You all know how important properly filing for copyright protection on your work is, so I will not belabor the point.
The US Copyright Office this morning (1 June 2007) has opened up a Beta program for electronic filing for copyright protection, which should both dramatically ease the process and the speed of getting your work properly registered, preferably before it ever is shown to anyone else (ie: registering as "unpublished works"). It also will have a price cut associated with registering electronically via the program, which is also a very desireable feature.
There is an online story Copyright Office Invites Participation in Beta Testing (72 FR 30641) on stockphotographer.info/, but the full details are at http://www.copyright.gov/fedreg/2007/72fr30641.html, and the online signup form for the beta program is at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/beta-request.html and takes only about 30 seconds to fill in.
I've already submitted a request for myself personally, and another on behalf of Picade "corporately", but I would strongly suggest that anyone who would like to participate in this program register immediately, as the beta program participants are selected from a first come, first served limited set of participants.
HTH.
Michael Beasley