"Why does this bother me so?"
Because you're an artist, who has written songs, and you know the effort it takes, and you know that without a prospect of reward (which plagiarism destroys), you won't be able to continue making art.
Things are better than they used to be. When Shakespeare wrote his plays, there was no copyright, so he had to rush and put on a few shows asap to grab a little cash before everybody else just put the show on, without paying him, or just copied and read it.
Today, if you write a post, it is automatically copyrighted under the law, assuming it is long enough to be "an expression of ideas" rather than merely "ideas," and the time-stamped blockchain itself will be proof of the fact you wrote it. :)
This is awesome Rodney, this means I already copyrighted a bunch of made up words... Like prevenge - which is basically when you take revenge against someone before they even hurt you, because you know they will.
Prevenge ™
Should definitely watch out for these guys then.
what is this???
/me calls his lawyer!
Sorry, @meno, you can't copyright a word, only an expression of ideas.
To protect a word, you must trademark it, and that's costs serious money in every jurisdiction you want to protect it in. Further, the word must not be trademarked by anyone else, and it cannot be generic, like say "restaurant." It has to be unique, like "McDonald's" And lastly, it has to be trademarked for a field, say "entertainment." So someone else can trademark the same word for another use that is outside of the scope of the use you trademarked the word for.
So no, you didn't trademark or copyright that word. Sorry dude. :)