covered a new startup in the copyright verification field

However, Myows is far from the only service that that is providing instant, unofficial verification of ownership of created works. The non-repudiation field has exploded in recent years. Gone are the days of expensive registries that rivaled the Copyright Office in price (while still being unofficial in nature) as now we have fast, cheap, services that offer to preserve your work and your claim on it.

But even there these services have grown, no longer merely providing a certificate of ownership, but branching out to provide help with licensing and even with infringement resolution.

So which service should you use? It’s a tough question that depends heavily upon what your specific needs and wants are. To help make the process a little bit easier, I’ve created a chart, which I’ve embedded and linked to below, to help you decide which of the services are right for you.

The Companies

Specifically, I decided to compare the services provided by five different sites. Myows, SafeCreative, Numly, MyFreeCopyright and Registered Commons. They are five of the biggest and best-known services in this field and all have been covered on this site in the past.

A notable omission is C-Registry.us, which is more of an orphan works protection service than a non-repudiation one, though it has some functionality as such. Also, since C-Registry is targeted almost entirely at artists and photographers, making it much less useful to bloggers and other types of creators.

However, if you are a visual artist, it is likely a service that is well worth looking into, especially if you sell stock photos.

I then took a look at the companies based up on some of the most popular and requested features. The results are embedded below.

The Chart

Click for Full Size

Link to Google Doc

*Extension is out of date.

Definitions

Very quickly, I want to clarify the meaning of the elements in the chart and what they mean.

1. Cost: The cost of the service.
2. Types of Work: The kinds of files/content that can be uploaded. If a service allows “files” there is no separation between different content types.
3. Works Fingerprinted: Refers to creating a hash of a file that can be compared against later. This is often how works are verified or identified at a later date. It does not involve any visual mark on the work (watermarking) or additional tag. It’s just a unique hash of the file or work’s content that will match other copies of the work.
4. Works Stored: Are the works themselves stored on the service for backup and/or later viewing.
5. Certificate Provided: Whether or not the service provides a printable certificate for easy verification.
6. Barcode Provided: Refers to a machine-readable barcode, commonly used on physical objects.
7. Public Verification: Refers to the ability of someone unsure of the ownership of a work to submit a copy of it (or other known information about it) and see who owns or created the work.
8. Custom License/License to Individuals: A custom license is your ability to draft your own license or set new restrictions on use. The ability to license to individuals is the ability to give a person or company a license to use the work and track that license in the system.
9. Creative Commons Compatible: Whether or not users can select CC licenses.
10. Contact Author: A means to contact the author within the system, not just a profile used by the author.
11. Detection/Resolution Assistance: A Means to detect copies of the work and assistance in bringing about a resolution.
12. API Available: A means for programmers and other service providers to interact with the service, including submitting works. Some may be in private beta at this time.
13. Firefox/WordPress Extensions: Add-ons for the Firefox browser and WordPress blogging platform.
14. RSS Integration: The ability to read content from a site’s RSS and automatically register it, very useful for bloggers.

Beyond the Chart

Though the chart does an overall decent job at comparing the various features to one another, there are a few things that aren’t displayed on the chart that are worth mentioning.

1. Myows is a clear winner on the ease-of-use front, having designed a system that is both attractive and easy to use. Great for those who aren’t familiar with these kinds of services.
2. Safe Creative has a robust API and, through it, has partnered with music sharing site Jamendo to protect the works uploaded to the site.
3. Registered Commons is extremely difficult to use and is targeted mostly at creators of larger, more involved works, as the pricing strategy indicates. It also has a very powerful system for verifying author identities to provide further proof of ownership.

In the end, all of the services have their separate strengths and weaknesses. Myows, for example, is the only service to provide resolution assistance and has great handling of licenses. However, there is no public verification of works. Safe Creative is extremely feature-rich, having at least some capability on all fronts but can be confusing and intimidating to use.

Numly, on the other hand, focuses on speed and simplicity though some of its best features, its extensions, are dated and it does cost money to use it with an account large enough for most creators. MyFreeCopyright is the only one with RSS integration, which makes it invaluable for bloggers, but only has minimal licensing features and doesn’t provide certificates for content other than Web-based ones.

Finally, Registered Commons has a very robust hashing system and very powerful user identification service but all of it comes at a high cost and with a very difficult interface.

All in all, it seems every service has a great deal to offer users and a great deal to learn from others.

Bottom Line

So it all comes back to the question of which service should you use. The answer is obvious: It depends.

From where I’m sitting, both Myows and Safe Creative are clear leaders in this field. Myows is well-aimed at novices and those interested in copyright enforcement where Safe Creative is more aimed at veteran users and those who need public verification and in battling the orphan works problem.

However, I use MyFreeCopyright on this site due to its RSS integration (no reason not to) and have used Numly in the past through its WordPress plugin. Finally, Registered Commons would likely be best used by those creating works that may be considered valuable financially as their identity verification program and strong hashing may provide greater security, but at a price that isn’t practical for most.

On that front though, I am interested in your thoughts. Which do you think is the best and why?

Disclosure: Chris Matthieu, the owner of Numly, is a long-time friend and former co-host of the Copyright 2.0 Show.

As I mentioned yesterday, it has come en vogue for programmers to create simple plagiarism checkers that feed queries to Google or another search engine. The other tool commonly created is non-repudiation service, such as Numly, MyFreeCopyright, etc. that register works in their database to provide verification of ownership and time created. However, as with the new plagiarism checkers, they rarely meet or add anything to well-established and trusted services, such as the ones above.

Though non-repudiation services are never substitutes for formal registration with the U.S. Copyright Office, they can provide a stop-gap between USCO registrations and some verification in the court of public opinion. They can also help transmit license and other information, making them a potentially useful service.

Now, we have another entrant into the non-repudiation field, this one entitled Safe Creative. Though, on the service, it provides a pretty standard set of features, time and date stamp, downloading of content, etc., the service hopes that its additional features might make it a compelling alternative to competing services and that its price tag of free makes it the number one choice for creators on the Web.

But can it stand up to the established services? The answer seems to be a resounding yes.

How it Works

Safe Creative works on the same principles as virtually all other non-repudiation services. Users register for an account on the site and then set it up with their personal information.

Users can then upload the works that they wish to register. Doing so requires them to provide the title of the work, the content of the work, either as a file upload or pasted text, select the work type, select public or private registration, indicate whether they are the author, the rights holder or both, and then select a license for the work. Authors also have the option of providing an excerpt for the work, tagging it and designating an alias for it.

Once the author has uploaded the work, they are then provided with a series of buttons and badges that they can use on the work and a URL that links to the registration online (sample).

One way that Safe Creative stands out from the other sites and services is that it does not merely fingerprint the data, but actually stores the files. Whether you upload text, images, audio or video, the site actually stores the content (up to 400 mb), making available for download if that option is selected. Where other services have relied on investigators to check a fingerprint to verify the validity of a file, Safe Creative lets those interested view the file for themselves.

All of this is fairly straightforward but what makes Safe Creative unique is a series of “add on” features that it hopes will make the service more compelling, powerful and easy to use.

The Good

Beyond the standard set of features that let users upload, stamp and license their work, Safe Creative tries to expand its service offerings in a number of ways, including the following:

1. Barcodes: With each registration, Safe Creative provides a series of barcodes and labels that can be applied to the work. Though Numly has done this for years, what makes Safe Creative unique is that it provides various kinds of barcodes, including a numerical one (human readable), a regular line barcode and a data matrix one (example above). Also interesting is that Safe Creative provides the labels in 72, 150 and 300 DPI, making them viable for works posted on the Web, printed at home and printed professionally.
2. Bulk Register Feature: If you wish to register multiple works at the same time, such as all of the images in a gallery, you can use the bulk register feature. This will allow you to create a registration template and then upload many files at once to save time. You can also save the template for use later.
3. Bookmarklet: Under “Tools” in the account area, there is an IE and Firefox-compatible bookmarklet that lets users automatically register content on the Web. You can use it with any text that you select or, if you are a WordPress or Blogger user, it can pull the content straight from your post creation page, adding the title and other information in for you.
4. Advanced API: Though no applications use it yet and the features appear to be in early testing, Safe Creative has laid the groundwork for a robust API, giving all users both shared and private keys. This could easily pave the way for Safe Creative integration into various applications and platforms.
5. Pre-Registration: Finally, the site allows you to upload a work and then make modifications to it for the next 24 hours. Though any changes, obviously, also alter the timestamp, it’s a great way to fix any errors that you see in your post after submission and don’t want to appear in your final record.

But as impressive as these features are, the service also has its drawbacks and limitations. Unfortunately, some of them may hinder the effectiveness of the site as a non-repudiation service.

Some Problems

Before one jumps to Safe Creative and begins using the service, there are a few issues that need to be weighed before trusting it blindly as a service.

1. Based in Spain: Though this is not a drawback in and of itself, the site is registered and hosted in Spain. Since the effectiveness of any such service in court would depend heavily on the creators of the site testifying to the validity of the information, for U.S. residents, having the service creators so far away could pose a large challenge in that unlikely event. Obviously though, this would be a benefit for anyone in Spain or elsewhere close by.
2. No WordPress/MovableType Plugin: Though the bookmarklet reads from the WordPress write page and the API should, theoretically, make it possible to create such a plugin, one does not exist right now and there is no automated system for pulling from a feed, as with MyFreeCopyright. As such, the system is hardly “set and forget” but something that you have to remember to do with every post. This limits its usefulness by virtually ensuring that some works will not be registered timely.
3. Bugs and Glitches: As I’ve gone through the service, I’ve seen a variety of minor issues with usability. Some visual bugs caused tabs and headers in the site to break, a confusing navigation system kept dropping me onto the home page of the site and help is pretty scarce at the moment. Though you can easily overcome most of these problems with a little work, it makes the service more difficult to use and seem less professional than one would like.

It is also worth noting that the bulk import feature is somewhat limited by the fact that it only accepts file. While photographers and podcasters will likely not have an issue, there is no way, at this time, to easily import a WordPress database or a collection of content posted solely on the Web. If you do not have your content in a collection of files on your PC, you pretty much have to do the works one at a time through the ordinary process (though the bookmarklet can help some).

Though none of these problems are what I would consider “deal breakers”, they do show that the service is far from flawless and does have a ways to go before it becomes the perfect solution.

Comparisons to Other Services

Compared to other services in the field, Safe Creative fares pretty well.

The most obvious comparison is with Numly, as the features seem to be most on parity. In that regard, Safe Creative actually seems to hold something of an advantage as it provides more bar code options and is completely free for unlimited use, where Numly requires a monthly fee for more advanced accounts. However, Numly is based within the U.S., allows users to designate a licensee (thus enabling them to register each copy of a work) and has offered a WordPress plugin in the past and is likely to do so again soon (though it is currently defunct).

MyFreeCopyright, on the other hand, holds a slight edge on simplicity. Due to its integration with RSS, the site makes it easier for bloggers to get content into the system (though there is often a delay in the material appearing) but offers fewer features in terms of registration services. There are no labels, no pre-registration (Numly provides no pre-registration either) and a more limited set of licenses available (MFC is CC and “All Rights Reserved” only).

All in all, Safe Creative stacks up pretty well against the competition, providing a free, albeit somewhat more limited, alternative to Numly. However, it lacks some of the critical features that were introduced by MyFreeCopyright, but those problems can and likely will be fixed by programmers as they take advantage of the API to create the plugins and extensions that are needed.

Though Safe Creative does provide a lot to get excited about, it is far from the perfect non-repudiation service. However, with a few simple fixes and improvements, it could become something that is pretty close.

Conclusions

In the end, Safe Creative is a solid choice for a non-repudiation service. Though bloggers will probably be better off with MyFreeCopyright for the moment, it makes sense to keep an eye open for plugins for Safe Creative. If done correctly, Safe Creative not only could provide a solution more effective than MyFreeCopyright, registering works as they are created rather than once a day, but with added features.

Ideally, I think it would be interesting if a plugin for Safe Creative took advantage of the pre-registration feature of Safe Creative to register posts in the draft stage, updating them until they were registered. That way, if there were a dispute over an unplublished post, say one involving a multiple-author blog, the service could be used to verify ownership.

All in all though, it is a solid service and it would be nice to see programmers and others take advantage of the API to create some new tools.

In the end, The Safe Creative available today is really just the beginning. How useful it becomes is going to depend upon what others decide to do with it.

Here’s hoping that there are some crafty programmers that are going to do some very exciting things.

On one hand, non-repudiation is a relatively easy business to start. All you need is a means for people to upload content, a way to fingerprint it (something that is available via open source) and a Web interface to control the uploads and display the information. Once you’ve done that, you can charge for your service based on a fee system you set up.

The problem, however, is that it is very hard to do one right. Security has to be solid, so that even the admins can not tamper with uploads, it has to interact with blogging platforms and, for maximum benefit, it has to accept all types of media. This is surprisingly difficult to do while ensuring that your service could stand up in court if needed.

The question becomes whether or not non-repudiation services are worthwhile for either customers or creators. If the services themselves are a scam or if they provide some real benefit. It is not a simple question and one’s answer will vary wildly on their situation.

What is Non-Repudiation

In the broadest terms, non-repudiation is a concept of ensuring that another party can not repudiate, or refute the validity, or a certain fact, statement, etc. In short, it is a way of proving that something is true.

Most commonly non-repudiation issues deal with signatures and contracts, but also, in the case of copyright, with proving authorship and time of creation.

On copyright matters, non-repudiation usually refers to some kind of service that is used at the time of creation. Typically one submits their work to the service, where it is then fingerprinted or otherwise preserved, and a report is generated about what was submitted and when. Examples on the Web include MyFreeCopyright, Registered Commons and Numly.

The idea is that, in the event the authorship comes into dispute, the creator can then use the service to back up their claim and provide extra evidence of ownership.

Though no non-repudiation service has been tested in court to my knowledge, at least no Web-based one, in theory it could work so long as the operators were willing to be deposed and testify about the validity of their service and of the reports they generate.

This is not to say that non-repudiation is sure bet as any flaw in the system could hinder its ability to support the claim, but it does mean that the benefits and drawbacks of non-repudiation should be weighed carefully.

Potential Uses for Non-Repudiation

Even though everything on the Web is recorded in dozens of different ways, it can be surprisingly difficult to determine when something was created and by whom. The reason is that most timestamps can be changed, including blog timestamps, server clocks among others.

This can cause headaches in a copyright dispute, making it unclear who posted what first and where. Non-repudiation services attempt to resolve that by bringing a relatively impartial third party into the mix that documents the time of submission, what was uploaded and where it came from.

It is a bit like having a witness to the creation of a work but, ideally, one that is computerized, cannot lie and will be trusted to tell the truth.

However, as one might imagine, the execution is a bit more difficult than implied.

The Problems and Limitations

The biggest limitation, at least in the U.S., is that in order to sue for copyright infringement, you have to first register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office. That registration costs $35 and can take months to confirm, but it provides both a non-repudiation service and prima facie evidence of copyright ownership. Legally, it is many times more valuable than any third-party service and, since you have to do it any way to take any legal action, it is likely all one would want or need.

That being said, the USCO is a notoriously slow, difficult to use and expensive. Theoretically, though it would provide less protection, one could use a third-party service and only register when and if they felt the need to take legal action, but that creates other issues, especially around the damages that could be claimed.

The other problem is that none of these services have been tested in any court anywhere in the world. It is unclear what, if any, effect they would have on a case. The Internet Archive was tossed out in one trial due to a lack of information about how the pages were generated and it is clear that no service would stand up in court without the cooperation of the creators.

Of course, even with the support of the creators, it is hard to determine how much use such a service would be. It would depend heavily on the security protocols in place at the company and how reliable the system was. Unfortunately, we have no way to know how well it will hold until after it gets tested.

The biggest problem, however, is the cost in both money and time. Preparing works for non-repudiation can be time-consuming, depending on the service, and expensive. All for something that may do no good when it becomes necessary.

What is worse is that many of these services can promote themselves in ways that make false promises and lead creators into thinking they have rights and protections they don’t have, creating even greater problems than if the creator had done nothing at all.

In short, these services can be valuable tools, but only when used within their limitations and not relied upon exclusively.

So Who Should Use It?

The question then becomes, “When is it appropriate to use such services?”

Clearly, they can not be relied upon as the sole means of proving ownership, especially in the U.S., but they can still provide some benefit.

Consider the following cases:

1. Bloggers: If you’re a blogger, registering every entry is impractical. You can get most of the same benefit by regularly re-registering your entire site. In between registrations, a good non-repudiation service can validate when entries went live, provide proof in case a dispute breaks out in the court of public opinion and give bloggers a second line of proof compared to their own timestamps.
2. Other Countries: If you live in another country that does not have a USCO-like system of registration, a non-repudiation service may help some. Though not as strong as a government-backed system, it can some support.
3. Works Needing Interim Registration: If for some reason a work needs to be distributed on the Web or otherwise published before a registration can be completed, which is now very rare considering the USCO has an online system, an instant registration with a non-repudiation service can provide a backup until a formal one can be filed and at least offer some proof to the validity of claims of authorship and creation.

In all of this, the critical theme is that non-repudiation is no substitution for USCO registration (even if you are not in the U.S.) but it can provide some service in some cases.

However, the problem is that many of these companies, with their literature and their service, target copyright holders that will get no benefit from what they offer. If, for example, you want to register a novel before sending it to publishers, there is no reason to use a non-repudiation service, you can simply file for a USCO registration and be better protected.

The same goes for undisplayed artwork, musical pieces and so on.

The key is that non-repudiation can fill a gap in the USCO registration process that makes it impractical for many works to be registered before they are put on the Web. Anything else, almost always, would be better served by a real registration.

What to Look For in a Company

For the most part, cost and convenience are going to be the most important things to look for in such a company. Though other aspects may be what determines whether a service holds up in court, those elements are almost impossible to grade until such a situation happens. Thus, you want to spend as little as possible on the protection as reasonable.

Though you clearly won’t want to give your trust to an obviously dicey site, the less you pay and the less energy it takes to use the service, the service, the better. Ideally, it would capture your content automatically, preferably through RSS or a plugin, and do so for either free or a low monthly fee.

Since all services have an equal promise of their ability to stand up in court, no promise, these become the deciding factors.

Conclusions

Non-repudiation does have a limited role and there is definitely a need for it. There has been an unsightly gap created by the U.S. Copyright Office and its means for registration that these services can fill.

However, the role is very limited and the service is frequently pushed upon the wrong kind of copyright holder because they are more often willing to pay for any security they can get.

In the end, though online non-repudiation is faster, better and more reliable than poor man’s copyright, it is far from perfect and should never be counted on as the sole means of protection.

Still, with free and easy services available, there is little reason not to at least try them out, especially if your work can not be registered with the USCO in a timely manner for whatever reason.

In the end, what I think others should do is this: Be smart about the service(s) you choose, be aware of the limitations of non-repudiation and don’t give in to scam sites that overcharge and over-promise.

If you do that, then it can be a valuable tool that you should consider.

To fill the gap between the expensive and slow USCO system and the reality of the Web, several unofficial non-repudiation services have cropped up including Numly and Registered Commons.

However, these services have struggled to balance the elements a non-repudiation service. Numly, for example, is easy, fast has great plugins but the price point drives many away. Registered Commons, on the other hand, is thorough and free, but difficult to use.

However, a service known as My Free Copyright hopes to improve upon these systems not only by providing a completely free service, but one that is a better fit for your traditional blogger.

Fortunately, they seem to be well on their way as their service already offers some very enticing features.

How it Works

MyFreeCopyright works like any other non-repudiation service. After registering for an account, through a very short and simple form, you are then taken to a screen that allows you to choose what kind of work you want to protect.

There you are presented with three options.

The first lets you upload a file for registration, including, audio video and eBook files. The second option will allow you to registered a blog or a podcast via the site’s RSS feed. The third reads an HTML pages, extracts the text from it, and creates a registration similar to the one it creates for a blog entry.

If the item protected is a file or a HTML page, a single registration is created. This registration includes the text of the page, if an HTML work, a hash of the registered content, a date/time stamp of when the work was submitted and a My Copyright Number, or MCN, for easy reference.

If the registration is an RSS feed, then all of entries in the feed are indexed separately and all future updates to the feed are picked up automatically on a daily basis. Each entry is given its own registration, including MCN, hash and date stamp.

With each registration, you can opt to set the registration to private, meaning only you can view the content, and assign a Creative Commons License to the work.

The theory in all of this is that, if there is a copyright dispute regarding one of your works, this service can help support your claim of ownership by verifying that it was created and uploaded at a certain date and time. Anything that comes after will have an uphill battle to prove its authenticity.

Though it doesn’t provide the legal protections of a USCO registration and such a registration would still be necessary to sue in a Federal court, MFC can still provide some verification of ownership, especially if the dispute does not head to the courtrooms.

Lots to Love

When looking at MFC as a service, there are a lot of things to like about it.

First and foremost, as the name suggests, MFC is completely free. The site is free to use for unlimited registrations and has no advertising on the site. Though the owner of the site, Matt Whittaker, has said he plans to offer some paid services in the new year, he has promised to keep the basic services free forever.

Second, the site interacts with RSS feeds automatically, enabling bloggers to have “set and forget” registrations without having to install a plugin. This avoids a complication that is shared by both Numly and Registered Commons. This seems like a natural use for RSS and, though the system could be improved, the concept is solid, especially for those with full feeds.

Third, the service provides a simple button and badge that you can include in your site, or even embed into your RSS feed. This can be a great way to publicize your protection and, if you don’t wish to use the button, if you can use a text link to the MFC page for your site. If you’re using this on an RSS feed, a visitor can rummage through your entire blog by month, not just one entry at a time.

All in all, a visitor to the MCF registration page will find it much better organized than pretty much any other non-repudation service.

Finally, the site itself is very easy to use and very straightforward. You can easily register in a few seconds and set up your first item for protection immediately after. At no point did I find myself stuck or lost when registering various works.

However, though the service is solid, this isn’t to say that it is perfect, there are still some issues with it, as minor as they may be.

Caveats

Before jumping at the chance to use MFC, there are a few things to bear in mind.

First, the RSS service, though convenient, could be improved. As it functions right now, you either have to manually log in and have the service check your feed, up to once per hour, or wait and have it do it during the automatic check, which takes place late evening Eastern Time.

Though manually updating the feed is a minor inconvenience, requiring you to log in to your account and click a link, it is easily forgotten. However, the automatic update can occur as much as a day after the post goes live, often well after scrapers have gotten ahold of the content and republished it.

This feature would be better expanded either through the development of a plugin, which Whittaker has said he is working on, or, even more ideally, through a pinging service that bloggers can add to be automatically updated.

Second, the simplicity of MFC means that there are no real advanced features to the site. This limits the amount of meta data affixed to the content itself such as author, licensor or copyright holder contact information. This might limit the effectiveness of the service for dealing with orphan works issues, if only marginally.

Third, when registering your work, you need to be careful to set your registration to “private”. MFC, by design, allows search engines to index its registration pages including the content on them. This can create duplicate content on the Web and cause some of the same problems a non-repudation service is supposed to help deal with.

Finally, during my retesting of MFC today, I noticed a few minor bugs in the system. The first being that my Creative Commons license on my PT registration was not being affixed to new entries, just old ones, and that the entries were being displayed out of order. Newer entries were being posted at the end of the line, something that is counter to how most blogs present information.

(Update: The two bugs mentioned above have been fixed, see comments below.)

However, these issues are relatively minor and all of them can easily be addressed in updates of the site. Overall, MFC has the right idea and is headed down the correct path.

Conclusions

MFC is targeted at your everyday blogger and Webmaster who doesn’t need an extremely powerful non-repudiation system and is willing to trade a few advanced features for simplicity and price tag of free.

Though the issues with RSS updating may limit the service’s functionality in some cases, it is still useful in most instances where a human plagiarist is involved. Fortunately, those are the cases most likely to become a major dispute requiring non-repudiation.

For bloggers seeking a fast, easy and free non-repudiation service, MyFreeCopyright is an almost ideal choice.

Considering that it is easy, free and automatic, there is little reason not to use it. Since you don’t have to paste the MFC information to your site in any way, no one has to know that you are even using it.

All in all, it is an extra layer of protection that can easily be added to any site or blog. It makes sense to protect yourself as much as possible and, if you aren’t using another non-repudation service, this may well be the one for you.