How do YOU protect your ideas?

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How do YOU protect your ideas?

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I think the other option is an ACME PIE MACHINE.

Or a Hindenpeter, which are both equally destructive in their own special way.
 
DC, ideas are not copyright protected BUT there are ways to protect yourself.

1) Write down your ideas, the more detailed the better

2) Register whatever you write with the WGA (It doesn't hurt to register a copyright but probably not enough written to be protected)

3) keep a detailed diary of your meetings, even telephone.

4)Follow up meetings with written thank you notes.

5) Anything they send to you keep.

You can try to get a nondisclosure agreement but producers have no incentive to sign them and it brings fear into the creative process.

All of this creates a paper trail. It is less copyright protection than it is an implied contract between you and the other party. Check out "Clearance and Copyright" by Michael C. Donaldson 2nd ed. Every Indy filmaker should have a copy.
 
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Thanks, Jim. The closer I get to this thing becoming a reality, the more paranoid I've become. :)
 
Hey DC,
Tell me your idea, I won't tell anyone. Really.
hahahhaha. Just kidding.
writing a non disclosure can help, but as you said is hard to prove.
Copyright by writing as much as you can and submitting that for copyright.
Try to deal with people that you trust, and demand from them to always be present when the idea is discussed. (make it clear how important it is for them not to leak any information)
Keep people on a need to know basis, so that only you can piece the whole thing together.
Good luck.
ps: looking forward to the next HVX meeting.
pss: hey Jim. Hope all is well.
 
Siniarch, all is well thanks. I copied over my last post from the other thread, particulary bc it has a number for pro bono legal services for artist in the LA area and you guys might be able to take advantage of it. Wish I could attend another HVX meeting in LA, who knows maybe I'll catch a red eye.

[quote}"DC, I wrote the best way to protect ideas on the other thread. The main question with treatments is: How much needs to be written for it to gain sufficient copyright protection? It is a sliding scale from - a one sentence written idea being 0 to a full complete script being a probable 10. Treatments can be stuck in the middle of the scale and that is not a good thing. Follow the the steps to protect yourself I listed on the other thread (buy Donaldsons book) maybe consult a local attorney ( California Lawyers for the Arts (310) 998- 5590 www.calawyersforthearts.org) and hope for the best. none of this is an exact science and many issues remain unsettled but there have been significant cases that have stated pitching ideas in certain circumstances have legally bound the parties. Don't, obviously tell everyone your idea at cocktail parties, no matter how many blueberry beers you drink :-)"
 
Thanks for the info, guys. :)

BTW, the next Los Angeles HVX User Group meeting is in the final stages of planning. If all goes according to plan, it should be later this month.
 
I still think the best way to do it when you don't have a script yet is to write it as a short (or not so short) story.

You can then copyright your "idea", as detailed as you like, without worrying about the execution, screenplay-wise.

No one can make a derivative work, i.e. a film, without your permission.

Remember: the short story doesn't have to be good or well written. It just has to exist to be protected.*

Treatments don't go far enough to afford much protection, imo. At least none of the ones I've seen. They're not much more than outlined "ideas", which isn't enough to be protected.

*and be "published", even if just as a web page. The bad meany who steals your idea won't get slammed if there's no way they could have known about your work. Reasonable.

Still, the best way to protect your work is to not show it until it's in its final form, and then only after it is registered with the LOC (or your country's equivalent). If it must go out into the wild (workshopped or whatever), register it first. Registering a draft is fine. Unless there are significant changes in the final version, it's not even really necessary to worry about registering the final version.
 
GenJerDan said:
I still think the best way to do it when you don't have a script yet is to write it as a short (or not so short) story.

You can then copyright your "idea", as detailed as you like, without worrying about the execution, screenplay-wise.

No one can make a derivative work, i.e. a film, without your permission.

Remember: the short story doesn't have to be good or well written. It just has to exist to be protected.*

Treatments don't go far enough to afford much protection, imo. At least none of the ones I've seen. They're not much more than outlined "ideas", which isn't enough to be protected.

*and be "published", even if just as a web page. The bad meany who steals your idea won't get slammed if there's no way they could have known about your work. Reasonable.

Still, the best way to protect your work is to not show it until it's in its final form, and then only after it is registered with the LOC (or your country's equivalent). If it must go out into the wild (workshopped or whatever), register it first. Registering a draft is fine. Unless there are significant changes in the final version, it's not even really necessary to worry about registering the final version.
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I've NEVER heard of this method. The short story method. Where did you learn this? That ACTUALLY sounds like a really smart move. If you've copyrighted and published your work to a website and something eerily similar comes along, or someone you've shown the story too creates something just the same then you'd have a better chance of winning a case.

HRRRMMMMM.
 
I made it up.

Doesn't mean it's wrong, though. Makes perfect sense.

You can't read a short story and turn it into a film without permission, right?

Well, no one else can, either. :)
 
GenJerDan said:
I still think the best way to do it when you don't have a script yet is to write it as a short (or not so short) story.

You can then copyright your "idea", as detailed as you like, without worrying about the execution, screenplay-wise.

No one can make a derivative work, i.e. a film, without your permission.

Remember: the short story doesn't have to be good or well written. It just has to exist to be protected.*

*and be "published", even if just as a web page. The bad meany who steals your idea won't get slammed if there's no way they could have known about your work. Reasonable.
Click to expand...


This could work but there is a direct realtionship (sliding scale) on how much story detail you write and how protected you are. Even then ideas get copied.

Lets say you write a detailed story about a young handsome cop who has a bit of an edge. There has been a rash of robberies and this young cop is enlisted to go undercover bc the robberies are being done by a group that is definitely part of a young counteculture (lets say we make a detailed account of surfers or street racers or computer hackers)

Our hero enters into this group through some act of bravado and befriends the alpha mail. They both dig danger and the adrenaline that comes with it. They become like brothers (although the followers in the group have their suspicions) The cop has a new world open to him, which he embraces, and he even falls for a girl in the group, (maybe a sister) so there is a conflicted love interest where he has fallen but won't dare admit who he really is.

There is another group in this subculture that are really bad dudes. What a relief. "my new family is not invloved in crime, it is these dirtbags." But this lead doesn't pan out and it is becoming clear that the group the cop has joined are the real culprits. But now the lines between being a cop and being a surfer/street racer/computer Hacker have been blurred. We take a stroll down moral relativism lane usually during a montage.

The hero figures out when the next "last" heist is going to happen and gets involved. But unfortunately this heist goes wrong, people get hurt, and somone needs to pay. This sets up nicely for a climatic scene at the end where the two men who are now like brothers meet and hash out each of their betrayals. The cop will then probaly let the criminal go or kill himself etc...

My point is a detailed movie was made "Point Break" (still sucks you in on a sunday afternoon) and they still made "The Fast and the Furious." Now if someone wanted to take this story and make it about Bull Riders, they could.

And as to the above, there is no requirement that a work needs to be published to give notice.
 
No, but if it's not published (i.e. made public), to whom are you giving notice? You already know it's your work. :)
 
GenJerDan said:
No, but if it's not published (i.e. made public), to whom are you giving notice? You already know it's your work. :)
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Notice and published are different concepts. To have published something is a way of giving notice but there are numerous better ways to give notice. Registering with the WGA, copyright, letting someone read it ect.. Why publish something to the general public that you think is a good idea and may be copied?

The law is open in this area to interpretation with not enough case law to give way to strong stare decisis. Everything is very fact specific, and that is why you ptotect ideas by showing the few people that matter and then create a paper trail to prove that you did. You hope the activity amounts to an implied contract between the parties when the minimum for copyright is not met.

Also, getting specific in what you write can lend itself to being copied in a derivative way by having someone change it enough. (the fast and furious) example. By not reaching the copyright specificity, you may be able to argue it was your idea on a similar not exact work. (chain of proof, facts in your favor scenario)

And if you don't show your work to anyone and it comes out, well your idea wasn't stolen, but we can all take solace we were on the right cosmic trrack with our idea. I had this happen recently and took some satisfaction in the fact that someone had a similar idea and put it in a major film. And then a little piece of me died.:crybaby:
 
Yeah. The paper trail is a bear.

You showed it to ProdCo A and can prove it...but then it gets passed around to who knows who.

Lotsa luck tracing that.

Still...actual theft is rare. Why would anyone take the chance, when a newbie writer gets a relative pittance anyway? Much cheaper to be honest.

On top of all that, most screenplays suck. Which may be the best protection of all. No one would want to steal them... :)
 
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