of us, I like to believe they didn’t have the cojunas to call us themselves… makes you wonder). Anyway their lawyers charged us with copyright infringement and ‘passing off’ (pretending we were them: a mining PR consultancy based in another city) and hinted that we may be liable for criminal charges… we could land up in prison for our trespasses! At the time we had never heard of Ngage (complete with ‘funky’ spelling a la the 90s) and so  we bitterly contested their claim.

Now it’s fairly evident that our two logos look alike. They’re both in the commonly available font (Danube) and they both are based around versions of the English word “Engage” (although only one of them is correctly spelled). It is also apparent that both we and they (or their appointed designer) liked the “a” of the Danube font more than any other letter in the Danube alphabet. We created a meaningful device with ours and they used theirs to make a lovely rain pattern. Unlike the other guys though, I’m not going to cry fowl until I’ve talked everything over and got hold of the facts, I’m just saying that I don’t like what I see here. But here’s the thing that drove me nuts: it cost us about $2000 just to defend our own logo by responding with an equally unnecessary and vicious lawyers’ letter. And if we’d had to see this thing through to trial? We would be looking at upwards of $50,000. The only other alternative would be to close our doors or at least change our name and logo even though they were rightfully ours.

It was this very stressful, upsetting and time-wasting episode that taught me just how useless copyright law is to the man on the street if he’s acting alone. In fact, the way things work in reality can even end up costing little guys like us a fortune – just in a bid to ward off attack and prove that we are in the right.

Myows was started to put an end to all this kind of nonsense. The argument between us ultimately boiled down to who had their identity first. Again, I like to think it was us because as soon as we put a date to it (in our lawyer’s response), they ran away. But how cool would it have been to send them a C&D letter straight off the cuff. “Thanks for bringing your theft to our attention, we have proof that we created the logo on xx/xx/xxxx, so bring it on big boy…”

Myows is here so you don’t have to go through the same kind of ridiculous, expensive and draining ordeal that we did. It is because of this experience that we at Engage Brandcraft (with an E) protect our work religiously and rigorously. Please don’t wait till some ponsey twit steals your work and then tries to sue you before you do the same.

The Copyright Desert

Nearly 2 years ago, Chris and I started thinking about how we could, as creatives, efficiently manage our Copyright. The landscape was empty and dry – think the Kalahari on a hot summers day.

And so, inadvertently, we started gardening: irrigating and sowing. We were growing copyrights. Truth be told, we had no idea what we were getting ourselves into, or the amazing opportunities that would come out of it all – but we knew we needed such a service and that kept us going.

After 16 months of countless late-night meetings, pre-sunrise Skype convesations with Dave in Singapore and Sundays spent researching and brainstorming (we all run very busy agencies during the week) – Myows launched in early November 2009. We did all this for you as much as for protecting our own agencies’ IP and in many ways, Myows is a community-focused solution to solving a global piracy problem.

The Communal Oasis

I’m no hippie, but I like to think of Myows as a kind of community-maintained Copyright Oasis – a garden of potential, if you’ll indulge me. As with all fledgling gardens, the soil is good and the conditions are optimal for growth! There are few young trees and some flower beds, but lots of room for planting new seeds and bringing more life into the picture – and we need you, our users, to nurture it and make it grow into something amazing that belongs to all of us. Think of it as cultivating a copyright culture, copyright consciousness!

Planting Seeds, Growing Gardens

There are various ways you can contribute to improving the Copyright Community Garden:

1- invite your friends to the Party
Myows is community-focused and we take pride in attracting talented and savvy creative professionals who value the importance of their work. Our community is a supportive one and we’d love to count your creative friends amongst it’s ranks. Also, by recommending they visit Myows, you are doing your friends a favor. It’s free, easy to use and helpful in the face of copyright infringement. After giving the link, tell them they must pay for the beer next time you see them. And remember: safety in numbers, the bigger our garden the harder it’ll be to ignore!

2- Plant a seed with our API

We’ve released our very comprehensive API along with a fun API contest where you can win an iPad or 1000$.

We’ve worked hard on it, even submitting a tutorial to Nettuts detailing how to create an App using our API.

If you are code wrangler, this is a perfect opportunity to plant your seed in our garden and watch it grow. That’s what we’re after, for our community to plant a handful of seeds, no need for full-grown trees if you see what I mean. That way, you can experience the thrill of watching your seed grow and be shaped by the other members’ feedback, and who knows, you could be the next Lauren Brichter, or at the very least carry huge respect from all of us.

3- Proudly Promote the Fruits of our Work

a – If you run a blog, write a small review describing what you like about Myows, and maybe slip in some suggestions for improvement. We’re listening. Last Month, Ben Ellis wrote an awesome review of Myows on his blog. Thanks Ben!

b – If you have a portfolio site, tell your visitors proudly that you’re part of Myows, it will make you look professional and warn would-be thieves that they shouldn’t mess around with your work. We’ve prepared various sized banners available here or you can make your own by using our Design Kit. Again, feel free to share your creations with the rest of the community, it’s all in good spirit. For example, Nicholas Lee placed our Myows deterrent banner in the footer of his Portfolio Website. Thanks Nikky!

c – If you place your work on 3rd Party site, such as Logopond, DeviantArt, CarbonMade or Themeforest, remember to place a Myows deterrent banner, as statiscally, the sheer size of the traffic that sees your work on these respected websites is sure to have a few malicious elements. DeviantArt Photographer Jusuart protects his work with Myows and makes sure others know. Thank you Juha!

d – For any kind of website, do like the very popular Animhut who has beautifully integrated the recommended Myows banner in their sidebar. Thank you Sri Ganesh.

So what do you plan to do to cultivate our Oasis?

As pointed out in part 1 of this article, crystallizing your creative business basically involves gathering, mapping out and securing the intellectual property that makes your business unique and valuable. (You may want to read that again).

We do this continuously at Engage Brandcraft – it’s a ongoing work in progress. I think it would need to be in any creative business unless that business has been going for 40 years and the secret recipe hasn’t changed in all that time (as in: not even a new billing system has been added to the mix).

To be sure, there’s no hard and fast way of doing this – the more unique your approach, the more unique your outcomes. I’m only giving you a big picture starting point.

In a nutshell, our cycle consists of three distinct stages but I don’t think that matters either, as long as your end goal is to give structure to the methodologies, approaches and supporting collateral that make your work different and brilliant. Any ideas or input into this would truly be welcome by the way as we intend to continue revisiting this periodically as our business grows and focuses.

The broad brush strokes:

1. Examine the work flow of a typical job from beginning to end and record this on an enormous piece of paper with loads of extra room – see how many details you can record without straying from the aforementioned constraint: “typical”.

Digitise it and save it in a workable/editable format. Make it visual and make it your own. Try to focus on aspects of you approach that are different or unique. Coin terms for them where possible – you may be able to take ownership of these. Then save this chart as an OW on Myows – it’s valuable. Refine and add to this whenever you can. If it ever comes time to sell your creative business this will be the first thing you’ll want to show prospective buyers.

2. Try to find a few moments, documents or processes in this flow that you can own. Important qualifying criteria: the moment, document or process you’re recording was itself the result of a creative process (it’s original) and it can be reduced to material form. Make it as distinct and authentically ‘you’ as possible. Then save that as an OW too.

3. Then use that workflow as a guide for your next new client. Keep an eye out for what works and what doesn’t. Add to it as you go and throw away elements that are cumbersome. It must be a natural fit, you’re not trying to be something you’re not. Remember, everyone uses some sort of process – we’re just taking things up a notch. Remember to update the relevant OWs as you go.

There are three success criteria I look out for here. The resulting process-based intellectual property must:
• Save us time in the long run – otherwise I’m creating admin
• Add value to our client’s (and our team’s) overall experience
• Help us ensure consistent outcomes and quality solutions

One really great and immediate benefit from this otherwise long-term undertaking is a sense of accomplishment, past and present. We were genuinely astounded when we stood back and looked at just how much of our thinking and hard work was stored in the little IP moments that we’ve created over time – seeing everything in the context of the whole.

It’s great to take stock of the value that’s inherent in your approach. It’s that value that informs your client experience, guides interactions and contributes to your creative processes. And it’s that value that makes your business, well, valuable.

ONE MORE NOTE OF CAUTION: I thought of limiting these thoughts to the commercial creative (eg. designer) as opposed to the expressive creative (eg. artist) – but an artist friend of mine pointed out that he has mapped out his own IP to great effect and told me to get over myself. The commercial/artistic distinction is apparently very last season anyway.

Here are a number of simple actions that will help you take ownership of your creative business ideas before you divulge them. The more proactive you are, the better protected you’ll be.

This article is the response to a recent question prompted by my last article: Crystallizing Your Creative Business (Part 1).

I come across the same brand of apprehension and hesitation amongst a lot of would-be creative entrepreneurs. I know I felt the same in the past when I’ve been looking to pitch my business plans and ideas to potential stakeholders (be they prospective partners, clients, suppliers or financiers).

The problem with ideas is that they seem to be so easy to steal. “I show it to you… then it’s yours too”. In reality, this need not be the case. Let me share some techniques that helped put my mind at ease. Please feel free to add your own thoughts and experiences in the comments section. These are just mine.

First suggestion: reduce that idea to material form in some way that crystallizes value.

Remember: YOU CANNOT COPYRIGHT AN IDEA! Ideas are a dime a dozen, it’s the recipe and the resolve to actually realise that idea that will turn it into gold. The resolve is up to you but the recipe… you’ll need help protecting that.

Point of departure: find a way of making your product or service unique – some way you can take ownership of it. Develop it into something concrete that you can own. As it happens, this is the same trick that’ll help make your business successful at the end of the day so it’s a worthwhile endeavor.

The idea for quick take-away burgers that you can buy without getting out of your car is NOT COPYRIGHTABLE. The recipe, the floor layouts, the brand name, the secret sauce – these have IP that you can protect and own.

Second suggestion: upload the related files to Myows so you have some proof that it was in-hand when you say it was.

You’ll also have Myows there to help you take action if they do run away with your work. Safety in numbers!

Third suggestion: Maximize deterrents.

So yeah, that CA comes in handy here – it shows that you mean business, it also acts as a record of your meeting and the fact that you showed them documents X and Y on date Z (a date that occurred after the date when you protected your work on Myows… taa daa).

You’ll also find deterrent banners and other psychological help here or on your Myows profile. Free and easy to use.

Better yet, make friends with a lawyer (give him a 5% share) and invite him to your meetings with you.

One thing to bear in mind about all this is that, if you can show your strategic acumen and creative genius to the company or people you are approaching, they will usually see you as a valuable asset/partner. Most small companies/financiers/potential partners don’t have the time, energy or capacity to take your idea and run with it. You are the fire starter, you have the passion and the knowledge. If you don’t, get it fast or walk away.

*NOTE: this is especially true of smaller companies and individuals with a solid track record and reputation. And make sure you’re talking to somebody that has a decent reputation to protect – more on this below…

Another thing to bear in mind: Do your homework on the company or individual that you are approaching. The web is a wonderful tool for getting the lowdown in situations like this.

Spend an hour digging. If you come across dodgy tales: run. Screaming. And remember that if you have a dodgy experience yourself, shout it out so the next guy doesn’t get burned to. Us clever creative types need to get each others’ backs a whole lot more than we do right now. Again: safety in numbers.

At the end of the day, the more closely you tie yourself with your idea – the more difficult it will be for the other party to separate the two of you. Be the business – know everything there is to know, create valuable and related networks around yourself and protect your ideas as best you can. And if they still steal your ideas, let us know at Myows and we’ll help you kick up a serious fuss

Crystallizing (ie setting, documenting and protecting) your Intellectual Property is a worthwhile process with a very worthwhile result. It forces us creative types to take a moment and look at what makes our creative businesses unique and valuable (as distinct from ourselves as the creators within the business). Most of us are just getting used to protecting the IP in our OWS – our creations. A big and brilliant step. But what about the IP that’s sitting there in the creating, the creator, your business?

I was recently given the arduous task of gathering, mapping out and securing the intellectual property of our fledging agency, Engage Brandcraft. Yawn? Not so much. In fact, if you run a small creative agency or are building your profile as a freelancer, you may enjoy this.

The basic premise is simple: your creative business is not a sustainable entity unless you have created value outside of the people and infrastructure of which it currently consists.

The golden question: if your key staff members leave or your studio burns to the ground, will your business still be there? Generally, with small creative businesses, the answer is no unless you take ownership of the intangibles around your business too – and, ironically, this means making them tangible in many cases.

Let me offer you a concrete example of why this is a good idea. You’re a freelancer and you create great WordPress templates. Your business is called “Monkey Bits” and you make packets of money selling them through a super-cool service like Themeforest. You even hire an assistant to develop on your behalf. You tap into some freelance networks. You start a custom development wing. Your reputation grows.

People ask for Monkey Bits by name. You’re cooking. So you decide to sell up and move to Bali so you can surf every day and call everybody “dude” again. But, oops, you have nothing to sell… not in the traditional economic sense any way. You see, you don’t have a product (other than the templates you’ve produced in the past) nor do you have a ‘means of production’ – unless by that you mean a Mac – but that doesn’t make you unique it makes you just another guy with good taste.

Turns out your business = you. And since selling yourself would preclude your moving to Bali, you land up in a quandary.

This is why we need to spend some time creating structures that will stand up even without us inside. It’s one surefire way for creative people to create value that they can own outside of themselves, building capital for themselves instead of only for other people. It takes a long-term perspective.

A NOTE OF CAUTION: like everything in life, I’ve realized that this is about balance. Most creative’s are fairly right-brained and so this advice is a balancing nudge to the left… quantify, validate, secure…. But if your left-brain is a little worked up too you could end up becoming a Process Nazi. Nobody wants to be one of those. Using worksheet 7b to come up with a creative concept is nobody’s idea of fun. It’s not about telling your team that their response time to a client’s request for more colour options cannot exceed 8.5 minutes – unless they fill out the green form and fax a copy to you (in Bali). Who faxes anyway. So yes – balance.

In part 2 I’m going to take a look in how we’ve been going about crystallizing our business at Engage Brandcraft (it’s an ongoing process) and give you a glimpse of the kind of criteria you may want to apply to your own process.

The web is currently buzzing about Twitter’s acquisition of Tweetie and this move is having unexpected consequences for the Twitterverse: dozens of businesses who were built on top of the Twitter API will now have to live in Tweetie’s shadow (renamed Twitter for iPhone) and choose between closing down or finding new avenues to explore.

So what does this have to do with Myows?

By everybody’s opinion, there are too many Twitter apps. But we have a solution for the global programmers’ community: Follow Myows

I’m not talking about following us on Twitter ( @Myows ). No. I’m talking about following us in our fight to curb down copyright infringement and help creatives worldwide help themselves.

The revolution is in it’s infancy but gaining fast momentum; so now is a great time to jump on board and make a name for yourself by creating some new, awesome, gob-smacking ways to interact with our platform.

And how are we supposed to do that?

The answer holds in 3 letters: API. Our development team has spent a great deal of time getting the API ready for release and last week we published both an API challenge in which everybody is a winner, and also a neat video tutorial showcasing how to create an app by using the Myows API.

We’re here to help with any question you may have. We’re doing our best to grow Myows’ reach and community, and to get to where we want to be, let’s be honest, we need you.

So before you start mapping your next Twitter app, I’d like you to ask yourself: “Does Twitter need me, my skills and a new app? Will i make a difference in the Twitterverse?”

…

I didn’t think so.

Then go back to the above question and replace the word “Twitter” with “Myows”.

There we go!

Follow us now, our API is calling for you and together we can make a big difference.

This situation can come about for a number of cases

One example is when an unscrupulous third party is involved. For instance, a respectable company may hire a shifty “designer” to design a new logo and end up with copied work which they end up trying to defend a few years later by suing the actual owner.

Another possible scenario is subconscious copying. On a small level we all unknowingly copy parts of each other’s ideas, ‘looks’ and styles every day, the question here is where to draw the line and the law is usually pretty specific about that.

But perhaps the greatest cause of these confusingly common “perp-free” cases is simply that sometimes two people come up with bizarrely similar work at the same time. No!… Yes! Why?

Because 1) There is nothing new under the sun and 2) we all operate in the same or similar Zeitgeist* especially in today’s globalised and online world.

It’s also becoming far easier to find similar work because of the sheer number of creative’s operating on the web.

Your next great piece of copy is a result of your inspiration and approach that, in a global world, may be frighteningly similar to mine. And your resulting work may be too (especially if it’s simple work  – a four word payoff line or a clean, simple logo or name).

If you’re at the edge of your art/science, look to the left and right of you. You’re not alone. It’s possible that others are stepping on remarkably similar territory, coming from the same collective sources of inspiration, solving the same problems, developing at similar speeds, and approaching their crafts using the same tools and methods. Remember Nylon? Invented, so the story goes, in New York and London separately but simultaneously.

Take for example the proliferation of ‘love brands’ three years ago. Love was, very literally, in the air: Love your skin^TM, love yourself ^TM, juice is love ^TM, we are love ^TM, I’m lovin’ it^TM . love love love… grey is the new black, yellow is the new grey. Then there were the three word payoff lines: simpler, better, faster ^TM; today, tomorrow, together ^TM, “word, word, word”.

Recycling is in (so too is brown paper and energy saving ‘dark sites’), bling is out… oh no wait, it’s back in. Illustrator has a new gradient plug-in, the word “unfriend” has just been added to the dictionary.

Design, writing, photography, all of the creative arts sit on a greater platform called zeitgeist and as we develop together similar ideas and work emerges from entirely disparate sources. It happens.

Now bear in mind that blatant copyright infringements are also commonplace

The danger of the whole zeitgeist thing is that it can be branded about as an excuse.

Naughty naughty.

But in cases such as these, more so than in any other, it boils down to WHO WAS FIRST. See where I’m going with this? And remember my zeitgeist take on things is just my take on things – perhaps another of the subjective tirades I seem to be so fond of. But then again, perhaps you’ve had mysteriously similar thoughts yourself? Perhaps we’re standing together at the cutting edge of copyright philosophy? Perhaps you yourself are a writer and you’ve written/are writing a little piece similar to this yourself? Maybe it’s very very similar.

Whatever the case, I’m cool with it. But be warned: if you do in fact copy me then sleep with one eye open. I’ve already uploaded this article on Myows.com and I WILL take you down.

*Zeitgeist roughly translates to “the spirit of the time”. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist

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!

I would love to see how you use Myows, so if you are able to record a screencast and upload it to Youtube, please let me know so I can link to it.

Other video demos

- Jonathan Bailey’s in-depth video review of Myows (12min)
- Myows tutorial videos

Huh?

Yup! That’s a massive figure right? How did I come up with that one? Given a simple assumption: everybody on the planet is creative.

Everybody.

Everybody is creative

I was first introduced to this preposterous notion at Vega (the brand Communications School) where I studied for my honors year (long story). At that time, around 2005, I thought that this claim had more to do with their broad-based marketing approach than scientific fact… anybody can study here!

Admittedly I still lack any actual evidence to support their theory. But I like it and… well hey, we all have a right side to our brain. The current educational, economic, political and philosophical status quo is definitely biased to the side of logic and reason (the proverbial ‘left side’) so we may not all have been in touch with our creative sides but they’re there and for many, they’re just waking up.

If we are capable of counting and tying our shoelaces or at least of blinking or burping, we can probably also have a creative thought even if it’s just a 9-word joke or a doodle. Most of us don’t carve out our careers in typical ‘creative’ industries but even doctors and pilots do the odd creative thing.

Lawyers and accountants have been known to be very creative indeed (think Enron). I like to think that the guys that swing past my apartment every day and pick up our trash are fairly creative too. If you could hear the names they call my next-door neighbor when she jogs down our street, you would probably agree.

Now remember: we have copyrights in everything we create, as long as it’s original, substantive and reduced to material form (see Myows’s definition of Original Work).

Creative Anarchy

And since 21.3% of the world’s population has access to the internet, you can expect a massive and growing body of original creative content, even if most of it is rubbish. (there were 5.3 billion videos streamed on Youtube this time last year). So here’s the deal (and then I’m done):

1)   Everybody is creative

2)   The internet has given millions of people a creative outlet, a broadcast medium and hence is at once stimulating and providing access to creativity on a ridiculous scale

3)   Since it’s extraordinarily easy to lift work off the net and publish it as your own, expect a period of anarchy and free-for-all-ism to follow shortly as we all adjust to a new creative paradigm (expect “narrowcasting”* too but that’s for a whole other article)

Our response is twofold

Firstly redefine what you see as a creative person. More or less 50% of every human’s brain sits on the creative/intuitive side so being a creative doesn’t make you special. Being a good creative (one that other’s want to follow and even pay) – now that’s a privilege. Expect some serious competition.

Secondly, start treating your creative skills and their fruits with the respect and caution they deserve. Things are going to get messy and confused out there so make sure if you make a living of creative work that you protect your rights as you work (you guessed it: Myows), that you keep up to date with what’s happening out there and that you constantly scan for similar work.

Final thought

Other than that, enjoy living on a more creative, expressive and colorful planet than any previous generation has ever had the privilege of inhabiting!

*More on narrowcasting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowcasting