But those are all my own personal happy feelings and pleasant thoughts, (probably a fair amount of ego in the mix too) shared only by my business partner and the most ardent of our team members. It’s not a public thing – at least it wasn’t until the wonderful folk at ‘ngage’ (ngage.co.za) got hold of us. (In fact their lawyers got hold of us, I like to believe they didn’t have the cojunas to call us themselves… makes you wonder). Anyway their lawyers charged us with copyright infringement and ‘passing off’ (pretending we were them: a mining PR consultancy based in another city) and hinted that we may be liable for criminal charges… we could land up in prison for our trespasses! At the time we had never heard of Ngage (complete with ‘funky’ spelling a la the 90s) and so  we bitterly contested their claim.

Now it’s fairly evident that our two logos look alike. They’re both in the commonly available font (Danube) and they both are based around versions of the English word “Engage” (although only one of them is correctly spelled). It is also apparent that both we and they (or their appointed designer) liked the “a” of the Danube font more than any other letter in the Danube alphabet. We created a meaningful device with ours and they used theirs to make a lovely rain pattern. Unlike the other guys though, I’m not going to cry fowl until I’ve talked everything over and got hold of the facts, I’m just saying that I don’t like what I see here. But here’s the thing that drove me nuts: it cost us about $2000 just to defend our own logo by responding with an equally unnecessary and vicious lawyers’ letter. And if we’d had to see this thing through to trial? We would be looking at upwards of $50,000. The only other alternative would be to close our doors or at least change our name and logo even though they were rightfully ours.

It was this very stressful, upsetting and time-wasting episode that taught me just how useless copyright law is to the man on the street if he’s acting alone. In fact, the way things work in reality can even end up costing little guys like us a fortune – just in a bid to ward off attack and prove that we are in the right.

Myows was started to put an end to all this kind of nonsense. The argument between us ultimately boiled down to who had their identity first. Again, I like to think it was us because as soon as we put a date to it (in our lawyer’s response), they ran away. But how cool would it have been to send them a C&D letter straight off the cuff. “Thanks for bringing your theft to our attention, we have proof that we created the logo on xx/xx/xxxx, so bring it on big boy…”

Myows is here so you don’t have to go through the same kind of ridiculous, expensive and draining ordeal that we did. It is because of this experience that we at Engage Brandcraft (with an E) protect our work religiously and rigorously. Please don’t wait till some ponsey twit steals your work and then tries to sue you before you do the same.

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.

We realise that there will always be skeptics and conspiracy theorists, but as for the rational majority – here’s what we’ve done to ensure that you can trust us with your work:

1. Each file is stored and backed-up on two remote, independently operated and maintained servers on opposite sides of the world. If both these servers are simultaneously and cataclysmically destroyed, the safety of your OWs will cease to be your priority.

2. A unique hash value is generated for each work at the time of upload. This is permanently linked with the file to form your OW. Basically each file is packing its own fingerprint/retinal ID, proving that it is who it claims and that it was born when it was born.

3. All databases (including hash values) are periodically filed (as recorded data) at our lawyer’s offices in a large steel safe that may even survive the cataclysm mentioned in 1 above.

4. All the leading web security standards (including SSL encryption) have been thoroughly and conscientiously applied across our app to ensure safe transfer of data and reliable verification where required. (Gmail and Basecamp only recently switched to this approach, and Facebook or Twitter have yet to follow our lead in terms of site-wide SSL security.)

5 Dave, Max, Steve and I are all really good-natured people with solid middle-class upbringings, decent (not decadent) tertiary education and friendly dispositions.

What else can we do to help you believe we’re on your side?

Plenty. But right now our focus is on getting a great service and product to people that do believe us in light of the above. Time will provide the best evidence of our intentions.

Suffice to say that we’ve gone the extra mile in building a brand that stands for integrity, safety and solidarity amongst the creative community. Ergo: there’d be little point in allowing anything or anyone to jeopardise all that.

As far as l running off into the night with our members’ work is concerned… what would we do with your OWs if we were to steal them? Would we print them all out and fold them into origami paper hats?… perhaps. Would we secretly sell them on to the highest bidder? Now that would be ridiculous.

Stealing our member’s OWs (or allowing them to be stolen) is really not a sustainable business model. If this ever happened, you can bet your cotton socks (it’s an English thing) that somebody would find out and spread the word fast. We are talking about the net after all.

We would prefer to keep our business and personal reputations in tact thank you very much.

Bear in mind that, if we breached fellow-members’ trust, we’d go down in history, not only as evil idiots, but also as irony personified. Myows would be stuffed. What a waste… even if we were the bad guys.

Which. Of course. We’re not.

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.

Myows was started as an effective response to the problem of growing copyright infringement globally – especially due to increased internet penetration and the resulting ease with which work can be stolen, copied and sold online.

In most countries, copyright is automatically assumed by the author when an original work is created. When two parties dispute copyright in a particular work, the arbitrator or judge looks at the evidence provided by both and decides accordingly to whom the copyright belongs.

The US is the only country, to my knowledge, that allows for the registration of copyrightable material but this does not require the registration thereof in order to claim copyright in the US – a common misconception.

Parties who have not registered their work with USCO still have the same essential rights as those who do so but with a two key exceptions:

- If your case lands up in a US court, you will be presumed to be the owner of the work if it was registered with USCO and the burden of proof would then rest with the other party to show that the copyright does, in fact, not lie with you.If the other party can prove that they were the original creator, then your rights – even as an USCO registered creator – will fall away, unless you could prove that the other party ceded their rights to you.

- Should they win their case, users of USCO will be able to claim punitive damages in addition to other damages. However, a non-USCO user would still be able to issue an injunction against unauthorized infringement and claim for loss of income if commercial loss can be established.

Bear in mind that these differences only become relevant if a dispute is escalated to full-blown litigation which is both expensive and time consuming and is not really feasible for many creators (especially those who consistently produce larger quantities of work).

USCO registration will likely have no bearing on cases involving cross-border copyright theft where at least one party is not a citizen of (or registered in) the US.

Myows is primarily a management app.

The protection facility is a very important part of the offering presented to the Myows community but it forms part of a wider management function.

Sure, Myows creates valid and valuable evidence for you, but it also stores and arranges your evidence along with the original files (of all kinds). The service goes way beyond registration.

Myows allows you to organize all of your copyrightable material along with associated licenses, releases and cases past and present.

Myows also gives you access to legal templates, provides you with sound legal information and helps you follow the correct procedural steps when dealing with infringements, assisting in ensuring that you are in compliance with the law.

The scope of the app will eventually extend beyond even this (for example: suggesting dispute resolution options and putting you in touch with legal advice in your area). These functions are clearly outside the ambit of USCO, they are also not at odds with USCO’s services.

Myows is free and instant.

Basic USCO registration takes a while to process and costs $35 minimum. You could also end up paying for other sundry items thereafter (Issuance of a receipt for a sec 407 deposit = $30).

If you write 3 blog articles a day or take 50 new pics a month and you want to register them with the government office, it’s going to cost you serious time and money. Myows saves you both and it is easy and enjoyable to use, whilst still creating genuine and useful evidence.

Essentially, USCO and Myows are not mutually exclusive

To be honest, if I were based in the US I would upload all my work to my Myows account. Then, when I created something very unique and valuable with an imminent and high threat of theft, I would also register that work with USCO.

And what would I do with my proof of USCO registration? I’d save it with the corresponding work on Myows of course.

Find out more about USCO at: http://www.copyright.gov/

* Footnote: Myows has been designed, in part, to represent a global copyright savvy community.

It is an app as well as a movement and we need as much support as possible if we are to achieve our goal of empowering creators and reducing the incidence of online copyright. Strength in numbers is also something to think about here if the idea appeals to you too!

This situation can come about for a number of cases

One example is when an unscrupulous third party is involved. For instance, a respectable company may hire a shifty “designer” to design a new logo and end up with copied work which they end up trying to defend a few years later by suing the actual owner.

Another possible scenario is subconscious copying. On a small level we all unknowingly copy parts of each other’s ideas, ‘looks’ and styles every day, the question here is where to draw the line and the law is usually pretty specific about that.

But perhaps the greatest cause of these confusingly common “perp-free” cases is simply that sometimes two people come up with bizarrely similar work at the same time. No!… Yes! Why?

Because 1) There is nothing new under the sun and 2) we all operate in the same or similar Zeitgeist* especially in today’s globalised and online world.

It’s also becoming far easier to find similar work because of the sheer number of creative’s operating on the web.

Your next great piece of copy is a result of your inspiration and approach that, in a global world, may be frighteningly similar to mine. And your resulting work may be too (especially if it’s simple work  – a four word payoff line or a clean, simple logo or name).

If you’re at the edge of your art/science, look to the left and right of you. You’re not alone. It’s possible that others are stepping on remarkably similar territory, coming from the same collective sources of inspiration, solving the same problems, developing at similar speeds, and approaching their crafts using the same tools and methods. Remember Nylon? Invented, so the story goes, in New York and London separately but simultaneously.

Take for example the proliferation of ‘love brands’ three years ago. Love was, very literally, in the air: Love your skin^TM, love yourself ^TM, juice is love ^TM, we are love ^TM, I’m lovin’ it^TM . love love love… grey is the new black, yellow is the new grey. Then there were the three word payoff lines: simpler, better, faster ^TM; today, tomorrow, together ^TM, “word, word, word”.

Recycling is in (so too is brown paper and energy saving ‘dark sites’), bling is out… oh no wait, it’s back in. Illustrator has a new gradient plug-in, the word “unfriend” has just been added to the dictionary.

Design, writing, photography, all of the creative arts sit on a greater platform called zeitgeist and as we develop together similar ideas and work emerges from entirely disparate sources. It happens.

Now bear in mind that blatant copyright infringements are also commonplace

The danger of the whole zeitgeist thing is that it can be branded about as an excuse.

Naughty naughty.

But in cases such as these, more so than in any other, it boils down to WHO WAS FIRST. See where I’m going with this? And remember my zeitgeist take on things is just my take on things – perhaps another of the subjective tirades I seem to be so fond of. But then again, perhaps you’ve had mysteriously similar thoughts yourself? Perhaps we’re standing together at the cutting edge of copyright philosophy? Perhaps you yourself are a writer and you’ve written/are writing a little piece similar to this yourself? Maybe it’s very very similar.

Whatever the case, I’m cool with it. But be warned: if you do in fact copy me then sleep with one eye open. I’ve already uploaded this article on Myows.com and I WILL take you down.

*Zeitgeist roughly translates to “the spirit of the time”. See more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist

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.

Everybody is creative

I was first introduced to this preposterous notion at Vega (the brand Communications School) where I studied for my honors year (long story). At that time, around 2005, I thought that this claim had more to do with their broad-based marketing approach than scientific fact… anybody can study here!

Admittedly I still lack any actual evidence to support their theory. But I like it and… well hey, we all have a right side to our brain. The current educational, economic, political and philosophical status quo is definitely biased to the side of logic and reason (the proverbial ‘left side’) so we may not all have been in touch with our creative sides but they’re there and for many, they’re just waking up.

If we are capable of counting and tying our shoelaces or at least of blinking or burping, we can probably also have a creative thought even if it’s just a 9-word joke or a doodle. Most of us don’t carve out our careers in typical ‘creative’ industries but even doctors and pilots do the odd creative thing.

Lawyers and accountants have been known to be very creative indeed (think Enron). I like to think that the guys that swing past my apartment every day and pick up our trash are fairly creative too. If you could hear the names they call my next-door neighbor when she jogs down our street, you would probably agree.

Now remember: we have copyrights in everything we create, as long as it’s original, substantive and reduced to material form (see Myows’s definition of Original Work).

Creative Anarchy

And since 21.3% of the world’s population has access to the internet, you can expect a massive and growing body of original creative content, even if most of it is rubbish. (there were 5.3 billion videos streamed on Youtube this time last year). So here’s the deal (and then I’m done):

1)   Everybody is creative

2)   The internet has given millions of people a creative outlet, a broadcast medium and hence is at once stimulating and providing access to creativity on a ridiculous scale

3)   Since it’s extraordinarily easy to lift work off the net and publish it as your own, expect a period of anarchy and free-for-all-ism to follow shortly as we all adjust to a new creative paradigm (expect “narrowcasting”* too but that’s for a whole other article)

Our response is twofold

Firstly redefine what you see as a creative person. More or less 50% of every human’s brain sits on the creative/intuitive side so being a creative doesn’t make you special. Being a good creative (one that other’s want to follow and even pay) – now that’s a privilege. Expect some serious competition.

Secondly, start treating your creative skills and their fruits with the respect and caution they deserve. Things are going to get messy and confused out there so make sure if you make a living of creative work that you protect your rights as you work (you guessed it: Myows), that you keep up to date with what’s happening out there and that you constantly scan for similar work.

Final thought

Other than that, enjoy living on a more creative, expressive and colorful planet than any previous generation has ever had the privilege of inhabiting!

*More on narrowcasting at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Narrowcasting

Some are ridiculous, some are based on precedent but many I have just made up because I am feeling inspired.

If you have more suggestions or creative uses of Myows to share, just leave a comment.

Please remember that the real reason Myows is here is to protect and manage your copyrights.

If you really wanted, you could also:

1)   Get together with other Myows users and play the world’s most certifiable game of ching chong cha (rock, paper, scissors) by all uploading pics at the same time.

2)   Upload plain invitation text to an infringement-themed party then issue Myows certificates for everyone you want to invite (cocktail suggestion: Piracy Punch and/or Copyright Cosmopolitans)

3)   Create a remote backup of your most important files – upload all your most important working files so that you are 100% certain that they are safe and that you can access them from anywhere in the world that you may be.

4)   Create a reliable legal repository, keeping copies of all your most important legal documents (birth certificates, ID and passport, leases, contracts etc.), dated, verified, secure and in one place.

5)   Make a Point: Write down your secret thoughts to be revealed at a later stage and prove that you had those thoughts when you had them, even if nobody was listening (you get to say “I told you so” with proof and impunity… you get to be THAT guy).

6)   Set up an account under a friend’s name and upload the logos of the fortune 500, then send them all cease and desist letters (obviously don’t actually do this – you will be sued so badly that you will probably never recover).

7)   Store your passwords to other sites, bank vaults, secret societies etc. right here where you know nobody can touch them. You can access them from anywhere, search for them and keep them in dated batches for you reference.

8)   Upload a certificate as an original work and then issue a certificate for that certificate. Continue doing so until you get bored or your MacBook runs out of batteries. Then send this certificate and a snotty letter to anyone you know who is a little OCD.

9)   Upload a whole bunch of predictions separately (winning lotto numbers, World Cup play-offs etc.), delete the ones that don’t come true and then phone the media and tell them that you are the new Nostradamus and you have proof.

10)  Leave an uncontestable last will and testament complete with unalterable date – simply leave the access codes with your lawyer or in your secret safe.  You could also really surprise everyone here with eccentric naked pictures of yourself.

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).”

The list of file types that Myows accepts provides further clues:

Images (.jpg | .gif | .png | .bmp | .tif | etc.)
Video ( .mov | .avi | etc.)
Sound ( .mpg |. mp3 | etc.)
Text ( .doc | plain text)
Vector files ( .ai | .id | etc.)
HTML files
Animation ( .fla | .swf )
Code
Presentations

But that still doesn’t fully demystify the OW in all its multi-faceted glory. We’re looking for a definition here. Myows is a legal service and so most of the definitions and processes provided to members have their basis in the law.

This is where the system gains its strength. Even though the courts are only a last resort, it’s good to know that you’re working with a system that has been designed to fit legal requirements should your copyright disputes ever come to that.

The idea of OWs is a simplification of the legal notion of a substantive and original creative work that has been reduced to material form – this is required for you to claim copyrights in said material. The word OW is an acronym; it stands for ‘original work’. Let’s break that apart.

ORIGINAL

Firstly an uploaded file needs to be original in order to qualify – it cannot be a copy of something that already exists.  The exact definition of what constitutes ‘original’ depends on the type of work you’ve created. It may help to start off by looking at what the law considers to be a copy – ie: Not original.

In some cases this is clearly defined – such as lyrics that include a certain number of the same words in a row would be considered copied. Same with musical notes.

Images, film and artwork are a little more tricky. If the work is a ‘carbon copy’ then, clearly, the unauthorized copier is in the wrong. If the work is completely different she/he is safe. Anything in between needs to be decided by a competent court or arbitrator or judged by the public at large.

Original also means that the work needs to be unique and ‘ownable’ in nature… it needs to be distinct. You can’t claim copyright of the word dog for instance. Nor can you claim the word dog in Times New Roman as your logo. You also can’t claim the musical note ‘C minor’ as your own. Beware the overly simple OW – it may not be an OW at all!

Really complex OWs on the other hand may include multiple rights. For example, you can definitely claim your design for a new type of suborbital passenger aircraft. Such a design is definitely not in the public domain (as the word dog and the blue circle are) but if somebody challenged you and claimed ownership of a similar design, you’d have a complex battle on your hands.

OWs as complex as this often consist of thousands of smaller parts, designs and technologies which are not only copyrightable but also patentable – a separate and specialized branch of copyrights a little like trademarks.

WORK

Secondly, the work in question needs to be… well, a work.

An idea is not a work, a work needs to be ‘reduced to material form’.

Back to our example of the suborbital aircraft. The idea of a suborbital passenger aircraft is a good idea.

But it’s just an idea. You can’t have copyright in an idea.

Floor plans, engineering blue prints, logos, ad jingles, uniform designs, recipes for in-flight meals, etc. etc. etc. etc. – now those you can own.

So Original Works (OWs) then are substantive plans, designs, arts, writings etc that you created and that are unique and original (they wouldn’t exist if you didn’t exist).

Copyright law does depend, to some extent, on the law of the country, territory or region that you’re looking at. Generally however, copyright laws have been internationally standardized and last between 50 and 100 years after the author or creator’s death.

(find out much more at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copyright)

During infancy there was blue

Back in October 2008 the myows concept was in it’s infancy, and our mockup looked very different. We were then concentrating on defining what the app should do to help creatives with their copyrights, and slowly coming up with a corporate identity for our yet-to-be created start-up.

Chris, the branding expert of the team, submitted an early comp with this logo:

Albeit very different from the final result, I think it’s important to note that most branding elements from this early proposition have made it all the way to the current logo :

1. If you look around myows, you’ll notice a pronounced use of blue and white. This is directly related to the initial branding approach as seen on the early logo above. Blue expresses reliability, sociability, trust-worthiness and technology.
2. The blue bar under the letters OW, to symbolize the protection of Original Works.
3. Playful characters, because online apps should be fun to use
4. Lowercase typography

This was a very early mock-up, and as much as it looked professional, it doesn’t display properties that would allow it to be featured on logo design galleries, which I think is necessary to entrust logo designers into protecting their work with Myows.

So I took it one step further.

Childhood was about space exploration

One sunday afternoon I was sitting in my lounge and sketching furiously while my fiancée was watching reality TV.

I wanted to come up with a revised logo that would:

1. Make use of a mascot.
2. Incorporate the spirit of pioneering new territories, and of “being the first”.
3. Be both original and conceptual, as to maybe be featured in logo galleries.

For the mascot, I had a cat in mind, as phonetically the name “Myows” suggests cats. But I would need to give it some groove. And to get the spirit of pioneering I had 2 historical moments in mind: the Land Rush in the US, and the first moon landing.

I took inspiration from the Jamiroquai emblem I use to draw everywhere as a teen, and NASA pictures of Neil Armstrong (wether these were taken out in space or in a studio remains a debate):

And I came up with this sketch in November 2008:

Teenage years find their groove and deliver a promise

The partners agreed that the sketch represented a good direction to follow, so I started thinking about tracing it into a mascot.

At that time came out Smashing Magazine’s Showcase Of Clean And Minimalist Designs and I was immediately attracted to the graphic style on HUGE Inc.‘s header:

Following this boldly minimalist approach, we were able to display the Myows spacecat, our new mascot, on a very simple landing page in early December 2008:

This version did have a certain groove to it, but after a few months, as we were building on the core functions of the app, I realized that this first mascot lacked some boo-yah!, and I was too involved to come up with something fresh.

I firmly believe in hiring the best people for the job so I contacted one of the hottest illustrator and logo designer in the world to get outside help.

Our copyright app’s logo reaches design maturity

I’m a huge fan of Von Glitschka, and we were ecstatic when he agreed to take on this logo redesign project, while still keeping the initial branding elements.

The result was beyond my expectations, showcasing a custom typeface and a mascot with attitude that is both original and impressive.

We knew then that we had a winner, and the Myows logo is being featured on a growing list of leading logo galleries, including:

1. Creattica
2. Logomoose

Two of the biggest challenges in any web application are simplicity and security.

The importance of good security is immediately obvious. The security and integrity of a user’s data is the most important thing that an organisation such as myows.com is entrusted with when the user signs up to their service… and the challenges airtight security represents are numerous.

Secure design is also not something that can be tackled on at the end of development, but must be a consideration every step of the way.

Simplicity is another very well recognised goal, however it is seldom achieved as much as it is aimed for (or paid lip service to). A simple interface or experience doesn’t mean one that is “dumbed down” or offers less capability than a complex one – even the most powerful and capable tools should aim for the simplest possible presentation. Truly simple and functional design is surprisingly difficult to achieve.

When your aim is to excel at both security and simplicity, you cannot sacrifice either one for the other, and the interaction between them can be complex. Many security procedures can make users feel like they are being made to take a longer way around than necessary.

Also one must be careful of “security theatre” – security procedures that may seem effective, and make people feel safe, but in actuality are easy to defeat (and so do not really add anything of value).When making things simpler, it’s important to realise that some things should still require a few steps or additional confirmation.

When creating the interface and interaction flow for myows.com, we faced quite a few decisions on how to best manage and balance these factors. One of the these concerned Myows’ central function – how to handle the actual timestamping and certification of works.

Many solutions around the timestamping and certification of documents and other data have focussed on digital signatures – signing works and providing users with signed versions of their files, or hashes of the file’s content to keep.

With myows.com, we decided to keep the actual work, along with the timestamp data, all together in one place. This frees users from having to deal with private and public keys, or storing their own hashes and works securely (and having to make sure these are kept safe).

As all transactions are over HTTPS, works are secure between the user’s computer and Myows, and cannot be tampered with. Once the works are with Myows, we store them in our secure system – nothing else is required of the user.

This solution satisfied our goals of being safe and straightforward to use and understand, without sacrificing any functionality – actually, it’s more convenient and useful than having to keep track of hashes, keys, etc. It also makes for more reliable evidence at the end of the day as opportunities for tampering are non existent when evidence is stored by a neutral and reliable third party.

This kind of balancing act is guaranteed to turn up many times in any project – however by staying flexible and aware of the overarching design ideals, very rarely should one goal have to be sacrificed for the sake of others.

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.

Aside from the highly-publicized battles raging between the recording and movie industries vs housewives and students, many smaller creative firms and individual freelancers that sell their wares online are simply being robbed blind.

Copyright infringement is facilitated by technology

Digitization and convergence of technology has made it very easy and cheap for idea pirates to pilfer the creative works of others and to pass them off as their own. Digital data can now be easily copied, compressed and transferred rapidly to a number of different formats without any loss of quality. It is cheap to do and many people, even those with a limited knowledge of computing can do it. Dave O’Reilly just wrote a very good article on the subject: Technology meets copyright.

The world’s governments have passed a number of new laws to try to protect the rights of creative people but these laws are often limited by geographically boundaries. In the online world, there are no geographical boundaries. This makes it harder to not only catch the culprits but also to enforce legal rights in foreign courts and to get compensation.

A solution to online copyright infringement is available

What is needed is a proactive approach to copyright protection by the individual creatives themselves. Unfortunately, a hangover from the traditional model has been that creatives are ignorant of their rights because they always relied on the middlemen to protect their work. After all, it is the middlemen who had the most to lose from copyright infringements. Knowing their rights and utilizing the right tools to protect those rights will go a long way to solving this issue.

Thankfully, the free-market finally seems to be catching a wake-up and providing some interesting and at times unorthodox methods and tools to empower the smart creative and assist in establishing and protecting her or his copyright. One great example is myows.com.

It’s based on a simple logic:

1. At the end of the day, deterring copyright thieves or having copied material removed or destroyed requires that you give them a good reason to do so (they’re thieves after all)
2. This, in turn, requires that you have a decent case and are prepared to pursue it (infringers are unlikely to bow to empty threats).
3. A good case means good evidence (the best evidence in fact)
4. One of the most important pieces of evidence in the average copyright case is the date on which you can prove that you were in possession of your work.

Sites such as Myows help you do just this by allowing you to create reliable third party proof as you work. The app also has some nifty features that help you pursue infringers and build a case when you find your work has been copied. If you’re a creative type and you take your work seriously, take a few moments to explore your copyright protection options online!