How to Copyright a Poem & Protect Your Writing

A poem is protected by copyright the moment you write it — but poetry is widely shared and reposted, often without credit. Here's how to protect a poem and keep dated proof you wrote it.

Your poem is copyrighted on creation

As a literary work, a poem is automatically protected once it's written down. You own the rights immediately, with no registration required.

Registering poems

Register on Form TX at copyright.gov. You can register a collection of poems in a single filing, which is the affordable way for poets to cover a whole body of work at once. Registration is needed to sue and to claim statutory damages.

The online sharing problem

Poetry spreads fast on social media and gets screenshotted, reposted, and attributed to the wrong person. Once it's out there, proving you wrote it first can be hard if you have no dated record.

Timestamp before you post

Create dated proof before sharing. Timestamp your poem (or a document of several) with BlockchainSign — the file is hashed in your browser, recorded on Ethereum, and you keep a lifetime certificate that your exact text existed on that date. If a poem is reposted without credit or claimed by someone else, you have tamper-proof evidence of authorship.