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As a layman without benefit of Law school, but one who taught high school Government for 33 years, it has been my belief that there is a difference in that meaning of the word COPYRIGHT and the registered or legal copyright which is provable and enforcable in court and comes with certain legal rights and benefits that go far beyond simply the ability to write and copy something.
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Then you misunderstand. "Copyright" in the first sense is the author's EXCLUSIVE right to create copies, and the right to prevent anyone else from doing so. Ergo it is indistinguishable from the 'second' sense. The rights and benefits are there from the first. All registration does is to ease the copyright-holder's path to the courthouse door.
I am currently engaged in editing certain unpublished Tolkien manuscripts from Marquette. Hoever, unless and until the Estate approves my edition for publication, I am legally prohibited from disclosing a single word of those texts. They are absolutely, positively copyrighted materials. In fact, they are protected more stringently than published material, since "Fair Use" explicitly does not apply to unpublished works.