Question about Queries and copyrights. [View all]

Something stuck in my mind. It's about copyrighting your manuscript. Apparently the advantage in copyrighting is that it would open the award punitive damages in an infringement suit per the Writer's Market book.

However, this is the issue. I understand that we are copyrighted from the moment we put our story down on paper, but it says in the book that copyright does not protect titles, ideas and facts.

I can understand titles and facts, but sometimes an entire story is hanging on an idea. So, what if you pitch that idea in your query? You don't give the ending away, but you give enough to introduce something you've never seen before. Is it possible that someone can take that query and use it for their own purposes to come up with their own story? It might not be ethical, but is it possible?