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OneMoreRobot3021
Registered: 06/06/03
Posts: 61,026
Loc: the sky
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Copyright inquiry.
#9637848 - 01/19/09 12:19 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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If I have a piece of writing that I e-mail to myself, and I have the dated email both in my sent and inbox, is that essentially the same in the current era as it used to be if you printed it out, mailed it to yourself, and left the envelope unopened as proof that you wrote the piece and were the first to put it anywhere?
I wrote a poem in Israel about Yad Vashem, the Holocaust museum there, and I think - if you'll allow me an immodest moment - that it's quite good and I'd like to try to get it published. However I'd like to, in the immediate run, share it with the people I went on the trip with. And not that I don't trust them all, and they've all heard it before (I recited it to them on our last day together), but you know, just in case I want to make sure I can prove that it is mine when I send it around to publishers in case someone else reprints it.
Any ideas on this?
-------------------- Acid doesn't give you truths; it builds machines that push the envelope of perception. Whatever revelations came to me then have dissolved like skywriting. All I really know is that those few years saddled me with a faith in the redemptive potential of the imagination which, however flat, stale and unprofitable the world seems to me now, I cannot for the life of me shake. -Erik Davis
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krypto2000
Unknown
Registered: 12/05/06
Posts: 11,579
Last seen: 4 years, 4 months
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I'm no expert, but I believe so. From my understanding everything you ever do is automatically copyrighted. The reason you mail it to yourself isn't because it is then copyrighted, it's just so that you can get a date stamp on it and prove when you wrote it.
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CosmicFool
Psychoholic
Registered: 05/14/06
Posts: 9,581
Loc: 203
Last seen: 22 days, 16 hours
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I'm not sure about e-mail it seems like it would be too easy to forge.
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Captain Caveman
Uh-oh!
Registered: 01/12/09
Posts: 2,253
Last seen: 3 months, 2 days
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From what I understand, even physically mailing it to yourself achieves nothing in court.
-------------------- "Captain CAAAAAAAVEMAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!"
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badchad
Mad Scientist
Registered: 03/02/05
Posts: 13,377
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I'm definitely not a lawyer, but have heard things like this before (e.g. mail yourself something and keep it dated).
How does a date prove anything? I think in a court of law the most you could ever prove was that you were the first person to mail or email yourself something.
-------------------- ...the whole experience is (and is as) a profound piece of knowledge. It is an indellible experience; it is forever known. I have known myself in a way I doubt I would have ever occurred except as it did. Smith, P. Bull. Menninger Clinic (1959) 23:20-27; p. 27. ...most subjects find the experience valuable, some find it frightening, and many say that is it uniquely lovely. Osmond, H. Annals, NY Acad Science (1957) 66:418-434; p.436
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Captain Caveman
Uh-oh!
Registered: 01/12/09
Posts: 2,253
Last seen: 3 months, 2 days
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Re: Copyright inquiry. [Re: badchad]
#9637908 - 01/19/09 12:28 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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from copyright.gov The practice of sending a copy of your own work to yourself is sometimes called a “poor man’s copyright.” There is no provision in the copyright law regarding any such type of protection, and it is not a substitute for registration.
-------------------- "Captain CAAAAAAAVEMAAAAAAAAANNNN!!!!"
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krypto2000
Unknown
Registered: 12/05/06
Posts: 11,579
Last seen: 4 years, 4 months
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Re: Copyright inquiry. [Re: badchad]
#9637915 - 01/19/09 12:29 PM (15 years, 2 months ago) |
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If some company went to try and get something you wrote copyrighted and they're copyright date is after the date that the mail was stamped then does that not bring their copyright claims into question? I don't know if that's proof enough that you have the rights to it, but it should be proof enough that they don't.
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Army of None
Lt. Nothing.
Registered: 08/30/07
Posts: 451
Last seen: 12 years, 1 month
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Hrmmm, well best you share it with us ASAP. One of us will try to claim it as our own, then we can start a mock up legal battle to see what happens.
In the end all rights will be relinquished by which ever one of us bastards steals it and returned to you.
And you will be smarter for the experience.
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sam420
CertifiedReptilianOverlord
Registered: 01/14/05
Posts: 3,144
Loc: Scotland
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
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Take a photo of yourself holding the poem at the Inauguration or other unfakable well know event. lol
-------------------- i'm a spy huntin rap dinosaur from the future
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Cepheus
Balance
Registered: 04/19/06
Posts: 8,266
Loc: the space between reality...
Last seen: 1 year, 2 months
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Surely the message is more important than who wrote it ?
-------------------- "I only ever hope to reach equilibrium, in Nature's matrix, in line with the meridian" ~ Jehst "...and I know that I have to keep breathing, as tomorrow the sun will rise, who knows what the tide will bring?" Free Spore Ring Europe Send any spare spore prints you might have and help the distribution Open Source. Freedom. GNU/Linux Addicting is not a word.
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