Legal Question in Intellectual Property in New York

Re: New television programming ideas

There are a variety of methods that you can use to protect intellectual property. What types of protection you might choose to employ will be a function of the nature of your idea and the vagaries of the particular industry in question. All, however, will be essentially contractual in nature requiring the disclosee to compensate the disclosor based on some formula if the disclosed property is used.

Re: New television programming ideas

In theory, you could protect yourself with a non-disclosure agreement (NDA), under which the person(s) to whom you pitch your idea would be prohibited from using it or disclosing it to others. In practice, however, you may have a hard time (a) geting in front of a television producer at all (unless you have an agent or some contacts in the industry) and (b) getting him/her to sign an NDA even if you do manage to arrange such a meeting. Another option would be to prepare a draft script of a pilot episode and then obtain a copyright registration on it in advance of any discussions with the networks. The copyright registration would serve as proof that the show is your original creation, and it is easy and inexpensive to obtain. However, the copyright would not protect the underlying idea for your show. It would only protect your expression of that idea (e.g., dialogue, characters, etc.). You would need an NDA to ensure that the concept for the show itself is protected.

Re: New television programming ideas

It's very difficult to get a producer to agree to compensate you for such an idea. And if you disclose the idea without an advance agreement that you will be compensated, the producer would owe you nothing. Preparing a script is a good first step, and registering your copyright in the script (it's copyright as soon as you prepare it) can help.