Writers submitting concepts and scripts to producers with a hope of monetary benefits and production of their ideas\/concepts, is a general practice in the Entertainment industry. The burden is on the supplier of an idea (writer\/author) to take necessary measures in order to claim legal rights over his original idea.<\/p>\n
The law expects an express agreement to be formed before there could be any liability. Hence, the first thing the idea giver should do is to enter into a contract, binding himself and the receiving party. Having a contract protects both the writer and the party to which the idea\/concept is disclosed. The contract which we are referring to here is the Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA).<\/p>\n
NDAs, also known as Confidentiality Agreements, are instruments that can protect a disclosing party\u2019s ideas. Signing an NDA proves that the\u00a0receiving party had access to the idea and has agreed to maintain confidentiality of said idea. Apart from this, it can serve as evidence of the ownership of the writer over the original idea. Secondly, apart from signing NDAs to protect ideas, a writer can also protect ideas by registering them with an association like a writer\u2019s society, which society, after receiving an idea, registers it, stamps it and hands over the work back to the writer, without any worry\u00a0of the work becoming public. By registering the work, a writer will be able to prove the date of creation of the idea, and the ownership under certain circumstances.<\/p>\n
The practice of protecting original ideas through NDAs is easier said than done, because most production houses do not sign NDAs. Thousands of writers submit ideas to production houses and signing NDAs with each one of them is often not feasible. If a production house were to agree to keep all the thousands of ideas confidential, then it would be exposing itself to high risk. The general practice which a production house or a studio follows is to get the writer or supplier of the idea to execute a Release Deed. This deed is an agreement which releases all rights held by the disclosing party with regard to the idea disclosed in favor of the receiving party, in this case, the production house. Through this agreement, a writer voluntarily waives off certain rights with respect to his idea, upon disclosing it\u00a0to the production house. In light of the aforesaid, it is clear that in order to have a claim or to prove a lack of claim for infringement with respect to an original idea, there should be a valid legal contract binding both parties.<\/p>\n
But then, what if there is no legal contract binding the parties? How can a writer protect his original ideas not expressed in a tangible form? How can one protect ideas disclosed orally?<\/p>\n
This is where the law of equity comes into play. Equitable principle of breach of confidence is an important accessory to Intellectual Property Rights. It can give extra protection in areas where Copyright cannot. Copyright law provides limited protection, but does not protect ideas and\u00a0only protects the expression of ideas. Breach of confidence can step in and protect ideas, where Copyright has failed.<\/p>\n
Breach of confidence is defined as a violation of trust placed in another in a fiduciary relationship. There are no limits on the form of the information protected under breach of confidence; it protects oral ideas as well as designs and drawings. However, breach of confidence does not protect ideas that are freely available in the public domain; nevertheless information built on public domain information, which involves some skill may be protected.<\/p>\n
To succeed in a Copyright case, the plaintiff has to prove two important things, similarity and access to his Copyright protected work. Even a single substantial\u00a0similarity can amount to infringement of a copyrighted work when compared to a higher number\u00a0of similarities. Hence, the courts look at the quality of infringement as against\u00a0the\u00a0quantity of infringement.<\/p>\n
On the other hand, to claim protection under Breach of confidence, it is necessary to fulfill the following requirements:<\/p>\n
All the three requirements\u00a0have to be satisfied in a claim for a Breach of confidence, universally.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Writers submitting concepts and scripts to producers with a hope of monetary benefits and production of their ideas\/concepts, is a general practice in the Entertainment industry. The burden is on the supplier of an idea (writer\/author) to take necessary measures in order to claim legal rights over his original idea.…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[440],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-685","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-copyright-ability-of-concept-notes"],"yoast_head":"\n