There have been cases of major production companies stealing ideas from writers hoping that such companies would pick up their script. Picture that. A writer has been developing a show idea for years, finally gets an opportunity to pitch it to a major cable channel and that channel says, "Ughh...we'll pass." Then a year that writer is watching the cable channel and sees a show with a very similar concept as the show he pitched.
What can you do about it? Well the obvious answer is that you can try to sue. But chances are that even if you have enough money in the stash to cover all those legal expenses, you'll lose, because, once again, an idea cannot be trademarked, copyrighted or legally protected in any way.
Now of course you can protect the contents of a script through copyright. That's all good. A person can't steal your script because with a script, the writer has transformed that idea into an expression placed on a fixed medium. We have character names, settings, lines for the characters, organization of plot, etc. Things are more specific now. But the idea of the script cannot be protected.
So take head that even if you have a script written and prepared to pitch to a major company, you are always rolling the dice on whether they would try to steal your concept. Hopefully they're be respectable and won't. But don't think they can't. They can and chances are they'll get away with it.
Just a few cents to save you dollars.
-T
