Someone took your work. Or they're about to. Either way, you need to prove you wrote it first — and you need evidence that holds up when it matters.
Most of the common approaches don't work. Here's an honest breakdown.
What doesn't work (and why)
Email to yourself. The timestamp on an email is set by the sender's mail client and the receiving mail server. Both are mutable. It's trivially easy to spoof an email date, and opposing counsel in any IP dispute will point this out. Courts don't treat self-sent emails as reliable proof of creation date.
Google Docs version history. Google Docs does maintain revision history, but it's stored on Google's servers and controlled by Google. It can be altered by Google, by account recovery processes, or by legal process. It also doesn't prove you created the underlying ideas — only that text appeared in a document at a given time, which someone could argue was a copy-paste.
Screenshots with dates. System clocks are easy to change. A screenshot proves nothing about when the work was actually created.
Social media posts. Posting your work publicly is a form of disclosure, but it's weak evidence — the post date can be argued to be after the creation date, and social platforms regularly change their metadata formats or become inaccessible.
Saving files with OS timestamps. Operating system file timestamps are set by the OS clock and are trivially easy to change. They have no evidentiary value.
What actually works
The standard that holds up in disputes involves three things:
- A tamper-evident fingerprint of the exact content — one that changes if the content changes
- An independent timestamp from a third party you have no ability to influence
- An immutable, distributed record that exists outside any single organization's control
This is exactly what cryptographic timestamping provides. A SHA-256 hash of your content is a mathematical fingerprint — changing even a single character produces a completely different hash. An RFC 3161 timestamp authority certifies the moment the hash was presented to its server, independently of you or the service you used. And embedding that hash in the Bitcoin blockchain creates a permanent record that predates any future dispute, distributed across thousands of nodes worldwide.
The practical habit that prevents 90% of disputes
Most IP disputes don't go to court. They end when one party can produce strong evidence quickly and the other can't. If you can instantly produce a public verification link showing your exact content was sealed on a specific date — before the alleged theft — most bad-faith disputes evaporate immediately.
The habit is simple: seal your work the moment you finish a meaningful version of it. Not when you think you'll need proof — you won't know when that is. Seal the first draft, the final draft, the proposal before you send it, the design before you hand it off.
The seal takes 60 seconds. The dispute you're preventing could take months and cost thousands.
How to do it right now
Upload your file or paste your text at OriginProof. You'll get a public verification URL immediately. The Bitcoin anchor completes within an hour. Keep the URL — it's your receipt, valid forever, verifiable by anyone without an account.
50 seals free every month. No credit card required.