In an article published today, Mashable reports that Facebook is being sued for copyright infringement by a company called Timelines.

From the start the article doesn’t make sense. The journalist writes “Facebook was sued in 2011 for copyright infringement by Timelines, Inc (…) Facebook later counter-sued Timeslines, Inc., arguing Timelines, Inc.’s trademarks weren’t distinct enough to warrant protection and should be canceled.”

And a quick look at timelines.com confirms my suspicions that this case has nothing to do with copyright, as Facebook’s design is completely different to the accuser’s.

Instead, this appears to be a trademark infringement case, as Timelines is a registered TM evolving in the social media sphere. I found Timelines’ registered Trademark page on Trademarkia.com that asserts the TM on the word “Timelines’ for “Providing a web site that gives users the ability to create customized web pages featuring user-defined information about historical, current and upcoming events; and application service provider, namely, managing web sites of others in the fields of historical, current and upcoming events”…

While Timelines might have a case when it comes to infringement of their Trademark (which remains to be seen as the word “Timeline” is pretty generic – that’s FB’s counter-argument), we need to note two very important things:

- Ideas can’t be protected by copyright

- Journalists working in tech publications should really know the difference between a copyright and a Trademark. Copyright protects the expression of creativity (so if Facebook had copied Timelines’ design there’d be a copyright case) whereas Trademark law protects a brand’s identity (name and logo mainly) within a certain geographical and industry context- we covered this briefly when awe received our own Myows Trademark.

It will be interesting to see how the case unfolds, and I hope Mashable gets their wording and facts right next time they cover the story in their Timeline.

It is tempting to save a buck by stealing an image you find off Google – we’ve all done it – but doing so can have serious consequences.

In the KopyKat File below we humorously illustrated that Myows can come and bite back copyright perpetrators who have not read the copyright basics.

The scenario can get worse. Let’s imagine you have a side business and decide to grab an image off Google to create a quick logo. You add some text to the image and modify it slightly. You even upload it to Myows to claim copyright on your creation. (This goes against our Terms but we don’t physically check what you claim and the onus is on you to only upload files that fully belong to you)

Some time later, you receive a notice that you are infringing on someone else’s copyright (TRUE STORY). What do you do then?

In all honesty, you shouldn’t have lifted an image that doesn’t belong to you, and your copyright claim is null and void as you never had the right to use an image simply because Google has indexed it. You should apologize profusely and learn from your mistake. Don’t pull a Shepard Fairey who got sentenced to $25 000 fine and 2 years probation for creating the Obama Hope Poster!

With tools like tineye, it will become increasingly easy for people to find out how and where their images are being used, and by being lazy you could expose yourself to various degrees of legal trouble.

A nice Google Font can create very awesome typographic logos that will work great for cash-strapped businesses – You can always add a mark later when you can afford to hire a designer.

So please play it safe and Don’t steal images off Google!

In the era of content marketing, protecting your Intellectual Property is vital. And this is why a new Investment Magazine focusing on Central America contacted us.

You see, Vivatropical employs a staff of 7; writers, editors and SEO specialists to make sure they can provide unique and high-quality articles that get indexed by Google for a long list of specific keywords. Because those articles are very interesting and optimized for that niche (Latin America investment), there is a high-risk that competitors would steal their posts and Vivatropical needed an easy way to register and protect its copyright, along with a dummy-proof way to pursue copyright infringers should the need arise.

They found the perfect solution in Myows with our RSS Feed copyright registration.

Like most magazines, Vivatropical runs on WordPress and finding the RSS Feed’s address is as simple as adding “/feed/” after the homepage’s url (so in this case http://vivatropical.com/feed/ ) – with that feed added in their Myows account, each new article gets registered by Myows automatically as it gets published, and a quick search for copies allows the Vivatropical staff to quickly know if anyone is using their articles without their consent.

Kudos to the Vivatropical team for being pro-active about protecting their copyright. By taking 10 minutes to open a Myows account and adding their RSS feed they can rest assured that what belongs to them gets protected instantly, and automatically.

And you, what are you doing to protect your blog’s copyright?

If you’re an artist, web designer, writer, or blogger (or pretty much anyone else working in the creative field), you’re likely to be fully aware of the benefits of copyright. Generally it protects what is termed as an “original work of authorship” – roughly translated as including books, poems, songs, web pages, and other original works.

Copyright protection is considered to be automatic in that the author creates the copyright in the act of creating the work. As such, copyright does not have to be registered, although in order to fully benefit from copyright protection, it is necessary to assert ownership of a particular work. At a very basic level, this is achieved by marking the work with the © symbol, the date from which the copyright protection is claimed, and the name of the claimant. Multiple copyrights can be managed easily with the help of a free copyright management app. With a few exceptions, copyright lasts until 70 years after the death of the claimant.

The distinction between copyright and a trademark is not always immediately obvious; both are valid methods of protecting forms of intellectual copyright. The difference really lies in what is being protected, with trademarks more suitable when asserting right of ownership over things like brand names. There is no legal requirement to apply for a trademark, since the rights and protection associated with it are technically gained in the simple act of using the mark. The advantages of official registration include legal presumption of ownership, an exclusive right to use the trademarked name across the U.S., as well as offering a certain level of overseas rights. As in the case of copyrights, registering a trademark can be accomplished with the help of online legal services, although unlike copyrights these are not free. Compared to the potential cost of a later breach of trademark, the costs are fairly insignificant. Registrants can expect to pay in the region of $100 to $400 depending on the service required. It is up to the owner to renew a trademark. This can be completed up to six months before the tenth anniversary of the initial filing date (and on every tenth anniversary following).

One problem to watch out for is trademarks becoming generic. Some of the better known examples of this may be identified as Frisbee, Hoover, and Hula Hoop; all of which started life as a particular brand name, but have since become common vernacular. Choosing a strong trademark can alleviate the possibility of a trademark being used generically, with “made-up” names often easier to protect.

Whether you need copyright or trademark protection it pays to know the difference and do something about it either way. Otherwise you could find yourself facing difficulties in trying to prove something important is actually owned by you.

Click here to find out more about Trademarks and how they differ from copyright.

Last Month Chris and I presented Myows in front of an audience of Cape Town tech startups. Of course we can talk about Online Copyright Protection for hours, but that day we only had 90 seconds. We believe our presentation was pretty fun, so today I wanted to share the transcript with you.

Transcript/Pitch:
(Chris): So let’s be honest, we South Africans are famous for a lot of things before being a nation of tech startups.

Things like the shark, the world cup and Waka Waka.

Except Shakira is not South African and she didn’t write this song. She stole it from these poor guys in Cameroon:

You see the internet is all about sharing and that’s awesome.

There’s one little downside though: thousands of creatives like those guys in Cameroon and Max and myself get our work stolen, or “borrowed” without our consent every day.

The thing is copyright and internet go together like Jacob Zuma supporters:

And this painting of his penis (that we lifted from the internet by the way)

So not very well. Something needed to shift…

So we’ve been working on a solution to help freelancers and creatives of all kinds protect and manage their copyrights online WITHOUT being dicks.

(Max): It’s called Myows and you can think of it as BaseCamp for Copyright.

It’s a set of fun and easy to use tools that helps you prove that you are behind your work.

It lets you share, license or sell your work to clients or mega-rich corporations.

Find copies of your work online.

And close down the bad guys.

And it seems to work… Myows has protected nearly 50 000 music files, photos, blogs, designs, even home-porn movies…

… which amount to 0,1% of where we want to be.

So to protect your next million-dollar idea, please register at Myows.com and help us change the way we think about online copyright forever.

—————————
End of transcript
—————————

Find out more about how Shakira stole the Waka Waka song or about the painting of Jacob Zuma’s Spear.

We love TheOatmeal and last year we covered the FunnyJunk VS Oatmeal copyright infringement case. It just got better with Funnyjunk hiring a lawyer and threatening to sue one of our Internet Heroes for defending his copyright!

Below is a sample of the legal threats’ letter, along with Mr Inman’s (theOatmeal’s creator) in-your-face public comments:

Click here to read the full legal letter by Charles Carreon (attorney at law), on the Oatmeal’s blog, asking Mr Inman for 20 000$, and share this with everybody you know. Idiots and bullies need to be exposed and it’s not often that a copyright holder has such a sharp sense of humor when receiving empty legal threats.

Go Oatmeal! We at Myows are 100% behind you and wish to put an end not only to shameless online copyright infringement, but to this kind of uberdubious lawyer attitude.

Matthew Inman, if you’re reading this, we have a nifty solution to help you protect your Intellectual Property:

Why don’t you Sign up for a free Myows account, then register your Oatmeal’s RSS feed. That should take about 90 seconds. Myows will then help you track copies of your work online and assist in sending Cease and Desist letters to copyright thieves so you needn’t waste your time. If the pirates don’t oblige, we’ll close them down. You can then focus on creating more awesome comics for millions to enjoy while we make sure junk sites don’t go stealing your work.

Like I wrote recently in Copyright Protection for Those Who Didn’t Attend Law School,
“I’m aware that Copyright is a heated issue and only a hypocrite would claim never to have infringed on someone else’s IP. Yet as online professionals we live in an ecosystem and lawlessness is no way to interact with other members of the community. May it be in the real world or the information highway, rules are in place to ensure everyone’s right to own property, pursue happiness and the mighty dollar bill. Those individuals who blatantly ignore these rules cause damage to the whole, and if you are passive about Copyright, by the time it affects your business it’s already too late.”

Shame on you FunnyJunk and Charles Carreon, you are not shaping the respectful internet I want to see and work in.

How would you react if you were Matthew Inman and received this kind of ridiculous legal letter from FunnyJunk’s attorney at Law?

Should copyright perpetrators be allowed to monetize other people’s work without the original creator’s consent? And if bust for blatant copyright infringement, should perps be apologetic, or resort to bully tactics and legal threats?

The awesome team of developers at Myows has been hard at work to create new ways for you to register your copyright though RSS or simply create your own Intellectual Property Licenses with a Contract Generator.

As you know, the files you upload to Myows are securely stored inside your account, and no one but you or your clients can access them. But what if you want to show them off? Today we’re happy to announce a new function that allows you to share with your friends and social networks the works you upload to Myows in a very simple way, and you can even gather feedback that way thanks to Facebook commenting!

Making your works sharable is very simple:
When you are looking at your OW, click the box next to “Shared” and you will be given a link to your OW that anyone can access.

If the above is unclear, look at this screenshot that appears when you click on the thumbnail of one of your works, in this case a flyer designed for http://capsol.co.za that I now want to show off to my friends:

Once you’ve clicked on a registered work’s thumbnail, you get to this screen:

From that page hosted on our servers (for instance https://myows.com/protects/Family-Pictures/45342_Noa.jpg) you will be able to get your friends to Like, Tweet or Comment on your work.

Myows is able to display most types of file: .jpg, .png, .mp3, .pdf, .doc, .xls and many more, making sure you can securely show off your work after you’ve protected your copyright.

We have many users on Etsy asking us what the best way is to protect their copyright. So today I thought I’d publish the answer for all to see.

The simplest way to protect the Original Works you upload to Etsy is to register your Etsy RSS feed with Myows. That way every new design you upload to Etsy will automatically be registered to your Myows account, from which you will also be able to create custom licenses and detect copies of your work.

But not everyone knows what their RSS url is.

For the sake of example, I went to a random shop that is appearing on Etsy’s homepage.

The shop’s URL is http://www.etsy.com/shop/frighten (for your own shop, replace “frighten” with your Etsy username)

That shop’s RSS can be found here:
feed://www.etsy.com/shop/frighten/rss

So to register your own designs painlessly and make sure your copyright is covered as soon as an item gets uploaded to Etsy, just log in to your Myows account (or sign up for Free), go to the RSS Feeds tab, then click Add New.

The RSS URL you need to enter will be
feed://www.etsy.com/shop/YOUR-USERNAME/rss
… it’s that simple!

From then on, all new designs you upload to Etsy will be automatically registered with Myows!

Remember that you can also register your copyrights through RSS Feeds for FlickR, DeviantArt, Dribbble and many more of your accounts in a very similar way… It’s our continuous ambition to help you protect your copyrights with minimal effort required!

You can read more about it here: How to protect your blog’s copyright (and Flickr pix, and Dribbble shots, and Deviations…) and for a full independent review, head over to this article on TheNextWeb Myows rolls out automated copyright protection for content on Flickr, Dribbble or any site with an RSS feed

PlagiarismToday has always been a goldmine of information for us at Myows and many of our features, such as the step-by-step dispute resolution mechanism, were inspired by his expertise in online copyright infringement.

In today’s post on PlagiarismToday, Jonathan Bailey analyses a recent copyright case that was filmed and went viral. Watch this fascinating video:

“Duane Lester is the blogger behind All American Blogger. Recently, he discovered that an article he had written about a Missouri sheriff was plagiarized verbatim, by a local newspaper, The Oregon Times Observer, and, after asking for some advice from an attorney on Twitter, he decided to take action.” Read the full article on PlagiarismToday

Since we launched Myows Copyright Protection Solutions, a lot of our users have asked about the best way to protect their blogs’ copyright.

The solution we came up with allows you to enter an RSS feed, and from then on all new additions to the feed will automatically be registered as OWs, straight into your Myows account.

This is not only a perfect solution for bloggers, on WordPress, TypePad or Blogger, but since you can enter any RSS feed which content you own, you can also make use of the new RSS Feed registration function to protect your copyright on the pictures you upload to FlickR, the designs you showcase on Dribbble or Deviantart and many more. The possibilities are endless!

To start using the RSS registration function, just log into your Myows account (or signup for free) and look for the RSS Feeds tab.

The functionality should work with ANY kind of RSS feed, but is still “in Beta”. As always, we welcome your suggestions for improvement and bug-hunting skills.