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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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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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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Anyone know how many creative people there are out there? Current estimates put it at around 6,692,030,277. 

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.
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So Myows is all about protecting and managing… well Your OWs.

But what exactly is an OW?

The official version that you’ll find on the Myows site is: “Anything you create that is not a copy of something else and has been ‘reduced to material form’ (meaning it’s not just an idea).”

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Traditionally, creative types have been compelled to offer their work to the end-user via wealthy gatekeepers who have had access to the capital needed to exploit the work. In doing so, they have signed over most of their rights to the middlemen in return for a small percentage of the royalties earned from the sale or exploitation of their work.

With the advent of the internet, a new platform has developed for creatives to offer their work to the market without having to go through the gatekeepers. However, there is a downside: this new platform is also a breeding ground for copyright infringement.

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Consulting with expensive lawyers has never been high up on any creative’s agenda. Indeed, when their work is stolen or copied, creatives have traditionally done nothing for two simple reaons: firstly because its more hassle to seek legal help than it is not to and, secondly, because many creatives don’t actually know what their rights are.

In the world of digitization, file sharing and online publication however, the widespread copying of creative work has become a big issue, and one that can sometimes cost creatives their livelihood. Creatives need to be proactive about their rights in order to protect their work from unscrupulous idea pirates.

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