Legal design
Submission services exist to get scripts read; there are plenty of them. Gatehouse was designed around the claims studios fear. Every step exists to take away something a claimant’s lawyer would need.
Talk to us →Record
Salt Lines
Claim by claim
For each: what the claim means, what their lawyer needs to make it stick, and the part of Gatehouse that takes it away.
California courts accept that pitching an idea can create an unwritten promise: use it, and you pay. No contract needed.
A copying claim starts by showing the studio could have seen the work. A script sitting in a company inbox is often enough.
Studios develop overlapping ideas all the time. When a film resembles a script, it’s easy to assume it was taken.
Scripts get rewritten. A writer may say you saw a later draft; you remember the earlier one.
Records that appear after a dispute begins look convenient, and the other side will say so.
Sometimes the sender turns out to be underage, using a false name, or not the owner of the script.
When a similar project comes later
Studios develop ideas that resemble scripts they were sent, for perfectly innocent reasons. Gatehouse is built so the facts are clear — for the writer and the studio — long before anyone calls a lawyer.
Problem 1
A writer sends a script. A year later the studio starts something similar, for reasons that have nothing to do with it. The writer sees the film and, quite sincerely, assumes they were robbed. Most “you stole my idea” claims start exactly like this.
Problem 2
A studio could leave its real projects off the list, so that everything reaches it — then claim it was “already working on that” when a similar script turns up.
An example
March 2026 · Writer
Not close to anything on the studio’s list. Nobody at the studio chooses to read the summary.
April 2027 · Studio
“Storm-bound island thriller” goes on the list — dated and sealed, so it can’t be backdated.
April 2027 · Gatehouse
The new line is compared with every summary already received. Salt Lines is close. The record shows nobody at the studio read it. Your lawyers are told, privately.
2029 · Writer
A named reviewer checks the record and answers plainly: nobody at the studio read your summary or unlocked your script, and the project began a year after yours arrived.
Every new project you add is compared with the summaries you’ve already received. If one is close, your lawyers hear privately — and learn whether anyone on your team read it — before work begins.
Each version of your list is sealed with its date. A project counts from the day it’s added. Nobody — not you, not us — can slip in an earlier date.
Optional: lodge a fingerprint of a treatment or outline, made on your own computer. The document never leaves your building, but it can prove later exactly what existed, and when.
A writer who sees a similar film can ask. A named reviewer, under NDA, checks who read what and when, and gives both sides a plain answer — without revealing anything about your plans.
Nobody read it
If nobody read it, that’s now on the record, dated, before a single page of your project is written.
Someone did read it
If someone did read it, you know before you commit. You can keep those people off the project, write down how the idea came about, or talk to the writer about an option. A phone call now beats a claim later.
Why holding back your list backfires
Leaving projects off your list doesn’t help you. A project that isn’t on the list has no dated proof behind it — and the record shows exactly which summaries your team read before a project appeared. Holding back only removes your own cover, and can count against you.
Fair to writers, too
The protection leans the studio’s way — that’s the point. But writers get real safeguards of their own, and terms that are seen to be fair are terms that hold up.
Proof of what they sent
A dated receipt for every draft — useful to a writer in any dispute, with anyone.
Their script, their password
Nobody reads it unless they unlock it, and every unlock is recorded.
They write what’s shown
The studio only ever sees a summary the writer approved.
No AI gatekeeper
Nothing scores, ranks or rejects them. People decide.
Why it isn’t a submissions platform
A submissions platform and Gatehouse both start with a writer uploading a file. Everything after that is built for a different purpose.
A submissions platform
Gatehouse
What it’s for
Platform: Getting writers read
Gatehouse: Keeping the studio clear of claims
Who it’s built around
Platform: The writer
Gatehouse: The studio’s legal position — with fair treatment for writers
What your team receives
Platform: The pile
Gatehouse: Nothing, unless a summary is clear of your projects and you choose to read it
Your plans
Platform: Not their concern
Gatehouse: A confidential project list, kept in your own private space, never shown to anyone
The script
Platform: Stored, browsable, often scored
Gatehouse: Locked with the writer’s password. We can’t read it
The record
Platform: An upload log, if that
Gatehouse: Built around the questions a claimant’s lawyer would ask
The record, in detail
The technical part, for counsel and security teams.
Writers click to sign the studio’s terms — no small grey links. We keep the exact version they saw.
Each draft is converted to ScreenJSON, a standard screenplay format, and given a unique fingerprint (a cryptographic hash). Nothing is overwritten.
Read once, to write the summary; encrypted at all times otherwise. Only the writer can unlock it, for a named studio, and that is recorded.
Entries are written as events happen, timestamped by an independent service, and never edited — any change would show.
Every version of your list is sealed with its date and can’t be backdated, so you can show what you were already making, and when.
Export signed copies of the record whenever you like. They don’t depend on Gatehouse staying in business.
Who can see what
A record is only useful if it’s still there — and still trustworthy — years from now.
Open-source model, our own servers
Summaries are written by a powerful open-source model we run ourselves. Nothing goes to an outside AI company.
Never used for training
Scripts are read once, for the summary. Nothing is kept by the model, nothing trains it.
A private space per studio
Each studio’s list and record are walled off from every other studio’s.
Everyone under NDA
Including any reviewer who checks a decision by hand at your request.
Straight talk
No service makes a studio lawsuit-proof. Anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
It’s happened before
Ace in the Hole
Desny v. Wilder
46 Cal. 2d 715 (1956)
What happened ↓Coming to America
Buchwald v. Paramount Pictures Corp.
1990 WL 357611 (Cal. Super. Ct. 1990)
What happened ↓Rounders
Grosso v. Miramax Film Corp.
383 F.3d 965 (9th Cir. 2004)
What happened ↓Ghost Hunters
Montz v. Pilgrim Films & Television, Inc.
649 F.3d 975 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc)
What happened ↓Stairway to Heaven
Skidmore v. Led Zeppelin
952 F.3d 1051 (9th Cir. 2020) (en banc)
What happened ↓References
Summarised in plain English for a general audience. This isn’t legal advice — your counsel should check the current law before relying on any of it.
46 Cal. 2d 715 (1956) · Supreme Court of California · Ace in the Hole
1990 WL 357611 (Cal. Super. Ct. 1990) · Los Angeles Superior Court · Coming to America
383 F.3d 965 (9th Cir. 2004) · US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit · Rounders
649 F.3d 975 (9th Cir. 2011) (en banc) · US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit (full court) · Ghost Hunters
952 F.3d 1051 (9th Cir. 2020) (en banc) · US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit (full court) · Stairway to Heaven
30 F.4th 849 (9th Cir. 2022) · US Court of Appeals, Ninth Circuit
Cal. Civ. Code § 1668 · California statute
Fed. R. Evid. 803(6), 902(13), 902(14) · US federal rules
Sony Pictures Entertainment FAQ; Warner Bros. Terms of Use · Public company policies
Hasbro invention submission programme · Industry practice
The honest answer
But it makes life as difficult as possible for a contingency lawyer.
Contingency lawyers are paid only if a case wins or settles. So they choose cases with three things: proof the studio had the script, an unwritten deal, and a record messy enough that settling is cheaper than fighting. Gatehouse is designed to leave them none of the three.
No proof you saw it
Nobody at the studio received the script, and it was locked.
No unwritten deal
The writer signed terms and a release before uploading.
No mess to exploit
Who saw what, and when, is already on file — made at the time.
We’ll walk your general counsel and business affairs through the design, the terms and the record directly.