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.

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.

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.

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.

Though non-repudiation services, such as MyFreeCopyright, Safe Creative and Myows, are not replacements for the U.S. Copyright Office, they do provide a powerful stop-gap verification for the nine-month wait for a certificate. They also provide a potentially valuable verification service to copyright holders in other nations who have their primary copyright interests lie outside of the U.S.

Unlike the Copyright Office, these services have been in a race to make their services as easy powerful as possible, all while remaining free. MyOws has focused heavily on its interface, MyFreeCopyright with its integration with RSS and Safe Creative has struck partnerships with Jamendo and Magantune among others.

However, Safe Creative recently announced two more new features that many artists will likely find compelling. The first is multiple author support, which is aimed at creators of more complex works, such as audio and video files. The other is an application for bulk uploading, which is aimed at those with a lot of content they want to register at once, such as photographers.

It’s part of a new development push at Safe Creative that I expect will lead to even more innovations down the road.

Multiple Authors

If you’re a musician or video producer, one of the biggest hurdles in using non-repudiation services is that it can be difficult, if not impossible, to indicate multiple authors. Whether it’s two or three writers working on a book, multiple musicians performing on a song or anything else with multiple parties involved, most sites only support one creator.

However, Safe Creative, as part of their new professional services offers just that ability. To access this feature, you simply visit your list of works and, using the drop down, select “Add Rights Holders”

Once you’ve selected that, you’ll be taken to a screen where you enter the email address of the other party. They will, in turn, be asked to confirm their email address and sign up for an account if needed (thus providing their information). Once done, the work will be linked to both accounts.

The process is extremely straightforward and, in my limited testing, seemed to work very well. All in all, this is a very compelling feature for those who routinely collaborate on projects with other artists, which is especially commonplace with music, a key target group for Safe Creative.

Automatic Registration Tool

The other new feature that Safe Creative has been touting is an Automatic Registration Tool, written in Java, that bulk uploads works to Safe Creative and is compatible with Windows, Mac and Linux.

The tool itself is fairly bare-bones, you first have to give the tool access to your account, a largely automated process, and then all you have to do is select a folder of works to register and the application begins to upload and register the various items.

This application is ideal for photographers and musicians who want to register a large number of works quickly. The process itself is relatively quick, I registered about 140 images in under an hour, but the lack of features does hurt the application some.

For example, the app will blindly upload everything in a folder, including the thumbs.db file in my case, so it is important to make sure the folder is cleaned out completely before uploading (though you can always delete later). Also, the application just uses your profile’s default settings and there is no way to select a different license or even choose the content type, so all of my photos were listed as “Articles” in the service. However, there is no easy way, that I’ve found to repair that without changing the works individually.

Still, if you’re a photographer or some other artist in need of registering a large number of works with Safe Creative, this tool will be a godsend.

A Word About Professional Services

Multiple authors and the other features on the professional services page are exactly that, professional services. This includes versioning, private registrations, pseudonym in profile, etc.

Currently, professional services are free and you can “purchase” 30 credits (most services cost five per year) with the click of a mouse. However, this is only during the testing phase.

These services will, eventually, be charged for though it is unclear at this time how much they will cost.

Bottom Line

Safe Creative’s features are extremely compelling and, to my knowledge, they are two that are unique to the service itself. Whether you are an artist who routinely works with others or need to do routine bulk uploads, Safe Creative is now an even more natural choice.

In the bigger picture though, the USCO could learn a great deal from these upstart non-repudiation services. Built with relatively small budgets and either by lone developers or a small team of developers, each of them have features, simplicity and integration that the USCO has failed to do with a multi-million dollar budget and years of development time.

Best of all, since there is competition in the field, unlike the USCO that has a monopoly on registration through it, there is a constant push to add features, make the process faster and simplify registration.

If any of these services managed registration for the USCO, I don’t think users would mind the requirement nearly as much.

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.