Hellenic Copyright Organization (HCO) has launched and developed the timestamping online service for the purpose of facilitating all authors (irrespective of the specific type of the work created and regardless of whether they are professionals or amateurs) to obtain a certain date as regards as the existence of their works. HCO’s timestamping online service is available on the website timestamp.gr.

The timestamping of a work constitutes one of the practices applicable in order to safeguard and strengthen the author’s position by means of the documentation of the specific date in which his/her work existed (proof of existence of a work). The online timestamping service, in essence, identifies uniquely a work -in a digital or digitized form- and records the specific date and time at which the work had been accordingly submitted to it.

It should be stressed that this service neither constitutes some kind of formality nor operates as a prerequisite in order for the interested party to obtain a copyright or a related (to copyright) right over a work, since this right is automatically vested to the author (in compliance with both the national law and the international conventions in the area), thus acquired informally and without requiring the provision of the author’s consent. In order for a work to be copyright protected, it shall constitute an original intellectual literary, artistic or scientific creation, expressed in any form (art. 2, Law 2121/1993). Whether a work fulfills the preconditions stated above consists of an issue to be determined by the courts.

In conclusion, by means of the timestamping of a work, the existence of a work at a given time is certified. The issue of whether the submitted archive constitutes a work within the meaning of copyright law and is protected as such, as well as the question of whether a copyright infringement might have taken place, are issues to be decided and ruled by the courts.

For more information in relation to the service, please visit the information page of the timestamp.gr web site.