you did it when?

June 27, 2006 7:50 PM

Is there a way to prove that something happened prior to a given date, in a similar way that a photo which includes e.g. a newspaper shows it was taken after the publication date?

A sealed envelope with a dated postmark "certifies" the contents as originating before the postmark date, but only works for small objects, and verification is one-time only. Ignoring possibilities for fraud, is there a more generic way to do this informally, without formal legal filing or similar?

posted by anadem to Law & Government (11 answers total)

Well...a parallel to the photo with a newspaper is a photo in front of a building that was torn down at some later date - or any landmark which was subsequently torn down or remodeled.
posted by vacapinta at 7:54 PM on June 27, 2006

For what purpose do you need the proof? In a court, something as simple as a sworn declaration could be sufficient....
posted by raf at 8:06 PM on June 27, 2006

If it's a plan or a design you can get them notarised.
posted by fshgrl at 8:08 PM on June 27, 2006

In the intellectual property community, a description of, for example, an invention which is signed as "Read and Understood" by a disinterested third party is generally accepted.
posted by JMOZ at 8:17 PM on June 27, 2006

I'm not certain what the objective is. Am I correct in assuming that this is something you actually to arrange going forward, as opposed to retrospectively, or as a plot device? So that in order to follow the landmark idea, you'd have to take the photo and then demolish the landmark yourself? Or take a photograph with you standing beside the large object, before you were hideously disfigured?
posted by Clyde Mnestra at 8:22 PM on June 27, 2006

The "mail it to yourself to certify its date of authorship" is one of those copyright myths. It is not a valid or legally recognised way of registering a copyright, so don't even bother.
posted by Rhomboid at 9:28 PM on June 27, 2006

Interesting, as most approaches would require you to have knowledge of a future event/outcome to denote your place in the timeline before "it" occurred.

Hmm.

If it is video as opposed to photo, you could stand next to a television broadcasting the evening news, to show the date and news of the day. You'd have to prove it was live broadcast though and not a recording.

Photofinishers often time and date stamp the backs of pictures when they were developed. (note I'm not talking about cameras that imprint the front of the picture, as that could be forged easily by modifying the time/date o the camera).

So, if you had a picture of someone on a street corner, and the photofinisher's stamp showed 1/1/06, then you could "reasonably" show that the pic must have been taken at some point prior to 1/1/06.

More info would definitely help us get on the right track I think. Can you expand on your potential need?
posted by Ynoxas at 10:00 PM on June 27, 2006

Interesting, as most approaches would require you to have knowledge of a future event/outcome to denote your place in the timeline before "it" occurred.

This is not as hard as it sounds. Many "future" events are known in advance. A picture of yourself with a specific rocket/satellite on its launchpad in the background before it is launched into space, for example. Buildings slated for demolition. Near a highway construction site (the extent to which the highway is finished marks a date) and so on...

The world is in flux. Capture yourself beside some irreversible flux like those examples mentioned above.
posted by vacapinta at 10:37 PM on June 27, 2006

what exactly are you trying to do?
posted by sophist at 1:25 AM on June 28, 2006

The "mail it to yourself to certify its date of authorship" is one of those copyright myths. It is not a valid or legally recognised way of registering a copyright, so don't even bother.

Well, that's true, but only because it doesn't really matter anymore when a copyrighted work was created, because the copyright until 70 years after the creator dies. But if there was a court case that depended on the date of authorship, such a mailing would almost certainly be admissible evidence of that date.

Anyway, back to the original question. I think the classic, boring answer is to write up a description and get it notarized.
posted by raf at 5:11 AM on June 28, 2006

The "mailing it to yourself" method would absolutely never stand up in court. Anyone could get an unsealed envelope postmarked and then put the work in question into the envelope the morning of the court case.
posted by sideshow at 2:20 PM on June 28, 2006