WGA puts writers one click closer

Daniel Rice, a 31-year-old graphic designer, is cursed with the nagging ambition to be a working screenwriter.

Although he must nurse that fantasy far from Hollywood’s dream factory, in Amherst, N.Y., now he can be just as protective of his ideas as any big-time writer in the 310 area code. Instead of hauling his scripts down to the Writers Guild of America’s L.A. headquarters for registration or mailing them to the U.S. Copyright Office, Rice simply pushes the “send” button on his computer.

Yes, the WGA’s registry, long a fact of life in Hollywood, has gone global, open to Internet users from the Miracle Mile to Brunei looking to register their brainstorms before someone else swipes them.

“Everyone is paranoid about their idea. They’re absolutely paranoid about it,” says Jerry Katzman, a former head of the William Morris Agency who now teaches at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and TV, and oversees industry relations for the school.

Since its June launch at the WGA, the registry has accepted thousands of projects in dozens of languages in varying stages of completion.

Fans of the system say it introduces a little bit of democracy in a town ruled by an oligarchy of powerbrokers. It gives peace of mind to industry outsiders who fear that Hollywood is crawling with opportunists who wouldn’t think twice about appropriating somebody else’s idea. (They may have a point: Lawsuits and arbitrations alleging idea theft are commonplace in Hollywood.)

Each year, the WGA accepts about 40,000 projects through the U.S. mail or from writers themselves, who hand-register them at headquarters. In the past six months, at least 6,000 projects have been registered online, most of them generated by a scriptwriting contest for the second installment of the HBO movie-in-progress series “Project Greenlight.”

“I think it’s very clear that significant numbers of people are going to the online service and away from the walk-in or mail-in registration,” WGA President Victoria Riskin said. “It’s a terrific opportunity for us to make things easier and better for those wanting to register their material.”

Still, some suggest the rush to register ideas is a bit misguided.

“You should have an idea good enough to steal. Because maybe the next one will be good enough to do,” is the standard advice given to aspiring writers by Tim O’Donnell, executive producer, director and writer of “Clueless” (1995).

“It’s an idea-rich town. It’s an execution-poor town,” said O’Donnell, who’s also a member of the WGA’s board of directors. “You can take the top 10 movies and top 10 shows, and with remarkable exception, they aren’t great ideas. They’re just well-executed.”

Rice registered more than just an idea; he went online with a pilot script for a sitcom he has tentatively titled “Crayons,” about a middle-aged man who discovers he has a 5-year-old son. With the writer envisioning a laugh track background, the protagonist of “Crayons” raises his son while juggling the demands of his advertising executive job. Rice also registered a sample script he wrote for NBC’s long-running hit sitcom “Frasier” that he hopes can prove his ability to conform to an established show’s rhythm and standards.

“As soon as I logged off, I was registered, and it was mine. It didn’t even take 10 minutes,” Rice said, although after a moment he added: “I’m sure the ease of the process could clog up the system with garbage.”

Rice is not a member of the WGA and always thought he would have to continue mailing his projects to the U.S. Copyright Office in Washington, D.C., a process that costs $30 and can take up to eight months. But now, he says, the WGA has freed him up with the online registry.

“What I liked about registering online was that everything was in my control,” Rice said.

The process costs guild members $10, while nonmembers, like Rice, have to pay $20. After taking the author’s Social Security number, address, credit card information and a downloaded version of their work, the WGA spits out a registration number accompanied by proof of the date, time and type of content submitted.

The author’s work remains confidential throughout the registration process and is placed under seal, only to be opened during mediation or trial as proof of the concept’s genesis. About once a month, the WGA hands a court a piece of registered material on behalf of a writer, according to Caroline Chacon, administrator of the WGA’s Intellectual Property Registry.

So far, none of the items registered online has been pulled into a dispute, but that may be due to the newness of the system; it usually takes quite some time for arguments over authorship to reach attorneys.

Some writers wonder aloud if the accessibility and ease of the online registry will legitimize every amateur with an Internet connection.

“Anybody who registers an idea at the Writers Guild and tries to use that as a way to convince someone they’re a writer is probably deluding themselves,” said Robert Kosberg, who has produced films including “Twelve Monkeys” (1995). He is a WGA member who has registered 100 ideas and pitches the old-fashioned way during the past few decades. “Registering has nothing to do with being a professional writer. Being a professional writer means you’re selling your work, you have an agent and a lawyer, and you can make a living off your writing.”

In addition to “Project Greenlight,” a popular scriptwriting software, Final Draft is pushing the WGA online registry. When users of Final Draft finish a script, the program automatically urges them to register.

For the last 75 years, the WGA has accepted material by those who arrive in person at guild headquarters on West 3rd Street in L.A. during business hours. Writers also can register by mail. Last year, registrations in all forms brought $750,000 into the nonprofit WGA, according to Vicky Gallion, spokeswoman for the guild.

But until last summer’s WGA online launch, there was no recourse for someone outside L.A. who needed to register a script fast. Nor was there any easy way for a struggling writer-wage slave to quickly declare authorship of an idea without leaving work in the middle of the day to get to the WGA’s office by closing time.

(There is a drop box in the WGA’s lobby for after-hours registration, and it is watched over by a security guard 24 hours a day. But there’s no certificate of registry given, a drawback for any writer fearing theft of a masterpiece.)

Richard Walter, professor of screenwriting at UCLA’s School of Theater, Film and TV, encourages his students to go to WGA headquarters to register their work. Walter, also a longtime expert witness on intellectual property and plagiarism, wants them to come face-to-face with the other writers standing in line to register their scripts.

“Just the bustle of writers who are seeking attention just drives home the lesson, which is that your script better stand out, as in outstanding from the very first page.”And to those hopeful dreamers convinced they possess a million-dollar idea, he points out:

“You’ve still got to invent the characters, the incidents, the anecdotes. You’ve got to weave them together. The ideas behind some of the great movies are pretty lame. Look at ‘Citizen Kane.’ The guy has everything, but he’s unhappy. Can’t buy me love. Look at ‘Star Wars.’ The girl gets kidnapped and the guys rescue her in space. It’s not the idea. The devil is in the details.”