Just had a friend of mine call me up to tell me that he's having dinner with a slew of people, one of whom is a movie producer for a studio that deals in low budget horror films.

This producer suggested that I blindly send out my scripts.

I am wary of this.

I asked my friend what would guard me against having my intellectual property & ideas stolen.

He posed this question to the producer and they said I should register my works with the Writer's Guild of America, West (who I've talked about endlessly on this blog).

Now,  I know what they're saying (about the Guild), but I've been told that the Guild doesn't really do anything for you (especially if you're not a member... which I'm not... you have to have at least one screenplays produced by Hollywood in order to be in the Writer's Guild West (WGAw)... another fuckin' boy's club that I'm not a member of).

I used to just register my scripts with WGAw, but then a friend of mine (who's an actor in LA, scoring extra gigs) had a member of this production company he worked for get in touch with me. This guy (kind of a smarmy type, looked like an inept gangster in his IMDB profile, but for the life of me I can't remember his name or the company's name... they were low-budget as well... real ramshackle operation) told me that the Guild doesn't do anything for you and encouraged me to copyright my stuff.
So, now I copyright it instead of registering it with the Guild.
Also, when you copyright something it is for life; registering it with the Guild is only good for 5 years.

I just checked my records and I have my first 9 scripts registered with the Guild.

Seven of them have already expired and the other 2 will expire later this year.

Perhaps I'll renewed my expired scripts and register the scripts I've recently written.
Seems like a waste of money, though, when I don't have an agent and I've copyrighted my scripts.

But even having an agent doesn't safe guard you against theft of your intellectual property.

The writer of the film Deep Impact (about an asteroid heading for earth) had a meeting with a studio head. The writer told the producer about his script in great detail. The producer took copious notes & seemed very interested. Turned out the producer wasn't interested because he wanted to buy & produce the script, it was because he wanted to steal it. And steal it he did and thus the film Armageddon was made (which came out the same summer as Deep Impact and has the exact same plot).

Now as a counterpoint to this, if you watch the special features on the 2-disc über edition of Predator, Jim & John Thomas (the brothers who wrote Predator I  & II) talk about how they were discovered. They said they slid the script to the first Predator film under the door of an executive at Fox. He read it, loved it, contacted the writers and the rest is history.

I don't know how much I believe this story.

How did the two brothers get on the Fox lot in the first place?

If they had a friend (security guard, etc.) on the lot, then I still have a hard time believing that some studio executive wouldn't just stick his name (or the name of a studio contract writer, who was already being paid a regular salary) on the script (again to avoid paying or involving anyone else) and then make the damn movie hassle-free.

The Thomas Brothers even say that they didn't know anyone or have any Hollywood contacts at the time they got Predator made.

Again, I don't believe the story is true, but if it is then it was a miracle; not only for them (as they got their movie made) but divine intervention interceded and their script landed in the hands of the only morally-sound studio executive who wanted to give credit where credit was due and actually pay the talent for their work.

 

In fact, pilfering intellectual property and ideas is such a common phenomenon that there is an entire Wikipedia page dedicated to It:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:ProhibitOnions/List_of_films_with_similar_themes_and_release_dates

Also, there's this amusing site, which further highlights my point:

http://www.11points.com/Movies/11_Damn_Near_Identical_Movies_That_Were_Released_at_the_Same_Time

There are leaks in studios all the time and people steal carelessly.

Now, if this happens to established writers, then what in the hell would happen to little old me?
I'm just some kid in the Midwest no one's ever heard of.

Do you think an executive or producer would stop and say, "Man, this script could make this kid's career?"

No.

It's human nature that, when someone get theirs (whether it's money, fame, success, love, recognition, etc.), they don't really give a shit if anyone else gets theirs.

If someone wanted to steal my script, they would simply take it and re-write the title page so that it looks like that they wrote it. This way they don't have to pay or involve anyone else and they get all the credit and financial rewards.

I dunno.

It sounds cynical and pessimistic, but I've intermittently spent enough time in L.A. (with my brother living there) that I know how those people (hell, any people... all people) operate.

Sad but true.