Opentimestamps could be a complementary tool to achieve this.

Pattern would be:

• You author the "work", whatever that is.
• You sign it.
• You use opentimestamps to prove the existence of the signature at some point in time.
• You release the "work" out there.

Since you have that proof, and nobody else can provide one earlier than yours, you kind of have a case for having laid your eyes on the "work" before anyone else, which is a strong argument in demonstrating authoring.

From what I've read, intellectual property protection is one of the strong use cases in trad-legal areas for Opentimestamps.