The Writers’ Guild of America (WGA) offers a script registration service for literary works. WGA membership is not required to use the service.
WGA registration does not provide the benefits of registration with the Copyright Office. For example, copyright registration is required before you can file a copyright infringement lawsuit or be eligible for statutory damages and attorneys’ fees.
However, there are two possible benefits to WGA registration:
- You can use WGA registration for treatments, outlines, story ideas, and similar materials that are normally not eligible for copyright protection (i.e., such “raw” materials don’t meet copyright law’s threshold test for original expression).
- You can use WGA registration as an intermediate step to keep unpublished material confidential until the material is ready for publication and registration with the Copyright Office. Material filed with the Copyright Office is available to the public (unless you request confidential treatment). Material filed with the WGA is not.
These WGA benefits might be useful in certain circumstances.