Copyright Information You REALLY Need to Know

[uncle_al]

Here's some handy information from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America ... pay close attention to the Myths section.

{emphasis added!}
"Poor man's copyright" unfortunately doesn't work anymore.  Looks like the one way is Form PA.
Take this not as words graven in stone, but advice you'd do well to take.

Cheers!
Al B.

[ScriptNurse]

Here's some handy information from the Science Fiction and Fantasy Writers of America ... pay close attention to the Myths section.

You can now file electronically with the Copyright Office ... http://www.copyright.gov/register/

[busyg]

Thank You Al B and Head Nurse!!

Busy G

[ScriptNurse]

I think all that's really needed is proof that a work existed  in a specific form as of a certain date. Screenplay registration services provide this as well, but there is no better registration than through the Library of Congress. To my knowledge, studios accept the Writers Guild of America registration as being just about as good as one from the Library of Congress.

[uncle_al]

Let me get this straight, as long as I put my work on a piece of paper it's legally mine?

When it's "fixed in final form".  (According to the Berne Convention)
Each draft has a copyright when it's completed; but for collecting damages on infringement cases, you need to register it with the Copyright Office of the Library of Congress.
This provides you with a legal record of when the script was completed.

There's also the trick of proving the infringer had access to the script, and proving the two works are "substantially similar".

That's why copyright lawyers make substantially bigger bucks than we do.  The ones three feet by five feet, with the portrait of Herbert Hoover on them.

Cheers!
Al B.

[busyg]

Let me get this straight, as long as I put my work on a piece of paper it's legally mine?

[ScriptNurse]

The whole arena of screenplay copyright is discussed to death and mostly by writers who aren't really doing anything with their work. Go and read these two websites — they contain all of the information you need — and then get back to writing:

http://www.sfwa.org/beware/copyright.html#Register
http://accrispin.blogspot.com/2007/04/victoria-strauss-another-service-you.html

Remember, script registration has NOTHING to do with copyright protection OTHER THAN to prove that at the time of registration a copyrighted work existed. Don't confuse registering your screenplay with its copyright protection. Copyright protection exists at the time the work is created, assuming that you live in a Berne Convention member country.

Here's the complete text of the Berne Convention Treaty and the Berne Convention Member States.

For those nutty enough to want to adapt a book into a screenplay, you'll need to know who owns the copyright so that you can beg for permission to write the adaptation. Conveniently, the Standford University Library maintains a database of such information.