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I'm thinking of creating a personal website and putting on it source code, articles/essays, unpublished papers, etc. that I have/will writ(t)e(n).
However I am concerned some of these works might be stolen. I'm especially concerned that someone might publish on their own name the unpublished papers I have written and/or use my code in their programs and then claim it as their own.
Is there some way to prevent this? In case one of the above does happen, is there some way for me prove that I am the true author of the work?
I read a post on HN a while ago that discussed copyright. Over there one solution was to pay $35 fee and get all your work officially copyrighted. It seems like the best way to protect one's work but the only problem is $35 is a bit too expensive in my case. I intend on releasing code & papers that discuss new ideas frequently (probably monthly, if not weekly). In that case 35 bucks is a bit too much to pay even on a monthly basis.
The nice thing about the $35 option is that you can copyright all of your work in one filing (done online at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/index.html). But the problem of cost persists if you decide to release stuff frequently.