Im a few months away from completing a site that im making, but it should be reasonably large, 6000 odd pages, what things can I do to protect my content and preempt any copiers, and if my work does get copied, what should I do? Contact a lawyer? Contacy the ISP? Im in Australia by the way, so it makes things harder. What happens if the copier is international, which will most likely be the case.
Not much you can do to preempt copiers without annoying people coming to your site. (e.g. you could take a screen shot of your content and display that instead of just text). Once it has been copied.. Contact the site owner first. Then contact the ISP. A lawyer is not going to be cheap so I would not bother unless your reputation is being tarnished.
Yes, there is nothing much you can do. The suggestion is already the best I think. You can check it out using copyscape.com