How to Protect an Idea for a TV Show

Video Transcript

"In this clip, we're going to talk about how to protect an idea for a television show. We'll start with the simplest solutions and work our way up to the more professional ones. The poor man's copyright. Write your idea down, slide it in an envelope, and stick a stamp on it and self-address it to yourself. Don't open it when it arrives, and there's your poor man's copyright. It probably won't hold up in a big courtroom surrounded by, you know, the big-shot lawyers, but in a small claims court, it should do okay. Another solution would be to videotape yourself outlining the idea in detail. Either that, or reading the script that you've written out loud and make sure the date stamp is there on the video. Same thing. Stick it in an envelope, mail it to yourself. It probably would hold up in a small claims court. But if you really want to be sure that your work is protected and you want that guarantee, my biggest recommendation is to register it through an official group or government office. You can either go to the official copyright website, which is copyright.gov, and register your work through them. But an even better way to do it and a...and a cheaper way and a less...and a more hassle-free way would be to register your work through the Writers Guild of America, the WGA. You go to their website and you can upload your PDF file straight onto their website, pay a one-time fee of 20 dollars, I believe it is, to register and they will send you a confirmation email right then and there saying that they got it. It's officially registered. And then a week or so later, they will email you a official certificate with a ID number and everything so that it is very clearly logged, it's dated, and it's a lot easier to prove that it was your original idea in a courtroom with something like that. So that would be my recommendation if you want to copyright a idea for a television show."