The newest scam on the Internet appears to be a scare email warning you that "your website is not protected against copyright violations." One example appears to be from the U.S. government, with lots of forbidding language about your liability and damages if you don't register with them. This organization, U.S. Copyright Registry, is NOT an agency of the U.S.government. You don't need these people to "help" you copyright your website or other intellectual property for your business.

Here are the facts:

• The U.S. Copyright office is within the Library of Congress
  
• You don't need to register a copyright with any agency in order for it to be valid
  
• To establish your copyright, here's what you need to put on all of your web pages:
  The word "copyright," the copyright symbol © , the year of copyright, and the copyright owner.
  
• You can register your copyright for a fee, with the U.S. Copyright Office. Just make sure you're dealing with the real thing.

One last note: If you aren't sure about whether you're dealing with a real governmental agency, U.S. government agencies use ".gov" in their URL's (as in http://www.copyright.gov), while states use the two-letter state designator (For example, the website of the Secretary of State for Iowa is http://www.sos.state.ia.us/ .