A few years ago Juan Palacio, a Spanish software expert, wrote a book and wanted to share it on the Internet as a PDF document. This got him wondering whether it is possible to register the file’s original creator, and after some research he found that in his native country this was not possible unless he printed the book out on paper first. The lack of facilities to register digital works indicated a gap in the market for easy online registration of creative works, not only under full copyright, but also under copyleft and Creative Commons licences too. Subsequently, SafeCreative was born, with Juan as CIO.

SafeCreative is an intellectual property registry that allows creators to leave proof of their work by means of a digital signature, and supplies the registrant with a certificate that proves authorship. It is free, open to all from around the world, easy to use, and globally accessible.

We spoke to Mario Pena, the community coordinator at SafeCreative to find out more.

In your opinion, why is it important for authors to protect their intellectual property?
Over the last few years, the way in which people produce and consume creative works have changed a lot. The ease with which we can produce, obtain and distribute works makes it more important now than ever to develop new ways to protect intellectual property. This protection must be as easy to obtain and use, as the content is to distribute around the world. It must also be as understandable to ordinary people as it is for professional authors.

Are you sure that SafeCreative will really prevent people from plagiarising? I mean generally plagiarisers just do so, they do not check or look around for permission...
There's no perfect formula to avoid piracy, but there are tools that partly dissuade this kind of behaviour. SafeCreative is one of them. What we find important about it is that it can be used for free, for any licence and any kind of work, and can be implemented by default with other projects to automatically register works as a prior step before publicly showing the work. If people get used to registering and visibly stating with our "stamp" that their work is protected, this might make it easier for potential plagiarists to either contact the author or simply not use the work. We understand that this will not stop plagiarism, but making the process of asking for permission very easy might make them think twice.

Can you tell us a bit more about the legal advice and consultancy aspect of Safe Creative? Can people contact you for advice on how to best protect their rights? What service do you offer in this regard?
We have legal experience and are building a group of Intellectual Property experts to develop strong mechanisms to give solid advice on these issues. Most of the problems are pretty similar and we are building a lot of literature around these issues to make it more understandable to everybody who might need it. Also we are evaluating more practical ways to help our users to find the best lawyers for specific situations.

What is the difference between Safe Creative and Registered Commons?
The most notable difference is that SafeCreative allows any kind of licence. It's neutral, which means that anybody can use a full copyright license for one work and a CC By-SA for another. They can also change the licence of any work and leave a track of any change. It also has a secure and digital signed deposit of the work. It’s important to understand that SafeCreative is a neutral point and is willing to add value to interesting and innovative projects like Registered Commons. With our powerful infrastructure we can help to complement any project in symbioticways.

According to the SafeCreative site: "You can request a certificate signed by Safe Creative which indicates the date and time of registry to credit registries of author, registrations of licenses as well as the rights of work from Safe Creative at any time." Tell us more about how this certificate works.
You can mark the work as registered. We have logos that generate with every registered work and special codes that embed or apply to the works depending on their nature.

tags: Zaragoza Spain business copyright copyleft ip-registry safecreative organisation-spotlight

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