The new system creates a two-fold registration for each work that’s uploaded through the system:

1. A triple fingerprint of the work designed to ensure its integrity. This is done using MD5, SHA1 and SHA512 hashes.
2. A certificate generated by an outside authority, one that is approved by the Spanish Ministry of Industry for the purpose of providing such evidence. The certificate is time stamped twice to ensure there are no errors and that the information is accurate.

Users will then be able to download both the registration evidence and the work from their Safe Creative account and it should provide much better support should a dispute over a work arise, especially if it does so in Spain or in the EU. Also, since the certificate is performed by a third party, it provides a guarantee that it will remain useful should Safe Creative close or that you decide to close your account.

However, the drawback of this is that, due to the increased cost of performing registrations, Safe Creative is now starting to limit free accounts to 10 registrations per month. Also, free users will not be able to download the full certificate and instead will have to sign up for either a premium or a pro account to have access to that information.

While the move is likely to upset many free users, it does put Safe Creative in a much stronger position to help its users and provide strong evidence that could be used in a legal dispute.

My Thoughts on the Move

Back in October, I talked about the service EasyTimeStamping.com, which provides a very similar form of registration, one passed through a government-approved certificate authority.

The goal of these registrations is to make sure that the information collected by these non-repudiation services (file information, date, time, author, etc.) is of use in a court of law. In the United States, the only way to obtain this kind of evidence is through a U.S. Copyright Office (USCO) registration, which provides what is known as prima facie evidence of ownership. This, as with approved certificates, makes it so that someone trying to challenge your claim has to provide evidence capable of refuting the existing registration, giving you a great advantage in such a dispute.

That being said, Safe Creative’s prices, 36 Euros ($46) per year for a premium account for unlimited registrations, fares a lot better for rightsholders who register a large number of works. A 50 Euro ($64) package from EasyTimeStamping.com only provides 200 registrations, an amount most active writers, photographers, etc. will go through well before a year is out.

However, since the U.S. Copyright Office is the only provider accepted in the U.S. for such evidence, this new service probably isn’t of much benefit to U.S.-based copyright holders. Those wanting or needing to go beyond the 10 registrations available in the free account may want to look at Myows as a good alternative. However those outside the U.S., in particular those in the EU, may well find Safe Creative’s service very compelling as it’s both cheaper and easier than four USCO registrations ($140 if filed electronically), which is what it would take to ensure nothing was registered past the three month window for ensuring complete protection of published works.

In short, bloggers and others just looking for a stop gap to help with the delay between USCO registrations or provide less-secure proof of ownership will, most likely, be frustrated by this move. But those who are looking for more serious protection of their work, in particular outside of the U.S., will likely gain a great deal from it.

Bottom Line

All in all, what’s happening with Safe Creative and other official registration services overseas is that they are democratizing the registration process. I had talked about something like this in 2009 as a way of fixing the woes of the U.S. Copyright Office. The idea was to “deputize” third parties to process copyright registrations to enable cheaper registrations, better service and quicker processing of claims.

These other countries are doing exactly that by giving official approval to certificate providers, which in turn use registration services to handle the processing of works. It’s interesting though because these solutions, which work very well overall, are coming from countries that had no registration system in place prior to the Web but saw the need to verify ownership of works online

It makes one wonder how different the U.S. Copyright Office would be if it were being constructed today…

Disclosure: I have done paid consulting for Safe Creative.

However, EasyTimestamping is not Securo’s main product. It’s best known for an Android app also named Securo that creates similar timestamps for the photos that you take on your mobile devices.

Unfortunately, I can’t give Securo a full write up as I don’t have an Android phone, however, the concept is definitely an interesting one and something that any mobile device photographer may want to take a look at.

How it Works and Why Use It

The basic idea of Securo is fairly simple. You take a photo using the Securo app, the photo is automatically sent to their servers where a hash of the photo is created (Correction: According to Marco from Securo.it, the hash is created on the phone and that hash is then sent to their servers), the time, date and uploader are recorded and you are given a certified photo in return.

The main use of this tool has less to do with copyright and more to do with other situations where you may need legal proof of when a photo was taken. For example, if you’ve been in a car accident and wish to record the damage or your house sustained damage in a storm. Securo can verify when the image was taken and that it wasn’t altered.

That being said, with more and more artistic and creative work being photographed on mobile phones, it makes sense that, artists might be interested in this app as well as a means to verify when an image was taken and who took it, especially in environments where multiple photographers may be working at the same time.

As with EasyTimestamping.com itself, this power is most useful outside of the U.S., in particular the EU, as the evidence gained by this, while useful, can’t stand on its own in the U.S. This is because you still need to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office to sue for infringement and have prima facie evidence of authorship. This evidence as with a Securo certificate, puts the burden on the other party to disprove the claim rather than on you to prove it.

But even with that limitation, Securo is an interesting idea and one that, as the creators point out, has a lot of alternative uses as well.

Bottom Line

All in all, this seems a natural space for non-repudiation services to get into. With more and more content being created on mobile devices, it seems logical for these services to create applications and mobile versions that streamline the verification process.

My only regret is that I can’t play with the app to give it a hands-on review, but I will do so when and if the iPhone version is released.

In the meantime, I’d like to see other non-repudiation services step more into the mobile space. There’s also no reason to limit it just to images as sound recordings, text works and videos also need verification and protection as well.

Securo is a great idea but it’s just the tip of a much bigger mobile iceberg. One that should be very exciting for content creators and non-repudiation services alike.

(Note: Pricing information isn’t available on Securo’s site. However, the app is free and I’m forced to assume that the timestamps would cost the same as they do on EasyTimestamping, meaning a range from 20 timestampes for 10 Euros (approx $13.75) to 500 for 100 Euros (approx $137.50). Will update when I get verification.)

Screeshots

However, there’s nothing like the USCO in other countries. While, for the most part, that’s a very good thing, a USCO registration does provide other benefits. Those benefits include a public record of the work’s registration and prima facie evidence that the work belongs to you, thus making it harder to challenge your ownership.

The lack of a similar system is one of the key reasons why so many of the copyright verification services have come up from overseas including Safe Creative (Spain), Myows (South Africa) and DepotCode (Netherlands).

However, EasyTimestamping, which is backed by a company from Italy, Securo, aims to take things one step further by offering a legal protection that similar systems can’t provide, certified timestamps.

But does that make it worthwhile? The answer is a lot less clear, especially for bloggers and others with different needs than what the site is targeting.

What Is EasyTimestamping.com?

The basic idea of EasyTimestamping is similar to that of other non-repudiation services. Whenever you complete a work or otherwise wish to register it, you simply upload it to their servers and the service creates a hash of the file that also contains the date, time and author information of it.

But what makes EasyTimestamping interesting is where those timestamps come from. They are provided by I.CA, a credited certificate authority in the EU. This means that the certificates created by EasyTimesamping carry much more weight in court in the EU.

In fact, according to Marco Rucci, one of the founders of the company behind the site, this would provide similar protection in the EU to what a copyright registration does in the U.S. as far as Prima Facie evidence. While I’m not able to validate that particular legal claim, it would mean that the burden of proof would be on the person without the certificate to prove why the certificate was wrong rather than you proving ownership of the work.

However, that accreditation does come at a cost. Though a new account has five free registrations, additional ones cost between 0.50 Euros and 0.20 Euros, or approximately $0.66 to $0.33 per registration.

There is a beta limit of files up to 250 MB but, since you download the timestamp, they will last as long as you preserve them (though, obviously, the ability to verify them online will go away if EasyTimestamping closes) (Correction: According to Marco from EasyTimestamping, the hash will always be verifiable since they use an international standard, even if their company closes).

Is EasyTimestamping For You?

The choice to use EasyTimestamping is actually a tough one. From a feature standpoint, other than its certificate authority, it’s actually very lacking and its price point makes it almost impossible to use for routine registrations.

Though $0.33 isn’t much individually, if I were to register everything on PT for a month it would cost about $13 per month (40 posts x $0.33). That means it’s actually cheaper and more effective legally to just register my site every three months with the U.S. Copyright Office ($35) and use a different non-repudiation service as a stop-gap.

This is especially true since Safe Creative, Myows, Numly and even DepotCode have more features than EasyTimestamping, which just creates the timestamp and nothing more. There’s no case management, barcodes or even robust timestamp management, just a bare-bones interface that accepts timestamps and lists them.

That being said, EasyTimestamping does score a big win with ease of use. Signing up for an account is easy for anyone with a Google, Facebook, Twitter or OpenID account. It’s more or less just one click and you’re in.

The one ease-of-use caveat, however, is that there is no text input. You can only upload files and that could be frustrating for writers who do most of their work online.

Still, there’s a lot of appeal in the authenticated timestamps, especially if you are in the EU and think you might have to sue over the work. The extra legal support could be useful and the price for that peace of mind is very good.

All in all, I wouldn’t recommend a photographer put every image they take or a blogger run every post through it, but if you have a few works that might need extra protection, it could be worthwhile if you live in the EU and, thus, don’t have a separate need for a USCO registration.

Bottom Line

At the end of the day, this is another “special use” non-repudiation service, best for protecting a smaller number of works that need extra support but not any management. I also wouldn’t recommend it to anyone not in the EU as the main benefit of it, the accredited timestamps, are lost.

Basically, EasyTimestamping is a single-function non-repudiation service that does its single function well. Though that limits its usefulness, a few will get at least some benefit out of it.

The only question is if that someone is you.

Disclosure: I have done paid consulting for both Safe Creative and Myows.

Though none of these services are replacements for an official registration with the U.S. Copyright Office, which comes with it certain legal benefits in the U.S. they can provide a way to prove exactly when a work was created and who did so. This can prevent others from laying claim to it later.

However, the stiff competition has not stopped others from trying to find a niche within it. One service, DepotCode (Note: This link is to the beta page, going to depotcode.com will not work), hopes to break into the field with a new set of features and an easier-to-use interface that may be better for the casual user.

But does DepotCode hold up? I decided to give it a shot and see what I found.

What is DepotCode

The idea behind DepotCode is similar to other non-repudiation services. The user uploads a file and that file is registered on DepotCode’s servers. DepotCode then records the date, time and a hash of the file and then creates a page where others can then verify the work as long as the registration is active.

Unlike it’s competitors, registration is not required to use DepotCode, you simply click the button to sign your document, fill out your name, company and email information and then upload your document. DepotCode can accept text, images, PDFs and various programming/formatting languages, including Javascript, Ruby, PHP, Java, C#, HTML, XML, and CSS. Other documents can be signed but the signature will not appear on the document.

DepotCode’s most unique feature is that it automatically adds a QR code to PDFs and images that are uploaded. See below for an example (see note below):

The idea being that, if you want to share the image or the PDF, you simply send the one marked with the code (it’s marked on every page of a PDF) instead of a plain one. That way, others who get it can verify who owns/created it.

A free DepotCode registration lasts one week through a paid registration costs $ 3.49 (increasing to $6.99 after the beta period) and holds the registration for two years.

So should you be using DepotCode to protection your work? The answer depends on your situation and what you’re wanting to use it for.

The Good and Bad of DepotCode

On the surface, there’s a great deal to like about DepotCode. The ability to add QR codes to documents is interesting and, with QR codes readers becoming more common place, it might be a good idea for protecting content moving forward.

Also, the lack of a registration requirement is great for those who just want to register a file very quickly. It makes it easy to jump in and get started without worrying about setting up an account.

However, that lack of registration is also a bit of a hindrance. The beta version doesn’t have the ability to set up an account. So, every time you want to register something, you have to enter the same information over and over again. Other services make it easier to register works in bulk by storing that information.

Likewise, even the price is a bit odd. Other services provide free accounts with registrations that don’t expire (many free Numly registrations are still valid after five years or more), however, even a paid registration will expire after two years. While most works won’t need this kind of protection after two years, especially with the statute of limitations for copyright infringement being what it is, there are situations where a paid registration could expire before the dispute surfaces.

Finally, though the QR code feature is useful and interesting, other services offer it as well. Safe Creative offers a series of barcodes for each of its registrations, including QR codes and has done so for years. Numly has offered barcodes on all of its registrations for over five years now.

In short, the features that make DepotCode unique are that it applies the QR codes automatically, that it is designed to work with programming code and that there is no registration requirement. While certainly an interesting set of features, it may not be enough to overcome its bizarre pricing structure and the difficulties in registering large numbers of works.

Bottom Line

All of this begs the question of who is DepotCode for? Clearly the pricing and lack of registration makes it inappropriate for casual use. Services like Safe Creative and Myows are much better for bloggers who want to register all of their posts or photographers that want to upload every image they take.

The structure, right now, is best suited for anyone who wants to register just one or two things and would benefit from having the QR code placed directly on it. An author, for example, registering a PDF before sending it to potential publishers, might want to register through DepotCode as it could be worth a few dollars to save the time of applying the QR code themselves. The same could be true for programmers turning in a big project.

Outside of that though, the other systems out there are simply cheaper and offer less friction to registering large numbers of works. The QR code feature is interesting, but similar features never took off so it will probably remain a niche product, at least for the time being.

All in all, most people will benefit more from other services, but that could change if the use of QR codes for this purpose catches on and others fail to replicate the feature successfully.

The odds of that, unfortunately, are very slim.

Disclosure: I have done paid consulting for both Safe Creative and Myows.

Note: All of the registrations for this review were done using the free version, meaning the QR codes will cease to work in one week.

Creative Barcode, however, hopes to take a little bit of the worry out of these situations. By working as an intermediary between the freelancer and the client, Creative Barcode seeks to verify creation, upload, download and, eventually, transfer of ownership.

However, Creative Barcode is not a non-repudiation service like Safe Creative or Myows, but rather is focused more on the delivery of creative works, in particular visual ones, than merely marking and preserving them.

So is Creative Barcode right for you? The answer depends on what you’re looking for.

How it Works

The big idea behind Creative Barcode is that, after becoming a member of the service, you use its software to generate barcodes that you then apply to your work work (barcodes are either jpg or png files).

You then can use the FTP space provided by Creative Barcode to upload the files and send them to your client. Clients then receives an email from you with instructions for downloading the work. After agreeing to the terms of use and entering a password (if one is chosen) they are able to download the marked work. Once the project is completed, Creative Barcode allows the freelancer to transfer ownership of the work via their system, creating an assurance for both sides.

Creative Barcode, for its part, tracks when the work is uploaded, when it is downloaded and by whom. This provides a chain of custody that makes it easy to verify where a work came from and, since the work is clearly marked, it’s easier for the client to know who owns the content. Finally, as part of agreement between freelancer and client, both sides agree to resolve disputes using the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) mediation rules. This at least has the potential to help with international legal disputes, as well as some domestic ones.

All in all, it’s a fairly simple service, but one that might provide a great deal of peace of mind to freelancers who use it.

Is Creative Barcode for You?

Creative Barcode is not a free service. The basic service costs £30 ($48) + VAT per year and provides for 5 free barcodes. Additional barcodes start at £4 each ($6.50).

Depending upon your intended use, this cost might be either insanely cheap or outrageously high. Either way, it discourages bulk use and it does mean that it isn’t for photographers who want to mark every single photo they take.

Also, since the system relies on a visual mark, namely the barcode, it’s not a good fit for musicians or writers, both of whom produce works that can’t be easily tagged (though a writer could put a barcode in a PDF).

Designers, photographers and artists who routinely have to transmit proofs and other works to clients may find that the cost per barcode is reasonable for the assurance they provide.

The problem, however, is that a lot of the features of Creative Barcode could be obtained in other ways, most of which are free. You can easily mark your own images with a watermark (the barcode itself is not special on its own), you can demand WIPO mediation in your freelance contract and there are other file loading/downloading services that let you monitor as well as password protect the files.

The point of Creative Barcode is that it streamlines that entire process and puts it into one neat workflow. You get a professional watermark, monitored upload and delivery as well as contract benefits all from the same application. Whether this is worth the money to you is completely your decision based on your situation.

Bottom Line

This isn’t meant to be a full review of the service at this time. I’m going to get with the people behind it to see about doing a full one down the road. Instead, this is meant to be a brief look at the service, what it offers and who should consider it.

Unfortunately though, as neat of an idea as it is, the market is likely going to be small. Visual artists that regularly submit works of moderate or great value to clients isn’t exactly a tiny market, but it’s not the biggest either. Factor in that there are other, free solutions to all of the problems that Creative Barcode solves and it’s easy to see that most won’t find much use for it.

Still, those who do find a use for it will likely find it a lifesaver and given the company’s excellent approach to corporate trust and cooperation, it may be an effort worth supporting regardless.

All in all, the decision is up to you but and will be based on your situation and your needs, but the idea is very interesting and it might easily find a good niche to serve.

Copyright verification and non-repudiation service Safe Creative announced a new partnership with content tracking company Attributor to offer content tracking for text works registered with the service.

The new feature, which is free to all users of Safe Creative, feeds text works registered through the service through Attributor’s FairShare service and reports back on any matches that FairShare finds. Safe Creative Users can then create an Incidence for the case and begin working on enforcement.

Currently, the service is limited to two matches per work, which may not be adequate for many users, but the service is in beta and that amount could very easily change at any time and Safe Creative is hoping to show more.

How it Works

If you’re a Safe Creative user (and have submitted text works to the service) you can easily activate and use the service by clicking on the “My Account” link and then visiting “Work Tracking” subtab.

From there, simply tick the box that says “Track the publication of your text works in the Internet.”

Safe Creative warns that it may take several days for results to appear, likely due to the rush of new works to track. However, they provided a screenshot of the page with some sample cases filled in.

To access this report or manage incidents, simply visit the “Work Tracking” sub-tab under “My Account” at any time.

The system will work with all text works uploaded into Safe Creative, including those submitted via RSS.

Some Thoughts

The idea of combining copyright verification and enforcement into one service is a natural one. Copyright holders want and need a one-stop place to protect, track and enforce their works and this brings Safe Creative one step closer to making that happen.

However, this feature is really more based on future promise than what it is actually worth right now. Since any content creator can sign up FairShare free and get many more results per day, there really isn’t much to gain from using the Service through Safe Creative, other than possibly the incident tracking system which, sadly, I can’t offer any commentary on right now.

That being said, the idea is very much there and this is something I’ve sought for some time. I hope that the execution of it improves, making it more useful.

If you are a copyright holder who sees relatively little infringement and primarily works in text, you should definitely take a look at this system as it can be a convenient way to give both proof of authorship and enforce your rights. If you think you might need more than a few results per work, you’re probably better off just signing up for a FairShare account now, even if you have to build a custom RSS feed.

That being said, this will still be a service to watch.

Bottom Line

Safe Creative had it right when it called this partnership a “step further to become a central place on which creators and rights holders can rely to gather as much information about their works as possible.” That is exactly what it is, a step.

The beta version isn’t terribly compelling but this is intended to be more of a proof of concept and that is what it does.

Hopefully this usefulness of this feature will grow and realize its potential. Until then though, most bloggers will be better served just using FairShare as is but it is easy to see a future where that is not the case.

Disclosure: I have done paid consulting for both Attributor and Safe Creative competitor Myows.

If you are a WordPress or Drupal user and want an easy way to verify ownership of your creations, you may be in luck. The same also goes for designers, Web and shirt, as new Myows applications may help streamline the process.

Last month, Myows, the copyright non-repudiation service, introduced its API to help make it easier for developers to build applications around the platform. At the time they also announced an API challenge with prizes, including two Apple iPads, for the developers who came up with the best apps in hopes of encouraging development and fostering the creation of some new tools for creators to use.

With the deadline for submission passed the voting has begun for the public participation part of the contest.

There are five applications competing for the prize including the following:

1. Owit: A WordPress plugin that can upload blog files, such as images and audio, to Myows for submission.
2. ShirtSafe: A Web-based service that connects with both Myows and Printfection to allow designers to submit shirt designs to Myows before having them printed.
3. Capow: A web-based service that takes a screenshot of a Web site and submits the image to Myows for protection. Ideal for Web designers to protect their creations.
4. Myows Drupal Module: A module for the Drupal CMS that makes it easy to submit images and content to Myows. A demo site is available.
5. Myows for WordPress: An additional WordPress plugin that can protect both media files and blog posts in WordPress.

I’m unfortunately a bit late in posting this so you only have through the 31st to post your vote. To vote, simply register for an account and leave a comment to this forum thread with your favorite application.

In addition to the public voting, the applications will also be eligible for a Jury Prize, which will be voted on by experts in the field.

So, if you use Myows or wish to dabble with it, now might be a great time to test and see how these applications work for you.

Disclosure: I am a paid consultant for Myows.

Safe Creative has been expanding its services like mad recently. It was just two weeks ago I reported on their addition of multiple author registrations and a new automated registration tool. Now, Safe Creative has made an additional announcement, this one dealing with three new features they have added, RSS integration, cease and desist letters and the ability to let others ask permission to use your work.

All three of these features are “professional services” that will be charged for in the future but are free to use now while the services are in beta.

Though Safe Creative is primarily a non-repudiation service, meaning that they offer third-party verification of your ownership of your works, these services may be very compelling to those who are wanting to get more robust use out of Safe Creative and wish to use it as a full rights management service, and not just a non-repudiation one.

So how well do they work? We’ll take a look at them one at a time.

RSS Integration

The idea behind RSS integration is simple, rather than forcing members to register each feed item by hand, Safe Creative will check your feed on a regular basis and register each of the items for you. This saves time and energy as well as making the registration process more reliable.

The process of setting up RSS integration is fairly simple. You first have to activate the feature by paying five “credits” (which are obtained for free during the beta phase) and then give the feed information, including the name of the feed, the URL of the feed and the original site and the options you want it registered under.

Once that information is put in, you then have to confirm that the feed is yours. This is done by adding a special code to your Web site, which can either be hidden in the HTML code itself or as part of a link or badge (the HTML code for the latter two is provided). Once done, your feed entries should automatically start being registered with the service, starting with the ones you have in your feed when it was set up.

Once validated, the service seems to work pretty well. There seems to be about an hour delay or so before their RSS reader picks up the post, which may hinder its usefulness against some RSS scrapers, but it is definitely faster than the alternative, MyFreeCopyright, which only updates daily.

Everything worked as advertised. I decided to allow my works to stay “preregistered” for a 24 hours and I get nightly emails letting me know that the posts from that day were preregistered and the ones from the day before were formally registered.

It may not be a perfect solution but it does work very well and is the best free alternative available.

Cease and Desist Sending

Entitled “Work Incidents” in Safe Creative, the ability to send a cease and desist letter has also been added.

Once enabled under “Professional Services”, the process works very simply. In your Safe Creative account, you find the work that is being infringed and select “Incidents”. From there you open up a new case and input information about the case including a name and description for your records, contact info for the alleged infringer and where the infringement is taking place.

Once you’ve done that, you get a chance to preview the message before it is sent out. However, you can not make any changes or modifications to the letter. Even more strange is that the letter itself appears to come from Safe Creative, including their logo and signature line, though it lists you as the complaining party in the body.

Personally, I think this is a service that needs to be tweaked before it becomes truly useful. The functionality is very basic. I can’t find a way to upload my template for a C&D notice and there is no way to use this to also send DMCA/EDEC notices. Furthermore, with all the Safe Creative branding, it seems as if Safe Creative itself is sending the complaint, opening up the door for confusion.

The only added feature is the ability to store notices as a draft or resend notices that don’t work. However, there is currently no means of escalation.

Though the idea is there, this is one feature that I’m not enthused about in its current form.

Permissions Request

Finally, Safe Creative has also enabled a feature that allows rights holders to let visitors request special permission to use their works. This is, in part, a response to my article on a “Reverse Creative Commons” system which asked for a structured system for requesting permissions for work similar to what CC does for giving permission.

However, the system is fairly basic at this time. Once you’ve enabled the service, you have to go back and add it to your works individually, which can be a huge headache if you have already registered a large volume of content. The good news is that you can alter your registration profile to make sure all future works have this feature turned on.

From there, anyone who visits your Safe Creative page for a work with this enabled will be able to click an icon to request permission and will be taken to a screen similar to the one below:

Safe Creative then messages the information about the planned use to the rightsholder who then is given the option of approving or disapproving the use.

Unfortunately, the system requires that both sides be Safe Creative users, which is unlikely that a stranger asking permission would be using the service. Though it only takes a few moments to sign up for the service, it is easy to see how this extra hurdle might create a barrier for casual users.

All in all, other than the need to be a Safe Creative member, which was likely done for the purpose of validating the people who request permission and having a “chain of custody” over the permission request, the system is solid and simple. I found using it from the requester side to be unintimidating and straightforward though it is a bit of a kludge to apply to existing works from the creator side.

Bottom Line

All of these services are big steps forward for Safe Creative but I think it’s clear that they are all in beta stage and have room for improvement.

The RSS integration, in my view, is the real star at the moment, making Safe Creative practical for bloggers and causing it to leapfrog other services when reaching those content creators. The cease and desist feature is lacking in features though it shows a great deal of promise. Finally, the permission request system is a huge step forward but needs better integration with creator’s sites and less with Safe Creative before it will be widely used.

Still, this is the kind of innovation I’ve wanted to see from non-repudiation services and it makes me very happy to see Safe Creative marching forward. I’ll be eager to see how other services respond to this and how these services with grow both in features and usability in the coming months and years.

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.

In short, this is a video that goes over some of the basic functionality of the Myows system, how to use it and what its designed to do. It’s about 12 minutes long though I am going to prepare a truncated version for YouTube (under ten minutes).

If you’re curious about Myows or recently signed up, this should give you a pretty good primer on how it works and some of the major features of the system.

On a related note, I’m hoping to make this video part of a lengthy screencast series on copyright issues, perhaps a video every 1-2 weeks, if the interest is there. I would appreciate your thoughts on that and how to improve future videos.

Disclosure: Chris Matthieu, the founder of Numly, which is a competitor of Myows, is a former co-host of the Copyright 2.0 Show with me. Also, I am using my referral code for Myows in this article though there are no rewards for doing so. This is mainly for tracking purposes.