Copyright For The Poor

[kornmonkie]

This is a good method to copyright your material and spend a couple cents. I do this with my website code and anything else I need protected.

Print out ALL your website code. Get a Big Envelope, goto the post office and Mail your code to yourself.

DO NOT OPEN THE ENVELOPE after you recieve it back.

So if you ever have to goto court you can show the envelope with the code in it, and it proves that atleast at the date stamped you had the code in your possesion. So if the other person cant prove they had the code before the date stamped you can say it was yours.

The reason this works is the date stamped by the post office. As an official U.S. Entity the date is valid on any envelope stamped by them as long as the envelope remains un-openend. So a date stamped by USPS is more valid then some kid with it on a piece of printer paper.

[mattsiegman]

I've heard that this isn't necessarily admissable in court.

[stevenha]

It's not that expensive to get a US copyright. In fact, search for copyright website, and you'll probably find several sites that offer the service in a one-stop shop, to copy your whole site onto CD, and submit it. I did that, and after about 6 weeks, I got a nice little certificate of copyright.

[kornmonkie]

How can a stamp issued by a government(well mostly) agency not be admissable in court?

[mattsiegman]

I don't know, but I've heard that it isn't. I should probably check that sometime...

[kornmonkie]

Hmm....maybe it's changed. I'll have to check as well.

[gakenny]

Hello,

What say you post an envelope and it is unsealed (just tucked in). You could leave that in the drawer until one day you see some code that you want to copy. You can then print it out, put it in an envelope and seal it.

I suspect that this is one reason why!

Cheers,

Gary

[kornmonkie]

All I'm saying is that you have a timestamp for when you printed your code, or someone elses code. That being said..there is nothing to stop you from taking the code off of someone elses site...renaming the variables and any extras and then going to your Copyright office.

[apgraham]

while the self-mailed envelope may be usefull as evidence of possesion, it's not needed for copyright. A work is protected under copyright law the moment it's "fixed in tangible form".. In other words, as soon as you write it, it's copyrighted. The main advantages to registering your copyright lie in what claims you can make against someone who violates your copyright, and the rules of evidence in a courtroom.