a good idea

[Hiro Takamari]

well on deviantart.com you can get your work licensed and that's where i post all my stuff just in case of story robbers!!! I just wanted to tell everyone about it...  

[JamesRaith]

I believe you're referring to the creative commons licenses. Those are a pretty good idea, as they're widely recognized, but they won't stop anyone from stealing from you. They're more a type of "hey, you can take this and post it where you will, but give me credit" kind of thing.

As far as copyright law goes, (in the US at least) your work is copyrighted the moment you write it. Obviously, it can be difficult to prove that you wrote something first, though: a good work around is to mail a copy of your work to yourself (via snailmail), but don't open it: the post mark will prove that the piece was in the mail (and therefore must have been written) before anyone could have stolen it, therefore you have the earliest copy and are therefore assumed to be the writer.

You could do an official copyright, but that requires registering and a process that costs money: it's largely unnecessary.

If you're worried about story thieves, simply do not post online. It's the best way to keep your work safe. By posting on the net, you assume the risk that someone will try to pass your work off as their own.

If you do catch a thief, you can usually scare them into removing the copy by sending a cease and desist order (Google it) or a DMCA (also Google it). Legal jargon and the threat of monetary damages scares people, even if you don't plan on going through with it. Most time, suing isn't an option because you won't usually earn enough in damages to make the court costs worth it.

Finally, a better option from a marketing standpoint would be to contact the thief, and ask them to stop acting like they wrote it. Tell them they can keep the work on their site, so long as they give proper credit and give you a link to the original place where you posted the work. Again, doesn't always work, but it doesn't hurt to try.  

[PandaEnlightenment]

Hmm... This thread gives me an idea. ^^;
Be back in a moment.
ninja
by the way, please read the announcement, if you haven't already. C":