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Pitch Bible, fully realsied Pilot, distibuter interested.. legal issues?

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Pitch Bible, fully realsied Pilot, distibuter interested.. legal issues?

Hi there, you may remember me form a while back? Myself and some work collegues left our jobs in film and over 9months created a pitch bible, 2 scripts, and a fully animated section with voice actors etc.. shwoing how the show would look.

We've had a great reception form our fellow professionals and the target audience, we've sent the animated segment out through a few friends. We've had interest from a distributer and he wants us to post him the scripts and the pitch bible with all the character biog/concept art.

Should alarm bells be ringing?

We have the name as a registered trademark and the domain name, but other than that I'm now feeling we're a bit naked in terms of legal protection etc...

I'd basically like your collective advise on what we should have in place before we go any further to fully protect our Intellectual Property.

Should we get a lawyer to help explain everything to us so we understand what we need to do, I guess me and my collegues need a contract between ourselves, maybe make a compnay that we all own? As you can tell, we're not business men :)

Well I think your pretty good with an official trademark and domain name, the only other thing you can do(if it was possible) is destroy all the animation piracy in lower-world countries, but good luck with that.

Animation writer who loves...Animation!

Hi there, you may remember me form a while back? Myself and some work collegues left our jobs in film and over 9months created a pitch bible, 2 scripts, and a fully animated section with voice actors etc.. shwoing how the show would look.

We've had a great reception form our fellow professionals and the target audience, we've sent the animated segment out through a few friends. We've had interest from a distributer and he wants us to post him the scripts and the pitch bible with all the character biog/concept art.

Should alarm bells be ringing?

We have the name as a registered trademark and the domain name, but other than that I'm now feeling we're a bit naked in terms of legal protection etc...

I'd basically like your collective advise on what we should have in place before we go any further to fully protect our Intellectual Property.

Should we get a lawyer to help explain everything to us so we understand what we need to do, I guess me and my collegues need a contract between ourselves, maybe make a compnay that we all own? As you can tell, we're not business men :)

also lock in all your scripts, story and treatment with the WGA or any other related authority.

Should we get a lawyer to help explain everything to us so we understand what we need to do, I guess me and my collegues need a contract between ourselves, maybe make a compnay that we all own? As you can tell, we're not business men

If you need to ask if you need a lawyer for this matter...........then you need one. Otherwise you are flying blind in this.

Consider that the other parties in this (the distributor) might have a lawyer already in place assisting them, and if you do not have one, THEY have the advantage.
If you consider your property to be of value, then do not let "being cheap" or being intimidated by legal manoeuvres to dissuade you from getting your own legal help. Its worth the expense to protect your creation.

"We all grow older, we do not have to grow up"--Archie Goodwin ( 1937-1998)

Thanks Ken good advice, we've had a meeting with a lawyer today and it was very eye opening indeed.
He told us to defnitely not send anything to these distributers unless we have a Non Disclosure Agreement written up.