[stylist] date stamping of files RE: copyrighting your work

[Robert Leslie Newman]

On the thumb drive and date stamping: the date associated with a document
comes from the word processor, and is given to that file the date of the
last save, and this date thing, which is a property of that file (along with
size and type of file and more, all gets moved with the file if you were to
copy or move it off the hard drive and saved upon another storage device. 

As mentioned above, any new save of that document will give it the current
date. So if you want to be able to use the date stamp of a manuscript for
proof of date, then --- if you open that document up, that is okay, but
don't resave that file because the date will change to the current date. 

And you know what else runs through my devious little mind: It would be easy
to Cheat, Cheat, Cheat --- I bet any file can be made to have any date you
want -- How, first change the date and time within your computer by going to
the control panel, then resave your document and it will take on that new
changed date.
-----Original Message-----
From: stylist [mailto:stylist-bounces at nfbnet.org] On Behalf Of Chris Kuell
Sent: Tuesday, November 19, 2013 8:13 AM
To: Writer's Division Mailing List
Subject: Re: [stylist] copyrighting your work

Hi Vejas,

In my opinion, you don't really need to copyright your work. The reason your
teacher told you this is so that, if someone else publishes your work and
says its theirs, you can prove you wrote it first. However, in a court of
law, you can prove you wrote it first by the time/date stamp that
accompanies everything you save on your computer. So what if your computer
crashes? You could be in trouble then. However, computer whizes can retrieve
almost anything from a computer, so if you really needed to prove it, I'm
sure it could be done. And I'm not sure--does anyone know if when you save a
document to a thumb drive, is it time/date stamped?

Now some people do take the time/energy/money to copyright their work,
especially if it's a novel. I've heard others actually print and mail it to
themselves, because the postal date stamp proves that they wrote it before
it was mailed (it has to remain unopened), but this seems like a waste of
time/energy/money to me.

chris
 


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