Back in August, I offered to help my brother-in-law by designing a logo for his new venture http://corprogram.co.za . Admittedly, I didn’t spend more than a few hours on it and followed his wishes to have a 3D globe instead of the letter “O” – but am still pleased with the result which I believe gives his business a professional online image.

Today, while browsing the web for pictures of “blue fire”, I came across a very similar logo for a Fire Protection Service I hadn’t heard of before:

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In their own words, “The Logo Factory® is a web-centric graphic design company that creates logos & corporate identities for companies around the world, and has been doing so since 1996.”

I was first drawn to The Logo Factory’s Blog in April 2009 during the Jon Engle saga and I found Steve Douglas’ article about the case wise and well documented.

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The Myows Twitter account was granted early access to the new Twitter interface and it’s rather yummy.

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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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Like the modern philosopher’s stone, many wonder what the secret is to being number 1 in Google

We don’t have a team of offshore “SEO experts” boosting our rankings by spamming your favorite forums and blogs’ comments.

No.

It’s just our community’s awesome recommendations and reviews that allow us to be the #1 copyright protection app in Google’s books.

Admittedly we did write an open letter to the search giant last month (in case you missed it or haven’t signed it yet, it’s at Dear-Google.com) but we haven’t heard back from them yet and I doubt handshakes would help anyone come out first in their algorithm.

But that’s not all…
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Wikipedia claims that Shakira wrote the WAKA WAKA World Cup 2010 Song, and, well, that’s not entirely true and I have proof (watch the Youtube Video below to see what I mean):

Scroll down for Shakira’s “version”

Since both Agency Zebra (my Agency) and Engage Brandcraft (Chris’s) are a short walk away from the Cape Town stadium, we’ve heard this song ad nauseam and I was very surprised to notice that the original version was so similar to Shakira’s. Intrigued, I investigated and here’s what I found:

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For centuries, the French have been known for ‘doing things differently’, for our creative flair and our boundless pioneering spirit (or at least I like to think so).

We certainly brought you Monet, the Concorde, Debussy and the croissant (sheer genius). While I’m at it, we can also take credit for the metric system (sorry to our US members!) and the not-so-humble cabaret. And then of course, there’s the bicycle and let’s not forget creme brulée.

But you can thank us for these things later. In the meantime, it seems only fitting that we also had a hand in creating Myows, the global platform to help creative folk protect the integrity and value of their Original Work through registering and managing their copyrights. But you knew that.

Even more fitting: as of today, Myows is available in French!

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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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This is just a quick note to let you know that the votes are in. Our expert panel of judges (including Max, Dave, Jonathan Bailey (from Plagiarism Today), Adii (from Woothemes) and myself) has finally come to a decision!

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