JohnC,
Earl is dead on. Though your work is considered protected by copyright upon its completion and affixation into a permanent medium (film, video, dvd, etc.) you the content creator are responsible to establish the ‘chain of title’ immediately by filing for copyright. Yes you can put the words ‘Copyright …’ onto your creation, but the symbol ” is only official once you’ve received your certificate of copyright. The last thing any content creator wants is to have ownership of their work challenged and not be able to produce the certificate after only having the symbol as ‘protection’.
