Star Trek was at it's best when it had an open submission policy. Now the only complexity to a Star Trek story is in it's characters. I like simple characters and a complex story told simply of course. Ex. check out 2001. If I were running Trek I would want to see everything - I believe they even call that inside information. We're all copyrighted but that didn't seem to help Maurice any. Just saying I've been run over several times too and I'm fine with it. One guy even got run over subconsciously with a TNG episode and wrote them a heartfelt letter like how can you do this to me and they apologized in person and paid him. I don't think he got credit but..
That's the mobile site link and it displays weirdly on my Mac. Here's the web version of the same page (link). I didn't "help" me because I didn't assume they took my idea, because I know people often come up with similar concepts for the same shows, so I didn't believe anyone ripped me off. I find it very unlikely this happened, because an apology would be like admitting it. Can you point to a source for this story?
No problem. By the way, there's a simple way to avoid this in the future... @Valenti, it's standard business practice for franchises to refuse fan submissions for episodes, et cetera. This is because the submissions could contain copyrighted material, and even if the franchise writers came up with a similar idea independently from the submitter, the fact that they saw or had access to the submission makes them more vulnerable to a copyright infringement claim. Imagine the position you'd put Maurice in if he independently came up with a nearly identical concept as yours and had already found an interested buyer. You've already made statements expressing concern about loosing control of your intellectual property, so imagine how a claim of copyright infringement on your part, coupled with proof he had access to your script, might negatively impact his professional career. I'm not saying that you'd actually do something like this, but you need to realize that you're asking him to take on what is from his point of view a lot of legal risk, and it's understandable that he may not wish to do so.
It was the episode where Picard gets stabbed through the heart by a Nausican and Q turns him into an ensign after he is given a chance to re-experience his days at the academy but this time avoids getting stabbed through the heart which was the big mistake. Too lazy to look up title. It's hard to imagine how lazy I am, but it was referenced in the companion.
A lazy guy is never going to produce a TV series. It's hugely hard work. It took me like 8 seconds to find the reference to the incident. Here's the story (LINK). They got called on it and they PAID the guy. However, the basic origins of the story were not as clear. None of the staff could remember the source of the basic "near-death white light" premise. It was only after the episode aired that the producers received a letter from James Mooring, who had initially pitched the idea. The staff were quick to rectify the situation. Jeri Taylor recalled, "I talked to him, Ron talked to him, and they paid him. He was very happy. All he wanted was acknowledgment of this, and we apologized profusely. I hope it restored his faith in our integrity, because we would never do anything like that intentionally." (Star Trek: The Next Generation Companion)
And thankfully, he was willing to accept a fee and a credit, and not sue for the stars. A good reason to NOT read everything thing that comes in from the door. I wouldn't be surprised if that moment was the beginning of the end of people pitching ideas that weren't on staff.
I think after 9/11 they simply got scared. Terry Farrell even joked that it seemed like they thought the Klingons were real. So a little paranoia there. It's too bad else we would never have that episode which I believe is based on an ancient myth of an angel showing you your mistakes after you die. But a concept is not protectable unless it includes execution. Right?