A lot of people new to the television industry have recently asked me how to protect their television program ideas. The short answer is you can’t. As Paige Gold, a lawyer who specializes in copyright protection, puts it “ideas cannot be protected. If they could be, most creative commerce would grind to a virtual halt. However, the exact way in which the idea is expressed may be protected.”
Let’s face it, television show ideas are a dime a dozen. We’ve all seen lots of the same type of shows in various forms. Hoarders is airing on A&E while Hoarding: Buried Alive airs on TLC. Who knows how many people had that same idea. Once that “idea” is acted upon in the form of a one-pager, treatment, pilot or program, that you can try to protect the actual “work” or “product.”
The first step that most people think of is copyright protection. Copyrighting is never necessary though it does offer a written record of the creator and the work. The filing fee starts at $35 and you can do it online at http://www.copyright.gov/eco/. You can also register your work with the Writer’s Guild where it will be given an electronic date stamp. This cost is between $10 – $22. For more information visit https://www.wgaeast.org/script_registration (East) or http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/ (West). You can find a lot of good information about the television and film industries as well there. However quite frankly, if your idea is in written form, emailing it to yourself also works. Or, you can have the document notarized and then mail it to yourself. The thought here is to put a date on the work so you can establish a timeline advantage.
Walter G. Lehmann, a managing partner at Lehmann Strobel PLC, suggests registering “the most complete expression of the work — a pilot for example, rather than a one-page treatment”. He warns that, particularly in the case of written documents, just because you register it doesn’t mean someone else hasn’t already done the same. Every time you submit an idea to a production company, you run the risk of the idea being stolen and it is often easy for the companies to saythat they already had a similar idea in the works. Lehmann says “In some cases you will be asked to sign a submission release acknowledging that the production company or distributor may be developing substantially similar programming and waiving your right to claim copyright infringement. Signing such a release may be the only way to get in to pitch at all, but it is a risk you have to take.” The Lehmann Strobel website has a lot of great law documents that producers can use including a sample submission letter. Visit the “Resources” page at www.lehmannstrobel.com and click on “Producers”.
The best way to protect your idea is to make sure it is attached to something that only you can offer such as exclusive access to talent, experts, characters or location. For example, I know an historian who owns legal documents and photographs that have never been seen before. No one can steal that from him. Sandra Thomas, a producer in the Washington, DC area, says if you can offer something that few others have “sign them up exclusively to you for a development period of 6 months or more if you can get it.” Other than that, she says, “pitch to people you can trust”. And if someone does steal your idea, at least you know it was a good one.
Docs and TV 