ever hear of watermarking...
or better yet, having the original, with a datestamp on it...
also... this has nothing to do with patents... ever hear of intellectual property rights... no, then look here...
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Copyright protection is automatic as soon as there is a record in any form of the material that has been created, and there is no official registration or form or fee. But creators can take certain steps to help prove that material is theirs.
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There is no official registration system for copyright in the UK and most other parts of the world. There are no forms to fill in and no fees to pay to get copyright protection. You do not need to register copyright - there is no official registration system. This is why protection is said to be automatic. So long as you have created a work that qualifies for copyright protection, that is it falls into one of the categories of material protected by copyright, then you will have copyright protection without having to do anything to establish this. It is a requirement of various international conventions on copyright that copyright should be automatic with no need to register.
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ref
http://www.intellectual-property.gov...protection.htm
now you can believe what you want to, in the light of, or in spite of the facts... but if you want to actually know what you are talking about, there are reams of information concerning this topic all over the net...
if you were ever dragged into a court of law, as you touched upon above, because you took someone's intellectual property and used it without their permission, you'd wind up loosing...
--Mike