Great post, I've been concerned about this too. Putting the script out there with the Black List, Nicholl, etc. to protect the idea as your property is very smart.

As you said: The best way to protect your work is to get it read by as many people as possible. Counter-intuitive but true. I use lots of different professional readers. Even though one of my writer pals came up with a finished script that had an almost identical premise to something I'd been thinking about (we'd never discussed it). It happens. Even though a company is trying to get a film script into production that bears extraordinary similarity to a TV script pilot I wrote. We're writers. We have ideas. And as you demonstrated Scott, we should be having dozens of them.

Here's a situation: What if someone showed you script they wrote based on a book that they never got the rights to, BUT 10-15 years later YOU get the rights to the book...with the intention of optioning that script, but could shop your own version of it if your buddy doesn't want to give you his version (feeling betrayed)... Similarly, about 10 years ago, someone mentioned a good idea for a musical of a famous person, but it never came to fruition, (ethically) could you do your own version...? I'm starting to feel that 10-12 years is enough time to do your own versions, esp. since the source material was never acquired or needed...? Thoughts?

I think all Aspirings wring their hands over this issue. It's like the universal 5 Stages of Grief, we can't not go through it. But eventually, we need to put aside that addictive distraction (yep, that's what it is), un-wring our hands, and like Scott (and dozens of other professionals) said, focus on writing the script. After that's done, go to copyright.gov pay $35 and copyright it. Until the script is written, and rewritten (over and over) there is no point in worrying about theft, agents, managers, BlackList, contests or shiny new Porsches. Put your time and focus into the writing, as @TheWriteScript wisely tweeted, "less aspiring more perspiring."

Traci, Amen and Amen! You know how most people have the Shiny Object Syndrome where they get distracted by opportunities that feel replete with wondrous potential? Writers are more prone to suffer from the Dread Dead Syndrome where we get distracted by all the crappy things that can possibly go wrong with our stories. Until you have a finished script, you have NOTHING! Write the script first. THEN worry about it!

How much do your friends and/or connections mean to you? Particularly in the first case, perhaps you offer a shared story by credit.

This happened to a well know screenwriter -- A former agent, upset that the screenwriter had left his agency, took two of the man's screenplays and cobbled together a new one -- and sold it. The screenwriter's attorney told him that it would cost $250,000 just to bring a suit. So the man never did. This man was a screenwriter -- nominated for the 2011 Academy Award in screenwriting.

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