We’ve been wanting to expand on our very popular Copyright Basics for Graphic Designers series and would like to know what your questions about copyright are – what is, after reading the series, still unclear to you – and how we can improve our app further to meet your needs.

Grab this unique opportunity to ask your copyright basic question and get an answer from an experienced IP lawyer

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Chris Human is a brand strategist and has been an essential and proactive partner in Myows – online copyright protection since the conception stage of the app.

He’s the custodian of the Myows brand, our public voice and is to be thanked for the carefully crafted copy we see inside our Myows accounts – as well as some wicked blog articles (like for instance The Small matter of Creative Zeitgeist or 10 Sneaky Myows Maneuvers) (more…)

We were recently shocked and stunned here at Myows to find our logo, site design etc. sitting snugly within another person’s portfolio of work, where it was being passed off as his own on his website.

Fortunately, the offending site was taken down after we alerted him to the error of his ways. But the case raised some interesting questions about what could be done legally in situations like this where someone claims your work as their own.

One of the legal options available is to claim and enforce your moral rights over your work.
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“It is better to fail in originality than to succeed in imitation” – Herman Melville.

Whether they do it for love or for money, all creatives want their work to be original. Originality is seen as the yardstick of creative skill and talent. But for the purposes of copyright protection, what is the threshold of creativity that makes a work original?

Whether they are contemplating action against an infringer, or their own work is challenged, it is important that creatives understand the concept of originality.

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Last week we received a very interesting question and we thought it would be good to post the question and our lawyer’s answer publicly. Here’s how it goes:

My name is Victor (UK) and i’ve just signed up for an account at myows.com. However i’ve as a upcoming house musician/producer i’ve got a question which has been bugging me for a while:
If someone approaches me wanting to remix a song of mine, how do i go about this and what role will my copyright play in this matter? Or in a case whereby I would like to remix someone else’s original work what do i do?? If there are cost implications involved, what would i have to pay for?
Please help
Kindest regards
Victor

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After a little consideration, I’d like to share a clause that we’ve got some great mileage out of at Engage… it reappears quite often in our client contracts. It may be of use to Myows users. It is (drum roll): The General Copyright Agreement. We use it on release forms, SLAs and project contracts amongst other things. It’s the copyright equivalent of Grandma’s allspice. It’s delicious and it goes on everything.

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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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