It's worth it.

Mailing a copy to yourself isn't legal protection despite the persistence of that very poor advice.

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The aim of an argument or discussion should not be victory, but progress.
Joseph Joubert, essayist (1754-1824)

Mailing it to yourself won't help that much in court. But if its a small contest, just submit it and if it wins or you get good feedback on it, then its worth paying for the copyright. No doubt about it.

Mailing it to yourself won't help at all. Registering the copyright of your work is worth it even if the script doesn't
win a contest or get good feedback.

I'm not sure why people hesitate to register with the copyright office. It is insurance and peace of mind and well worth it. You don't need to register every single draft but certainly the first one should be covered.

Copyright is far more important than the WGA registration (you should register your version prior to anyone else writing on the project but otherwise I'm not sure if the WGA gives you much protection).

RJSchwarz

Sounds like registration is much cheaper in US than in Denmark 🙂 Do you have any online copyright offices you can recommend?

http://www.copyright.gov/

Costs $45 and US has agreements with most other governments regarding copyright reciprocity so I believe if you are covered here you are well covered.

When the time comes you might want it registered with the Writers Guild of America (if an American producer is handling the screenplay).

http://www.wgawregistry.org/webrss/

That costs $20 but it's not really helpful in cases of theft I've heard. It is primarily designed because producers may pay someone else to work on your script (after the contracted 1 rewrite by the writer) and the WGA version allows a baseline in case of arguement over credits and thus paychecks.

RJSchwarz

Thanks everyone. Awesome advice. The whole "mailing a copy to yourself" thing has always sounded a little off to me.

The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence.

RJSchwarz - Thank you very much for the information.

You can also register it with the WGA for about $20. All it does is give you evidence that the screenplay existed on a certain date, under your name. Sometimes, that's enough.