I have a scripted project that I started writing as a web series but am now considering making into a 60 minute drama. I've written what will either be the first season of the web series or an extended pilot for the long form.
If I register the script as an extended pilot, will I also need to register it as individual episodes if I decide to go the web series route (or do both)? It will be essentially the same content, although I may make more edits to the pilot just so transitions make more sense.
Thanks, Robert Franklin!
As a follow up, I started looking into getting a copyright for the full script for now. For awhile I was working with a writing team and two of them wrote episodes. I've edited both of them, one more than the other, but if they were going to be individual episodes I would have given us dual writing credit on them. How does that affect my ability to copyright the full work? The final script is 119 pages. Their portions total 19 and 11 pages respectively, although that includes my rewrites. Do they need to be listed as writers or can I just give them a "story by" credit later?
Now it gets tricky. Do you have a contract with them? It it understood that they are working on YOUR project merely as just writers - not co-owners and how much creative input did they contribute? Copyright is by the owner of the material and I would register it with WGA not copyright at this point. When you sell it, you will never own the copyright anyway as you always sign that over to the company. I'm not an attorney and merely suggest only based upon what you are saying and my past experience. The writers could come back later and say they were instrumental in the formation of the series writing 31 pages of the 119. That's almost 26% of the total. It's tricky. I would solicit some legal advice on this one from an entertainment attorney. Best of luck with the project.