By law, the moment you create art (of any form) you, you own it. Unfortunately, anyone can take that art and claim they are the ones that first created it. And proving the thieves wrong can be difficult if you lost the original files.

Another law states that once published in ANY form of work with a owner's name and a publication date, then you have full copyright. For hundreds of years, this was done through the government for a cost. The "Poor Man's Way" was for the creator to mail the work to themselves and not open it unless needed. Both methods are still valid today. But if you can't afford to pay the government, or loose your "Poor Man's" Mail, then you're out of luck legally.

Blessfully, the internet help solve the classic Poor Man's way by automatically creating a IP and Date for published works (Anything posted online. But being so easy to access stuff online means anyone can claim you stole their work even if you didn't. And once again, it's your word against the thief's. So the work could fall under the The Public Domain Category. The Public Domain consists of original creations available Copyright Free to the whole public.

BUT FRAT NOT, FRIENDS!!
A great (and 100% legal) company has formed online and takes care of everything for you. Well almost everything. You still have a little work to do. Here's how it works.

1-Register for free with your REAL info and the e-mail to which you wish to apply all of your work to. Then Confirm the e-mail and LogIn to the site.

2-Click on the "Protect My Work" button and follow the instruction.

3-Be sure the info (Title, Description, and Category) is correct. And upload the file (not the core file) to their database.

4-Once completed, the site gives you a HTNL code. It consist of a copyright image and a link to your work's fully legal copyright info (Digital Fingerprint, MCN Number [link] , etc).

5-Prove your copyright with either the HTML code or the copyright link within. For example, here's the one for my Company Logo (Draft One): [link]

During the register process, there's "Other" Category to which you can combine many works to file them under one copyright. This is great for groups of characters, logos, etc that are related.

Just head to My FreeCopyright Dot Com >> [link] << to get started.

This will help with any concerns of that stupid "Orphan Works" bill those jerks are trying to pass. But it doesn't stop the bill.