protecting your ideas / story / script

[starcentral]

It seems to happen all to often and you hear about it all the time but think "well that won't happen to me".

You inadvertently share your story idea which is later misconstrued as just being "only an idea open for grabs" and next thing you know it's being produced. This JUST happened to me and the article I wrote (via link below) is in effort to help others understand the ins and outs of sharing the work you've probably worked very hard towards.

What's everyone's thought - anything and everything is up for grabs?

Full article:
http://starcentralfilms.com/resource...ing-your-ideas

[Cary Knoop]

If you don't want an idea to be (potentially) used by others I would suggest to keep it to yourself.

Among the idiotic patents, the way too long copyright protections, eternal trademarks, non-disclosures and what have you at least ideas for stories are free, I for one am glad for that.

[starcentral]

Yep, best way is sadly not to mention them to anyone. Not that "ideas" are all that unique in reality, or that darwinism might not apply. I'm quite a sensible and realistic person, as hopefully is gathered from the article I wrote.

But I do find it quit astonishing that someone would take your entire story from beginning middle and end and then write it and plan to produce it.

[Cary Knoop]

But I do find it quit astonishing that someone would take your entire story from beginning middle and end and then write it and plan to produce it.

I agree.

It would have been decent to at least ask you and give you a "Based on an idea by" credit.

[Oller Visuals]

So any advice how to go about electronic NDAs? Could be useful when sharing screenplays.

[starcentral]

Lots of templates out there on this, but you really need to get a lawyer help you on this. You can reuse it later on, but pay for the first one.

Also what would you do if you asked someone to sign an NDA to read your screenplay and in turn they ask you to sign an NDA too. You'd say, "what I beg your pardon, you're the one reading my screenplay". We are not lawyers who can necessarily make sense of everything or ever aspect unfortunately. Think of the person's rights who might be reading your screenplay.. round and round we go...

[DLD]

My take is that, as in the example above, you go ahead and shoot your short anyway, as if the other didn't exist.

I remember twenty years ago - this was only recently - there were several projects based on John Holmes' life. Now, due to his fame, there were several books out and about at that time and there were several directors interested in the project. Eventually, studio went with Paul Thomas Anderson's screenplay that became "Boogie Nights". The problem was that the producers didn't want to pay for the rights to any of the bios and there was enough publicly available information to base the story line on, with the full character profile changed just enough to avoid an infringement law suit. Eventually, in 2003, there was a different John Holmes' biopic named "Wonderland" (taking the title from the Wonderland Avenue murders). I have not seen it but am familiar enough with the murders related events to stat that "Boogie Night" was a shameless ripoff, at least, insofar as the story arc goes.

But it kept PT Anderson in limelight because ... well, because it was received as a very good film. I personally did not like it all that much but I am not on a Rotten Tomatoes list of critics anyway.