Copyright your content with 32 Cents

My teacher, who used to be a projects manager for some large bank in NY (till 911), so he's somewhat credible, told the class that all you need to do to get it copyright is to print it out, put it in an envelope and mail it to yourself. When the post office STAMPS it, that's the proof of legitimacy and can be used in a courtroom. However, this CANNOT be opened prior to court or it is void. So I would recommend printing ur site's important content at LEAST twice and mailing it to yourself. Make sure it is stamped by the US Post office and do not open it and it will be valid in court when you are suing whoever is copying you.

I hope this helps

 

I thought all you had to do was have something made public. That is to say, made it clear that you had writen something at a certain time and it would be automatically protected. Of course people could argue your time, so you'd need to have it networked a bit.

 

Technically, yes, it's the federal government timestamping it, so it could be valid. BUT, the problem is that it's far too easy to make it appear unopened (such as with steaming), so it doesn't hold much weight anymore.

 

Yes. Any document signed by USPS is protected by law. Any gov. agency I think has the authority to do that

 

Wow nice! I wonder if this happens in the UK

 

That doesn't mean they hold up in court. Being stamped with a "poor man's copyright" simply isnt' enough, and isn't guaranteed to protect you in any way.

 

As far as I know that might help you to prove the date you created the content, however it's not very reliable.

In the US if you want to sue someone over copyright infringement you will need to have a registered copyright for the material, and as far as I know a stamped envelope doesn't count!

 

I think that's for suing in the federal courts. You can still sue in the state courts and such, but yes, if you really want to be protected, register the copyright.

 

They don't specify which courts, so you might be right. I'm not from the US so not knowledgeable in that area.

 

The state / federal issue may very well have been only dealing with trademarks.

 

I think that the copyright is there even if you don't do so, it's just easier to prove.

 

Unfortunately your teacher is totally incorrect - this is just an urban legend. This method of "proving" copyright has never been upheld in court.

This is what the US Copyright office has to say:
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html

The trouble is that an envelope could be postmarked today and the contents inserted 5 years from now. It simply isn't considered legitimate evidence.

According to Snopes, the method might be of use in the UK:
http://www.snopes.com/legal/postmark.asp

If you are concerned about infringement, register the copyright with the US Copyright office. It only costs $45, and will allow you to sue for infringement.
http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#register

Of course mailing it to yourself doesn't hurt anything, it just doesn't give you any protection you didn't have before mailing it. If it makes you happy, go for it, but be sure to put at least 39 cents worth of stamps on the envelope if you actually want to have it delivered.

 

For the love of God, do people still propogate this BS about mailing yourself something.

Tell you what, I mailed myself an empty envelope 10 years ago, I think I'll throw a copy of The Da Vinci Code in there and seal it.

Voila, I've now proven that I wrote The Da Vinci Code years before Dan Brown did.

I'M RICH!!!!!!! RICH I SAY!!!!!

Geesh people.

 

How can you copyright your work without spending a fortune?

I have about 200 celeb bios, I would rather not have copied, for SE purposes.....

 

It's automatically copyrighted when it's created. You just can't sue someone in court if it's not registered. That doesn't mean you can't demand that they take it down and at least send a C&D. In all honesty, would you bother paying to sue someone over a bio? You don't need to copyright all of them. Put them together in one document or something, and copyright that. Then at least you're more protected if someone tries to steal, let's say, your entire site.

 

Yeah I know it's auto copywrited, but how can i prove that it's mine? I guess archive.org could help with that... but....

what's the process to copyright the one document?


200 is a under estimate to the biographies I have done.

Some rage from 500 words, to 2,000 words, so I have well enough money invested in them.

 

If you mean "prove that it's mine" in the sense of being enough to sue, then you need to actually register it. Archive.org isn't enough (such as if a domain changed).

Here's info on copyrighting Website content:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ66.html

Here's info on actually registering the copyright:
http://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ1.html#cr

 

Yep, I see/hear it mentioned somewhere a few times a year, and there's always a legal professional there to tell them what kind of garbage it is

Not sure if it will go away anytime soon.

 

BTW, it's now 39 cents