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Legal guide · 2026

How to Copyright a Screenplay: WGA Registration vs. U.S. Copyright Office

By Chris Lanning · October 2, 2026 · 8 min read

First, the thing most writers get wrong

Registration and copyright are not the same thing. Under U.S. law, you own the copyright to your screenplay from the moment you fix it in tangible form — i.e., the moment you type FADE IN. Nobody can take that away from you by registering first, and you don't need anyone's permission to call it yours.

What registration buys you is proof and leverage: dated evidence that you wrote it when you say you did, and — in the case of the Copyright Office — the legal right to actually sue someone who steals it, plus access to statutory damages and attorney's fees. An unregistered copyright is like owning a house with no deed on file: it's yours, but good luck proving it cheaply.

WGA registration: the $20 date stamp

The Writers Guild of America (West) runs a script registry open to anyone — you don't need to be a guild member. For around $20 ($10 for members), you upload your script and the WGA keeps a sealed, dated copy for five years, renewable for further five-year terms.

What it does: creates a dated record of your claim to authorship. If a dispute ever arises, the WGA can produce the material as evidence and have an employee testify to the registration date.

What it doesn't do: everything else. It is not copyright. It doesn't give you the right to sue. It doesn't entitle you to damages or attorney's fees. It doesn't prove you own the underlying rights — only that you deposited a document on a date. In litigation, it's one piece of evidence among many, and courts have seen it all before.

Think of it as a notary stamp for screenwriters: cheap, fast, and better than nothing — but not a legal shield.

U.S. Copyright Office: the real protection

Registering with the U.S. Copyright Office (via their online eCO system at copyright.gov) costs around $45 for a single work by a single author filed online (more for multiple authors or paper filing — check the current fee schedule, as it shifts). In return you get:

• The right to sue. You cannot file a copyright infringement lawsuit in federal court without a registration. Full stop. This is the single biggest reason to do it.
• Statutory damages and attorney's fees — but only if you registered before the infringement happened (or within three months of the work's publication). Register after someone steals your script and you're limited to proving actual damages, which for an unproduced screenplay is brutally hard.
• Prima facie evidence of ownership. If registered within five years of publication, the registration certificate counts as presumptive proof you own the work. The burden shifts to the other side.
• Duration that actually matters: your life plus 70 years. Register once, done. Compare that to the WGA's five-year terms and the math gets obvious fast — after a decade of WGA renewals you've paid more than a single copyright registration cost, for a fraction of the protection.

Side-by-side comparison

	WGA registration	U.S. Copyright Office
Approx. cost	~$20 (non-members)	~$45 (online, single author)
Duration	5 years, renewable	Life + 70 years
Proves authorship date	Yes	Yes
Lets you sue for infringement	No	Yes — required
Statutory damages / attorney's fees	No	Yes, if registered before infringement
Prima facie proof of ownership	No	Yes

So which should you get?

If you do one thing: register with the U.S. Copyright Office. It's the only option with teeth.

If you can spend ~$65: do both. The WGA registration is fast (minutes online) and gives you an immediate dated record while the Copyright Office processes your application (which can take months). Belt and suspenders.

If you've only ever done WGA: and you have scripts sitting in drawers registered years ago but never copyrighted — fix that now, before anything is infringed. The WGA date stamp won't get you into court.

What about AI-written scripts? (the 2026 question)

This is the question I get most often now, so let's be direct: under current U.S. Copyright Office guidance, works generated purely by AI with no human authorship cannot be copyrighted. The human-authorship requirement isn't new law — it's the Office applying longstanding principles to new tools.

What that means in practice:

• You wrote it, AI helped with brainstorming or editing: copyrightable. Tools don't erase authorship; typewriters didn't either.
• You prompted it, the AI wrote the scenes: the AI-generated portions aren't protected. Your prompts, selections, and arrangements may be, but this is genuinely gray territory and evolving.
• You want to sell it or sue over it: register the human-authored version and keep drafts showing your creative contribution. Paper trails matter more than ever.

The WGA's position in all of this has been protective of writers, and the guild's stance is worth following — but guild politics don't change what the Copyright Office will register. When in doubt, the human-written draft is the asset. Protect that one.

The "poor man's copyright" is a myth — stop doing it

Mailing a copy of your script to yourself and keeping the sealed envelope? It proves nothing that a registration doesn't prove better. Postmarks can be faked, envelopes can be steamed open, and courts are unimpressed. It costs a stamp and buys you approximately zero legal advantage. Spend the $20 on the WGA instead — at least that's a real third-party record.

One etiquette rule: don't put the © on your script

Never put a copyright notice, WGA registration number, or "© 2026" on a script you're sending to agents, managers, producers, or contests. In the industry, it's a glowing red flag that screams amateur — it tells the reader you're more worried about theft than about the writing, and that you don't know how the business works. Professionals assume everything is protected and say nothing about it. Your title page should have the title, your name, and contact info. That's it.

How to register with the U.S. Copyright Office (step by step)

1. Go to copyright.gov and use the eCO online system (create a free account).
2. Select Standard Application (or Single Application if you're the sole author of a single unpublished work — it's cheaper).
3. Classify the work as a "Work of the Performing Arts" — that's the category for screenplays.
4. Fill in the author and claimant information (usually you, on both).
5. Upload a complete copy of the script as the deposit copy (PDF is fine for unpublished works).
6. Pay the fee online (around $45 for the single-author online filing; confirm the current schedule).
7. Wait. Processing takes months, but your effective registration date is the day the Office receives your complete application — the certificate just memorializes it later.

Frequently asked questions