Protect Yourself

If you post your work on line to these, or any other sites…
If you send your work out for review to other people…
If you send your work out to studios, prod co’s, publishers, managers, or agents…

Please do yourself the favor of protecting your work! Don’t sit idly by thinking it’s just Joe, he won’t do anything. Well, of course, most likely he won’t, but you have no way of knowing for sure. Studios, prod co’s, managers, agents, and the like, are professional, and unlikely to steal an idea, or the very words you’ve written, they don’t want to take the chance of being sued.

But do you really know? There are many, many more small time producers, ‘studios’, and the rest out there masquerading as ‘the real deal’ who may not think twice about using something they ‘find’, especially if they even think it’s un-protected.

How do you protect a script? It’s so easy now days that it’s shameful not to do it. The WGA makes it a snap. Simple, quick, painless, and nearly free. (Yes, nearly, it does cost 20.00 per script, but that’s hardly highway robbery.) With them, the script is protected for five years, after that you can re-new if you need to. And if there are ANY questions arising over copyright, they will put THEIR legal team to work for you! Can’t beat that!

They have an on-line submission process that makes it fast and easy. You don’t even have to pay postage, and the script is registered RIGHT THEN AND THERE when you click the button.

There are other registries too, and I’m not discounting them, if you choose one of them, that’s great, it’s protected. I tout the WGA because it’s the official screenwriter’s union, and they stand behind their registration legally. However you choose to do it, DO IT, before you put the work on line.

Happy Writing.