What does 'Poor man's copyright' refer to?

• A. Filing a federal registration with fees.
• B. Creating a dated record of creation and mailing it to yourself to establish date of creation.
• C. Publishing the work to prove authorship.
• D. No documentation required.

Answer: (B)

The concept tested here is a folk method used to fix the date of creation for a work. The idea behind a “poor man’s copyright” is to create a dated record of the work and mail it to yourself, producing a postmark or timestamp on the record. This provides evidentiary support that the work existed on or before that date if a dispute later arises. It’s a way to establish when the work was created, not a formal protection or a substitute for official registration.

Choosing this method is best explained by what it actually does: it creates a dated reference that can help prove authorship timing. The other options point to formal steps or outcomes that don’t capture this dating technique. Filing a federal registration is the proper, official route to protection and enforcement. Publishing the work doesn’t prove when it was created, and claiming no documentation is required ignores the evidentiary need for dating the creation.