Confidentiality Agreement

[Joe Riggs]

Hi,

I am casting and crewing for a project and was wondering if anyone has a link to or could upload some sort of Confidentiality Agreement. I would like to freely audition cast and crew without worrying about someone stealing the idea.

Any help is greatly appreciated.

[Matt Newcomb]

You know they can't steal your idea even if they do sign that form right? If you tape the auditions it should be pretty good evidence if anything were ever to happen. Your form won't really be able to help you much more.

[Shaun Roemich]

Realizing that the legality of "borrowing" your idea would be decided AFTER the fact in court by lawyers. Whoever can afford to pay their lawyer the longest has a better chance of "winning".

[Steve House]

"Ideas" are pretty hard to claim uniquness on anyway. I had a great story idea about a sea adventure but I hear someone already did a story about a poor boy meets a rich girl on a big boat a while back. The specific WAY an idea is expressed is another matter. If you wanted to audition using specifc scenes from the script, a confidentially agreement might help protect against stealing it verbatim (though copyright also protects you on that already) but there's nothing that would protect you from someone coming up with something similar to your story.

[Paul Tauger]

An NDA creates a contractual obligation to keep specific disclosures confidential. It is, generally, the only way to create a legally-enforceable obligation to not use ideas. Videotaping the audition does not create this obligation. California is unique in that it has some fairly good idea disclosure law -- basically, it provides that, if an idea is disclosed in a context in which a reasonable person would understand that, if the idea is used commercially, compensation would be expected, the discloser can receive the fair market value of the idea if used. The technical explanation is that an implied-in-fact contract is created. I do not see how this doctrine would be applicable to an audition and, moreover, the doctrine is limited to California.

You might try Nolo Press -- they seem to have a lot of form legal documents. Of course, I can't vouch for the quality of their documents.

[Matt Newcomb]

It's just another document you have to use as evidence if you ever have to take somebody to court. It is still not legal to take somebody else's idea and use it as your own under any circumstances. It comes down to how much precaution you want to take and the the steps you're prepared to follow if somebody ever decides to actually take your idea. That is why you are supposed to record and catalog every disclosure about your story you have with people, so that there is documented evidence that they had previous knowledge of your story.