Talk:Poor man's copyright

Document origin?
The last five paragraphs in this page bear a remarkable structural similarity to the Snopes article on the same subject. Any idea if this is coincidental? JulesH 22:53, 12 December 2005 (UTC)

Electronic Timestamp
''"Furthermore as most documents are created electronically in the modern world, the electronic timestamp would be a far superior proof of ownership." ''

I'm not sure where this notion comes from. Faking a timestamp is even easier than steaming open an envelope. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 70.53.138.154 (talk) 19:50, 14 April 2008 (UTC)


 * While faking a timestamp on an email is easy, if Google or Yahoo or whatever has the real timestamps on their backup servers and stuff, with the file creation dates, etc., then it would be easy to prove it in court. Yumfoodisgood (talk) 05:06, 26 February 2009 (UTC)

All these topics under 'modern methods' are hardly new or original - and are probably currently used by many people in various forms without them specifically thinking about it.

Definitely Not original research. Although could do with references from books and articles etc —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.109.4.135 (talk) 19:48, 2 February 2009 (UTC)

Possible WP:Original research in this article
The section Poor man's copyright suggests a method that involves sending yourself some email. This paragraph offers no references and looks to be improvised. It may simply be the personal opinion of one Wikipedia editor that this method would work. I suggest that this section be removed as WP:OR unless a reference can be provided. Elsewhere on the web it is claimed that you can't ask for damages in US Federal Court unless you have registered your copyright in the official way. EdJohnston (talk) 05:49, 2 November 2012 (UTC)


 * The section appears to have been written at least by someone who does not understand copyright. It seems to be talking about copyrighting ideas.  It is my understanding that you can only copyright the actual, tangible presentation of the idea, not the idea itself.  In other words, you can copyright a business plan (a document) but not a business idea (a concept).  Djonesuk (talk) 01:09, 5 January 2013 (UTC)