Not true my friend. In the US you do not need to file anything to have ownership. If you create it then you own it and someone has to show they owned it before you did in order to dispute that claim.

If you file and get a document from the federal govt. like a i.e. a copyright showing that you had possession and ownership of the created piece of IP on that particular date when it was filed, it can certainly help in a court of law, but you can do that at the time you sue if you do not have it. So once you discover there is financial gain from your work being made by someone else, if you have not done so already, you simply register and then you are set.

How is everyone using everyone else's content right now? What you see going on right now online is content creators being in a transition phase. No one knows how to react because it has all come on so fast. But that will change. But understand that technically anytime someone publishes someone else's original work without permission, or a license it is illegal. Whether it is in a book or a magazine or a website. It is just that the laws never accounted for something like the Internet. What you will see over the next 5 to 7 years are new laws and no one will be able to to just post someone else's content without permission, or license without a legal repercussion. I actually hear that a company is working on a blockchain solution to prevent this from happening.

It is coming and this is why you see companies like Facebook now trying to get right with content creators. I have been involved in this issue and have been a publisher for 30 years. Thanks.