Protect a manuscript, screenplay, or article
A dated, tamper-proof record of prior authorship, verifiable by anyone — for €2.
The situation
You finish your manuscript after two years of work. You send it to three publishers for evaluation. Six months later, one of them publishes a strangely similar novel: same themes, similar structure, certain phrasings that feel familiar. You only have the submission emails. No dated proof that your text existed in this form at that specific date.
Or: you pitch a screenplay to a producer. Four months later, you see another writer’s project announced on a streaming platform. You recognize your synopsis.
These situations are not fiction. They happen — and a lawyer’s first question will always be the same: what proof do you have that this text was yours on that date?
The real risk
In most jurisdictions following the Berne Convention, copyright protects written work from the moment of creation, with no formality required. But you must prove when. Without dated evidence, it’s your word against theirs — and the better-established party usually gets the benefit of the doubt.
Multiple cases across Europe and the US have reminded everyone how central proof of prior authorship is: ghostwriter disputes, plagiarism allegations between novelists, screenplay adaptation conflicts. The same pattern repeats: without an opposable date, the case becomes a debate of opinions rather than a debate of evidence.
What you can anchor
For a writing project, what matters goes well beyond the final file:
- The manuscript or screenplay in its final version (frozen PDF)
- Successive drafts — digitally dated revisions
- Synopsis, pitch, treatment (for screenwriters)
- Structure notes, outlines, character sheets
- Research, source citations
- Cover and layout files (for self-published authors)
- Email exchanges with readers, agents, coauthors (exported as PDF)
Why the bundle changes everything
A timestamp on your final manuscript shows that you held that file on that date. A bundle containing the synopsis, three intermediate drafts, structure notes, and research material shows the trajectory of writing — the cluster of evidence that, beyond the date, supports your status as the author.
For €2 — the price of a single anchoring — you can fit up to 50 MB of files in a single bundle. A complete novel rarely exceeds a few MB, so this is more than enough to anchor an entire creative process for one project.
A real case
ETcH was born from this concern.
In 2013, the founder finished a novel. Nearly thirteen years later, he pulled it from a drawer, reworked it for months, and just before sharing it, realized he had no dated proof that the text was his. The very first anchoring ever performed on the ETcH contract, on January 17, 2026, was that manuscript — The Gold in the Cracks. The transaction is verifiable indefinitely on Etherscan, without depending on ETcH.
On the European legal front, the decision of the Tribunal judiciaire de Marseille on March 20, 2025 (AZ Factory case, RG 23/00046) was the first European court ruling to recognize the probative value of blockchain timestamping. The case concerned fashion sketches, but the legal principle applies to any digital document — including a manuscript or a screenplay.
How to use it
Finalize your document in the version you want to protect. Convert it to a frozen PDF — Word files modify their metadata when opened, which invalidates the proof.
Gather related files you consider relevant to the proof: synopsis, intermediate drafts, notes, research, relevant correspondence.
Drop them on etchproof.eu SHA-256 fingerprints are computed in your browser — no file ever leaves your machine.
Keep the proof ZIP delivered after anchoring. It contains the PDF certificate, the manifest, the Ethereum transaction, and your original files. This is what holds up in case of dispute — keep at least two copies, in two different locations.
Honest limits
ETcH timestamping proves prior existence, not authorship. To support authorship in a dispute, you’ll often need other elements: witness statements, correspondence, evidence of iterative writing — which is exactly what bundling enables.
Timestamping does not replace a bailiff’s report (or your jurisdiction’s equivalent) if the dispute goes to court. But that report can be issued months or years after the anchoring: in the AZ Factory case, the bailiff’s report came more than fourteen months after the original anchoring. You pay €2 now — and only the cost of the report (typically a few hundred euros) if a dispute actually arises.