Registering a script during the strike + list of prodcos/agencies

your registration will still be good
your query will still be good no matter who you send it to
the only thing you cannot do until the strike is over is SIGN anything - no deals til the dealmaking is done. everything else is good and fair game. in fact, this may be the best time to market your stuff to agents because they have nothing much to do. so they have time to read your crap.
but if you're so new to this stuff then it's quite doubtful that you're ready to market anything anyway so quit worrying and keep writing.

hi katie and welcome.

I am sure Nikee doesn't really mean you write crap - just her unusual way of communicating.

Have fun and you will find dpaterso invaulable in this forum

Welcome to the forum, katie.

Pretty much what Nikee said about registering your script... you can do this any time.

If you check out http://www.wga.org/ and select writer's resources they have a Guild Signatory Agents and Agency list... I'm lookin' for a list of WGA-signatory prodcos but can't see an obvious one... hmm, can't see it under the Site Map either... but a quick Google search linked to this page, "Struck Companies" - http://www.wga.org/subpage_member.aspx?id=2537 -- is that what you're looking for?

I'm just saying, if and when you're ready to query, we have a critique forum if you want to air your query for comment, or get feedback on some script pages. Your choice. See sigline below for link & password.

...Thanks for the vote, John, check's in the mail.

-Derek

Since there's a strike on, you've got plenty of time to register your work with the US Copyright Office.

odocoileus said:

Since there's a strike on, you've got plenty of time to register your work with the US Copyright Office.

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I just refer to register only with the WGA, since the work's already copyrighted, and you're going to sell a studio the copyright anyway (unless they're really scumbaggy )

sell a studio the copyright anyway

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I read in my local Vegas paper that selling the copyright might become a new demand in this strike.

If so, looks like the WGA thinks they have some stroke all of a sudden.

Man, keeping your copyright, or at least a portion (serious producer points), now that would certainly change things.

For anyone soulless enough to consider being a scab, check out this article in the the New York Press.

Madbandit said:

I just refer to register only with the WGA, since the work's already copyrighted, and you're going to sell a studio the copyright anyway (unless they're really scumbaggy )

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When you say that the script is already copyrighted, do you mean that you have already *registered* the copyright with the LOC?

If you have, you really don't need to register the script with the WGA, because the particular protections that such registration offers are really encompassed (along with additional protections) by virtue of your copyright registration.

If you haven't registered the copyright, it's a good thing to do, since it offers you additional legal protections -- above and beyond the simple act of completing a work, by which it is, automatically under copyright, by law.

NMS

Joe270 said:

I read in my local Vegas paper that selling the copyright might become a new demand in this strike.

If so, looks like the WGA thinks they have some stroke all of a sudden.

Man, keeping your copyright, or at least a portion (serious producer points), now that would certainly change things.

Click to expand...

I don't know who wrote this, but it's way off base.

It is the fact that the members of the WGA sell the copyright that permits us to *be* a union.

That fact creates the situation known as "work for hire" -- it makes us employees, and it only as employees that we can organize and form a union capable of collective bargaining.

If we retain copyright, that obviously gives us certain advantages, but it means that we cannot have a union as it currently exists, capable of collective bargaining in the legal sense -- because we would no longer be performing work for hire.

Instead we would be licensing the copyright, in the same way that the copyright holder of a book licenses rights to a publisher.

NMS

NikeeGoddess said:

your registration will still be good
your query will still be good no matter who you send it to
the only thing you cannot do until the strike is over is SIGN anything - no deals til the dealmaking is done. everything else is good and fair game. in fact, this may be the best time to market your stuff to agents because they have nothing much to do. so they have time to read your crap.
but if you're so new to this stuff then it's quite doubtful that you're ready to market anything anyway so quit worrying and keep writing.

Click to expand...

Here is the deal as I understand it.

As a non-union member, obviously you can register material with the guild.

You can also send your material to agents. In fact, this would be a good time, since they don't have anything else to do.

You can also send your material to any company that *isn't* struck -- that is, that isn't a signatory. If you're not sure, it's easy enough. Ask them.

You have to be careful about simply looking at the list of struck companies. Many companies, even quite large ones, aren't signatories directly, but do business through the guild by setting up intermediate companies on a project-by-project basis that are signatories.

So you may be looking at the struck-companies list and see all sorts of names that you've never heard of -- not realizing that, in fact, they are subsidiaries of some familiar company that seems unaccountably absent from the list.

The best way to tell is to simply ask them -- are you a guild signatory. Or ask the guild.

If they are not -- and you are not, there is nothing to prevent you from doing business with them.

But if they are, it is just sophistry to suggest that you're not doing business with them until there's an offer on the table or because you won't say "yes" until after the strike.

When a salesman walks in a door with his sample case -- he's doing business. Whether they buy his stuff or not, he's there to sell, and that's doing business.

If you are trying to sell your script to a struck company -- you're doing business with them. They're in need of scripts. You're offering them a script. Obviously, you're offering them the script because you want them to buy it.

If a producer makes you an offer, you won't be in a position to say, "Oh, I'm happy to sell it to you -- once the strike over, whenever that happens."

It's the fact that there's a strike and thus an absence of scripts by guild writers *now* that's going to create the demand for these scripts written by non-guild writers.

The guild may not be in a position to penalize you if you fail to make a sale, but what is the point of attempting to sell to a struck company -- if the minute they say, "yes" -- you will either have to refuse, or commit yourself to a course of action that will result in your never being able to become a member of the Guild?

Basically, if you don't intend to sell to a struck company -- then you shouldn't try to sell to one.

NMS

If we retain copyright, that obviously gives us certain advantages, but it means that we cannot have a union as it currently exists, capable of collective bargaining in the legal sense -- because we would no longer be performing work for hire.

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There was not much detail. One of the people in the article was the guy from SNL 'update'.

However, your supposition is false.

Just because there is a portion of ownership does not mean we still are not 'writers for hire', because there is the up-front money, and contractual obligations of payment.

Besides, the WGA is technically a 'guild', not a union. It's artwork for purchase or rent.

Just because the originating artist of the product retains a portion of the rights does not mean they cannot be a part of a collective barganing guild.

And that would give the WGA some stroke for a change.

Joe270 said:

There was not much detail. One of the people in the article was the guy from SNL 'update'.

However, your supposition is false.

Just because there is a portion of ownership does not mean we still are not 'writers for hire', because there is the up-front money, and contractual obligations of payment.

Besides, the WGA is technically a 'guild', not a union. It's artwork for purchase or rent.

Just because the originating artist of the product retains a portion of the rights does not mean they cannot be a part of a collective barganing guild.

And that would give the WGA some stroke for a change.

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With all due respect, you are one hundred percent wrong.

The WGAwest and WGAeast are *technically* and in every other respect that matters -- which is in the eyes of the law -- unions.

The WGAeast, in fact, is a member of the AFL-CIO.

There are other guilds -- for instance The Playwright's Guild -- which are not, but has nothing to do with us.

The Playwright's Guild cannot engage in collective bargaining. Their members are *not* members of a union. Because they retain copyright in their work, and license its use, what they do is not considered work for hire. They are not employees -- and thus *cannot* do what we do.

No collective bargaining. No strikes. That is restricted to *employees.*

If by "retaining rights" you mean reserving copyright in the underlying material -- you cannot do this in respect to work done for hire. That's what "work for hire" means.

If there is some underlying work in which you own the rights -- a play, or a book or a graphic novel -- you can continue to own the rights in that.

Or if you are a writer/producer, you can -- as a *producer* -- own a share of the rights, just as any producer can.

But what you can't do is to be employed solely as a writer, doing "work for hire" and to own, either in whole or part, the work that you've been hired to write.

That's as true for spec scripts as for assignments which, when you read the contract, they make very clear will be considered -- for the purposes of the contract as a "work for hire" -- and that the company that's buying it will be considered the "author" for purposes of copyright -- and that you are selling "all rights in perpetuity in all media currently in existence or yet to be invented throughout the universe" -- that's the phrase they use.

That's how it works.

NMS