I am new to the forums and new to the concept of starting a blog that contains content that I want to protect. I have started a blog that is pretty innovative, will help a lot of people, and has little (very little) competition. I am seriously worried about content theft. My question is: What can I do to copyright this material? I know that I can perform searches to see if anyone had already plaigerized something but I want to be able to have legal recourse if this happens. Basically, it's a CYA (cover your @$$) thing. I don't want to just start posting content that I know is valuable only to have it stolen and be left with my pants down. My searches have turned up a good bit on the information I am looking for but it seems like the question is so basic that the search results go above-and-beyond, circumventing the purpose of my search. Basically, I want to hear from a few others on what they do to stave off theft of intellectual property. Thanks for any replies.
After I posted this I found what I believe to be what I was looking for. I don't want to come across as one of those stupid new people that don't search. In case anyone else comes across this thread with the same question, though, I found my answer here: http://*forums.digitalpoint.com/showthread.php?t=88823 I can't post live links yet according to the FAQ, but you can still copy-and-paste without the apostrophe. Thanks anyway!
When you create your materials they are copyrighted. But you need tools to defend your copyright and ownership. One service is www.copyright.gov. The drawback with them is that they accept only 50 pages. If your material has more than 50 pages I would suggest to use timestamp services like www.digistamp.com and www.surety.com. Digistamp is cheaper (40c per timestamp) than surety ($1.5 per timestamp). With them you can prove your copyright easily.