Copyright question

[GreenTea]

I have two questions concerning screenplay copyrighting:

1. Is registering with the Guild enough, should legal issues arise and need to be resolved in court?

2. If I send a screenplay to an agent and they like it but suggest some changes (even minor ones), do I have to have it registered/copyrighted again to reflect the new draft?

Thanks for any input that someone may provide.

[nmstevens]

I have two questions concerning screenplay copyrighting:

1. Is registering with the Guild enough, should legal issues arise and need to be resolved in court?

2. If I send a screenplay to an agent and they like it but suggest some changes (even minor ones), do I have to have it registered/copyrighted again to reflect the new draft?

Thanks for any input that someone may provide.

Here is the deal on this.

Registering with the guild provides you with one and only one thing. In the event that you sue somebody, the guild will have someone come and testify that, as of a given date, a given draft of your script was registered with them and that it was maintained by them, and that nobody had access to it. Thus, whatever form it's in when they deliver it to the court -- that's the form it was in at the date it was registered with them.

That's it.

If you register the copyright of your script with the Library of Congress, they will also maintain a copy of your script, indefinitely (the guild only does it for a certain number of years, after which you have to renew it), and, though it's done a little bit differently, you can also get a copy of your registered script which is acceptable in a court of law to demonstrate that a given version of the script was registered with the LOC as of a particular date.

So it will accomplish the same thing. PLUS -- registering the copyright provides you with additional legal protections -- specifically, the right to sue for punitive damages and legal fees (if you haven't registered the copyright you can only sue for actual damages, which can much harder to prove).

It is always better to register the copyright.

As for registering new drafts, my advice is that if the changes are minor - say the equivalent of a polish, it's probably not worth it. If it is a significant revision, then it might be worth doing.

NMS

[GreenTea]

Nmstevens, thank you very much. It helped to clarify some gray areas for me.

[Sunshine13]

You will still want to get it registered with the WGA. Most agents/prodcos/contests require it. And, as far as I know, they've made it rather simple if you do have revisions, to do it over their site.

[zeprosnepsid]

2. If I send a screenplay to an agent and they like it but suggest some changes (even minor ones), do I have to have it registered/copyrighted again to reflect the new draft?

You're really copyrighting the idea/premise/characters. It's unlikely that someone will plagiarize your dialogue and action descriptions word for word. So I'd re-register if one of those things change, but I wouldn't bother if the main story/theme/characters are the same.