Authorship Evidence: Every Option and What It Costs

There is no registry that grants you copyright, anywhere in the EU — the right already exists the moment you make the work. What you can buy is evidence: something dated, independent of you, that you can put in front of the other side. For most people making digital work continuously, the practical answer is a qualified electronic timestamp on each finished file — it is the cheapest option that is recognised across the whole EU, it takes minutes, and it is the only one on this list that does not require you to hand a copy of your work to anybody. Here is the full field, including the two or three cases where you should reach for something else as well.

The whole field, at a glance

What actually separates them

Four things, and price is only one of them.

Every other option on this list asks for a copy of your work. SIAE takes a deposit. INPI takes an upload. The Spanish registry wants a copy with the application. A notary holds one, and the U.S. Copyright Office requires a deposit copy. A qualified timestamp is the exception: the SHA-256 fingerprint is computed in your browser, and the fingerprint alone is what gets sealed. For unreleased work — an unfinished album, a client pitch, a manuscript under embargo — that is not a minor convenience. It is the difference between having evidence and having handed your unreleased work to a third party.

The cost gap is a factor of twenty, and it compounds. One SIAE deposit costs €144 and covers one work for five years before it needs renewing. The same money is twenty-one StampR certificates, each permanent, none needing renewal. If you finish one track a month, the first approach costs €1,728 a year and the second costs €81.60. e-Soleau at €15 is genuinely cheap, but it also expires and has to be renewed to keep running.

One certificate is recognised in twenty-seven countries. A qualified electronic timestamp is recognised across every EU member state by regulation — that is what "qualified" means under eIDAS, and it is the actual advantage. A SIAE deposit is an Italian instrument. e-Soleau is French. The Spanish registry is Spanish. A filing in Washington is worth a great deal in a U.S. federal court and nothing at all outside one. If you do not know in advance which country a dispute will be heard in — and online, you usually do not — the EU-wide instrument is the one that travels.

Almost none of them establish authorship, including the expensive ones. This is the part most people get wrong. SIAE's own page says the deposit evidences that a work existed at a date, and explicitly carries no economic protection and no assessment of whether the work qualifies. INPI states just as plainly that e-Soleau confers no intellectual property right. None of them — and no certificate — can look inside your head and confirm you wrote it. What all of them do is fix a moment the other side cannot move, and in an argument about who was first, that fixed moment is the argument. So the question is not which one is stronger evidence in the abstract. It is which one fixes that moment most cheaply, most quickly, in the most places, without making you give your work away.

Where you will want something in addition

A timestamp is not the whole toolkit, and three cases genuinely call for more. Note that in all three the answer is as well as, not instead of.

• You expect to litigate in the United States. A filing with the U.S. Copyright Office is the precondition for suing in federal court and, filed in time, the gateway to statutory damages and attorney's fees. No timestamp substitutes for it. Do both: the filing engages the U.S. court, the timestamp covers the dates before and after and everywhere else.
• You need to show the work is human-made, not AI-generated. A certificate cannot do this and StampR does not claim it can. Layered working files, timelapse recordings, sketches and edit history are what carry that argument — and they pair naturally with a dated certificate, because they show the process while the certificate fixes the date.
• One specific work is valuable and you are in Spain. An entry in the Registro de la Propiedad Intelectual is an official act and carries weight with Spanish courts that a private certificate does not. It is also cheap. It only counts in Spain, and it does mean depositing a copy — but for a single high-value work heading for a Spanish dispute, do it.

Everything else, and it is most creative work: you produce digital files continuously, no dispute is pending, no single piece justifies €144 or a notary appointment, you would rather not hand unreleased work to anyone, and you want a dated record the moment something is finished. That is the case a qualified timestamp is built for.

Which one do you need?

For most people the answer is the first line. The rest are the exceptions, and they are additions rather than replacements.

1. You make digital work and want each finished piece dated as you go → a qualified electronic timestamp per file. Permanent, EU-wide, minutes, and your work stays with you.
2. A U.S. lawsuit is realistic → add a filing with the U.S. Copyright Office, before publishing or within three months of it.
3. One specific work is valuable and you are in Spain → add an RPI entry, the cheapest official filing here.
4. You are in Italy, the work is unpublished, and €144 for five years is proportionate to this one piece → a SIAE deposit.
5. You are in France and want one dossier held for a long fixed period → e-Soleau, remembering to renew it.
6. A physical original is the thing that matters → a notary.
7. Whatever else you choose → keep every working file and all version history. It is free, it is the best evidence of process you will ever have, and it costs you nothing to do alongside any of the above.

What a StampR certificate contains, and how anyone checks it

The certificate is a PDF carrying a unique number, a serial, the SHA-256 fingerprint of the file, the text of the declaration, and a qualified electronic timestamp issued by a qualified trust service provider — StampR is not itself that provider. It also carries a QR code pointing at a public verification page.

The verification is the part worth understanding, because it is what makes the certificate useful to somebody who has no reason to trust you:

1. The other side opens the verification page and enters the certificate number or serial from the PDF.
2. They get back what was recorded and when — independently of you, and without needing anything you could have edited.
3. If they hold a copy of the file itself, they can compute its SHA-256 fingerprint and search for it at hash search. A matching fingerprint means it is byte-for-byte the file that was recorded. A single changed byte means it is not.

That third step is the one that settles arguments, and it is also why the original file never needs to be uploaded: the fingerprint is computed in your browser, and the fingerprint alone is enough to check the match later.

Record a work with a qualified timestamp — your first certificate with an account is €4.90.

Related reading

• How copyright actually arises — the conceptual ground under this page: why the right is automatic, and why that creates an evidence gap rather than a filing task.
• What a qualified electronic timestamp is — the technical and legal mechanics of the date.
• What a declaration of authorship is — what is actually being dated.
• Do project files establish that you made a song? — the free option in line 7, examined properly.
• Showing a work is human-made — the case a certificate cannot cover.

Frequently asked questions

Is there an EU-wide registry for copyright?

No. There is no general EU registry and most member states have none at all. Spain's Registro de la Propiedad Intelectual and Italy's SIAE deposit exist but are voluntary and national, and neither creates the right. The right arises when the work is made.

Does a qualified timestamp establish that I am the author?

No, and nothing on this list does. It establishes that a specific declaration was made about a specific file at a specific moment, certified by a qualified trust service provider. In a dispute about who was first, that fixed moment is usually what matters.

Is the cheapest option the worst one?

Not reliably. e-Soleau at €15 and a Spanish registry entry are both far cheaper than a SIAE deposit at €144, and each is the better choice in its own country. The expensive option is only better where the forum already recognises it.

Does posting a sealed copy to myself work?

It is weak. An envelope can be posted unsealed and filled afterwards, and the other side will say so. It costs almost nothing, so it does no harm, but do not build a position on it.

Is blockchain timestamping equivalent to a qualified timestamp?

Not in legal terms. Both fix a hash to a time. Only a qualified electronic timestamp comes from a qualified trust service provider supervised under eIDAS, which is what attaches the legal presumption. A block time carries no such status.

Do I have to upload my work?

Not to StampR. The SHA-256 fingerprint is computed in your browser and only the fingerprint is sealed, so the file never leaves your device unless you explicitly choose to store a copy. Every other option on this list — SIAE, e-Soleau, the Spanish registry, a notary, the U.S. Copyright Office — requires depositing a copy of the work itself.

Does a certificate expire or need renewing?

No. A qualified timestamp fixes a moment permanently; there is nothing to renew. A SIAE deposit runs five years at a time and e-Soleau runs in five-year periods, both renewable at further cost.

Can I use more than one of these?

Yes, and for anything valuable you probably should. They are complementary: working files show the process, a timestamp fixes the date, and a national filing engages the forum where a dispute would be heard.