For all literary works created by you, you have rights under the US Copyright Law. First enacted in 1790, the US Copyright Law has undergone revisions many times. The most drastic revisions were made in 1976, and the current law is more or less based on the law 
of 1976. Many people think that what they write is not protected but the copyright law states that any creative idea, when produced in a tangible form is automatically protected and if you have written something original, you have exclusive copyright acts to it. You are the owner of the creation and no other person can copy or reproduce it without your permission or without informing you about it.
It is not necessary to register or get copyright symbol for anything you created, but it certainly helps to get justice when your work is stolen as you have the evidence of having the original work. You can use your own work in any manner you deem fit and earn through it any fashion you desire, but if someone else copies it you are entitled to enforce your copyright law and prevent others from doing it.
Copyright is protection provided to you by the government of US in respect of any original
work whether it is literary, musical, artistic, and architectural or any other intellectual work. Your creative work is protected for your lifetime and 70 more years after your death. It is not just the original text but many other things are also protected under this law. They are links, graphics, audio, video, html, vrml, and any other markup language sequences, list of websites compiled by someone or any other material that may be deemed as original work.
With effect from October 27, 1998, the terms of all copyrights have been increased by 20 years.
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