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| » | What is stampyourdocuments.com? |
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| | Stampyourdocuments.com is a patent-pending service that provides members with the convenience of registering their work or multiple ideas without showing them to anyone, not even us. Just by downloading our software each of your projects/ideas are registered with us by clicking on them with your mouse. |
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| » | Why would I use stampyourdocuments.com? |
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| | We offer proof of the date and time you created your work without us ever viewing your work. Whether you plan to patent, copyright, trademark or present your idea to potential investors, Stampyourdocuments.com will give the peace of mind you need when presenting your idea to strangers. Also, you never know which of your ideas may be a hit; with our minimum membership fee of $29.95 you could protect up to 120 of them. And remember an idea is any digital file, so your music, photographs, or videos can be protected also. |
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| » | How do I know that no one will view my work? |
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| | If your work is in your computer there is a digital representation of it. Our software takes a "fingerprint" of that digital representation and sends it to our servers. Your work never leaves your computer; only the "fingerprint" of your work is seen by our service and at the copyright office. No one can reproduce your work by looking at the fingerprint, however you can reproduce the fingerprint by having a copy of your work. |
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| » | What is a "fingerprint?" |
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| | Any file you have in your computer is just a bunch of 0's and 1's. A "fingerprint" is when a small percentage of the 0's and 1's are chosen at strategic locations. The end result would look like: bfg1wu7nkjewhaiu5bfb2gt78biuf77ht8gbhegwf7jf897gr671gfjq0348fbq |
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| » | What information can I view on my account? |
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| | Each member has their own document log, which shows a list of all the stamps that member has made. Each stamp is structured as described below:
-Name of document
-Document number (for our records)
-Date and time your document was stamped
-The "fingerprint" of your document
-The status of your "fingerprint" (received / copyright office) |
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| » | How does Stampyourdocuments.com prove my work was created by me at a given date and time? |
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| | There are two things you need to do this:
-First, you need the information in your document log on your account. We provide you with the stamp of your document, which entails: the document name, the fingerprint, the date and time of the fingerprint.
-Second, you need the original document. At anytime you may stamp your original document to reproduce the fingerprint. Then you can scroll thru your document log to find that same fingerprint but with an older stamped date and time. |
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| » | How do I stamp my stuff? |
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| | View the getting started guide. You will find a demonstration on how to stamp your work here. |
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| » | What precautions should I take when stamping my work? |
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| | We recommend that you put a copy of the work you stamped on a disk to prevent any changes made to your original document. If you change the document in even a minor way the fingerprint will be different when you stamp it. |
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| » | Can I make a revision to my work and still maintain the original date and time I created my work? |
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| | If you've made a copy of your original work you can always refer to that copy for proof of the original date and time you created it. As far as a fingerprint is concerned, a slightly revised document is a world of difference from the original document. One of the reason we provide multiple stamps per month is to accommodate revisions. If you've made a revision you can stamp the revised version to secure it's date and time of creation. |
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| » | Can more than one person stamp things from the same computer? |
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| | Yes, multiple people can share the same computer but have different user accounts. The user is responsible for telling the software who is stamping things at a particular time. You can change this setting by clicking on "Configure StampYourDocuments." |
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| » | Why would I need more than 10 stamps per month? |
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| | Lets say you have an idea. You've stamped your idea to secure that you created it at such date and time. The next week you revised it to make it better and then stamped the revised version. You want to pursue your idea but you want to tell people about it first to get feedback. You can use stampyourdocuments.com as a notebook to write down the people you talked to and the things you did pertaining to your idea. Each occasion can be stamped so you have a log securing the date and time of each step in pursuing your idea. This is just for one idea. All the ideas you've ever had you can stamp and later choose which is the best to pursue. Aside from your ideas, you can also stamp your:
a. Songs
b. Lyrics
c. Music
d. Videos
e. Movies
f. Scripts
g. Manuscripts
h. Stories
i. Poems
j. Research
k. Your Notes
l. Your Quotes
m. Architectural Designs
n. Fashion Designs
o. Logo Designs
p. Graphic Designs
q. Advertisements
r. Photographs
s. Trade secrets
t. Recipes
u. Software code
v. Drawings
w. Choreographs
x. Experiments
y. Presentations
z. A digital recording (audio or visual)
aa. Any document for date and time verification |
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| » | Do you recommend getting a patent, if I have registered my ideas with stampyourdocuments.com? |
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| | This question is best answered by your attorney; however, we recommend stamping your idea before getting a patent. Any idea you believe in, we recommend protecting it the right way. A patent takes a lot of time and money. Aside from that, you explain your idea to companies or lawyers before actually having protected your idea. Before presenting your idea to anyone, you should stamp your idea with stampyourdocuments.com to secure the date and time you created it. A patent is something you might want to consider, if you have the time and the money, either way you should stamp it first. Stampyourdocuments.com is a supplement to patents, not an alternative. |
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| » | Do you recommend getting a "copyright," if I have registered my work with StampYourDocuments.com? |
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| | This question is best answered by your attorney; however, copyright registration is not absolutely necessary to protect your work in the United States. Rather, registration is neccessary (and can be done after the fact) only to bring a lawsuit against someone for infringing upon your work. StampYourDocuments.com helps you prove the most essential element needed to claim your rights: that you were the original creator of the work. |
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| » | Do you offer registration certificates? |
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| | We do offer registration certificates which you can use to attach to your documents when presenting your ideas. A sample is available here. You can generate certificates by clicking on the "More..." link in your document log. |
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| » | If I pay for your service, do I still have to pay the U.S. Copyright Office $45.00 to have my work protected by Copyright Law? |
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| | This question is best answered by your attorney. We believe the answer to this question is both yes and no.
By design, StampYourDocuments is incapable of registering your work with the U.S. Copyright Office in the manner required by law because we have purposefully designed our system so that we cannot view your work. Therefore, if you wish to register your work with the U.S. Copyright Office, you will need to pay the U.S. Copyright Office $45.00.
However, because registration is not required to protect your work under U.S. Copyright Laws, you are not required to register. There are benefits to registering with the U.S. Copyright Office (such as statutory damages and attorney fees), but you can still stop someone from copying your work, and also get damages, without registering. Registration is only necessary (and can be done after the fact) to bring a lawsuit against someone for copying your work. StampYourDocuments is a complement to U.S. Copyright Office Registration, not a substitute. StampYourDocuments helps you prove when you created your work in the event someone challenges the originality of your work. Many expressive works are created slowly, and are changed over time. Therefore, if it takes several months or years before you have a work worthy of registering, someone who sees your work before you have finished it might be in a position to copy your work before you have registered it. StampYourDocuments can help prevent this situation. Also, if it's not cost effective to register all of your different works, our service might be the only proof you have that you created your work when you say you did. |
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