I am writing a book and publishing little by little on social networks. If someone steals it and makes an authorial record of it before me, ?

Question

 would I have the opportunity to defend myself in court, since I had the greatest work to create, write and type the book? In this case, would I be able to prove my authorship, since they are also in my notebooks and emails, and emails have an unchanged date, as everyone should know?

Thank you very much in advance!

Happiness!!!

Update:

But could I save my copyrights putting the book in my email? Because the date there is unchangeable...

Answer 1

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Emailing your writing to yourself does not hold up in court as proof of copyright. There is no case law in the US in which any court, at any level, recognized this "poor man's copyright" via paper or digital mail. Source: http://loc.gov,/ the Library of Congress, which issues copyright registrations.

Theft of your writing is really an amateur concern. It's extremely rare. Why? Because it's hard to make money as a writer. Self-publishing can earn you close to nothing, and commercial publishing moves way too slowly for thieves--who can't manage the edits and rewrites anyway.

I've had some short stories stolen and sold, and I *still* don't worry about copyright violation. What I do worry about is vetting the people with whom I share the manuscript for critique or beta reading. I don't send it off to strangers, only to people I know online for a period of months if not years.

I don't post it on a site open to the public. I keep my notes, early drafts, research, etc. in the unlikely event I need proof of creation, but really, truly, this is not worth the mental effort of worrying.

Whew, huh? Focus on the story and how well you can write it, not on protecting it.

Answer 2

You legally own the copyright on whatever you write, the instant you put it on paper or online. You don't even have to register the copyright, though you can if you want to.

Yes, you can prove your authorship simply by the dates on which you posted the material online.  Any supporting materials will, of course, be helpful, but not as helpful as a dated online record.

However, it's highly unlikely that anyone's going to be interested in stealing your writing. Most self-published writing is self-published for a reason: it's not good enough to be published by a real, professional, publishing house.

Answer 3

One would think you've kept the several working versions,  right?

Answer 4

No one is going to steal your stuff, child. 

Answer 5

Nobody is going to steal your work so you needn't worry about that. 

Answer 6

Asking the same question twice won't give you more answers.

Answer 7

Save the copyright.