Friday, October 31, 2008

Indie Script writers of Pakistan and their Copyright issues.

Hello dear readers and friends. Just wanted to share the problems of an indie film scriptwriter of Pakistan and that is me. These days I am writing my first script. The script is at the early stage that is I am writing its story. The genre horror and if I specify it more you can say it is zombie horror script. According to the time I have set the story will be finished in next 5 to 8 days. And because I am writing it in very detail so I think it will just take a couple of days to make the final draft of the story.

Coming back towards the main issue, I decided to go on different forums and ask about the issue of copyright as it can be the most hurting thing for a writer if his written work (even if it is the worse thing on earth) is stolen. Well anyways the most cheap method I got to get my script safe was that to put the script in envelop and send it back to my address and never to open the seal until required. But the idea was refused by a guy who said that even if I do that there is a doubt that I can use old envelop and put my script in it. Well it can happen

Few friends via net suggested that I should try to get it registered with any local government body (like Ministry of Arts and Culture etc) of Pakistan but I am personally not interested in it and I have a solid reason for it. Just a couple of days back I read a news where a producer of regional films declared that he has bribed the new director of Censor Board only for viewing his films. The interesting thing is that in that movie there is nothing which can be marked as unethical according to the rules of Pakistan Censor Board. A producer who is in the business for so long, if he needs to bribe the censor board then how will censor board or any other government body will take care of my rights? They will be willing to even cut my pocket and take out something termed as “bribe”. The other option is to get registered with any foreign organization. Well that needs money and not only money it most often require dollars. Right now the currency rates are 86 PKR= 1 US dollar. So even if the fee is 25 us dollars it means i will have to submit some 2000 PKR.

I personally feel there should be some way to get our script registered free by any org or website for the time being and cut a fee if it is sold out.