Sunday, August 05, 2018

Things They Should Invent: legally binding #StealThisIdea

TV writers on Twitter keep telling people not to tweet show ideas at them.  Apparently if you tweet an idea at them, they're not allowed to use it for legal reasons, and that could mess things up if they already have an episode using that idea in the pipeline.

As a person who has a lot of ideas but isn't equipped to actually execute them, I find that disheartening. I would be thrilled and delighted to see any of my ideas (for television episodes or otherwise) actually brought to life.

They should invent some legally-binding way of marking ideas you post on the internet as being freely stealable, so the people who can make them happen can make them happen. (BTW, that is the intention behind my Things They Should Invent, Free Ideas, and Research Ideas blog categories. Take it, implement it, and I'll be thrilled)

And, of course, if you don't want people stealing your ideas, you can just not mark them as such.

The #StealThisIdea hashtag seems to exist, and would do the job nicely.

Unfortunately, like all my ideas, I have no idea who can actually make this happen. But if they do stumble upon this post, I hereby formally authorize them to steal this idea.

2 comments:

laura k said...

TV writers on Twitter keep telling people not to tweet show ideas at them. Apparently if you tweet an idea at them, they're not allowed to use it for legal reasons, and that could mess things up if they already have an episode using that idea in the pipeline.

This is weird, since people recycle and re-use other people's ideas all the time. You can't copyright an idea. Think of all the sitcom and mystery plots that are as old as time. The writers know this.

Plus, if a show is in the pipeline, all files associated it would be date-stamped with a date before the tweet. So even if this were true, there would be no issue.

I can't imagine why writers say this on Twitter.

impudent strumpet said...

Maybe someone sued someone at some point and they're trying to avoid that in the future? I don't actually know, but that would be my guess