Why it’s unlikely that your film or TV show idea might get stolen

At Filmarket Hub we usually get comments, doubts and questions from users about uploading their projects on the market, out of fear of getting their idea stolen.

To start with, lets not forget that writing a good script for film or TV is not an easy deed. To have a script that’s good enough for a producer to take notice and consider it, it can take years to write. So, to be scared that someone might “steal” your idea, is a tad exaggerated, a part from the fact that for someone to consider commit such an illegality, it should be a master piece of writing. Furthermore, if we set off that we are talking about “ideas”, as any basic manual on intellectual property will tell you: an idea by itself is worth nothing. A producer or investor won’t buy your idea; films are not sold on an idea. There must be a script, a sales dossier, a financing plan..in other words, the whole pack, to manage to convince investors, a production company, a distribution company…to buy your film project.

But, what does it mean that your idea is worth nothing in terms of a possible intellectual property robbery?

It means that and idea is as good as a promise. It has the value you give it to it until it doesn’t become a reality, until it isn’t executed. You must be able to demonstrate that, your idea, further from the concept you’re trying to sell, is viable and attractive enough so that someone goes and invests money in it.

It is true that a quick search through Google will give us back articles on accusations of plagiarism, theft of ideas and concepts for films and TV series. The most recent case is the one with the Duffer brothers, creators of “Stranger Things”; Darren Aronofsky also accused the new Joker/ Batman franchise of stealing ideas that he developed years back when he tried to make a film on the popular comic book character, but in the end never did.

This type of situations will keep on happening, unfortunately. Beyond the fact whether this is true or not, trying to find out who’s right about an alleged IP theft, as long as you can’t prove that the theft is real, you’re wasting your time in worrying whether someone will steal your brilliant idea, as I said at the beginning of this post.

When we’re talking about film and writing a script, a story, to lock this idea in your mind, not share it with anyone, it will only make it wither. Sharing an idea will usually help you develop it and make it grow. To get feedback from colleagues will always help us for the better. But all of this doesn’t have any value if we don’t register our script (talking from a European point of view here, I can’t speak for other parts of the world); that is why we always ask our users to upload a copy of the registry of intellectual property.

Summarizing,what needs to be clear is that all of this is easier said than done, and the fact that you have an idea about a story you want to tell, doesn’t mean there isn’t other people with an idea for a story about the same concept. Furthermore, it is very probable that there are hundreds or thousands of people having the exact same idea you are thinking about developing into a script. But here’s the beauty of it: every person will write and want to tell the same story in a different way. So again, we come back to the same concept: an idea by itself is worth nothing.

The three main concepts you must understand here are:

• You’re idea by itself isn’t worth anything: develop it and make it yours.
• Sharing your ideas with people whose opinion you value will only help your idea to grow and evolve.
• There are many ways of executing the same idea for a story.

Stop worrying about your idea being stolen and keep on working on it! :)