Where Did the Poor Man’s Copyright Myth Start?

The “Poor Man’s Copyright” myth has existed for many decades. It was one of the first topics I wrote about in 2006 and has been debunked by a wide variety of expert sources, including the United States Copyright Office, the Copyright Alliance, FindLaw and BMI, to name just a few.

The idea behind the myth seems simple enough. To prove that you created a particular work, you mail a copy of it to yourself so that you will get a date stamp on the envelope. That provides a third-party verification that you created the work on or before that particular day.

However, in the United States, the copyright registration system makes poor man’s copyright completely obsolete. Filing a lawsuit requires copyright registration, representing much stronger proof of ownership and registration time.

While it may provide some benefit in other countries that don’t have a registration system, other verification services are easier, faster and likely provide better proof than a letter sent through the mail.

In short, there’s little reason to mail yourself a copy of your work as a copyright tactic.

But how did this idea start? Surprisingly, there is little history about how and when this idea came about. Though the myth has been around for decades, well predating the internet, it is unclear how the idea entered public consciousness.

However, one incident may partly explain the myth’s popularity. It involved someone mailing themselves a document, and the timestamp served as proof of a major scandal.

The Quiz Show Scandals

In the later half of the 1950s, quiz shows were incredibly popular on television. This led to intense competition between the shows for both ratings and sponsors.

One such show was Twenty-One, a quiz show in which two contestants competed against one another in sound-isolation booths. The show’s initial airing was widely seen as a disaster. Contestants failed to answer most questions, and the show’s sponsor, Geritol, complained that it was boring.

So, the show’s producers seized upon a simple idea: They would rig the contest.

Initially, the producers settled on contestant Herb Stemple. They coached him on the questions and answers, and he went on a massive winning streak, collecting $69,500 in winnings (worth approximately $800,000 today). However, the show’s ratings began to sag, and the producers opted for a new face of the show, Columbia University professor Charles Van Doren.

Stempel went along with the plan and lost to Van Doren, even missing a question he clearly knew. However, he later became frustrated with what he saw as broken promises made to him and attempted to blow the whistle on the rigged nature of the game.

Though Stempel’s allegations were buoyed by other game-fixing allegations, the investigation floundered without hard evidence.

Another twenty-one contestant, James Snodgrass, would help break the stalemate. He wrote down the questions and answers he was fed and mailed them to his home before the episodes were recorded.

Those letters proved he had access to the answers before the contest, feeding into a public scandal that included Congressional hearings. In 1960, Congress amended the Communications Act to bar the fixing of game shows. As a result, networks and sponsors canceled a slate of game shows, swapping them out for other content.

However, the idea of mailing yourself something to prove the date seems to have lived on.

Aftermath and Why It Worked

To be clear, the scandal likely wasn’t the origin of Poor Man’s Copyright. After all, Snodgrass almost certainly got the idea from somewhere else.

It’s also worth noting that Snodgrass’s testimony and evidence were only a small part of the story. By the time Snodgrass was testifying, the issue was before Congress. Though the producers and contestants perjured themselves before a New York grand jury, they largely came clean when testifying before Congress.

That said, it’s difficult to overestimate just how important these scandals were at the time. Between 87 and 95 percent of those surveyed were aware of the scandals as they unfolded. These were major headlines, and Snodgrass’ envelopes were some of the few pieces of physical evidence involved.

This created a lot of awareness of the idea of mailing something to yourself. It is only natural that others would apply the idea to copyright.

However, it’s also easy to see why this evidence was meaningful in this case and would not work in a copyright dispute.

First, this evidence never went before a court. In fact, it was never really challenged. It is unclear if this evidence would have held up before a court. It might not have even been allowed.

Second, as mentioned above, the copyright registration system makes such evidence largely pointless. Copyright registration provides benefits well beyond that of a postmark. Since it has to be done before filing a copyright infringement lawsuit, it makes sense to focus on timely registration rather than mailing copies to yourself.

Finally, in the digital age, there are far easier, cheaper and faster means of providing evidence of creation. The Wayback Machine, social media posts, and even timestamps on files themselves can provide evidence. However, if you need or want more, there are services like Safe Creative, WordProof and others that provide such a service.

In short, while the trick may have worked here, at least in some capacity, it is unlikely to be useful in an actual copyright case. Especially without other evidence to support it.

Bottom Line

In the end, it is amazing just how pervasive an urban legend or a myth can be.

The myth of Poor Man’s Copyright has existed for many decades and has survived countless debunkings, including from the US Copyright Office. There’s simply no reason why anyone should still believe it.

Though it’s impossible to know where the idea originated, this story likely boosted it. The story was huge in the 1950s and ingrained the idea of using the post office as evidence into a generation.

Of course, that is not the intended use of the post office. The post office is great for mailing letters and packages but less effective at producing legally-binding evidence.

But, even if it could, the post office wouldn’t solve many copyright woes. Very few copyright disputes hinge on when a work was created. That’s one of the reasons blockchain is a dead end for solving copyright problems.

While Snodgrass’ story is interesting, it is also an extreme outlier. It’s an example of multiple rare elements coming together to make such evidence somewhat useful.

The odds of it happening to you or in any copyright case are incredibly small. As such, focusing on strategies and processes that will work and positively impact your copyright protection makes sense.