How to protect your book
To protect your book, combine copyright, publishing records and proof of authorship. Copyright exists as soon as you write it, and registering with your national copyright office (the U.S. Copyright Office in the United States) is what lets you sue over a U.S. work. An ISBN identifies an edition for sale, not who wrote it. If you want readers to know a person wrote the book, the Authors Guild offers a Human Authored certification.
Then sign your drafts, the final manuscript and each published edition on the Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) by The AI Lab, a free, open standard. Each one gets a permanent public record of who wrote it, when, whether it was written by a person or with AI, and a fingerprint that lets a copied or reworded passage be compared against your signed original.
Every option, honestly
What each way of protecting your book does, and where it stops
These work together. Use more than one, and read the last column for each, including ours.
| Option | What it does | Where it stops |
|---|---|---|
| Copyright registration | Creates a legal record of ownership. In the U.S. it is required before you can sue over a U.S. work. | Costs a fee and does not track copies online. |
| ISBN | Identifies a specific edition of a book for sale and in library catalogues. | Not proof of authorship or ownership. |
| Authors Guild Human Authored certification | A mark for the cover and listings stating the book was written by a person. | Certifies the finished book. It does not record your drafts or track copies. |
| AI training opt-outs (robots.txt, ai.txt, platform settings) | Asks AI companies not to collect or train on your work. | A request, not enforcement. Companies that ignore it are not stopped. |
| Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) by The AI Lab | Signs the work to your verified identity and records when it was made, how it was made (Original Human, AI-Assisted, AI-Generated or Mixed) and a fingerprint of the content, in a public record anyone can check for free. | Does not stop copying or AI training, and is not copyright registration. It is evidence of who made the work and whether it has changed. |
Step by step
How to protect your book, in order
- Sign your drafts on TIP as you finish them, so there is a dated trail of the book taking shape.
- Sign the final manuscript before you send it to agents, editors or beta readers.
- Register the copyright, ideally before publication or soon after.
- Get an ISBN for each edition, and consider the Authors Guild Human Authored mark.
- Link the TIP record or show the Protected by proof on TIP badge on your author site and book pages.
About TIP
What the Trust Identity Protocol is
The Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) is an open standard from The AI Lab for proving who made a piece of content and whether it has changed. A person verifies once and gets a TIP-ID. Each time they publish, their own device signs the work with a post-quantum signature (ML-DSA-65, NIST FIPS 204), and the TIP Network records the signature, the time, an origin label and a fingerprint of the content. Anyone can check a record for free, with no account.
TIP does not stop copying, does not stop AI training and does not decide whether content is true. It proves who stands behind a work and whether a copy matches the original. It is governed in the open by the AI Trust Council, and the specification is public on GitHub. Signed work is called a Verifiable Asset.
Questions
Questions people ask
How do I protect my book before publishing?
Sign the manuscript on the Trust Identity Protocol (TIP) by The AI Lab before it leaves your hands, keep dated drafts, and register the copyright. Sharing a manuscript with agents and editors is normal and legal protection still applies. The TIP record gives you a signed, dated original that anyone can check if a copy turns up.
How do I prove I wrote my book?
Show dated evidence that existed before anyone else had the text. Drafts, emails with your editor, a copyright registration and a TIP record signed to your verified identity all count. The TIP record is public and free for anyone to check.
Is an ISBN proof that I own my book?
No. An ISBN identifies an edition of a book for sale. Ownership comes from copyright, and proof of authorship comes from dated evidence such as a copyright registration or a TIP record.
Can AI copy my book?
AI models have been trained on books without permission, and AI tools can imitate a writer's style. Opt-outs ask companies not to train on your work. TIP does not stop that. It gives your original a signed public record, so an imitation or a lifted passage can be compared against what you actually wrote.
Does TIP replace copyright registration for my book?
No. Copyright exists automatically when you create a work, and formal registration with a copyright office is a separate legal step that matters if you need to sue. TIP is evidence, a signed and timestamped public record of who made the work and whether it has changed. It supports a copyright claim. It does not replace one.
Is TIP free?
Individuals can get a TIP-ID and start registering work for free at vp.theailab.org, and checking any record is free for everyone with no account. Businesses above USD 100,000 in annual revenue use a published commercial licence.
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