ScriptFaze

WGA Registration vs. U.S. Copyright

I heart the WGA. The Writers Guild of America may have shut this town down a few years ago, but ultimately, I come down on the side of any organization that comes down on the side of artists. It’s that simple. The WGA exists to defend writers and get them fair contracts, and things were a whole lot stickier for screenwriters before the unions.

But no institution’s perfect. Everyone has their gimmick, and for the WGA, it’s their Script Registry Service. If you’re curious about my views on idea theft, read How to Tell An Amateur. However—once your script is WRITTEN and can be printed out and held in two hands, you DO want to take steps to protect it. For new writers in particular, it’s just too easy for someone else to print out a cover page with their own name on it and slap it on top of your script. And even if you catch up to them before the BIG SALE, they may have already submitted your scripts to contests, received awards, or used it to open doors which should rightfully be opened by YOU.

So what do you do? After finishing a script, you have two options: Registering it with the Writer’s Guild of America, or registering it with the Library of Congress.

Here’s what you get for registering with the WGA:

•    A date of creation on file with the writer’s union
•    The promise that a WGA employee will appear in court to give testimony            on this date of creation

That’s it. And hey—a date of creation on file with a powerful union ain’t the worst thing in the world. However, it is important to ask: For what reason might you go to court and need this WGA employee to show up in the first place? To prove that you own your script? Yep—that’s right. And what’s another name for this legal proof of ownership?

A COPYRIGHT.

In an emergency, registration with the WGA will strengthen your case for legally owning your own work—which is EXACTLY what a legal copyright already gives you. One type of registration provides a PATH to ownership, and the other IS ownership.

Make sense?

Here’s what you get for filing with the United States Copyright Office:

•    Legal ownership of your script for the duration of your life, plus 70 years
•    Reimbursement of attorney fees if your copyright is proved to be infringed
•    Statutory damages if your copyright is proved to be infringed
•    Immediate access to court in case of copyright infringement

Hmmm. Let’s see… One of these looks a whole helluva lot more beneficial to me. But if legal copyrights are so great, what’s the point of a WGA registry?

Simply put, the point is SPEED.

Hollywood is a fast-moving town, and Copyrights can take up to sixth months to process. WGA registration numbers can be turned around in minutes and printed directly off their website. If you’ve just finished a script and are chomping at the bit to send it out into the world, the WGA registration service is gonna seem a whole lot more enticing. On top of that, WGA registration has become an industry standard, of sorts. Production companies REQUIRE a WGA registration number on their submission waiver forms, and links to the WGA registry now come bundled with scriptwriting software such as Final Draft. Registering with the WGA is almost unavoidable, and has become an accepted quick-fix for writers with a deadline, or writers who can’t sit around waiting for the Library of Congress to register their new material.

Okay—this is the part where I say I AM NOT A LAWYER. If you’re trying to decide how to protect your intellectual property, why do you care what I think? Only a real entertainment attorney can clarify the finer points of the options available to you.

But here’s what I do: BOTH. When I’m registering my scripts, “both” is the only acceptable answer. You NEED a legal US Copyright if you are sending your scripts out into the world. It’s the only form of registration that guarantees your rights, and legally protects you from theft. But let’s face it—theft is unlikely. And with so many companies now requiring WGA registration, it an almost-unavoidable step that has an added benefit of being QUICK, and of providing some record of credit in the rare case that someone rips you off.

Registering your script with the WGA is fun—it takes five minutes, and they send you a cool certificate thingy that you can frame and hang over your desk, and point to as proof when friends challenge your validity as a screenwriter. However, I started this post by calling WGA registration a ‘racket’ – and here’s why: The WGA does a TERRIBLE job of elucidating the difference between registration with THEM, and registration with the Library of Congress. There’s a huge push in this town to get every writer to register their scripts with the writers union, and this is ultimately a disservice. If the shit REALLY hit the fan, registration with the WGA would provide you no real protection. And while it makes TONS OF MONEY for the WGA, WGA registration does not provide you an actual 'copyright' of your screenplay.

So think about that. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—a successful screenwriter is not one who spends his career worried about intellectual theft. But that doesn’t mean you have to be a sucker.

Registration with the WGA is a useful and sometimes necessary step, but HELL—you just spent six months writing a script!

Doesn’t it make sense to take the NEXT STEP and ACTUALLY OWN IT?

How to Tell An Amateur

Los Angeles is a town full of pretenders. Actors pretend like they’re movie stars. Film students pretend like they’re Noah Baumbach or Alexander Payne. Production assistants pretend like they’re producers, and producers pretend like they’re broke… The only thing people in Hollywood REALLY have in common is their desire to be SOMEONE ELSE. It’s probably this desire which first inspired their bus ride to Los Angeles, and it’s an impulse which afflicts screenwriters as much as anyone else.

Beginner screenwriters pretend three things: a) That they are happy, b) that they are being paid, and c) that they have many projects “in development.” What a wonderfully vague term. In reality, having a project “in development” means that you have a script that’s been optioned or sold to a production company, and is currently in an active rewrite stage as it is being “developed” for production. Of course, the term is regularly extended during party conversion to mean “a script that I am writing and no one else has seen,” “a script I’ve given to a producer but have not yet heard a response to,” or even “an idea for a script I had while high with my buddies last weekend, and have no real intention of writing.”

Writers are smart people, and it is generally hard to tell the difference between someone who’s pretending, and someone who has an actual career. HOWEVER, there is one very-common point of conversation that immediately blows the top off any writer’s cover, and exposes him for the amateur he really is:

The fear of having his script STOLEN.

Yup. That’s right. If you complain to others about having your spec script ripped off, YOU ARE AN AMATEUR.

60/90/120 TV Pilot Contract

These days, there are more and more large studio conglomerates that will hear and buy television pitches, but don’t necessarily have their own networks or cable stations on which to broadcast the shows they buy. Companies like Paramount/CBS, Sony, and Universal serve as brokers; they buy pitches, contract the writers, then turn around and try to re-sale these pitches to other companies who will put them on air.

So—you, the writer, will think up something brilliant, get a meeting on the books at Sony, go in and pitch your little heart out, get the big YES you’ve always been waiting for, then… What?

Keep on pitching! That’s right—if you sell a pitch to one of the brokerage-house TV studios, in short order you’ll find yourself doing more pitching, but this time with the weight and legitimacy of the big-time studio behind you. If Sony says YES, they will work out an “if-come deal” with you that maps out all the money you’ll be paid IF you are able to turn around and re-sell your pitch to cable companies such as FX, ABC Family, AMC—or any of the big four broadcast networks.

This intermediate step is sort of great, and sort of sucky. It’s hard to think about ‘selling’ a pitch, then having to turn around and sell it AGAIN in a matter of weeks. But on the other hand, it’s a major foot through the door, and a YES from those broker studios will add serious momentum to your project.

Because these contracts are IF contracts, and provide some-degree of sliding room based upon the desires of the channel or network that will end up actually buying and airing the show, there are variables built in the payment scales in these contracts. One of the most interesting is the 60/90/120-minute pilot variable, as it can put MORE money into the pocket of screenwriters.

In the past few years, it’s become more and more common for TV companies to order-up ‘oversized’ pilot scripts for their new series. For instance, when ABC Studios decided to move forward with the one-hour show Lost in 2004, they also made the choice to order a two-hour long pilot script. Similarly, the shows In Plain Sight and Burn Notice, both of which are one-hour dramas on ABC, received orders for 90-minute pilot scripts. So what’s the point of an oversized pilot script? Simply put—the TV companies are hedging their bets. If they contract for a 60-minute pilot, that’s exactly what they get—a regular old TV pilot, which may be brilliant and lead to a hit series, or may SUCK and never make it on air at all. In an era of tighter-budgets, risking money on a pilot has become less and less desirable, and many companies now look for ways to minimize their losses. One way has become these extended pilots running 90 or 120 minutes long. In essence, the TV companies aren’t just getting a PILOT at these lengths, but also a full-on TV MOVIE. And that’s the point. If, down the road, a decision is made to can your series, they will still be able to air your pilot as an original movie, and recoup most of their costs.

So what’s this mean for the writer? Good news, mostly. First, you’ll get paid more to write a longer pilot script, and this money is paid up-front. Second, if you get a 60/90/120-minute contract, and the option is activated for a 90 or 120 minute script, there is a very good chance that your show will make it to air – if not as the pilot you intended to write, than as a movie. Some writers worry that a movie-length pilot may serve as an incentive for companies not to go to series on a show, but I don’t buy that—if it’s a great script and works well as a film, chances are it will attract an audience, and the TV company will want to push it as a show. Worked for Knight Rider, didn’t it?

Overall, the 60/90/120 contract is a good deal for writers. You get to write and earn more upfront without having to wait for future ‘yeses’ down the road, and if your show flops, you might still get yourself a bonified feature screenwriting credit.

UPDATE NOV-15: A TV writer friend of mine emailed me with the following add-on to the above article, and I hope he won't mind if I just copy-and-paste it here, as it contains useful information:

"On your last post, you left out the fact that the studio will sometimes just buy the pitch outright – my first sale was if come but my second one was a blind purchase by the studio before we pitched network – and according to my agent once the studio has outright bought a pitch from you then it’s kind of like having a quote… they are unlikely to go back to an if come on future ideas unless there are other factors present… "