copywriting your idea???

Obviously you've got to have something solid to register and copyright.

I'd maybe write a treatment with as much detail as possible, capturing the uniqueness of the idea and story and characters, and register/copyright this.

But if the idea is THAT brilliant then I wouldn't be discussing it with anyone anyway, it would stay on my PC and backup media and nowhere else, until the script is written and polished and ready to go out there, at which point I'd register/copyright that too.

-Derek

As dpaterso suggests, you cannot copyright an idea - only the expression of the idea. So, you must evolve it into something more - like a treatment or preferably a screenplay and then copyright it.

Can't own an idea, just it's execution.

That's why there's more than one manufactuer of water fountains, cars, elevators, shoes, and any other item you can think of.

The experts say that you should be working out the story in detail before you go to script. So, write a twenty paged treatment in scene heading style and copyright it.

But you can copyright your treatment and if you see Jim Carey starring in a movie just like yours next month, it does you no good unless they got the idea from you. No one can get the idea from you until you send out a finished treatment or script (or pitch, but don't do that until you're ready to back it up with finished material that you've registered with the WGA, copyright office or a similar entity). . .so keep it to yourself and no one can steal it. Other writers may think of it on their own, though. . .
But if even that happens, you can probably rewrite yours to make it stand out again. . .

kitt said:

That's pretty much what I was thinking. damn, too bad.

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You'll be glad of this one day.

You CANNOT protect an idea or concept. End of story.
There is a suggestion here that registering a treatment will protect the idea...it won't. It will protect sequences of words, but somebody else could take the idea, write a new movie around it, and you'd be out.

This is why fashion lines are so secret...ideas can be taken and there is no recourse. Anybody trying to sell you on any degree of protection for an idea or concept is misleading you.

It's already been stated that an idea alone can't be protected. The "suggestion here" is that the author puts so much specific detail into the treatment that it becomes a uniquely recognizable work far removed from just the basic idea.

The only assumption is that the author might be invited to send or otherwise pitch the treatment to interested parties without having first written the script. Kinda unlikely for a non-pro screenwriter, but who can predict such things.

-Derek

Copyright pertains to when something, such as an idea, has been expressed in some form solid form - in writing, on video, mpg etc. Furthermore, copyright is part of Intellectual Property, to which there are all kinds of rights that could potentially protect your idea. Part of the problem here is defining what constitutes a unique "idea". If it is fairly loose - something that anyone could come up without needing to "steal" it from you - then there is no protection.

Eg (building on an earlier example) everyone wears shoes so you can't trademark shoes. But if you designed a unique shoe and you were clearly the source of that design, then you could trademark that. If you copied a Nike designed shoe they could successfully sue you (providing you are in a country that abides by these laws).

As such, is your "idea" is a vague idea, eg, this is a story set in world war II about a young solider having to leave his new wife... then it doesn't express anything unique enough to be considered your intellectual property.

But if your idea contains enough unique features that it would be virtually impossible for someone else to spontaneously come up with the same idea - and this idea must be recorded in some form (written, recorded etc) - then it will be protected by copyright as much at it would in a full script.

But copyright is not a guarentee that someone won't come out with a movie very similar to yours - legally or otherwise. While you might think your idea is incredibly unique, we are all influenced by the same world around us. Read the same newspapers, books, movies, music, etc - it is possible for someone completely unconnected to you to come up with a similar idea. Your copyright will not protect you from this - as they have equal copyright in their own work.

If someone reads your treatment/script and then goes off to develop something similar, then you can mount a court battle. It will come down to the "burden of proof". Registering copyright puts a proven date on it (providing you register it early on), additionally keep old drafts and notes, and details of everyone you share your idea with. In a court case you would need to prove that a) you came up with the idea first, and b) that person was exposed to your idea, and c) their execution uses unique elements of your idea to breach copyright.

But of course, it is hideously expensive to go to court. Even if you were completely in the right, how could you go up against a multi-billion dollar prodco? We just have to trust that people will act ethically, and not share our work with people we think might be unethical.

Lucizzz said:

Eg (building on an earlier example) everyone wears shoes so you can't trademark shoes. But if you designed a unique shoe and you were clearly the source of that design, then you could trademark that. If you copied a Nike designed shoe they could successfully sue you (providing you are in a country that abides by these laws).

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Er, actually, you'd have to patent the shoe itself. Nike and their Swoosh are trademarks, but the shoe itself requires either a design patent (if you're trying to protect the look) or a utility patent (if you're trying to protect some unique feature, such as a new material for the insole).

Or some new technology, perhaps. Patents are a whole different story. By the way, you cannot patent a "look". I'm sure many would like to.

I would say that there is not much you can do in a treatment to make a concept copyrightable. What would you do, copyright the treatment as a work itself? And what would you be protecting? Lines of dialog? Character names? PLOTS? You can't protect a plot.

Let's say you have some big high-concept idea. Mom and daughter change bodies. Robot from future alters time, knocks up earth girl. You can't file a treatment with that story line then sue people for using it.

This is why I bothered to post here despite other posts rightly claiming you can't protect ideas. To encourage somebody to think that they can write up a synopsis or treatment, then copyright it and be able to prevent people from using the idea is just not sound. Anybody who has seen enough movies to note the recurrance of plots has seen this.

You'd be better off getting "no knockoff" signings from the few people involved in looking at it. Then what...you sue a studio?

But basically, you are vulnerable and it is well to be aware of that.

Lucizzz said:

.. if you designed a unique shoe and you were clearly the source of that design, then you could trademark that..

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MadScientistMatt said:

Er, actually, you'd have to patent the shoe itself ... the shoe itself requires ... a design patent (if you're trying to protect the look)

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Hahh! You are both right! What the USA calls a 'design patent' is traditionally called a 'design trademark' in Australia. (Lucizzz is an Aussie)

To keep in step with the rest of the world, we now just use the term 'registered design' instead.
(Interestingly, it doesn't have to be original to be a design trademark. It just has to be unpublished, distinctive ... and 100% useless! If it provides any benefit, then it can't be part of a registered design !)

Mac

it can't be part of a registered design !

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LOL That might explain a LOT!

Let me clarify something...when I say "looks" can't be protected, what I mean is that the protection is useless. You can register some frock from your fall line, but all the competition has to do is change one button or one shoelace eyelet and it's another design. Again, this is why so many industries guard their designs under such secrecy.

Speaking of which, it's known in a lot of industries that there are two ways to keep an idea your own. One is secrecy...the other is huge, massive publicity. And, oddly enough, picking the right name for the product. If you are out there suddenly and all over with Uggs or Windsurfers or whatever, you become the standard and others are seen as imitators.

But aside from that, knockoffs are the name of the game and you can see this everywhere you look.

I remember a guy from Rocksport telling me at a trade show, "If you want to see the future of footwear, come on to my booth. If you want to see what we did last year, go to all the other booths." And it was true. But most of those clones shook out.

Lindo said:

Or some new technology, perhaps. Patents are a whole different story. By the way, you cannot patent a "look". I'm sure many would like to.

I would say that there is not much you can do in a treatment to make a concept copyrightable. What would you do, copyright the treatment as a work itself? And what would you be protecting? Lines of dialog? Character names? PLOTS? You can't protect a plot.

Let's say you have some big high-concept idea. Mom and daughter change bodies. Robot from future alters time, knocks up earth girl. You can't file a treatment with that story line then sue people for using it.

This is why I bothered to post here despite other posts rightly claiming you can't protect ideas. To encourage somebody to think that they can write up a synopsis or treatment, then copyright it and be able to prevent people from using the idea is just not sound. Anybody who has seen enough movies to note the recurrance of plots has seen this.

You'd be better off getting "no knockoff" signings from the few people involved in looking at it. Then what...you sue a studio?

But basically, you are vulnerable and it is well to be aware of that.

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What it really comes down to is copyrightable form. The copyright office at the LOC has designated a number of different literary and musical forms it will register a copyright on, novel, novella, short story, screenplay, radio play, teleplay, stage play, poems of established forms, dance choreographies, musical scores or arrangements, musical performances, and the like. I don't think a film treatment is a copyrightable form, and for the reasons you cite. The LOC has different registration forms for differing forms of art, we use form "PA" for a screenplay for example ("performing arts").

Anyone who has what they think is a good movie idea or concept should keep it to themselves until they've written it as a screenplay, and then register their copyright on the script. Discussing plots or ideas or concepts in public places runs the risk of someone taking them and running with them, and you have no recourse.

I suppose one might entertain the idea of getting non-disclosure agreements (NDA) from those to whom they expose their ideas, plots, or concepts, but I'd doubt anyone would be into signing such.

Lindo said:

Let me clarify something...when I say "looks" can't be protected, what I mean is that the protection is useless. You can register some frock from your fall line, but all the competition has to do is change one button or one shoelace eyelet and it's another design.

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I know this sub-discussion is badly off topic, but it isn't quite right.

By that argument, it would be pointless for Coke to register their distinctive 'twist' bottle or 'Dynamic Ribbon' font, because all a competitor would have to do is change it slightly. To simplify it .. if an innocent bystander could look at another 'twist' bottle and confuse it with the genuine 'twist' bottle, then it probably infringes. Since an innocent bystander probably isn't counting shoelace eyelets, changing a single shoelace eyelet isn't likely to stop it from infringing.

Funnily enough, the 'look' is about the only thing that can be protected by a registered design.

eg:

The visual features that form the design include the shape, configuration, pattern and ornamentation which, when applied to the product, give it a unique appearance. A registered design can be a valuable commercial asset - registration of a design gives the owner protection for the visual appearance of the product but not the feel of the product, what it is made from or how it works

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OK, that's from http://www.ipaustralia.gov.au/designs/what_index.shtml , but the Australian rules have been overhauled recently to be more inline with international norms, so it is similar to most other countries.

Ah .. this is much better than talking about screenwriting. A subject I really am a professional in !

Mac

If you don't have enough to copyright, there's no need to copyright, because you shouldn't be talking to anyone about it, because there isn't enough to talk about.

Get it in treatment form or get that first draft written and then copyright away.

dpaterso said:

It's already been stated that an idea alone can't be protected. The "suggestion here" is that the author puts so much specific detail into the treatment that it becomes a uniquely recognizable work far removed from just the basic idea.

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which still can not be protected by copyright law. Dan Brown case concerned copyrighting the "architecture" of a work and it didn't wash.

Legally, the only thing that protects concepts (and screenplays, effectively) are implied-in-fact contracts. In reality, the only way to protect screenpays is to be a writer execs and producers want to work with...

broughcut said:

which still can not be protected by copyright law. Dan Brown case concerned copyrighting the "architecture" of a work and it didn't wash.

Legally, the only thing that protects concepts (and screenplays, effectively) are implied-in-fact contracts. In reality, the only way to protect screenpays is to be a writer execs and producers want to work with...

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Well, as a writer who has won an infringement case on a copyright screenplay, I have to respectfully disagree.

And there's a lot more than just me who have won such cases. Ask Eddie Murphy, he can tell you all about it. He stole material from Art Buchwald who sued him for infringement and won, and won big time.

And what the heck is an "implied-in-fact" contract, anyway?

A contract may be a verbal agreement or it may take the form of a three inch stack of paper. Both are enforceable, both have the color of law.

If as a writer you are hired by a producer (whether in the form of an indy, a studio, or a prodco) to write material for them, you will be retained on a "writer for hire" type of contract and in such contracts it is specifically stated that copyright accrues to the producer, not the writer.

If you write a spec script and register its copyright you own it, lock, stock, and barrel, and you can prove you own it. If someone buys it from you, then, when you cash their check, they own it and its copyright ... and are free to do with it whatever they please. Anyone who copies or uses all or part of your spec without your express written consent is subject to an infringement suit, and if you can show they had access to the material, you are going to win.

All else is hearsay.