I attended a lecture on the basics of intellectual property for work
yesterday (thurs). It was informative, and dispelled a few
missconceptions -- oldy ones I didn't share... :P

I did ask what kinds of things people (in Canada and
inerternationally) can do to protect their copyright on written
materials. He suggested cleary marking things with the (optional)
copyright symbol, Name of Author, (date of publication) at the end
of each work published on the Internet to make it clear who the
author is. Also, to make it even clearer you can have a disclaimer
asking that anyone seeking to reproduce this work shold contact the
author (and give some means of contacting said author - like a
generic email or something). He said that (as we all knew)
copyrights are inherent, but the best way to prove it is by having a
witness two attest to the fact that it is your copyright. You can
file for a copyright through an intellectual property office (like
his - Canadian Intellectual Property Office) or BETTER (for the
courts) the equivalent in whatever country the person who violated
your copyright resides in. So if someone in the USA stole my work
without my permission I'd fiel for a us copyright while sueing him
in court (or at least threatening to do so) to bolster my defence in
court. It places the burden of proof on the accused to prove their
innocence that way (more or less) since you have your copyright in
hand.

Just thought I'd share.

Mike