: Re: Should I copyright my material before sending to my publisher? Should I copyright my material before sending to my publisher? Can they steal my content?

@Berumen699

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As mentioned, copyright is automatic. The best form of defense is to only submit physical copies of your work until a publisher agrees to buy it from you to publish. This preserves the only digital copy on files you're able to access. Make sure you have a change log of your main digital copy, or attach to e-mails to yourself

An even dumber poor man's protection is to send yourself a self-addressed sealed envelope with a postmark (it doesn't hurt to send multiple of these, in case the package gets destroyed in one storage location or multiple cases occur). Wait until the next day and then send your manuscript to the publishers with postmarks. When you receive the sealed self-addressed envelope, do not open it, but store the unopened package in a place where you would secure files or if need be a safe deposit box. This will create an official government date (the postmark always contains the date it was recieved for delivery by the post office) and can be opened to reveal the manuscript at trial. Important to note is that these need to happen before you send your documents so you can show records that you possessed them prior to the publisher's records (the publisher would likely discard the envelop) and that there are two viable records of your prior ownership.

It's perfectly viable to only need one sealed envelop, as any records of proceedings where it was opened will suffice as evidence just as well as the initial record, since it acknowledges the initial record's existence. It's a poor man's copyright protection, but it shows original creation would belong to the person who has held the document the longest.

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