Do Scripts Registered With Wga East Remain Private?

28 Jun Should I register my script at the WGA or the Copyright Function? Why?

I am asked this question all the time.  My answer is registration at the Copyright Function is much better, and significantly more valuable. With apologies to my friends and colleagues who piece of work at the WGA, I wouldn't bother registering at the WGA Eastward or West, but I would have the time to file a claim to copyright in the Copyright Office. Here's why:

First, the script you lot seek to register is the culmination of hours and hours of research, writing, revising, listening, and otherwise creating a valuable story. Aside from confirming that the story has a kickoff, a centre and an stop, that the characters evolve, and the reader or viewer will care most the characters, the script needs to be protected from those who might take it from you without permission.  Given the investment fabricated in creating the script itself, a proper last investment in protecting it, and providing the means to bring infringers to justice is important.

Registering at the WGAE, WGAW or Copyright Function will non prevent someone stealing all or part of your work.  Simply every bit locking the doors and windows to your car when parking on the street does not guarantee the car will not exist stolen, it is the reasonable matter to do to protect your car.  Registering your work at the Copyright Part and including proper copyright observe on your work is the nearly you lot can do to protect your piece of work if it is stolen.

The differences between the WGA registration and copyright registration are many.

• Elapsing
• • WGA. Registration at the WGA must be renewed every five years. If you lot don't renew your registration at the five-twelvemonth mark, the re-create held by the Gild volition be destroyed, and so the Guild will not be able to submit your work every bit show in whatever Guild-related or legal proceeding. https://world wide web.wgawregistry.org/regfaqs.aspx#quest26
  • CO. Copyright registration lasts for the life of the author(s) plus lxx years. If your script is unpublished, and so the copyright office will retain the work for 120 years. If the script is published, the piece of work volition be retained for twenty years. For an extra fee, the Copyright Function volition keep published works for the full term of copyright. https://www.copyright.gov/circs/circ04.pdf
• Fees
  • WGA. The fee for a non-WGA member to annals a work at the WGA is $25. A WGA member can register a piece of work for $10. Renewals are required every v years. Only electronic filings are immune, no newspaper filings are permitted.
  • CO. In the Copyright Office, the fee to register a claim to copyright electronically is $45 if the work is by a unmarried author, the copyright claimant is the aforementioned equally the author, the work was non created as a work for hire, and the claim is for ane work. If any one of those qualifications are not satisfied, such equally there are two authors, the fee for registering electronically is $65. Paper filings are permitted, but the fee is $125.

• Legal Event
  • WGA. At the WGA, they state that registration would "potentially discourage others from using your work without your permission. … the Registry…can produce the registered fabric as well equally confirm the date of registration .  Registering your work creates legal evidence for the material that establishes a appointment for the material's existence…." (Emphasis added.)
  • CO. In the Copyright Office, the engagement a properly completed application is received past the Copyright Office, forth with the appropriate fee is the effective date of registration. Receipt of the document will happen in well-nigh four to six months. Certainly, the effective date of registration will establish the existence of the script on that appointment.
• Filing a claim for infringement.
  • WGA. If your piece of work is infringed, and y'all have a WGA registration, yous must however file a claim to copyright before bringing a conform against the infringer. While for many years there was an open question whether simply completing the application and filing suit later the application was completed, but before the certificate was issued would be sufficient, the U.s.a. Supreme Court cleared that up in 2019. The Supreme Courtroom held that the registration document must exist in mitt earlier commencing the arrange. 4th Estate Public Benefit Corporation 5. Wall-Street.com, LLC, 586 US ___ (2019) (Docket No. 17-571).
  • CO. If your work is infringed, and you accept a copyright registration certificate in paw, you lot are holding the keys to the courthouse, and an infringement case may be brought. 17 USC 411(a).  However, if you elect not to file accommodate in federal court, and instead elect to sue in the Copyright Claims Lath ("CCB"), yous need not accept a registration certificate in hand. Instead, the CCB will hear your instance based upon a completed application.  In either event, the CCB tin can accolade damages of upward to $30,000, for bodily or statutory amercement, while a federal court can award an unlimited amount for actual damages, and up to $150,000 per infringement for willful statutory amercement.  If you lot do not annals your piece of work within 90 days of its authorized publication, the maximum damage award available under the CCB is limited to $seven,500.  The CCB is expected to begin working on December 27, 2021. https://www.copyright.gov/nearly/pocket-sized-claims/faq.html
• Effect on Credit
  • WGA. Under the WGA Bones Agreement, if an employer engages a WGA member to write one of the drafts of a screenplay, all writers of all drafts of the screenplay are subject to the Credit Arbitration rules of the WGA, even if ane or more such writers are non a WGA member. When the moving picture is completed, a notice of tentative writing credits must be circulated by the producer to all the writers. If there is an objection to the proposed credits, the Guild will determine all the writing credits to exist issued on a movie.  The WGA acknowledges that registration by and large does not help in determining writing credit.  "However, if there is a dispute as to authorship or sequencing of material by date, then registration may be relevant." https://www.wgawregistry.org/regfaqs.aspx#quest17
  • CO. If the just effect that WGA registration has on credit is clarifying the appointment a particular version existed, and so copyright registration does the same thing. If a writer was engaged by a producer to create a screenplay, whether an original, revised, or polished screenplay, information technology would exist very unusual for that screenplay to exist anything other than a work made for hire, and the date of delivery of that version of the script would be articulate.
• Proper Notice.
  • WGA.  The WGA Basic Agreement, Article 37, provides for the content of a cover page, with multiple writers, to include

Name of project

Past

(Name of outset writer)

(Based on, if whatever)

Revisions by

(Names of subsequent writers, in order of work performed)

Current revisions by

(Electric current writer, date)

Name, address, and phone number of Company, if applicable.

• CO.  The Copyright Deed does not crave that a work of original authorship include a copyright notice. Merely including a proper copyright notice may deter an infringer from stealing the work. It is unlawful to remove a detect with intent to facilitate infringement. The presence of the discover volition also remove an infringer'south defense force of "innocent infringement" because the infringer was not aware of the owner's merits to copyright. 17 USC 401(b). An innocent infringer may not exist subject to statutory amercement, if found to borrow.
  • A proper copyright observe has three elements. First, the C in a circumvolve symbol ©, or the word Copyright or the abridgement Copr. is i element of the notice. The second element is the year of creation or publication, and 3rd the proper noun of the copyright possessor. 17 USC 401 (b). The find must be placed in a location on the work to requite "reasonable notice of the claim to copyright."   17 USC §401 (c).  Past merely calculation a proper notice beneath the proper noun address and phone number of the Visitor, significant protections are created for the owner.  A sample observe appears at the end of this blog postal service.

Surely, registration at the WGA is cheaper.  But information technology is far less valuable, and merely establishes the existence of the work on a particular date. The same thing volition be established with a copyright registration certificate, and that certificate will be the keys to the courthouse in the unlikely and unfortunate upshot y'all think your script is infringed.

__________________

Marc Jacobson is an entertainment attorney in New York NY.  He is admitted to exercise in NY, CA and FL, is the founding chairman of the NYS Bar Association Section on Amusement, Arts and Sports Police force, and is listed in Best Lawyers in the Us, Chambers United states of america, and SuperLawyers.  This blog first appeared at the blog for the NYS Bar Association Section on Entertainment, Arts & Sports Police force. https://bit.ly/2STTekM

© 2021 Marc Jacobson.

Source: https://www.marcjacobson.com/film/should-i-register-my-script-at-the-wga-or-the-copyright-office-why

Posted by: cantyidentionevid79.blogspot.com

Share this post