I’d have to do some studying first on metallurgy, but I bet I could make some waves by inventing the jet engine a decade or two early.
I was thinking along the same lines. Except I 'd go back to the 30’s and start a record label Then over the years I’d systematically search out every major recording artist. Bing Crosby, Frank, Sinatra, Dean Martin, Elvis, Buddy Holly, The Beatles, The Who, The Stones, Michael Jackson, etc.( you get the idea) and sign them to ludicrous long-term deals. I would build a cutting edge recording studio that everyone would have to record at, assist in producing their music, and get them to either sell me their copyrights or even better include my name in the songwriting credits.
And instead of the FIFA World Cup the world would become enthralled with the antimatter-powered zeppelin races and clockwork supercomputers.
Ugh, don’t depress me even more. At 2012, we’d only be about three years away from actual hollowdecks.
Stake out the Lindbergh house with a camera in March of 1932.
I thought noted time traveller Morgan Robertson already tried a subtle version of that and failed.
I would start with something incredibly simple that doesn’t really need anything in the way of new technology – inventing luggage with wheels.
Of yes, and become the Nostradamus of the 20th Century, with predictions that can actually be clearly understood.
I suppose I could hop aboard the Titanic and steer it clear of that iceberg.
“I’m the King of the World!”
I started to reply, but the post grew longer and longer. Then I decided, why waste this story on an SDMB post? This idea is good enough to write a novel.
So I will.
I’d stop the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand, just to see how history plays it out.
And compose a score to Phantom of the Opera.
By 1912 most of the inventions that were changing the world were not all that simple and to duplicate them from scratch without the natural development of supporting technologies would require more scientific and engineering know how than the vast majority of people living today possess.
Copyright law says the earliest publication owns the copyright. My publication would be the earliest, so I’d be free and clear under the law for that part. As for fraud, I don’t even necessarily need to claim that I wrote any of them, merely that I was the first person to publish them. While my idea is clearly deeply unethical, there’s absolutely nothing illegal about it.
So you’d go back in time a 100 years to write a novel about going back in time 100 years to the year 1812? 
I’d keep it simple and invent / patent the tiny, portable transistor radio and earbuds. Or I could introduce smoking crystal method for recreation - which wouldn’t be illegal at that time.
Go back in time 100 years (to 1912) and write a novel about going back in time 100 years (from 2012).
Being a time-travel novel, of course, you can have your main character mention all kinds of fancy future technology. Cellphones, computers, microwave ovens, lasers, spacecraft, whatever. Describe it in enough detail that it’ll be obvious in retrospect, but seem like science-fiction until then. Think Star-trek and the communicators. Also use caution not to include enough information to actually build any of this stuff; maybe leave out important details or plant false information, just to be safe.
Include some, not a lot but some, of the information people would be interested in… Beatles Songs, Superbowl (what’s that?) scores, important disasters (Earthquakes? In California? Inconceivable!), stuff like that.
Make the novel into a radio play, then a movie, and do the first tie-in thing, Lucas-style merchandising, a LOT of advertising, and rake in the dough.
Retire, and become a recluse, and use the money to start developing the technologies that you mentioned in the novel. Of course, you never said WHO invented them, in your original timeline. Rake in even MORE dough.
Use the technology and resources you now have to change the course of history for the better, because you can. Just… be careful.
Don’t try to kill Hitler.:smack: Trust me, it won’t work.
No, this is dead wrong. Copyright is granted to the author of a work. As I said above I’m not in a position to pronounce upon what may or may not technically be fraud in 1912 in your jurisdiction but I think that any enforcement of “your” copyright would - utterly contrary to what you say - involve declaring that the works in question were authored by you. That is the basic bedrock of copyright entitlement.
:dubious:
…
I might send a series of letters to Mr. Taft describing how Wilson’s policies will cost countless lives in Europe. But you wanted famous…
OK, how about becoming a really good stage magician using techniques that weren’t developed until later in the century, borrowing from some of Houdini’s ideas?
How famous do I need to be to pass the test?