Protecting ones ideas?

King Goldfish

King Goldfish

If I write a scipt or song or some other "Intellectual property ", How do I secure it? How do I copyright it? I know we talked about it but I was wondering where do I go, short of a lawyers office and spend X amount of money trying to get the exact answers.

Do I go to a stationary store and purchase some kind of form to mail? What is the copyright office personal address? Is it in Washington DC or is there one in all states of the unions?

How does it keep from people in other countries from ripping you off. I mean, someone in france or Zaire Africa may not care what I record in the US.

Is it a pain to do, btw? or is it as easy and sending a letter and check? :huh:
 
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Are you serious? That gives other people the right to use your screenplay. That is not a copyright. Creative Commons is good for works that you want to publish, like an article. Then, people can put it on their sites, but you still own it.
 
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Poor man's copyright:

print out the script.
put in mail.
Registered mail it to yourself.
don't open.

The protection issue is to make it provably yours. Registered mail puts a federal date and time stamp on the front of the document that holds up in court. The services mentioned above make it so people can verify that something hasn't already been done. This is nice to have as well...but on a budget. The USPS is your friend.

-cole

p.s. to make it water tight and searchable, it should be registered and stuff with the appropriate sites. If you just want to be able to defend it in court, the USPS way should work fine.
 
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Knightly,

Sorry the "poor man's copyright is total BS. It is for suckers only. If you can't do the $30 to the US Copyright office, find something else to do. The "poor man's" way is never valid due to it's ease with which it can be faked. It will NOT hold up in court because you can't prove if the document was inside the envelope or not. Do not waste time on these simplistic and non-effective ways of faking a copyright. Do it the right way and you will have a leg to stand on in court. If not, join the ranks of those folks who will be initiating the lawsuit against the networks and Simon Cowell for ripping off their "ideas". Never pitch a good idea to anyone not witnessed by a second party.

Go to the US Copyright website, download the pdf form, print it, write a check and send it FEd EX or UPS, not US mail, or it will take an additional 4-6 months to get back your receipt.
 
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indietalk said:
Are you serious? That gives other people the right to use your screenplay. That is not a copyright. Creative Commons is good for works that you want to publish, like an article. Then, people can put it on their sites, but you still own it.
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Not at all. There's a common misconception that once something is covered by a blanket Creative Commons licence, it's basically in the public domain. With Creative Commons, you have the ability to retain all copyright to your work, but allow/disallow specific aspects of it. I can allow/disallow commercial uses of the work; allow/disallow modifications of the work; donate it to the public domain. There are many other choices available. Click this link to look at the licence generator: http://creativecommons.org/license/ It will then give you a link to look at the actual licence. Its clearly states that you retain all copyright to your work.

Personally, I have released all my works in Creative Commons. This allows me to get the greatest (legal) exposure by allowing copying for personal use but disallowing commercial uses without a commercial (pay) licence.
 
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My point was this shouldn't be a substitute for registering your copyright. This is more of a means for distribtion.

"With a Creative Commons license, you keep your copyright but allow people to copy and distribute your work provided they give you credit."

It's a license, not a registration of copyright.

I don't get why you'd want people publishing your screenplay on their website or why you would suggest that as an alternative to registering a copyright.
 
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Allow me to reply to both points.

indietalk said:
My point was this shouldn't be a substitute for registering your copyright.
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You're correct, it's not. The current Copyright system is exclusively an opt-out system where every doodle on a piece of paper is copyrighted for 95 years. The means for the registration of Copyright is merely a formality. My work is already covered.

I don't get why you'd want people publishing your screenplay on their website or why you would suggest that as an alternative to registering a copyright.
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There's a few reasons for this. You register the work with the licence you choose at CreativeCommons.org. Time and date are stamped into thier database. This can be used as a form of registration in a court of law. So can uploading it to archive.org. Plus, Copyright already covers my work. CC can be voluntarily revoked at any time if you have the need for it as it is exclusively an opt-in system that complements Copyright.
 
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Sorry the "poor man's copyright is total BS. It is for suckers only. If you can't do the $30 to the US Copyright office, find something else to do. The "poor man's" way is never valid due to it's ease with which it can be faked. It will NOT hold up in court because you can't prove if the document was inside the envelope or not. Do not waste time on these simplistic and non-effective ways of faking a copyright. Do it the right way and you will have a leg to stand on in court. If not, join the ranks of those folks who will be initiating the lawsuit against the networks and Simon Cowell for ripping off their "ideas". Never pitch a good idea to anyone not witnessed by a second party.
Click to expand...

...thanks for the info, Writum, however, I have a question: I did the poor man's copyright, however, I did get it noterized before I did the poor mans copyright. I went to the county court house, had the county clerk (?) I forget) give it an official stamp, then sent it off. Would this work? I had a second party, the county clerk, witness and stamp it....

--spinner :cool:
 
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Here's what I gathered from an intellectual property rights attorney in Michigan (may be different in your State/Providence/Country/whatever). Sending yourself a package that contains the information you want to protect is known in courts of law as "a self serving declaration" and is NOT legal. Sending it to somebody else doesn't change this. Sending it to a lawyer who swears he never opened it doesn't change this either.

The only way to obtain a copyright is to register your work. There are services who charge you $$$ to do all this complicated legal stuff for you. If you got money to burn by all means, enjoy. But if you're Dutch (or a DIY guy) like me what you need is www dot copyright dot gov. All the information is there and in real English too. :D

And my blood pressure is fine. ;)
 
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The only way to obtain a copyright is to register your work.
Click to expand...

...hey, Boz, I went to the website for copyrights initially, there was TONS of stuff to look at. How complicated was it to get a copyright? It seemed really involved...

--spinner :cool:
 
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Copyright.

This is a simple one guys.

Indie is right, copyright exists the moment the script/document is published. Registration is done in order to provide legal evidence of copyright.

Industry standard way of doing that is to register the script with Library of Congress. This is something that I do, even though I'm English, because my media lawyer informs me that it provides me with protection globally.

It is only $30. So, bearing in mind that a feature script is worth a minimum of $40,000 that doesn't seem like a massive price to pay.

In terms of short film scripts, I'm not sure that they need registration because they don't really have a commercial value. The point of registration is only to protect a project that you believe has a value of more than $30.

The truth of the matter is that there maybe other approaches to establishing proof of copyright, but unless you can point to a test case where in court someone managed to win a copyright trial using that method it's value is purely academic. So even though creative commons may offer an alternate route, until I've seen someone sucessfully win a court case using it I would suggest that people stick with the industry standard method of Library of Congress registration.
 
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Do both...

King Goldfish said:
If I write a scipt or song or some other "Intellectual property ", How do I secure it? How do I copyright it? I know we talked about it but I was wondering where do I go, short of a lawyers office and spend X amount of money trying to get the exact answers.

Do I go to a stationary store and purchase some kind of form to mail? What is the copyright office personal address? Is it in Washington DC or is there one in all states of the unions?

How does it keep from people in other countries from ripping you off. I mean, someone in france or Zaire Africa may not care what I record in the US.

Is it a pain to do, btw? or is it as easy and sending a letter and check? :huh:
Click to expand...

I like to register both a copyright and with the WGAw. Library of Congress copyrights are not difficult to complete and definitely FedEx or UPS them for fastest service.

Form PA with instructions

Short Form PA

WGAw online registration

For only $50 it's definitely worth legal protection... This also goes for treatments, synopsis, etc.

filmy
 
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Spinner,

You spent more time and effort on touching all the bases, and it would have been simpler (and cheaper, since time is money) to just have done it using the US Copyright office. The big problem will occurr when you have to go to court and the court will only recognize the accepted way of doing business. Why waste time and effort doing it differently, other than being stubborn and "looking for a different way of doing it" because of a stubborn streak? Registering your intellectual property is most important and no place for a stubborn ego.

Gotta go take my blood preessure med's.

WC
 
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Why waste time and effort doing it differently, other than being stubborn and "looking for a different way of doing it" because of a stubborn streak? Registering your intellectual property is most important and no place for a stubborn ego.

Gotta go take my blood preessure med's.
Click to expand...

... :lol: , hey... :grumpy: ... :lol:

--spinner :cool:
 
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