Let's get straight to the quick:
If you're considering to do Poor Man's Copyright, where you take your work and mail it to yourself and never open it, don't bother because it doesn't even work and isn't even real. (Also, this is for the US writers and our copyright system).
I have a background of working at the Library of Congress Acquisitions Division, which works hand in hand with the Copyright Division, the division right next door. Also, I know people who work in Copyright, who are more than happy to rant about the ins and out of the Copyright system when they are fresh off the phone or computer with yet another moron who tries to tell them How Copyright Works after making initial contact because of, you guessed it, a copyright problem they're in. It's informative.
I also have worked and been around the music industry, which is a vast and very fertile land of Hard Lessons in Copyright & Contracts. You learn very fast about Copyright when you're ten weeks into an exhausting tour and discover that the label won't pay you a cent for the song you made yet again because they owned it when you signed the dotted line of a contract you could barely understand years ago because you were a young person with a hope and a dream and that's exactly what they preyed upon (one reason the music industry like young people? Way easier to manipulate, less likely to have access to a lawyer (or even know how to access one), and the more vulnerable, the better). It's not fun to watch, that's for sure. And it has happened plenty of times.
In other words, I can talk about this fairly well.
Don't do the Poor Man Copyright. It doesn't work for a long string of reasons.
But before we get to all of that, let's have established this salient fact: When you make something, you automatically own it. You have automatic copyright the second that work becomes part of the real world, be it a poem, story, a drawing, a sculpture, etc etc. By the way, the work has to exist, it can't be an idea you had floating around in your head. Can't copyright an idea.
If someone cribbed your work and called it their own, you still can take them to court without a copyright registration but the burden of proof would be on you, not them. That means you would have to prove you indeed made this work and they stole it from you and not the other way around. If you're the type to date things and/or use digital programs (which have metadata that can be pulled) and you keep lots of notes that built up to the creation of your work, you're probably going to be fine. If that isn't you, expect an uphill climb.
A copyright registration puts the burden of proof on the other person. That means they have to prove that the work is theirs and you're lying. Again, if you have notes on your work and metadata, you don't have much to worry about. Even if you didn't, it's still on them primarily to prove it's their work.
A Poor Person Copyright (Let's just make this gender-neutral because poverty and getting screwed over copyright-wise sure is) won't protect you at all in Copyright court. Partly because when it is with the Copyright office, it's an official record of what was created by who. Courts can check it, lawyers can check it, everyone who needs to check it for important purposes can check it. It cuts a lot of "he said, she said" very, very short. Poor Person Copyright doesn't do that because, frankly, no one but the creator knows the work exists. Annnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnd that does not help the courts, the lawyers (yours included and yours most definitely) and everyone else who could assist your case. It's not an official record. You could submit it as evidence but a judge is just going to sigh and say this isn't the same as an official copyright registration and will not be treated as such. They have no proof that you didn't crib the work and mailed it to yourself and plus, what if you move? The address could be argued as invalid. What about your signature? How do they know you didn't just steam the envelope seal open, sign it and then put it back in the envelope? What happens if it got lost in the mail? What if you lose it? A post date isn't the same validity as a Copyright Registration date because that's when you mailed it, not when you created it. You have to fill out more data on a copyright registration than you think that a Poor Person Copyright simply doesn't cover. With a Poor Person Copyright, the courts kind of have to go off the honor system to believe you, which is something they plain won't do. Plus, having a registration at the Copyright office is great for the courts to check if they think the both of you, both you and your copycat, are lying. (Yes, that does happen. Not often but it does.) The Copyright office is a neutral party and an objective place to check the facts, you're not.
As of the time of this posting, it costs $45 to copyright a single written work (a poem, a story or a novel – you cannot bunch a slew of stand-alone short stories together and have them all copywritten as one. It has to be story by story). It can be done online and I recommend you file it only once the work is done and ready to be published. You don't have to copyright the work right before you send it to an editor, especially since there are changes that plan to be made (you don't have to file a new copyright if you make some typo corrections but if you add a new chapter, you need to re-file your work as a brand new work since that's a big change). Editors are not as likely to yink your work as you may think because, frankly, the juice isn't really worth the squeeze in real life. Plus, you should be able to trust whoever you work with. Research the person before you work with them, don't just go off of "they have a good vibe". If you're submitting your work to short story markets, you are free to copyright but the chances someone at Lightspeed or Fiyah or Uncanny stealing your work is insanely low because they have their reputations to think about. None of them want to show up on Writer's Beware for negative reasons. That would be an embarrassment and potential death knell to their publications. Why steal your work when a less-reputable publication could just screw you over with a nasty contract filled with awful terms and conditions, such as Webnovel or other digital writing platforms? That way, they can take your work and force you to make more of it if it becomes profitable while throwing you only pennies – or nothing at all. That is usually what happens. Then it doesn't matter if you have a copyright registration or not, they'll exploit you via your copyright/no-copyright status anyways.
Also, as an aside, do not make editors or anyone else sign an NDA to look at your work.
A) It is not that important. If bigger writers don't do it, neither should you
B ) Unless you have the lawyers and court funding to back it up, it's a pointless document that signifies someone is new and really ignorant of how things in publishing actually work
C) If your work needs an NDA, it's a great way to chase off good editors and artists, and attract scammers. You might as well as write "I'm an easy mark, I have no idea what I'm doing" at the top of your document
Just put a copyright on your work when its about to be distributed to the public. After the edits are done, after the work is done, when everything is finished. That's basically when you need your work to be sent to Copyright, when it is about to be distributed to the general public.
But don't do a Poor Person Copyright, it's entirely pointless in the eyes of the court and to anyone who can help defend your work. Just copyright it the standard way. They mail you a registration letter and you put that somewhere safe and treat it like the social security card of your copywritten work. I recommend getting a binder with clear protector sheets so you can store your registration letters and other important documents as they pertain to your creative work as they would be distributed to the public.
Otherwise, be satisfied in the knowledge that you already own your copyright the second you created your work, even if it was a little silly ditty on the back of a restaurant napkin. Your cat is not going to steal your work and become famous and scammers would rather just bait money out of you directly by making you sign terrible slave-contracts and/or goad you into spending money for ridiculous lies such as "getting Hollywood to look at your book" or "buy a massive editorial, cover and promo package".
Just don't mail it to yourself. It proves nothing worthwhile.
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