Hi Paul, I'm a well season author - salt pepper and garlic under the armpits every morning! But I don't do script writing so most of you questions I can't answer. However in response to your copyright question - don't bother with the sealing the script in an envelope and posting it to yourself thing. It's an old idea called poor man's copyright, and it has been debunked multiple times as completely useless. The easiest way to copyright something is to publish it. Once it's out there with a date of publication it's yours. So write it, publish it on Amazon or similar simply as a script that you don't expect anyone to read, and it's done. Also you can't copyright ideas. You copyright against basically plagerism - copying. Ideas are much too broad a thing to claim as your own. So youcan write about sparkly vampires if you like (and if you want to make me ill!) Last, what does it matter if someone else comes out with a script with the same ideas as you? Keep working at your script, and as long as it's not copied, it's fine. Consider that Last of the Mohicans, Dances with Wolves and Avatar all have essentially the same plot. No one's complaining. Cheers, Greg.
I've written and published a true story about adoption. Then I wrote and published an erotic romance fiction and I'm currently working on a follow up to it. (the fiction).
no - it's not a random myth - that's the point of sealing it with tape, not just a self seal envelope but if you want to get technical, then also put it in a plastic postage packet with a permaseal strip. I used to make bedding from scratch (duvet/quiltcovers with matching pillowcases) and this is how I copyrighted my designs. From a book point of view, once you publish, you have a printed or electronic copyright page to fall back on, with scripts, you don't.
I understand you can't copywrite an actual idea, I just mean for example, if I wanted to write about a specific thing, like a past king or something g similar, but someone finishes around the same time as me and publishes first, wouldn't it look more like I've copied them? I hope that made sense!
Hi, You can't help what people think. So don't even bother trying. Simply work on the position that if it's yours and you feel happy even proud ofit, go for it and don't give a damn if someone thinks you copied another's idea. You know you didn't. Also keep previous versions of your work on disc, so if it does ultimately come to a legal head, you have a record of your creative process in writing it. If you'd copied it you couldn't possibly have those things. Cheers, Greg.
That's a good idea - keeping the previous versions although I have to admit to not doing it myself until I released a second edition, and only then did I keep a copy of the final first edition and the final second edition. But, what I do have (and what I intend to keep) are my research notes which are in the form of print outs, notes, maps, blueprints, journals, drawings and character bios, all handwritten or printed and further notes added. Which of course, shows the transition from thoughts, through research to the final story.
RE Copyright... just had a session on that in our writer's group. Yes you can post to yourself and consider it copyrighted, but you have very little protection with that. You have to prove both ownership and damage, which can be difficult. With a government copyright, both are guaranteed. Best way to copyright is to go to copyright.gov, fill out the on-line form, upload your electronic document, pay $35 and wait a few months. It's easy, cheap and protects you against infringement. I checked with some legal teams and found they charge a lot of money to do the same thing. This is particularly important on a site like this where you may be putting fragments of your work into the public domain. Someone, perhaps not even a member, can copy your work and build and publish a short story around it. Then when you go to a publisher with your full-length novel, many will do a search for plagiarism, discover that person's (copyrighted) short story built verbatim around your first chapter, and without your own copyright, you may be screwed. You do NOT have to have a final draft. And the copyright applies, even if you make subsequent editorial changes. I don't know when editorial changes become a major revision that upends the existing copyright but hey, if in doubt, it's only $35, get another one.
