yup it is difficult - but if someone wants to swipe stuff then flash is only going to make it difficult for them in terms of not being able to right click -> save. 

The other option i suppose is digital watermarks - the digimarc thing in photoshop comes as a demo on its use, but the real deal as far as i understand tracks the dissemination of your material on the web - so if anyone posts your picture on the web digimarc knows about it and informs you so you can take relevant action. That might be a good way of going for the picture files...

As for the learning curve of flash, i doubt it would be difficult - once you have a program that can create flash files.  I havent any experience with flash myself, but from what i know about creative programs (photoshop, dreamweaver, excel etc) is that once you know what you want to do with it (and you seem to know) it only takes a few hours of tutorial work to do it to a very good level - especially if you are the "quasi-geek" you claim to be .

"In every colour, there's the light.
In every stone sleeps a crystal.
Remember the Shaman, when he used to say:
Man is the dream of the Dolphin"

Rich Meadows Photography