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A writer was telling me of some copyright issues they have had with some of their work, which led me to wonder what assistance my be offered by the relatively new blockchain and other distributed ledger technology, DLT, projects to proving copyright and author ownership.

Below are some of my findings along with some traditional and conventional solutions for comparison.

A short disclaimer

• These solutions are only an investigation in the hope that they may be useful to the reader, I have not tried them, so do your own research and use what best suits your needs and circumstances. It is not a comprehensive list and you may discover more options or other ways of doing things.

I suggest to keep things appropriately simple, for some that may be a one off use of a low tech solution, for others it my be a combination of solutions and regular use of a blockchain service.

Below I use the word material to refer to the creative work on which you claim copyright, that may be a written document, artwork, photographs, images, etc.

Traditional Low Tech Solutions

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Established tried and tested methods that effectively require only pen and paper, no electricity or high technology required.

Send to yourself by registered post a copy of the copyright material

• And do not open the envelope or package on receipt, this will provide proof of posting and a date stamp. The UK Royal Mail Signed For is one service that could be used for this.

• The problem with this is that the package may be opened only once, in the presence of a legal representative and other relevant parties, to provide evidence, thus subsequent copyright infringements may be harder to prove.

Lodge a copy of the copyright material with a solicitor

• A tried and tested solution that could be used on multiple copyright infringements if the need arises.

• However there is likely to be a regular maintenance fee from the solicitor and this may become expensive for multiple items.

Conventional Computer Based Solutions

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These solutions here onward require electricity, computers, an internet connection and due diligence in storing your usernames and passwords.

Send yourself an email containing the material on which you claim copyright.

• This will date stamp the material and the email metadata will contain other identifying information.

Upload the copyright material to Archive.org.

• Thus creating a record of the material with an associated date. Archive.org describes itself as:
  > The Internet Archive, a 501(c)(3) non-profit, is building a digital library of Internet sites and other cultural artefacts in digital form.

• There is a decentralised web version of the Internet Archive here dweb.me.

For both of the above it would be wise to provide additional evidence of copyright by digitally signing the material using GPG, the GNU Privacy Guard. That may seem a little scary for most users hence the blockchain solutions in the next section may seem easier, however read on for now.

Instructions on how to use GPG via the command line are given here https://www.gnupg.org/gph/en/manual/x135.html, but there are some graphical interfaces available to make life easier:

• GPG Suite for Apple systems.
• Gpg4win for Microsoft Windows systems.
• Kleopatra is one option for Linux systems. Kleopatra is also used in Gpg4win.

Blockchain or other DLT Solutions

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These are likely to be even easier options for you than the Conventional Computer Based options given above, but require an extra step or two in the otherwise simple account set up - this should make your account and data more secure.

Po.et

• Which you can sign up for via the Explorer link, is a
  > shared, open, universal ledger designed to record immutable and timestamped metadata and ownership information for digital creative assets.

The Blockstack platform is a decentralised computing network and app ecosystem, it has a number of dApps (decentralised Apps) that you may like to consider for proof of copyright, including :

Blockusign

> Encrypted Document Signing and Digital Notary
- enables you to :
> - Sign documents and maintain ownership of data like it's on your own encrypted laptop.
> - Prove a document was signed with NO need for a Notary service or Lawyer.

Blockright

• A decentralised copyright registration platform.
  > The author may register their creative work on the Blockchain, using the timestamp on the Blockchain to claim the copyright of the work, no need to use a third-party organisation.

Blochain Solutions for Images|Photographs

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Binded

• Provides a private copyright vault with a unique fingerprint for each image saved permanently to the blockchain and gives a copyright certificate as proof which can help protect you against copyright infringement.

People and Identity

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An author of some creative work may need to prove their identity in order to protect their copyrighted material, here is one option that may help:

Civic

• A secure identity ecosystem. Civic provides the tools that enable people to take control and protect their identity.
  @heiditravels (known as Cryto Tips on YouTube) has written about it here: https://steemit.com/cryptocurrency/@heiditravels/encrypt-your-identity-with-civic

Backups !

Usernames, Passwords, Passphrases, Key Pairs, Brain Keys, etc.

For the computer, blockchain or other distributed ledger technology solutions it will be necessary to securely store passwords, passphrases, keys, ID's, usernames or other information required to access accounts and files.

Furthermore you may need to keep these details forever and pass them on to the next generation! Print out duplicate copies of these details and store them safely and securely in separate places.

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For storing the details on a file on a computer I use KeePassXC which produces an encrypted file (database) accessed with a password or key file. Make backups this file and store on a separate device to your computer.

Should disaster strike your printed details and backup files give you a better chance of recovery and maintaining access to your data.

Thanks for reading

I hope the above will be of interest or of use to you.

Related Resources

Earth ID "provide a Safe and Secure Identity to all Human Beings, through the power of Blockchain and Cryptography".
FutureLearn Introduction to cyber security course.
Email self-defense guide from the Free Software Foundation.
Civil platform for journalists and news organisations.