I used to be a notary and had to notarize documents and contracts for the City of Nashville.  All notarized documents hold up in court as proof of authorship.

So if you're on a tight budget or just want it to tide you over til' you finish your copyright app, that's the way to go...

Latas!

Quoted from Just_Initials I used to be a notary and had to notarize documents and contracts for the City of Nashville.  All notarized documents hold up in court as proof of authorship. So if you're on a tight budget or just want it to tide you over til' you finish your copyright app, that's the way to go... Latas!

a notary is supposed to be proof of a true signature by a person, not ownership of the document. a contract is notarized for proof of signature to make sure the contract is properly executed. documents requring signatures to be properly executed are often notarized, i.e. transfer of title. if you stole a script and signed it and paid a notary to notarize your signature, and the real author copyrighted it, or had other proof that they wrote said script, then your notarized signature would not hold up as proof of ownership (of the script) in a court of law.

Oh Good Lord!
I try to help someone out and I get nitpicked!

All I was saying is that a notary can be used to authenticate the date and author listed on a document or work.  Yes, a notary won't hold up against a legit copyright (dur-hey!)  But, I don't think Gomez was trying to rip off another story either...

*Although, some states I've found would require you to notarize every single page!  (ahem...Texas...cough, cough)

Sorry Gomez, next time I'll just hold in my 2 cents,
Good Luck!

Something that's a lot cheaper would be to mail stuff to yourself.  Now, I don't know how this would hold up in court or such, but I know a guy who always printed off his writings and mailed them to himself.

After he got them in the mail, they would have the post-date on them and he would put them away, making sure not to open them.

If it ever came up in court, he could show the sealed packs with the post-date on them.

http://www.copyright.gov/help/faq/faq-general.html#poorman :

Quoted Text I’ve heard about a “poor man’s copyright.” What is it? 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.

Quoted from Just_Initials Oh Good Lord! I try to help someone out and I get nitpicked! All I was saying is that a notary can be used to authenticate the date and author listed on a document or work.  Yes, a notary won't hold up against a legit copyright (dur-hey!)  But, I don't think Gomez was trying to rip off another story either... *Although, some states I've found would require you to notarize every single page!  (ahem...Texas...cough, cough) Sorry Gomez, next time I'll just hold in my 2 cents, Good Luck!

Didn't mean to nit pick, sorry that I did.

Quoted from Just_Initials Oh Good Lord! I try to help someone out and I get nitpicked! All I was saying is that a notary can be used to authenticate the date and author listed on a document or work.  Yes, a notary won't hold up against a legit copyright (dur-hey!)  But, I don't think Gomez was trying to rip off another story either... *Although, some states I've found would require you to notarize every single page!  (ahem...Texas...cough, cough) Sorry Gomez, next time I'll just hold in my 2 cents, Good Luck!

Signing and notarizing a script says that you signed a script on a particular day.  While it does put you in possession of the script when it was notarized, every page would need to be notarized to carry any weight at all (and I'm not it would at all).  One can always notarize a title page and put it on another script years later.  This would 'prove' you have the other script years before it was written.

And if you can afford to notarize every page of a script, you can afford to register it with the Library of Congress.


Phil

What did I just say Phil?, forget I even tried to put a suggestion on here at all...