On Thu, 9 Jul 1998 Shadow6865@aol.com wrote:

                 The authors probably just put that the story is
copyrighted and leave it at that. If you want a real copyright you can
do a poor man's copyright. Print out your stories and send them priority
mail to yourself. When you get the package do not open it. This type of
copyright holds up legally in court. (Though you are already breaking
copyright laws by writing the fanfic so you might want to avoid the poor
man's copyright even though no harm will come if you do it, probably.) 

Or you could send it to an internet mailing list with a dated archive and
over 900 readers.

That should stand up in court also.