Copywriting

[numan]

Does anyone know of a way to safely copyright your work other than sending a copy to yourself, or that doesn't cost an arm and a leg?

I've just discovered - after many years of posting everything to myself - that this won't hold up in court anyway! Is this true?

Help!

N

[St Germain]

According to the law of intellectual property once something is written then it becomes automatically copyrighted. However, if something did happen that appeared as though your copyright had been breached by another it may become difficult to prove that you are the owner. I do a lot of writing and what I do is send my work to myself by e-mail. I think that would suffice to prove that I've produced that work at a certain date. Perhaps you should post this question on the Law site for the proper, grown up legal boffins to ponder over? I'd be interested to know as well.

[numan]

That was my very next move, St G! I was just reading the legal side of copyrighting on this website:

http://www.patent.gov.uk/copy/

It leaves no stone unturned and answers everything you need to ask.

Seems you are absolutely right about the law on this - there is no official register of copyrighted materials and we are left to our own devices to ensure that our work isn't plagiarised! In fact, we've already been doing the only thing we can to protect our stuff. Doesn't seem right, does it? I've been writing for years and have only just discovered that the posting/emailing system of copyrighting isn't legally written in stone, so panicked a bit. Still, I've been lucky so far and I hope you have too.

Oh well, back to the post office then! (and the emails..)

Take care

N