Question to You Folks - Copyrighting

Hey all,

For those that read my blog (appreciate it!) I wanted to throw out a question to you all: copyrighting. How many of you have logos, symbols, characters, etc. that you created, and afraid to put them online due to theft? Do you actually go about the process of copyrighting your creations? And if so, how do you actually go about doing so?

I have currently 2 copyrights; 1 for my 2D "Circuit Death" logo and another for my 3D "Circuit Death 3D" logo. I submitted my copyrights to the US Copyright Office and almost a year and half later, after some pestering and emailing for statuses, I finally received my copyrights for both images. However, if I changed a detail of the image, let's say I wanted a different color, would I need to submit another copyright? Or would one copyright suffice?

Or let's say I created a character(s) and wanted to put them on t-shirts, website, etc; would it be a good idea to copyright the characters first and then show them to the world? Doing so may take a year and half to get the copyright; by then I would have moved on to another project! And if you submitted a character copyright, would you have to show a graphic of the front, back, side, top, below, etc?

Now I read that once you put something up, you automatically have a 'copyright' for it, however if someone copies it, it'll be harder for you to fight it w/o an official copyright. Or I heard about the DIY copyright, about sending you a letter w/ the graphic in it to get the date/time stamp, but that doesn't hold up anymore. Or if I put up something on my own personal website, would it be a good idea to copyright my entire website to protect my property??

Lots and lots of questions and I would love to hear some answers from those that have any experience in it. Please place some comments/info/help if you have any and appreciate the responses - maybe this info can help those that have the same question(s) out there. Thanks!

AW