It's that time of year again. 

Melbourne Cup time. 

As is pretty much tradition, Australia stops for the race and then doesn't seem to start up again properly until the next business day. 

Therefore, we're stopping for the race and resuming the next business day. The phones will be unattended from 2:00 pm AEST on 3 November 2009. We'll be back on deck from 9:00 am on 4 November.

If you have any urgent needs on the afternoon of the Melbourne Cup, please call me direct on 0414 751 029. The office phones will also divert to my mobile during that time.

Cheers and Happy Wagering! Virgil.

If you've been around the media business as long as I have, then you would have seen a number of stoushes over Royalties, Licensing and a whole raft of intellectual property law issues. 

Briefly, Royalties are a payment for a work done in the past and being used by another party in return for payment. Licencing is a somewwhat similar arrangement (ok - armchair lawyers can split hairs over this one). In short, you use someone else's work - be it music, technology, text, pretty much anything - and you are required to gain permission to use it.

Permission may be granted for you to do so without cost to you, but it is more likely that a payment will be required. In either case, you need documentation to support that either condition has occurred. However, if you choose not to support the rights of the owner(s) of the work(s) in question, you could well end up in Court. 

We have an extensive library of artwork templates for all the kinds of work which we perform for you: disc art, paper, card, USB and more. 

They're simple to use, yet sufficiently detailed that even the most fastidious design professional will be delighted at how fast and easy it is to construct a job. It's just one more way in which we make sure your project is a simple success. 

However, we're aware that some other members of our industry have been directing their clients to our site to gather templates for their work. In my opinion that's rather unethical at so many levels. Both the supplier suggesting it and the client agreeing to do it is just not nice. Don't worry - we have your IP addresses logged and blocked now.

If you're a frequent visitor to Red Circle Media, you've probably noticed that there have been some site upgrades.

You've probably noticed an increase in speed, in the quality and frequency of content and of course Special and Limited Offers. 

There are some more upgrades scheduled for 31/10 - 01/11. Service may be interrupted for a maximum of about half an hour when certain changes are made. Please bear with us during the planned outages. We apologise for apologising.