how do you overcome the fear of having an original idea stolen!

Tell yourself that true "new and novel" ideas are very rare. Mostly it's all been done but in a different way. Also, whatever work the "thief" might come up with based on your idea would probably be wildly different from your work (on account of being two different people) which doesn't make your work not sellable.

It's easier to buy a script than it is to hire someone to replicate it. The only time I would worry about idea theft would be if your idea is great but your execution is not.

Having said that, there's always WGA registration and copyriting for the fearful but it comes down to a personal choice - can you overcome your fear of theft for the potential reward of having the thing made? Or will you just keep it close to your chest?

Believe me, there are enough obstacles and hindrances to this gig already - try not to handicap your chances by being overly-protective of your work.

ETA - you're in the UK? I've got experience with pitching ideas and scripts to UK production companies. Most of these people are so busy they barely have time to get their own projects made, let alone read new work. I think your idea would have to be staggeringly original for someone at a UK prodco to want to steal it and even then, they're more likely to just buy it. YMMV.

i have no fear because i know that what i write is from my head and my head only. i write what i know and because no one has lived my life then they cannot duplicate the intricate nuances that i can put down in a story.

if you dig deep enough within yourself then you can make the same claim. but if you only write surface crap then that's what you'll produce... copycat stuff that has already been done.

I take small comfort in the fact I'll never come up with an idea so original and wonderful that anyone will ever want to steal it.

-Derek

I put a fairly original idea (although really, there are no original ideas) up on a script review site and got a lot of reviews about how original it was. And I worried for a minute, but not much longer.

For one, as people noted, it's all about how you do the idea. Someone could have stolen the high concept of Being John Malkovich from Charlie Kaufman, but would they have written the same movie? Unlikely.

I guess there's a couple levels of concern about getting ripped off. One is at the Production Co level. This has reportedly happened (look at the lawsuit over Rounders), but as noted above, is unlikely. The copyright infringement lawsuit is not worth it to the company when they could buy your script for pennies and then do what they want to it. In fact, cases like Rounders make it less likely that it'll happen again once studios see what a pain it can be.

The next level is readers. Whether at a prod co or online. But when you consider how hard it is to get a movie made, the chance that they would get their rip off of your script made before you would? Also highly unlikely.
They would need to write it and then sell it (at least you are one step ahead of them there). And then it'd have to actually get made.

I mean, it's always a concern. Sure, someone could steal your idea. Most people will tell you there aren't many original ideas to begin with. So protect yourself, get WGA or some kind of copyright. Don't go giving your script to any old person. But don't deny yourself the ability to make your script better (by posting it on reputable peer to peer sites) or actually making a career for yourself (by submitting it to prod cos and contests). Because without putting it out there, it's as if it doesn't exist. It doesn't do you any good.

And actually, there's a safety in having it read by a lot of people, because they'll associate the idea with you. And if they see another one they'll be like -- wasn't this like so-and-so's script? If enough people read it, it's better than copyright.

Good luck either way =)

Register your stuff.

Here's what an entertainment lawyer said just recently:

"… I love the Writers Guild. I love the people at the Writer’s Guild. I love most everything that the Writers Guild does. Registering a script with the Writers Guild is a waste of time and money, because all it does is establish the date of creation of a piece of work. They will put your script in an envelope, they will date-stamp that envelope, and they will keep it for five years, and then they will burn it.

"On the other hand, registering the same script with the Copyright Office accomplishes two things. It first of all accomplishes establishing the date of creation because the date on the copyright certificate will be the date that the Copyright Office received your package, not the date that they issue the certificate (because they’re four or five months behind), but it will be the date that they received your package. And the second thing it accomplishes is it gives you all of the benefits of the Copyright Act. So for roughly the same fee --I think the Copyright Office registration fee is now forty-five [dollars], and the Writers Guild is --what? --twenty-five [dollars]? Whatever it is. So for slightly more money, you get all the benefits of the Copyright Act. And, if it’s a published work (as opposed to an unpublished work, like a published book for example that you’re registering) the book will be on file at the Library of Congress. You can go to the Library of Congress and check out your own book from the Library. And you’ll get all of the benefits of the Copyright Act for the term of copyright, which is the life of the author, plus 70 years. And they will NEVER destroy the deposit-copy of the book, or the script, or whatever it is, unlike registration at the Writers Guild where they’ll destroy it after five years."

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You know I had said something about some one getting their work stolen before, and I was bashed for it. I was told it was stupid to even consider the idea, etc etc etc ....but I understand where you are coming from. It's a logical fear!

Just do it and realize that you'll freak out for a while afterwards. After all of the permutations of worry cycle through your head a few million times, you'll forget about it and realize it's really okay. Remember to breathe.

Nicole

I would consider it an honour to get my work stolen.

Lemme kill this "new never been dun before" concept for you:

Do you honestly have the hubris to believe that in the 3000 years of recorded story telling, no one has ever told a story that is similiar to yours? Ever?



Locks, such as registrations and all that, only keep honest people honest. They'll steal your work if they want to, you can't stop that. But it'll never get produced if you don't send it out.

It's a risk you have to take. Okay, now get over it and submit.

valen_sinclair said:

Hey peeps, was just wondering, we know by now I have a hard time submitting stuff....fear of failure and all.
However one thing that concerns me the most when submitting say a screenplay with such a NEW and NOVEL idea, is not that it may not be up to scratch but more....such a bloody good idea they steal it!
How can you prevent this.....is it even possible....

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I hear this a lot and, while it's very difficult for people to understand, it bears repeating.

It isn't possible for anybody to "steal" your great idea -- because, in a legal sense, it isn't possible for you to "own" an idea.

That's right. Whatever that idea is, however great or original idea, it doesn't belong to you. It doesn't belong to anybody, as far as copyright law is concerned. The only thing that you, or anybody else can own, is the particular *expression* of an idea in a fixed form.

Say I've got this great idea -- Sherlock Holmes Meets Jules Verne -- and they go off on various adventures that sort of combines well, Jules Verne type stuff and Sherlock Holmes type stuff.

Well, maybe it's a great idea. Maybe it's not. I just thought it up two seconds ago.

It's "mine" in the sense that I just thought it up. I don't know that anybody else thought it up first. Maybe they did or maybe they didn't. But the fact is -- it neither belongs to me, nor to them, nor to you, nor to anyone else -- in the bare bones state above.

Until I do something with it -- write a treatment, write a script, write a story, write a novel, *using* that idea, it doesn't belong to anybody.

And if I do -- then I only own *the idea* to the extent that I own it in the context of that particular fixed expression.

Ideas, per se, are no more property than the color of the grass on your lawn or the smell of the meal that you're cooking that drifts out of your house.

If I'm really worried that somebody is going to pinch my idea and turn it into their own screenplay and sell theirs out from under mine, the only remedy I really have has nothing to do with registering it with the WGA, or registering the copyright with the LOC.

The only real solution is to take that idea and to produce the very best *expression* of it in my screenplay, so that whoever I send it to is not only going to love the idea, per se, but is also going to love the script itself -- and since you're a beginning writer, there really is no impetus on their part to take the idea and hire some other writer to turn it into a new script, whether that would be legal or not -- because to simply buy it from you would inevitably be cheaper than doing that.

In fact, under almost any conceivable circumstance, even if they simply liked the idea and didn't care for anything else about your script, to do that -- to simply buy the script for the idea and hire another writer to rewrite it from the ground up -- is still generally what they do.

In fact, it's pretty much SOP when a studio is moving forward with a script with a particular idea to buy up similar books and screenplays just to get them off the market so that they don't have to worry about either competitive projects or potential lawsuits.

So you just have to harden yourself to these fears. A strong central idea is part of what everyone is looking for. If you have one, that's part of what's going to help sell your script.

But it isn't going to do anyone, least of all you, any good, sitting in your hard drive.

NMS

nmstevens said:

In fact, under almost any conceivable circumstance, even if they simply liked the idea and didn't care for anything else about your script, to do that -- to simply buy the script for the idea and hire another writer to rewrite it from the ground up -- is still generally what they do.

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The silver lining there being that you can then say, "I sold a script to so-and-so." Whatever happens to it, however much it may change from the original idea, you still have that and it's worth its weight in jewel-encrusted, gold-leafed, platinum-flavoured diamonds.

I look at it in this way.

Take the Matrix for example. Tons of movies copied that brand new method of filming once it was released. They were the first to do it. They couldn't keep anyone from copying them, what they could do is beat them to it.

So rather than fretting about someone copying you, work on beating them to it.

Think how many Harry Potter look alikes have come out. The longer you fret, the higher the possibility is someone will beat you to it.

Even or especially inventions work this way.

nielsty said:

I would consider it an honour to get my work stolen.

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Yeah, wouldn't that be cool! I just thought about it. It means that your work is liked enough for someone to go through it because they think the quality is worth it. I'd still try and sue the crap out of 'em, but I'd be thanking them for stealing it in the first place.

Dudes, is my stuff gets stolen, I'm buying everyone here a beer.

My lawyer told me that as soon as a movie gets greenlit someone, somewhere sues because they think their idea has been stolen. I'm not sure I totally believe that, but what it does mean is that there are a lot of people writing out there and even more people who talk about writing. So just write and create because a finished script beats most people. And a finished movie - well, there's not much they can do about that.

Andrew Zinnes
www.thescriptwhisperer.com