There’s a great guest post on John August’s blog called When You Think Someone Stole Your Idea.
Written by aspiring screenwriter Randall Girdner, it explores those sickening thoughts most of us have had at some point:
- Did someone steal my idea?
- Will someone steal my idea?
The post is an honest exploration of Randall’s situation, and includes a reply from John that is dead on in it’s accuracy and wisdom.
Ideas are Just That — Ideas
As most of you know, our main business is producing documentary and unscripted television.
We even set up a way for people to pitch reality TV, unscripted, and documentary concepts to us, and have 23 episodes and counting of a podcast dedicated to helping people do just that.
And a recurring theme in our podcast is … ideas are not enough.
A great idea is not enough.
Especially in unscripted television, where there is no script (at least, in the kind we make) — ideas are almost meaningless.
A Better Way to Protect Yourself
But there is a much better way to protect yourself than registering an idea or signing up for some online blah-blah whatever someone’s trying to sell you to protect your work today (in our humble, and certainly not legal, opinion.)
In fact, one way that trumps everything else.
It’s hard, and it takes a while, but it works.
What are we talking about? We discuss it all here, in episode 2 of our podcast:
Finally, in our 10,000 word guide about pitching factual entertainment, we get into all of this in great detail.
Check it out when you get a sec, and start figuring our how to make yourself more valuable than any single idea.