Welcome to MyDataClaims!
MDC (MyDataClaims) is a service to help you protect your ownership of creative works such as poetry, music, photos, inventions, software, or anything else that can be represented as a computer file -- quickly, easily, and for free!
You just need to understand three concepts:
- Data File - Whatever you want to protect can be represented in a computer data file. It could be a document, a digital recording, a digital photo, or even a digital photo of a drawing on a napkin. MyDataClaims works for Data Files up to 16mb in size.
- Data Claim - This is the proof that you get from MyDataClaims. It's in the form of a digitally-signed time-stamped XML file.
- ClaimKey - This is a secret you pick (and must remember) that locks your Data Claim to your Data File. While you can use a different ClaimKey for each Data Claim, for simplicity we suggest you use a single ClaimKey for all your Data Claims, and write your ClaimKey on a piece of paper to be stored in a safe place. If you forget your ClaimKey, MyDataClaims cannot help you to recover it.
At any point in the future, with your Data File, Data Claim, and ClaimKey, you can show evidence of your possession of the data file at the time the Data Claim was created. Try it out right now! Just click the Get a Data Claim button on the left to get started.
Note that Data Claims for Data Files larger than 8mb incur a $1.00 processing fee.
A Little More Detail
You've probably heard that to help protect your creative work, you should send copies of it to yourself via registered mail. Then if someone steals your idea, and claims the idea as their own, you will be able to open the dated and still-sealed registered mail. This will establish that you had the idea at a date earlier than the other party can prove they had the idea. The registered email approach has a couple limitations:
- Each registered mail can be expensive (cost of the copy, envelope, postage, extra charge for delivery confirmation, etc.).
- Each registered mail can only be used once; after the seal is broken, it no longer provides any proof.
- Registered mail is subject to loss or destruction between the time it is delivered, and the time you need to use it as evidence.
- A trip to the post office wastes time and money (gas, bus fare, or shoe leather).
MyDataClaims provides the same type of proof-of-possession in the form of a Data Claim. However; MyDataClaims has none of the limitations inherent in registered mail, and MyDataClaims has other desirable features not possible with registered mail:
- MyDataClaims can provide Data Claims for free.
- Data Claims from MyDataClaims can be reused again and again to establish dated proof-of-possession. There is no limit on the number of times a Data Claim can be used.
- Data Claims from MyDataClaims are delivered as XML file downloads that can be managed electronically, copied, backed-up, and retrieved much more easily than registered mail.
- Data Claims that become lost can be recovered from MyDataClaims.
- Data Claims from MyDataClaims can be obtained in a matter of minutes with no trip to the post office required.
- Data Claims from MyDataClaims can be easily verified online.
- Data Claims from MyDataClaims can be acquired for anything that can be stored as a file, for example:
- digital photos, videos, and mp3 files
- documents, spreadsheets, presentations, and text files
- diagrams
- digital photos of ideas sketched on napkins
- source code or executable files
- multiple files zipped together into a single file
Try it out right now! Just click the Get a Data Claim button on the left to get started.
