Myows – A New Online Copyright Management System

With the World Copyright Summit having just ended and new Orphan Works legislation proposed in the US, anything that can help content producers better protect and manage their copyrights is welcome. In the next couple of months a new online copyright management system called myows will be launching. I conducted a pre-launch interview with Max Guedy, designer of myows to find out more about it. Read on after the jump.

What is myows?

myows is the world’s first all-in-one copyright registration and management service.

It’s an online app that lets users date stamp and store their original works (their “OWs”), any kind of file from photos to text, designs to music.

We provide proof that our user was in possession of a particular file on a given date.

And if your work has been borrowed, stolen or copied without your consent, you can open and build a new copyright infringement case.

We’ll guide you painlessly through the correct legal steps one-by-one to have the copy removed.

We’ll even provide you with legal document templates as and when you need them, such as licensing contracts, cease and desist letters, or DMCA take-down notices.

myows also includes a copryright-focused blog, forum, legal resources and an advice column from our in-house IP lawyer Steve.

How does it work?

We are proud to have simplified a laborious process into 3 steps:

1- You upload your work to your myows account, preferably before displaying it online. We then create a certificate that guarantees the exact time of your upload.

2- If you find copies of your work click on “open new case”.

3- We provide you with the help you need to have the copies of your work removed.

That way, you can stay focused on your work and your copyright infringement case will be taken care of in the most professional and level-headed way, which, judging by reading the comments in this article http://rising.blackstar.com/how-i-scared-the-wits-out-of-a-copyright-infringer-and-why-you-should-too.html is the way to go!

Who is it directed at?

It’s directed at creatives, both professionals and non…

Photographers, painters, musos, designers, coders, writers, poets, bloggers to name a few.

Anybody who produces original content/work and who would like to protect their works against blatant theft.

A lot of people don’t even know that they automatically have copyrights on all of their creative works, so there’s an education component happening here too!

How can you do it for free?

Software scales infinitely well – so now that we’ve developed it, it doesn’t cost us anything to share it.
All that the service now requires is a lot of storage space which isn’t that expensive.

We will be displaying ads on what we hope will be a heavily-visited site, and offer “premium myows accounts” with extra features, storage space and no ads.

We also have a few more top-secret revenue ideas that will be revealed as we grow.

But to put it bluntly, we’ve engineered myows to be very cost-efficient to run.

Finally, the 4 people behind myows already run successful businesses which takes away the pressure of drawing salaries out of a new venture.

How does it differ from the US Library of Congress copyright office that is usually used by working professionals?

Good question! Please note that I started working on myows before the USCO launched it’s eCo website, and the approach is very different.

myows is free, which means we can reach and be used by more people. We’re user-friendly and provide your certificate instantly ( i’ve heard the USCO currently takes 18months to deliver certificates ). I encourage you to read this review from photoattorney about how to use the eCo interface http://twitter.com/myows/status/2030955291

. In short, the eCo interface has been criticized for its lack of user friendliness.

myows is also unique in the sense that we provide a total copyright management system. We save our users time by speeding up the process of removing copies, while building a case you can present in court. eCo provides no such service – it’s just a registration tool.

The only downside is that you can’t sue for damages in the US unless you’ve filed your copyright with US copyright office. We believe however that the majority of copyright theft cases don’t get as far as a damages suit: what most users are looking for is for the stolen content to be taken down or a licensing fee to be paid, and this is where we fit in.

To quote this page http://www.photoattorney.com/2009/05/help-ive-found-infringement.html

:

“When a photo is not registered with the U.S. Copyright Office prior to the infringement (or within three months of the first publication of the photo), a copyright owner may recover only “actual damages” for the infringement (pursuant to 17 U.S.C. 504 (b)), instead of statutory damages. Courts usually calculate actual damages based on your normal license fees and/or industry standard licensing fees. One source for standard license fees is a software program called Fotoquote. You also may recover the profits the infringer made from the infringement if they aren’t too speculative.”

Even if you file your work with USCO, it is still a good idea to upload to myows as we provide case management services that the USCO’s website doesn’t.

How does it differ from something like Fairshare that tracks Creative Commons works?

It’s quite a different offering on the whole so I don’t really know where to begin. We don’t track copies, other services already do that well. We provide proof that you had the work at a given date and help you deal with the copies you find through other services like tineye, copyscape or fairshare.

When will myows be opened to the public?

We’ll open our BETA on the 1st July – Then a public launch early August.

That concludes the interview. I’d like to thank Max and the team at myows for their time in answering these questions. Myows certainly looks to be a useful service for anyone that’s involved in creating content in any form, not just for photographers. For more information about myows, you can sign up for notifications at their website or follow them on Twitter @myows.

Please share this with your friends and contacts and retweet often. Thank you.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 24th, 2009 at 06:00. It is filed under News. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed.