If there is one thing that I’ve learned over the past six years of running Plagiarism Today, it’s that deviantArt is one of the most dedicated and united communities when it comes to fighting plagiarism. Few communities have shown the heart and the unity on this issue and none that I’ve seen have been as quick to rally to stop art theft.

Whether it’s the formation of anti-plagiarism groups, of which there are now several, dealing with uncooperative hosts, or tackling commercial infringement of the community’s work, deviantArt has always been there.

However, of all the cases I’ve tracked and even worked with the dA community, the most recent scandal, the Art4Love case, is perhaps the best example of it. deviantArt is a site that does not tolerate artistic plagiarism and is at war with the site’s former owner and artist, Chad Love Lieberman

The story, however, is a bizarre one and a case of an investigation that is still struggling to discover how deep the rabbit hole goes.

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July has been fantastic for your favorite online copyright solution and we are extremely thankful to witness a massive increase in Pro account subscriptions since our Coming of Age Announcement (+600%!).
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With a readership of close to half a million, the Cape Argus is Cape Town’s leading late edition daily newspaper and we were overjoyed to discover that their “Matric Matters” supplement has its copyright protected with Myows!
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We received a heart-warming letter from Australian web designer Rob Jennings yesterday, and, with his consent, decided to publish it.
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Every now and then, a question comes our way that we feel may be worth relaying to the rest of you guys along with our response. Recently the Myows team was asked: “Can I protect my Payoff line on Myows?”. The short answer is, “for sure you can” but the real answer is a little more complex…

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The Copyright Culture is growing

Copyright and how it applies to freelancers worldwide is a hot topic. Last week 2 in-depth and hugely informative posts hit the blogosphere and we wanted to share them with you. (more…)

A Typical and not so Funny Case of Online Copyright Infringement

UPDATE: A year after this post was published funnyjunk’s lawyer Charles Carreon threatened the Oatmeal

I’m a huge fan of the Oatmeal, an abrasive and hilarious comic-strip by Matthew Inman. In fact, he is probably my favorite person to follow on twitter or Facebook and brightens my timeline daily. Matthew is clearly too talented for his own good – producing Highly Original cartoons, and it is no surprise that, with very little deterrents, his work gets republished with no attribution on a plethora of dubious sites. One of which is called FunnyJunk and lives up to the latter part of the name.
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Our mandate is to create solutions for Freelancers worldwide to protect and manage their Intellectual Property in a way that is legally-sound, affordable and hopefully pleasurable.

While Myows Copyright Protection has already been recommended by Popular Science, Appstorm or Newgrounds and is often featured in roundups of most useful apps for Freelancers, admittedly our task is ambitious and therefore we welcome your support, your input and your suggestions.
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Getting a copyright is simple, it’s automatic, no paperwork required. Now we’re working to make protecting your copyright just as easy

That’s why we’ve teamed up with Facebook Connect to allow you to sync your Myows account to your Facebook profile.

First up there’s the obvious time saving advantage (no more lost passwords or sifting through all those usernames you’ve been collecting over the years). But there’s an added legal advantage too!

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We’ve received our US Trademark certificate today and thought we’d share it with you, along with a few thoughts.

Copyright protects the expression of your creativity, whereas Trademark protects a business’s identity or brand. Trademark ensures that consumers aren’t duped into buying from a competitor while believing they are buying from you or your clients. Trademarking should be part of any branding project. Trademarking is done on a geographical and sectorial basis – this means you will need to apply for trademark in every country where you wish to be covered. (more…)