Under intellectual property law, copyright protects original works of authorship. Such works include artistic, literary, dramatic and musical works such as movies, songs, novels, poetry, architecture, computer software and others.
For such protection to take effect, one must be able to verify content, ownership and time precedence. For example, in order to have a valid legal copyright claim in a court of law, you will need to prove what you created, when you created it before you can claim that it was infringed. That's where the copyright organizations come in, providing undeniable proof that your work (with an actual physical or digital copy of your work) was registered by you (and declaring any other authors to the copyright) on a specific time and date. This would enable you to take legal action and while the result may depend on a number of factors, having a copyright is a prerequisite for any such disputes.
One must not undermine the preventive attributes that copyright protection may provide just by clearly stating on any material shared that it is copyrighted with the International Copyright Organization. You can find a number or documents and deterrent logos here, along with Digital Millennium Copyright Act & Cease and Desist letters.
Copyright does not protect facts, ideas, systems, or methods of operation, although it may protect the way these things are expressed. Copyright protects the actual work of art and not ideas regarding a work of art. For example one can copyright a screenplay (work of art) but not the idea of creating a screenplay about a story.
