Terms of Service
Please read these Terms of Service ("Agreement", "Terms") carefully before engaging the services of Scriptoria Lab ("Company", "we", "us", "our"), a professional screenplay development studio operating from Owensboro, Kentucky, United States. By submitting a project request, making a payment, or otherwise engaging with our services, you ("Client", "you") acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms in their entirety.
These Terms govern all creative, professional, and commercial services provided by Scriptoria Lab, including but not limited to screenplay writing, story development, series bible creation, feature and short film scripting, episodic and series narrative development, YouTube and digital-content scriptwriting, advertising script production, branded storytelling, copy adaptation for video-based campaigns, script editing, dialogue polishing, story consulting, and related advisory or development services.
Scriptoria Lab operates as a custom service provider. Each engagement is unique, creative in nature, and dependent on the project scope, the quality and completeness of information provided by the Client, the agreed timeline, revision cycles, production intent, and communication responsiveness from both sides. Because screenplay development is not a standardized commodity but a tailored authorship and development service, the terms set out below are intended to clarify expectations, rights, limitations, payment structure, confidentiality, ownership, revision boundaries, and legal responsibilities for both parties.
Agreement & Acceptance
This Agreement is entered into between Scriptoria Lab and the Client at the time the Client submits a project intake form, approves a proposal, pays a deposit or full invoice, requests commencement of work, or otherwise communicates intent to engage our services. No work is guaranteed to begin unless and until the Company has confirmed the project, accepted the scope, and received payment in accordance with the agreed structure.
These Terms apply to all projects, whether they are one-time engagements, staged creative collaborations, pilot development assignments, episodic writing engagements, adaptations, rewrite projects, or ongoing partnerships. If the Client enters into this Agreement on behalf of a company, producer, agency, label, channel, production entity, or other organization, the Client represents and warrants that they possess the full authority to bind that entity to these Terms.
These Terms may be supplemented by a separate written project agreement, Non-Disclosure Agreement (NDA), statement of work, creative brief, invoice memo, revision addendum, or delivery confirmation. In the event of any conflict between these Terms and a project-specific written agreement signed or expressly approved by both parties, the project-specific agreement shall control solely with respect to that project.
Services Provided
Scriptoria Lab provides screenplay development "turnkey" services. Depending on the engagement, the Client may receive concept development, premise refinement, narrative positioning, structural design, beat mapping, scene logic, character frameworks, script drafting, series documentation, dialogue writing, revisions, rewrites, editorial notes, or pitch-facing script development.
- Feature films, including short-form and full-length screenplays
- Series development, including pilots, episode scripting, and season framing
- YouTube, creator-led, and digital-content scripts for entertainment, education, branded, or narrative formats
- Advertising, commercial, and promotional scripts for brands, agencies, campaigns, or production partners
- Story architecture, script doctoring, dialogue enhancement, and structural consulting
Unless otherwise expressly stated in writing, the Company’s role is limited to script and development deliverables and does not include legal clearance, life-rights verification, copyright registration, production budgeting, casting, distribution strategy, guild compliance, tax analysis, chain-of-title review, or business-affairs representation. The Client remains solely responsible for obtaining any legal, production, or commercial clearances required for the actual use, filming, adaptation, financing, or exploitation of the material.
Where the project scope includes a "complete screenplay package," such package generally means a finished written deliverable intended to provide the Client with a workable narrative framework, scene progression, and dialogue draft for the agreed format. It does not guarantee production approval, marketability, funding, acceptance by any studio, broadcaster, agency, platform, festival, or distributor, or compliance with any third-party submission guideline unless expressly included in scope.
Client Obligations
The Client agrees to provide accurate, timely, and complete information required for project execution. This includes creative references, source materials, business context, desired tone, target audience, required format, production goals, and any restrictions that may affect writing or delivery. The Company is entitled to rely on the completeness and accuracy of all information provided by the Client.
- Provide clear instructions, goals, and source materials before or during the project as requested
- Review drafts and send feedback within a commercially reasonable timeframe
- Ensure that all materials submitted to the Company are lawful and do not infringe any third-party rights
- Disclose whether the project is based on an existing work, real person, licensed property, adaptation, or commissioned IP
- Cooperate in good faith throughout drafting, revision, and delivery stages
The Client acknowledges that delays in approvals, incomplete briefing, shifting directions, inconsistent notes, conflicting stakeholder feedback, or unannounced changes in scope may result in delivery delays, increased costs, or the need for a revised quote. Scriptoria Lab shall not be responsible for missed deadlines or inefficiencies caused by the Client’s failure to supply materials or decisions in a timely manner.
Payment Terms
Projects are billed according to the pricing, deposit schedule, milestone plan, or invoice structure communicated to the Client before work begins. Unless otherwise agreed in writing, Scriptoria Lab may require either full upfront payment or a non-refundable deposit prior to project commencement. Work may be paused, withheld, or rescheduled if payment is late, incomplete, disputed, reversed, or otherwise not received in cleared funds.
Creative work, once performed, has immediate value regardless of whether the Client elects to use the resulting material. Time spent on research, ideation, development, structuring, drafting, outlining, rewriting, editorial analysis, and revision is billable professional labor. Accordingly, payment obligations are not contingent upon the Client’s subjective satisfaction, internal changes in strategy, inability to produce the material, or later decision not to exploit the work commercially.
The Client is responsible for all applicable processing fees, transfer charges, taxes, withholding obligations, or international remittance costs unless otherwise agreed in writing. If an invoice remains unpaid beyond the stated due date, Scriptoria Lab reserves the right to suspend further services, refuse delivery of pending materials, revoke outstanding revision windows, and require full settlement before any additional work is performed.
Intellectual Property
Subject to full and final payment of all amounts due, the Client shall receive the rights in the final approved deliverables specifically created for the Client under the relevant project scope. Until such payment is made in full, all drafts, concepts, partial materials, written passages, structural documents, treatments, dialogue segments, and working materials remain the property of Scriptoria Lab and may not be used, reproduced, circulated, published, adapted, filmed, pitched, submitted, or otherwise exploited by the Client.
Ownership transfers only to the final deliverables included in the paid scope and does not automatically include the Company’s internal methods, workflow templates, development systems, unused alternatives, discarded versions, brainstorming notes, editorial comments, process documents, reusable frameworks, or background know-how. Scriptoria Lab retains all rights in its proprietary development methodologies and any generic tools or systems used to create the work.
If the Client supplies pre-existing material, outlines, scripts, characters, story world elements, source texts, brand documents, or other assets, the Client retains ownership of such pre-existing materials but grants Scriptoria Lab a limited non-exclusive right to use them for the purpose of performing the contracted services. The Client warrants that it has sufficient rights to provide and authorize such use.
Confidentiality
Scriptoria Lab understands that screenplay development often involves confidential concepts, unpublished materials, commercial campaign information, internal brand strategy, sensitive production discussions, or unreleased creative content. Except as required by law or as necessary to perform the services, the Company will not knowingly disclose confidential materials received from the Client to unrelated third parties without authorization.
Confidential information includes, without limitation, scripts, outlines, pitches, business information, creative direction, brand assets, production intentions, unpublished documents, internal communications, and revision-stage materials. Confidential information does not include information that is already public through no breach by the Company, was lawfully known to the Company before disclosure, is independently developed without use of the Client’s confidential information, or is lawfully obtained from a third party without restriction.
If the Client requires a separate NDA or a specific confidentiality rider, it must be requested before substantive materials are exchanged or work begins. While Scriptoria Lab applies commercially reasonable care to preserve confidentiality, no digital transmission, storage environment, or communication channel can be guaranteed to be absolutely secure.
Revisions & Delivery
Revision entitlements are limited to the number, scope, and timing communicated in the proposal, package description, or agreement. Revisions are intended to refine the agreed creative direction, not to restart the project under a different concept, rewrite the deliverable for a new audience or platform, or absorb material changes in brief after drafting has substantially progressed.
Scriptoria Lab may define a revision window after delivery. If the Client does not provide revision notes within that window, the draft may be deemed accepted for purposes of closing the project stage. Requests received after the revision window or beyond the included revision count may be quoted as additional work.
Delivery may take place by email, document link, file export, text document, PDF, or another mutually accepted digital format. Unless otherwise agreed, the Company is not responsible for file conversion to software-specific templates, production breakdown formatting, scheduling integration, or submission packaging for third-party contests, studios, or marketplaces.
Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Scriptoria Lab shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, punitive, exemplary, or consequential damages, including loss of profit, lost opportunities, financing failures, production delays, reputational harm, platform rejection, audience underperformance, campaign inefficiency, or inability to exploit the written material commercially.
The Client acknowledges that screenplay development is inherently subjective and speculative. The Company makes no representation that any script or story asset will be greenlit, financed, purchased, produced, distributed, published, accepted, or commercially successful. The Company’s liability, if any, arising out of or relating to the services shall in all cases be limited to the amount actually paid by the Client to Scriptoria Lab for the specific project giving rise to the claim.
Termination
Either party may terminate a project if the other party materially breaches these Terms and fails to cure the breach within a reasonable period after notice, or if communication has broken down to the point that continued performance is no longer practical. The Client may also voluntarily terminate a project at any time, but termination does not eliminate the Client’s responsibility to pay for work already performed, project time already reserved, or committed milestones already started.
In the event of termination, Scriptoria Lab may, at its discretion, provide the Client with any completed portions of the work for which payment has been received and which are contractually deliverable at that stage. The Company is under no obligation to continue revisions, transfer rights, or release editable materials where payment remains outstanding.
Warranties
Services are provided on an "as available" and "as is" basis, subject to the limitations inherent in creative development work. Scriptoria Lab warrants only that it will perform services in a professional manner consistent with ordinary industry standards for independent creative writing and development services. No other warranty, express or implied, is made.
Without limiting the foregoing, Scriptoria Lab does not warrant uninterrupted availability, guaranteed turnaround under conditions outside its control, compatibility with every third-party formatting standard, legal clearance of concepts, or that any deliverable will satisfy subjective artistic preferences beyond the reasonable bounds of the agreed brief and revision process.
Governing Law
These Terms, and any dispute, claim, controversy, or proceeding arising out of or relating to the services, the deliverables, or the relationship between the parties, shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Kentucky, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. The parties agree that the appropriate courts located in Kentucky shall have exclusive jurisdiction over disputes not otherwise resolved by mutual negotiation.
Amendments
Scriptoria Lab reserves the right to update, revise, or modify these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in law, service structure, workflow, pricing models, or operational policy. The version published on the applicable page at the time of engagement shall generally govern unless a later version is expressly accepted by the Client or required by law.
If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable or invalid, the remaining provisions shall remain in full force and effect to the maximum extent permitted by law. No waiver of any provision shall be deemed a continuing waiver unless explicitly stated in writing.
Contact
Questions regarding these Terms, project obligations, payment structure, rights transfer, confidentiality arrangements, or service interpretation may be directed to Scriptoria Lab using the contact details below.