Poor Man's Copyright
LegalMatch Law Library Managing Editor, Ken LaMance, Attorney at Law 
Among many artists and writers, there is a common rumor that you can obtain copyright protection for your work by placing it in an envelope, and mailing it to yourself. The idea is that you now have official proof that you were the first person to create this work, based on the postmark on the envelope.
This rumor makes some intuitive sense. However, it is entirely without merit, and will provide no additional protection for your work. It is based on several common misconceptions about U.S. copyright law. These misconceptions include:
- Registration is a requirement for copyright protection: actually, the instant you create an original work, and fix it in any tangible medium (a manuscript, photograph, painting, sound recording, etc.), your work is protected by copyright law. This is not to say that registration of your work with the U.S. Copyright Office is not useful. Registration serves as almost irrefutable proof that you own a valid copyright. It is also required before owners of works that originated in the U.S. can sue for infringement, and allows all other owners to collect significantly more damages than they would if they had not registered.
o In any case, the poor man’s copyright method is not a substitute for registration, and will provide NO additional protection beyond that which you receive the moment you create your work. - Poor man’s copyright can serve as proof that you were the first person to create a work: In fact, no American court has found this method to be of any probative value. This makes sense, because it is very easy to fake. The U.S. Postal Service does not require envelopes to be sealed before it mails them. This would allow an author to mail an empty envelope to himself and then put whatever work he wants in it later on. There would be no way of showing that he did this.
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Last Modified: 11-06-2008 03:30 PM PST
