Ever read "Steal Like an Artist"?
If someone takes your idea, and makes it better.... Who cares whose idea it was? Pay going where pay is due, sure... But there are skills involved with pitching and actually making films for an audience, as opposed to just generating creative ideas.
I like to think my ideas are extremely original, but at the end of the day everything I've made has spawned from seeing/hearing/watching something else.... Even as a wee babe. We are all grouped together within the same conscious network.
Usually those skills net way more in the way of profit than the creativity of the originator. Its just how life works in the world of ideas.
But, that's just my take on the whole thing. I haven't been fully slighted or swindled yet... So I'm sure I would change my tune once it happens.
Well if they didn't KNOW about MY IDEA prior to making it better? I could care less... LOL. But of course, that means they've stolen nothing. If you're writing a movie and have already sold the script and performing a polish? No big deal. Film is collaboration first and foremost so of course, you're going to take any of the plethora of new ideas others you're now working with are throwing at you -- assuming they are GOOD IDEAS (usually NOTES) -- and make the script as good as it can possibly be. That's the business.
But if you pitch someone an idea and they pass on reading the script and then go on to hire a writer to develop a script from THAT idea? That's stealing as far as I'm concerned. While it's certainly true you cannot sue for copyright infringement based on an IDEA, you can in fact write that idea down... Flesh it out fairly well -- for instance, as a screenwriter, we often leave ONE-SHEETS after pitching to a studio or producer. Those one sheets are really nothing more than an executed IDEA. A premise with some rather vague plot points fleshed in. If a studio or producer takes that idea or even pieces of that idea and it finds its way into another film? It's theft.
Don't think this doesn't happen... LOL. In this business? Happens way more than you would think. The IDEA that everything has already been written is BS. I have a script I'm working on right now that I guarantee has never been written. The concept is that original. I've pitched it ONLY to a few producers and people in the business that I trust -- no more than a handful -- and everyone wants to be the first to read it. Will my execution live up to the concept I've created? Jesus... I HOPE SO but there's no way to know if people in the business are going to LIKE my EXECUTION. So I have to be prepared that once I've sent the script out and it's done the ROUNDS, HOPE somebody is going to be interested. If nobody is? Trust me when I tell you that
someone will take this concept and attempt their own execution of it. IT happens, PLAIN and SIMPLE especially when the idea is truly original.
Most ideas and specs are simply not original. They are usually derived from one or more other films we've already seen and while well-executed? We've seen it before and therefore, the market could care less most of the time unless we're talking direct to video but even those days are just about gone. It's just the way it is and if you want to play in the park with all the other kids? This is the park you have to play in. If an idea is not that original? Not a huge deal but truly original ideas? You have to be careful and document or create a log of everyone that's had access to the script.
*NOTE: I also wanted to add that more and more you'll read about a spec in the trades that got sold but there is
NO LOGLINE mentioned. Why? Because nobody wants to risk that it get
STOLEN. If you give me a great concept and I can really SEE it? I can knock that script out in less than a month. LOL. That's why we rarely see loglines of sold spec scripts anymore.
THEFT, plain and simple.