It may not be the best way but it's not illegal and is within the financial reach of everyone. And it's one step up on the person you are making the claim against.
For some people, it's the only strategy. Look, you can't fake it. For a start, you can't send yourself an unsealed envelope. Secondly, the cost of sending yourself registered mail depends solely upon the weight of what you are sending, how are you going to fake that? Thirdly, I'm British, I've lived here all my 43 years, and I copyrighted a design for a bedset (matching quiltcover and pillow cases) by sending myself the design by registered post. As advised by a U.K. Government website, about five years ago. Yes, things may have changed but at that point in time, it was the thing to do if you were limited financially and couldn't afford to get it signed off by a solicitor (I'm presuming that would be like registering in the US) or applying for a patent.
My understanding is that hanging on to the history of the development of the book--changing drafts over time--has some value as evidence. Not sure if it's true.
I've no idea on that one, but unless you are going to pay to carbon date the paper (going with the notion that you are trying to prove creation dates) which will be 100 times more expensive than registered mail ...
No, creation dates aren't the point, and carbon dating wouldn't be a thing. You're focused entirely on dates. The point of the drafts would be evidence of the process of creating the work. I just read an article "Evidence in the Wastebasket" to see if I was right in this thought, and ended up not much wiser than I started.
I can't help noting that if copyright was appropriate, patent almost certainly would not be, and vice versa. Also, I'm not clear on how the UK postal service absolutely guarantees that no unsealed envelope ever travels in the mails? Or for that matter, whether they even check? In the US, most mail is handled automatically--in the UK does someone really check to be sure that each and every envelope is sealed? Edited to add: And you'd fake the weight by sending an envelope filled with blank paper, then later inserting a manuscript that you've doctored to be the same weight. (Made shorter with a smaller typeface, longer with a larger one.) I don't see any significant difficulties in faking the envelope trick.
If you are sending by registered mail - yes. In order to send by registered mail you have a form that is attached to the envelope/parcel that details the content, content value and weight which then gets stamped by the post office. They won't stamp something that isn't sealed or that is empty as the contents could be to easily tampered with. it is also traceable to the individual; who registered it.
If you understand that it isn't going to provide any meaningful evidence then no problem. But if someone really thinks it's going to protect them, then I do think it's a problem. Yeah--faking it is pretty easy, which (as far as I understand) is why it's not going to count as evidence in court.
Just off the top of my head here. If you post copies of your MS (as a work in progress) to yourself (and/or somebody else whom you trust) via email, that would offer proof that you wrote it, and more importantly, WHEN you wrote it. Email is date-stamped, isn't it? I'd say it's also useful to keep early copies (dated) of your work as well as the latest edition. That way, if it ever came down to a court of law, you'd have a history of what you did and when you did it. Other than these precautions, I reckon there isn't any need to be terribly paranoid about anybody stealing your work, especially if it's fiction. Hard enough to give it away, these days. Voluntarily posting it online for public consumption, however, if you plan to try for traditional publishing, is not a great idea.
@cutecat22 you never "copyrighted" anything by sending it through the mail. I don't know why that's so hard for you to grasp. The copyright came into existence by operation of law upon creation. Mailing something is at best evidence of possession of what was sent.
Email, uploading to Dropbox, or other internet-based service, assuming you have access to the server time stamp, because it is easy to fake your local computer time. Again, though, this is evidence of possession, not proof that you wrote it or own the copyright. It's evidence that you had the material in your hands at a certain point in time. There would be nothing stopping me, if I were unscrupulous, from mailing or emailing a story by one of my writing group partners to myself, even though I didn't write it and don't have the copyright. It's evidence only that I had the manuscript on day X.
Yes. In the U.S. and U.K. you can have an unsealed envelope sent by regular mail, though neither mail service likes it. There are instructions all over the internet about how to unseal a sealed envelope without detection. If I were a lawyer on the other side I'd have those as exhibits. You can also "barely" seal an envelope to make it easier. You could address the weight issue easily as well. That doesn't even take much creativity. Honestly, if you had three witnesses who were willing to testify in court sign the pages of your document, that would likely get you further than mailing to yourself, because those people could testify as to the authenticity of their signature and the date, and that's cheaper than mailing to yourself.
I wouldn't belabor this, except that at least half a dozen times a year, and sometimes a lot more, I'm having to help someone clean up the results of bad internet intellectual property advice. As it happens, I had just such a meeting with a potential client yesterday. Luckily his problem is relatively small. I've had people end up paying out $20,000 or more (not counting attorneys fees) because they listened to bad intellectual property advice online. Or they lose their IP rights entirely because of it. As a consequence, I try to counter it when I see it.
It's what companies and research scientists often do to show possession as of a certain date. When I worked in a lab, we had two witnesses sign and date each page of our lab book, in which we wrote our daily experimental protocols, results, and the like. The idea being that if necessary it would establish dates of invention, inventorship, and the like. Of course, witnesses can lie, which is always an issue a judge or a jury grapples with, but on the whole if you had a number of people sign as witnesses I think you'd be in decent shape.
You were advised incorrectly. But we can't force you to educate yourself. At least there is enough information in this thread that someone else reading it will have a good starting point for getting the right answer and not simply rely on the misinformation you've been posting (which is a disservice to the forum).
W What misinformation??? I'm reciting a) something I was advised and b) something I did. I'm passing on info as to what I did, which is a step more than just relying on the fact that "hey, I wrote it, I get automatic copyright." This is a discussion and therefore is based on opinions and experiences. I've recounted my experience. Don't tell my I'm wrong with something I've actually done. By all means, offer up other ways to do things but don't tell me my blue curtains are friggin green when they are hanging in my room in front of my eyes.
Well, you mailed something to yourself - fair enough. But the consequences of you having done that are what's being discussed. Most of us think it didn't really do you any good. So... we're not disagreeing with the part of your post where you say you mailed something to yourself, we're disagreeing with the part of your post where you say that doing so somehow copyrighted your work, or would be significantly useful in any sort of copyright infringement case. I think that's legit, especially since @Steerpike works in intellectual property. ETA: There apparently isn't a formal registration process in the UK (https://www.gov.uk/copyright/overview) so... I'd just keep working copies of your drafts and not worry about it.
You could register in the U.S. anyway, which isn't a bad idea if you're selling here and the work is important enough. Beyond that, you run into the usual proof of authorship problems, for which the testimony of people with first hand knowledge of your authorship could be helpful. In the end, you just need enough to convince a judge or jury you're the author, if it ever comes down to that.
Yes. I mailed myself a set of designs after I'd wrote on them, "copyright/date/my name" because according to the government website at the time, 5/6 years ago, that was the way to attach a legally binding date stamp so long as I mailed it by registered mail, as registered mail costs more because it's barcoded and scanned at every stage of its journey. Therefore, it's traceable and hard to fake. It's not just a case of a date stamp on the envelope, it's part of an electronic traceable document within Royal Mail. But, I have not done it with any of my book manuscripts. I've simply added the copyright to my copyright page but I have saved various copies to cd which will all have a recorded creation date on them.