Creator & Rights Policy

Important notice

This policy is a product and legal-position statement, not a substitute for attorney-drafted legal documents. An entertainment and intellectual-property attorney should review the final documents.

1. About this policy

GREENLIGHT is filmmaking software operated by FIZZYCO LLC ("FIZZYCO," "GREENLIGHT," "we," "us," or "our"). This Creator & Rights Policy explains what creators should understand about ownership, copyright, submissions, intellectual property, and their responsibilities when using GREENLIGHT. It states our position in plain language so that every creator knows where they stand.

This policy is a statement of GREENLIGHT's position. It is not legal advice, and reading it does not create an attorney-client relationship between you and GREENLIGHT or FIZZYCO LLC. Intellectual-property law varies by country and by circumstance, and only a qualified attorney who understands your specific situation can advise you about your rights.

2. You own your work

You remain the author of everything you create on GREENLIGHT. GREENLIGHT does not claim ownership of your screenplay, story, characters, artwork, concepts, outlines, treatments, loglines, pitches, or other original creative material merely because you upload it, store it, develop it, or otherwise use it on the platform. Uploading your work to GREENLIGHT does not transfer any ownership interest to us.

Our position is simple: we build the tools, you own the story. Nothing in this policy, in our Terms of Service, or in your use of the platform gives GREENLIGHT an ownership stake in your creative work beyond the limited operational license described in Section 3 below.

3. Limited license to operate the service

To provide the service, you grant GREENLIGHT a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide, revocable license to host, store, back up, process, display, and transmit your content, solely as necessary to operate, maintain, and provide the GREENLIGHT service to you. This license covers the technical steps required to run the platform, such as storing your projects, creating backups, rendering your screenplay in the editor, generating storyboards or production documents from your material at your direction, and transmitting your content to your own devices.

This license is limited to operating the service. It does not give GREENLIGHT the right to sell your work, license your work to third parties, publish your work publicly, or claim authorship of your work. Where you choose to make work discoverable to industry participants through GREENLIGHT's discovery features, the display of that work to authorized industry participants is part of operating the service you requested, and is governed by our Terms of Service and Industry & Marketplace Disclaimer.

The license ends when you delete the content from the service, subject to reasonable backup retention and any retention required by law. Deleting content does not retroactively undo lawful uses that occurred while the content was on the platform.

4. Platform records are not copyright

GREENLIGHT may maintain project records, activity history, timestamps, revision snapshots, submission logs, and other platform-generated documentation. These records show what the platform recorded and when it was recorded. That is all they show.

A GREENLIGHT timestamp is not a copyright registration. It is not a legal certification of authorship. It is not a chain-of-title determination. It is not a substitute for legal protection. GREENLIGHT does not tell you that your work is legally protected simply because it exists on GREENLIGHT, carries a timestamp, or has been verified in any way. We cannot independently certify who legally owns a work, and our records should never be presented as proof of legal ownership in a dispute. If ownership of your work is ever questioned, consult a qualified attorney.

5. Protecting your work

GREENLIGHT recommends that creators consider appropriate copyright and intellectual-property protection and consult a qualified attorney regarding their specific circumstances.

It helps to understand the difference between two ideas that are often confused. Copyright protection can exist in an original work from the moment it is created and fixed in a tangible form, such as when you write your screenplay down. Copyright registration is a separate, formal step: filing with a copyright office, which can create a public record of your claim and, in some countries such as the United States, is generally required before you can bring certain infringement lawsuits and may affect the remedies available to you. Registration is one form of protection you may wish to consider. It is not what makes you the author, and we do not present registration as mandatory for ownership.

We encourage you to learn about copyright protection and registration in your country and to consider registering important work before broadly sharing it, particularly before publicly submitting or exposing work to third parties, including through industry discovery. Our Protect Your Work page links to official copyright and intellectual-property offices around the world and to the World Intellectual Property Organization's directory, so you can find the right authority for your country.

Nothing in this section is legal advice. Copyright and registration rules differ by country, and the right steps for your work depend on your circumstances. Consult a qualified attorney.

6. Chain of title and clearances

You warrant that you hold the rights necessary to upload, store, develop, and share the material you put on GREENLIGHT, and that your use of the platform does not infringe the rights of any third party. If you upload material created by someone else, or material that incorporates someone else's work, you are responsible for having the permission to do so.

You are responsible for the chain of title for your projects. That includes releases from people who appear in or contributed to your work, underlying rights in any source material your project is based on, adaptation rights for books, articles, or other works you adapt, life rights where your story depicts real people, and clearances for trademarks, music, artwork, footage, and any other third-party material your project uses or references. GREENLIGHT does not obtain clearances on your behalf, and we do not verify that your chain of title is complete.

7. We do not verify originality or ownership

GREENLIGHT does not determine whether you legally own or control a project. We do not determine whether a project is original, properly cleared, copyrightable, or free of third-party claims. We do not review your work for infringement, and we do not certify that your work does not infringe the rights of others. The responsibility for originality, clearance, and legal ownership rests entirely with you.

8. GREENLIGHT does not provide legal advice

GREENLIGHT does not provide legal services, legal advice, legal representation, contract negotiation, or legal counsel. GREENLIGHT does not act as your attorney, agent, manager, representative, or fiduciary. We do not provide copyright, intellectual-property, entertainment, or legal advice of any kind.

Creators should consult a qualified attorney or other appropriate legal professional regarding copyright registration, chain of title, rights clearance, releases, underlying rights, adaptation rights, trademarks, contracts, disputes, and other intellectual-property matters. In particular, obtain independent legal advice before entering into any option, purchase, license, assignment, production, distribution, financing, representation, or other agreement, and before transferring or encumbering any rights in your work.

9. Your responsibilities

You are responsible for the content you submit; for ensuring you have the rights to material you upload; for obtaining permissions and releases; for the originality and clearance of your work; for the accuracy of information in your projects; for your negotiations and contracts; for taxes and legal compliance; and for obtaining independent legal advice before submitting work for industry discovery or entering into any agreement. GREENLIGHT provides the platform and documentation. You remain responsible for your project.

10. Before you share or submit

Before listing a project for industry discovery or otherwise sharing your work with third parties through GREENLIGHT, we recommend that you: confirm that you own or control the rights to the work; consider appropriate copyright and intellectual-property protection; consult a qualified attorney about your specific circumstances; confirm that all necessary releases and clearances are in place; and review our Terms of Service and Industry & Marketplace Disclaimer. GREENLIGHT does not determine whether your work is protected, original, or free of third-party claims, and listing a project for discovery does not change that.

11. Reporting infringement

If you believe that material on GREENLIGHT infringes your copyright or other intellectual-property rights, you may report it to legal@greenlightwriting.com. Copyright complaints are handled under the notice-and-takedown procedure described in our Terms of Service, consistent with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. 512). Your report should identify the work you claim is infringed, identify the material you claim is infringing and where it appears, and include your contact information and a statement of good-faith belief.

GREENLIGHT may remove or disable access to material at its discretion, including where we believe removal is necessary to comply with the law, respond to a valid complaint, or protect the platform and its users. Removal of material is an operational and legal-compliance step; it is not a determination of who owns the underlying work.

12. Our commitment to creators

GREENLIGHT exists to help creators develop their work and create a path for that work to be discovered. We take your work seriously. That is why we are clear about what GREENLIGHT does, what it does not do, and what you should protect yourself on.

We build the tools. You own the story.