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:

“We are creative people. We are developers, photographers, bloggers, designers. We are artists. We create for a living. We create for love. Piracy and intellectual property theft harms us daily…. We would like to work together to make it harder to steal using Google…. We’d like to do this without impeding the search experience or asking Google to relinquish its impartiality. We are looking for a win-win situation”

The foundations are then laid for a simple but effective three pronged approach:

1. “Penalize pirate sites that sell illegal copies of other people’s material (images, designs, templates, text, music etc.).”

2. “Discourage non-attributing content scrapers that profit from traffic generated through stolen content (images, text, artwork, video, data etc.).”

3. “Where available, we would really like to see copyright information displayed in search results for all web pages and sites (including owner, date and author details).”

Of course, these three points are elaborated in considerably more detail on the petition site, dear-google.com.

“We believe that these three simple suggestions will help foster greater respect for original work and the creators that create them. Please consider working with creatives to implement these or similar measures by 11 November 2011. Not because we’re asking but because it’s right, very not-evil and it’ll contribute greatly to an online environment that fosters respect for content creators and their work.”

In their April Issue, Popular Science published an article about “writing your masterpiece” and recommends you protect your copyright with Myows. I quote: “Once you write it, copyright it. Myows.com is a third party verifier that helps you defend against plagiarism. (…) if someone tries to rip it off (nb: your masterpiece), you’ve got airtight evidence that you’ve penned it first.”

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.

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

Thank you Top Site Tally for recognizing the value Myows brings to any creator’s work. We’re also very impressed with the review you wrote, as we never imagined Myows to be like a warm blanket, but we could get used to the idea!

This award is a very important milestone in Myows’s short history. It’s vital that creators take on the habit of registering their copyrights as soon as they create Original Work, and before showing their creations to peers or clients.

To promote this habit, we need influential websites to relay our message and help us grow the community of copyright-savvy creatives.

As we accept this award, we want to thank our families, our managers… and the Academy!