[Tim Wilson]

I’m going to respectfully disagree, Mads.

The problem with an NDA is that it only covers disclosure, ie, telling somebody. That doesn’t cover the real problem, which is the idea being stolen. The outstanding issue remains that ideas are mentioned in American law as specifically NOT being protected, and no agreement outside the law is legally binding.

This presents some very big issues. One is that if a client has even a passing knowledge of such things, the request gets laughed off, asking with 100% of your credibility.

Two is, this isn’t rocket science, and shouldn’t be treated like it is. NDAs are for major commercial enterprises, typically ones that are publicly traded where the consequences of leaked information can be disastrous – but absolutely not for something like this.

For example, at the COW, we are constantly being briefed on future stuff, including technology, movies, tv shows, and far far more. We might get asked to sign an NDA 2 or 3 times a year, if that. I can only think of 1 so far this year.

There is the additional issue of trust, the idea that if you ask somebody not to tell, and they agree, their word isn’t enough for you? then don’t work with then.

Little things: NDAs are contracts. Even many small businesses are required by their owners to consult counsel before signing contracts. Even without lawyers, he person you pitch to may not have authority to sign an NDA, so it would have to go to someone else in the company. Now, you’ve created an obstacle between you and the pitch. The object of the game is to remove obstacles.

I saved the biggest for last, which is: don’t overthink this. Great ideas are a dime a dozen. They line the bottom of birdcages if they’re not littering the street. The basis for success has never ever been great ideas. It’s the ability to follow through, and do them WELL.

I use Apple as an example just because everybody else does: they were late to computers, dead last to add color, very nearly dead last to portable music players, very very late in the game to phones – the list goes on. The originality is in the execution.

To take that a step further, you can succeed with a crappy or derivative idea if you do it well enough. Ideas aren’t worth that much at all.

Here’s the biggest reason not to sweat this: Stephen, you don’t know yet if even one potential client thinks you have a good idea until you pitch it. They might throw you out on your ear. But here’s the thing – as they talk to you about it, they may make the idea even better. Because the best ideas aren’t “things.” They’re platforms that you can build more and greater things upon.

The best things that happen in this industry – as in many others – are never the result of one person. They’re the result of a collaborative, iterative process.

And hey, even if it really is the best idea ever, are you saying, to us, to your clients, to yourself, that you’ll never come up with a better one>

So trust yourself. Trust your clients. Relax.

And never forget: there is precisely zero legal protection for ideas. Don’t ask for something that you can’t have.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

So there you go, Stephen. Two pieces of nearly identical advice in 5 minutes. 🙂

[Tim Wilson]

This is worth doing a search on in this forum, as it comes up pretty regularly. The short answer is, you can’t. There’s no such thing as owning an idea. There’s no legal way to prevent them from 100% stealing your idea.

Taking your WORK, no. There are many protections for that. Taking your IDEA, yes. They’re legally free to do that.

Your selling points are:

1) Nobody can execute this vision as well as I can;
2) I came up with THIS original idea. I can come up with others for you; and
3) You’ll enjoy working with me.

(You’ll see throughout the archives for this forum that if clients want to spend TIME with you that they’ll be more likely to spend MONEY with you.)

The fact is that most people are a combination of ethical and lazy enough that nothing bad will happen…but it might, and there’s nothing you can do about it but emphasizing the points above. It’s never JUST about the work. Keep them focused on the big picture — the one that has you smack dab in the middle. 🙂

Good luck!

Tim

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

[Juan Salvo] ” Other systems use reverse engineered prores codec through ffmpeg.”

Actually, Telestream Episode Engine, Vantage, and FlipFactory all encode to ProRes on Windows using their own technology. Harmonic Rhozet ProCoder (formerly Canopus, then Grass Valley) rolls their own as well. These guys have built transcoding empires as commercial enterprises, not open source.

Now then, 5DtoRGB encodes ProRes using FFmpeg, which IS open source…which also means no need to reverse engineer. Just download the libraries and bake ’em in as you see fit.

Note that FFmpeg is not exactly pretty for non-nerds. Lots of command line. It’s also limited to 1 file at a time. However, downloading Another GUI as the front end is pretty slick, and supports batching.

Both of these are readily available at your favorite nerd software repositories.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

Great memory, Herb!

Although it was syndicated rather than franchised, I think of New Zoo Revue along these lines because it ran after shows like Bozo and Captain Kangaroo in my market. I think that was fairly typical in most markets.

Doug and Emmy Jo (Emily in real life) were married in 72, and are still together as the owner of Laguna Productions in Las Vegas — commercials, corporate, docs and the like. Classic COW stuff. While I haven’t seen Doug post in the COW, others at Laguna pop in now and again.

I was “too old” for this kind of thing at the time, but boy howdy, I really enjoyed it.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

[Jeremy Garchow] “When I heard Bozo show, I immediately thought of WGN Bozo.”

Chicago Bozo remains one of the highest-rated local programs ever.

Somebody needs to do a full-on Bozo documentary. The whole idea of a franchised character is phenomenal to me. Even the Wikipedia entry is mind-boggling – over 200 Bozos around the world. The best thing you’ll read all day, I promise.

tw

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

next time it happens in a way that makes no sense, send us a copy of the post via the Contact Us link at the top of the page, we’ll see what we can figure out….

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

That may be it, but I’m not sure. All I can see is that there’s nothing on the admin side that shows your account as under review in any way whatsoever.

Note that the naughty words mechanism can catch words for unexpected reasons. For example, “speci a list” (without spaces of course) gets caught in the filter that protects us from thousands of attempted spam posts for the 5 letters in the middle: ci a lis. Sometimes annoying, but the overall outcome is critical to keeping those kinds of posts out of the forums. You get plenty of those in your email.

That may not be it, but as I mentioned, your account is marked as completely non-moderated.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

see? piece of cake.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.

[Tim Wilson]

All I know is that my sprinkler system was acting up this weekend, and I don’t know what I would have done without Christies Plumbing Tape.

And kids, don’t forget: unless you’re actually taping a duct, there’s almost always a better tape to use than duct tape. In particular, never use duct tape when the job calls for gaffers tape.

Tape dead? I don’t THINK so.

Tim Wilson
Vice President, Editor-in-Chief
Creative COW Magazine
Twitter: timdoubleyou

The typos here are most likely because I’m, a) typing this on my phone; and b) an idiot.