Copyright a Documentary...?
- Thread starter NO CA$H
- Start date
No. You can't copyright an idea. Only specific works in tangible form.
Terry_Lasater
All about the Caption
Pardon my ignorance, but can't he copyright a script for the doc?
Still doesn't mean someone else can't take the "idea" even if he registers* the script. It's the specific expression of the idea contained in the script or the film that is protected. Anyone can go out and make a documentary using the "idea" behind Sharkwater: just go and make your own documentary about an endangered underwater animal with a bad reputation and show how it's actually not such an evil monster at all. That's the idea. Nothing to stop you from making it (except a better version is already on the market). But you couldn't actually lift narration or take footage right out Sharkwater to use as your own. The greyer territory is in narrative filmmaking, because it is sometimes hard to decide when an idea (young man must save the universe from the evil empire) becomes a protected expression of that idea (young man on a desert planet gets a message from a princess to save universe from evil empire building a death star).
* Note that copyright already exists in any artistic work, like the script, as soon as you complete it. Registering it with a Copyright Office only provides some additional evidence in the event you need to make a claim and also provides some additional courses of action. But artistic work, whether a painting or a song or a movie, is copyrighted the moment the artist makes it.
* Note that copyright already exists in any artistic work, like the script, as soon as you complete it. Registering it with a Copyright Office only provides some additional evidence in the event you need to make a claim and also provides some additional courses of action. But artistic work, whether a painting or a song or a movie, is copyrighted the moment the artist makes it.