If i copyright a movie script and want to send it to a director to produce….?

Question by roger: If i copyright a movie script and want to send it to a director to produce….?
How do i maintain copyrights as writer and profit from it???
I do not want to sell it for another writer to play with my script and change it.
If I already got it copyrighted in my name and I want to send it to potential movie directors without losing/selling my copyright for profit???

Best answer:

Answer by bcnu
Your question goes FAR beyond copyright. Your copyright (which you automatically own the moment you wrote the script) is yours until you sell it. However, copyright will not protect the IDEAS in the script — only your presentation of those ideas. To protect an idea you will need to look to contracts and fiduciary/confidential relationships. You can protect your “trade secret” by using non-disclosure agreements, but it’s unclear that any producer would sign such a thing, unsure that what you’re about to show him or her is your original work or stolen from someone else…

You should do some research on how professional writers protect their ideas in that arena, as it could turn out to be a million-dollar headache if you mess it up.

Case in point: Art Buchwald pitched an idea to a studio for a movie treatment. They turned it down, but optioned it to another studio, which made the movie “Coming to America”, based upon his idea. He sued and won, based partly on the fact that his idea was sufficiently concrete and defined to be recognizable five years later when the movie was released.

Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!