Online work- how do you know its safe? and ideas to keep safe?

Question

I have written some works of Creative non fiction, fiction, and news articles for my college newspaper. I wanted to put them on my website for yahoo, or on my blogger or LiveJournal accounts. But I am afraid of these pieces being stolen, Its not that I think I have a million dollar story, its just that I have a lot of Ideas and want feed back, but don't want someone to make off with one of my stories.
I don't have a lot of money to be paying for copyrights, does anyone know how I can post online and make sure my stuff is protected? I want to hear feedback on these pieces and be able to allow family and friends to be able to go and see my work somewhere online- like a portfolio. any ideas on what I can do? thanks?

Answer 1

If you were going to have a limited audience, i.e. persons you allow to view the material, you password protect the items. However, if you want the general public to view the items. You should protect them by placing a disclaimer on your site and ideally on every document stating the material is not be disseminated, used without permission, etc. This should be enough to protect your works for this purpose. Also, copyrighting a document is less expensive than you might think check the following link for more info: http://www.copyright.gov/
Hope this helps. Good Luck!

Answer 2

Poor man's copyright: print out the pieces you want to post online and then mail them to yourself. However, DO NOT OPEN THE ENVELOPE when you receive it, as a sealed envelope and post mark makes the claim somewhat official.

I personally use a creative license through deviantart.com to protect my works in progress before I officially copyright them.

Answer 3

some sites are encrypted or have a privacy policy so look for it when you're doing stuff like that. you can look it up in the yahho search engine if you want.