Protecting Your Ideas

In my years working in television programming, I received literally thousands of program pitches, from everyone from my neighbors to my personal hero in programming, Brandon Tartikoff. I always tried to listen respectfully, and treat the people pitching the idea as I would want to be treated. I would remind myself that even though I might have heard this idea a hundred times, the person pitching it didn't know that.

One question would irritate me to a point where I couldn't help but show it. That was, "How do I know you won't steal my idea?" Usually I would respond, "if you're that worried about it, don't tell me the idea." Occasionally, that would stop the pitch in its tracks, and I would get a half hour of my life back.

Sometimes it's hard to tell what's a stolen idea, and what's just popular imitation. For example, I might think it's a good idea to launch a series about an adolescent with magical powers. That describes both the Harry Potter series and the Percy Jackson series. Were these stolen ideas? Of course not. While they both can be described broadly the same way, they differ in thousands of different details.

That's the best way to protect your idea. Write it down and make it as detailed as possible. Don't wait for someone at a television company to buy it before you create it. For example, you can copyright your novel about a magical boy in Brooklyn who saves the city; you have no protection if you're just walking into someone's office telling them you'd like to write a movie about that topic.

Of course, if you already have a track record in the business, you don't have to finish a piece before you sell your idea. Executives want to do business with you if you have a history or writing hit films or novels. If you're like most of us, trying to get our ideas a hearing, you have more to prove.

Protect yourself by turning your idea into a property. JK Rowling didn't sell the idea of writing a book about a young wizard named Harry Potter, she wrote the book first and sold that. So get busy.