Submit a movie script to Amazon studios | Hacker News Reader

Submit a movie script to Amazon studios

studios.amazon.com

From the submission agreement (https://studios.amazon.com/help/submission-agreement):

> You will have no right to compensation in connection with the exploitation of rights you grant under this Agreement.

So, why would anyone participate in this program, if the best possible outcome is that Amazon uses your idea, makes millions, and does not pay you a cent?

From what I understand, writing movies is a tough gig to break into.

So likely people trying to do that.

Of course, Amazon will probably just continually source free ideas and then have them edited by a pro.

And it's not like you're submitting an abstract or broader idea. They're asking for a 85-160 page document.

I could understand if this was a way to catch thousands of concept ideas and quickly review them for any gems, but this is a lot to ask if the return in any case is zero.

Contracts in this domain are notoriously one-sided in favor of the established producers and studios. I have some writings that occasionally draw the attention of movie/television producers, and on a few occasions these talks have gone far enough that I am presented with a contract. To paraphrase some of the common conditions (where "we/us/our" refers to the producers and "you" refers to the author):

> We do not guarantee you will earn any money on this deal.

> We may cancel or sell our rights to this contract at any time, you may not.

> We can use your name and likeness in any way we deem appropriate.

> You may not make any public statement about us without our prior consent.

> If you decide to sue us for any reason, we can veto your attorney selections.

> Even if we pull some serious shenanigans we are immune from consequence.

And so on. In each case I declined to sign; life's too short to agree to such hostile, one-sided terms. Perhaps one day I'll be approached by some aspirational, non-greedy producers. I'd be happy to sign a fair contract.

Is that even a contract at this point? I thought to legally be a contract, both sides had to gain something?

Hypothetically, what I gained was a toehold into the film industry, with the possibility of future payment. But considering the perils of Hollywood accounting [1] I wasn't hopeful about ever seeing a penny. I wasn't desperate and their offer wasn't compelling, so I walked away.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hollywood_accounting

It is a contract and is completely legal. A contract does not need to be "fair" to both sides, only "reasonable". There might be some argument that this contract is unconscionable, but that is a difficult battle, especially when one has so willingly given up their rights to their material. The court system was not designed to come running in to save individuals just because they have made a foolish deal.

Have you ever tried red lining all points you disagree with and sending it back?

Yes indeed! Last time around (about 2 years ago) I uploaded the contract to Google Docs, added comments/suggestions for editing, and shared it with the producers in question. Their response was to schedule a call explaining why the contested terms are all "standard boilerplate" that they cannot change. They wouldn't budge a single word. So we went our separate ways.

> You may not make any public statement about us without our prior consent.

Is it even legal? What about freedom of speech?

If you are referring to the first amendment, that protects us from government censorship. There are a number of ways we may agree to censor ourselves when interacting with private entities. I signed a non disclosure agreement with my employer. I agree not to create photos of expos I enter. And so on. It seems excessive, but it's legal to stipulate it.

Just curious, if you discard the legitimacy of private profit, is it ever legitimate to silence employees? I'm skeptical but I'm open to a good argument.

Most of the time the agreements I hear about are basically to guarantee that private corruption will go unpunished.

The "rights" in this agreement are those granting Amazon the ability to share and monetize the screenplay itself. In other words it can publish it and monetize the screenplay as a literary work, which is essentially worthless (how much would you pay for the screenplay to Titanic?). It does NOT have the the ability to make a movie or TV show based on the screenplay.

One reasonable explanation for this clause would be to avoid claims that Amazon stole an idea when in fact they did not. For example: 1. I submit my script to Amazon 2. A year later, Amazon releases a movie with a similar character. 3. I sue Amazon.

It may very well be that Amazon had the idea completely independently, but it would still result in a messy (and expensive) legal battle.

While it is very open to abuse by Amazon, it is a reasonable precaution.

> So, why would anyone participate in this program, if the best possible outcome is that Amazon uses your idea, makes millions, and does not pay you a cent?

This is what happened to the author of Forrest Gump. The reason there was no sequel despite that movie's massive success was that he was too proud to sell the rights for the sequel when he'd gotten screwed on the first one.

However, it seems likely, given the first movie's massive success, that he could have gotten a pretty good price the second time around.

Always be careful with what you think the best case is.

From what I read, Winston Groom (the author) made a deal that specified payment based on the Net profits vs. the Gross profits. That Hollywood accounting makes it so even super-popular films show little-to-no Net profit since they add in marketing expenses and who knows what all else. Long story short: Always go with the Gross profits.

>So, why would anyone participate in this program, if the best possible outcome is that Amazon uses your idea, makes millions, and does not pay you a cent?

Exposure, it's always for fucking exposure

I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice, but I don't believe you're correct.

5.x covers the rights you are granting. They do not seem to be the actual rights to create a film/tv show/etc.

>5.1.1. Review. Your submission will be subject to review by us. You grant us the right to review and consider your Submission and, in connection therewith, share the Submission with our subcontractors engaged in review and, together with our subcontractors, annotate your Submission.

So, in this section, you basically grant them the right to review it within Amazon Studios and any relevant companies they work with to create media.

If you make a public submission, you grant a bit more rights (You do not have to make a public submission):

>5.2.2. Our Rights to Distribute Your Public Submission. You grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-terminable, sub-licensable, transferable right to copy, transfer, stream, make available for download, add captions and make other distribution-related modifications to your Public Submission as we desire to facilitate such distribution.

So, here, you make it possible for Amazon to make your submission available royalty-free, etc. This seems more likely to apply to concept video submissions.

As best I can tell, at no point does submitting the script or concept video to Amazon give them the right to produce a TV series, Movie, or anything similar based off of it. Presumably, if they were to decide to move forward, there would be a new agreement you have to sign.

The 'Similar Content' bit looks to be the standard 'You can't sue us if you submit something and we make something similar' boilerplate you find when submitting anything of this nature. Those of you that have pitched to VCs or Angels have likely seen something similar. It's basically protection for situations where companies might be working on something that could be viewed as similar. Without it, you could have patent troll type situations - someone could write a bunch of garbage scripts that cover a bunch of random ideas, and then when Amazon or someone else makes something that looks even kind of like one of your ideas, you could sue them.

Again, I'm not a lawyer, and this isn't legal advice.

> So, why would anyone participate in this program, if the best possible outcome is that Amazon uses your idea, makes millions, and does not pay you a cent?

That is not the way it works. You will be paid money if Amazon decides to produce your script. Nobody is getting ripped off.

Amazon Studios has been doing this for 7+ years. I'm not sure why it's being posted to Hacker News today, since there's nothing new about it. But it's all above aboard.

I'm a indie filmmaker and would love to receive movie scripts from people. Why submit to Amazon when you can submit to me or other indie filmmakers? Very small companies do not have the disadvantages regarding your rights that large studios have, and there is a greater chance of your script being turned into a film. Our budgets are often larger than you would guess, and it is common for angel investors to provide a sufficient budget for passionate filmmakers.

Sounds like a good idea for a startup!

The Similar Content clause is a gold mine. Good luck suing Amazon and proving there is "substantial similarity".

"Given the open nature of Amazon Studios, Amazon Studios participants may develop and submit scripts, movies, shows, and videos that are similar to each other. In order to prevent legal claims that could be disruptive to Amazon Studios participants and impede the ability of Amazon scripts, movies, shows and videos to be developed and released, you agree to irrevocably and forever waive any legal claim you may have under any theory of law in any territory, including, without limitation, copyright infringement or breach of implied in fact contract (idea submission), that your rights were infringed due to any similarity between your Content and any other content that is or may become available on Amazon, unless there is substantial similarity of protectable expression under United States copyright law between your Content and the other content and the other content includes a verbatim copy of a material portion of your script or other written material, if your Content is a script or other written material, or a re-use of a material portion of footage from your movie, show or other video if your Content is a movie, show, or other video. Note that the Account Agreement includes additional waivers of claims related to Content that apply to the Amazon Parties, as defined in Section 11.4 below."

Practically the contract is atrocious for the submission party. I am not familiar with the field so maybe this is standard. If it is, I highly suggest people people stay away. TL;DR: This is not legal advice and I am not licensed to practice law, but if I am reading this right, accepting this agreement is not beneficial to you to submit.

Maybe Amazon is going to play nice and offer you enough money to make it worth it. However, you have little rights or leverage once you submit anything.

Why was this submitted today? This program at Amazon is 7+ years old, and nothing about it has changed recently as far as I can tell.

The idea of having my script tied to my buying history is funny

that might make an interesting movie script ;)

All these people here keep on saying how well Amazon protects itself legally.

What I don't see anyone saying is that the fact that if Amazon were to rip someone off, their reputation would be tarnished.

I think what they're doing is actually in genius but I don't think they're going to rip anyone off because bye being able to crowdsource ideas for scripts will help them get the best of both worlds:innovation and relevancy.

They got to stay ahead of their competition and get inspired by writers.

Do not get me wrong they may screw people over but like Bank of America was warned about its debit card scandal, the other side of the sword can be bad and the last thing Amazon needs is thousands of riders complaining to the Department of Justice or any organization that involves fraud.

> What I don't see anyone saying is that the fact that if Amazon were to rip someone off, their reputation would be tarnished.

Studios screw over writers all the time. There's a reason that screenwriting is strongly unionized. Studios don't care about their reputation with writers, because a) there's always more writers, and b) the films aren't going to get made without the studios.

Studios especially don't care about tarnishing their reputation with un-represented writers (i.e, writers without an agent), because all the good writers already have representation.

Right. They even call it "Hollywood Accounting".

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