Mike, I read your "butts from the beach" article and noticed that you have a copyright.

Pete, I see that on your website that many articles have copyrights.

What hoops did you two pass through to establish a copyright? I'd like to do the same.

Thanks,
Bill

Don't really have official copyrights but I've been told if you display copyright on something and can prove that you did it before anyone else (that's the tricky part) you can establish ownership without actually getting a copyright.

Have you heard of the "poor man's copyright". Basically you mail whatever you want to copyright to yourself and don't open the package. Then if anyone challenges it you bring the package to court with the post mark date on it and have the judge open it.

These are all thing I heard when I was in a band back in Virginia. Almost every band we played with (even national bands such as Testament, Ugly Kid Joe, Over Kill, etc.) would do the "poor man's copyright" at least before the official copyright would be processed.

Pete,

I heard of the "mail to yourself" trick when I looked into protecting an invention of mine without the expense of a formal patent. Didn't know it also applies to written material. Thanks for refreshing my memory!

Bill