Can I Protect A Phrase With A Certified Letter Or Registered Letter To Myself

History of Innovation

The Poorest Human being's Copyright

Do nothing.

A mailbox. — If you've just written the adjacent bully American novel, there'due south no reason to mail it to yourself.

Courtesy of R. Nial Bradshaw/Flickr

Y'all could have heard almost the "poor homo's copyright" anywhere: from an older relative, from a friend, from a high schoolhouse English teacher. They discover out that you've been working on a novel and they want to help, so they tell you to mail it to yourself once it's done. That way, fifty-fifty if you don't do annihilation with the novel for years (or if those snooty literary agents and publishing houses are incapable of recognizing genius when they see it), you nevertheless have a re-create bearing an official federal appointment—and no one can steal your spot on the New York Times best-seller list.

It's a squeamish idea, but the problem with the poor man's copyright is that it doesn't piece of work. The humorless federal copyright office explains on its website, "The practice of sending a re-create of your own work to yourself is sometimes chosen a 'poor human being'south copyright.' There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration."

Merely if y'all're a starving artist, don't worry. Copyright legislation that took issue on January. 1, 1978, dictates that all works are automatically copyrighted from the time that they are created and "fixed" in some recognizable fashion. A draft of your novel, for example, is copyrighted without yous having to mail annihilation anywhere. That means that it is legally recognized as yours. But you practice demand to annals your work and then y'all tin can be eligible to take advantage of the statutory damages rule that allows courts to fine people who violate your copyright. If you aren't registered, yous have to prove your actual damages in courtroom. And if someone, for example, made x copies of your heretofore hush-hush novel and distributed them to members of a book club, it would exist difficult to show that compensation for the damage inflicted should be whatever pregnant amount of money.

Before January. 1, 1978, there was a stardom between "common law copyright" and "federal copyright" that may hint at the origin of the "poor man's copyright" myth. Emerge Wiant, a professor at Washington and Lee University Law School who focuses on copyright and intellectual property law, explains, "In order to get federal copyright protection, you had to make sure that your cosmos was released with a formal discover of copyright and you were supposed to annals with a copyright office." On the other hand, "mutual law copyright didn't give you lot as much protection as existence federally registered, and there may be those people who idea that past mailing themselves documents they could prove that they were in fact the author of whatever the work was that was being protected."

Both Wiant and Pam Samuelson, a constabulary professor specializing in copyright and intellectual property at University of California–Berkeley, suggest that proof of invention is the more probable time when mailing something to yourself might come up into play. Though the U.s. at present grants patents based on a "get-go to file" model, the system was previously based on "starting time to invent," and one way you might testify the engagement that you had invented something was through mailing. "Dated lab books are the usual method of establishing this in industry. But a sole inventor might resort to a mailing equally an alternative," Samuelson wrote in an email. And Wiant says that though she tin can see why people might have washed it, "At that place's nil in the law that necessarily recognizes that as being a definitive date."

Yet the myth persists. In that location are endless Internet forums where commenters spout misinformation nearly copyright and intellectual property law, and merits that they are protecting their creations through the poor human's copyright. Simply somehow they never seem to cite any triumphant stories of successfully defending it in courtroom. Expert Village made a footstep-by-step video nigh the poor human being's copyright, and though it mentions at the end that the mail-it-to-yourself play a trick on won't hold upward well in court, the video notwithstanding presents it as a viable option. It seems that the tactic may be more valuable in the U.Thousand. and France (where it's known equally the "Soleau envelope").

One of the biggest problems with the poor homo'southward copyright is that it's easy to tamper with post, so information technology's non very reliable as evidence. You tin mail an envelope with zilch in it and so it has a certain date on it, and and so put something in the envelope afterward. You can steam an envelope open and replace what was in it with something else. Information technology'south just difficult to know whether a slice of mail service is intact.

But it doesn't matter because you don't fifty-fifty demand to spend coin on stamps or certified mail to get a copyright. "The mode the statute reads, pretty much the moment you have it fixed yous've got copyright," Wiant says. "It's non fifty-fifty the poor human being's copyright because even the poorest man, the minute he/she finishes something they've got protection."

So, it's time to put away the stamps and the envelopes for skillful. All that fan fiction you wrote in college, incredibly, has had federally recognized copyright all along.