> My question is if I get one of this certificates it
> will be easier for me to close down copy cats correct?
Copyright protects the words you use on your site.
Thus people can't cut and paste your site or use
your exact images.
You can regsister your copyright online without paying them $15.
Either way you do have to pay the copyright office $30.
To get a US copyright you'll need someone in the US to agree
to be your US representative (basically they'd get the certificate
in the mail and forward it to you.)
The actual official site is:
http://www.copyright.gov/
Whether or not you register the copyright with the copyright
office, you need to mark your work copyright 2004 your name.
You need not register in order to have copyright protection -
this post is copyright 2004 Morris, licensed for display to GFY.
If you DO register yu can get "automatic: statutory damages
for infringement instead of having to prove damages.
If you wish to protect an idea, a concept, you need a
patent, not copyright. Patents are hrder and more expensive
to come by. It's a patent that you are liekly to us a lawyer for,
not copyright.
Contrast both of the above with a registered trademark,
which protects the name you use for your product or business.
GFY could trademark "GFY" as used to denote a webmaster
message board to make sure I don't register the name
"gofuckyourselves.com" and put up a message board labelled "GFY".
(Don't bother trying, Paul Game already registered that name.)
One thing to note in respect to trademark is that the trademarked
words or symbols are not allowed to be associated with with the product in ordinary usage.
This you cannot trademark "AVS" as used for an
access system to many sites, nor NetAVS, WebAVS, or CyberAVS.
(I know because I tried to trademark CyberAVS).