Competition Submission Release & Acknowledgment

1. Voluntary Submission

By submitting an original full-length feature screenplay or original short story (“Submission”) to the Midas Story Discovery Competition, you voluntarily provide that material to Midas for evaluation and administration of the competition.

2. You Keep Ownership

You retain copyright and ownership of your Submission.

Entering the competition does not transfer ownership of your screenplay, short story or underlying copyright to Midas.

3. Limited Permission to Administer the Competition

You grant Midas a limited, non-exclusive right to receive, securely store, reproduce internally and provide your Submission to authorized readers, judges, employees, representatives, contractors and service providers as reasonably necessary to operate, evaluate, secure and administer the competition.

Midas may maintain reasonable administrative, payment, audit, compliance and competition records relating to your entry.

4. No Automatic Option, Shopping Right or Acquisition Right

Competition entry does not automatically grant Midas an option, exclusive shopping right, acquisition right, ownership interest or other exclusive right in your Submission.

If Midas wishes to acquire, option, shop, develop, finance or produce your project, any binding rights arrangement will require a separate written agreement signed by the applicable parties unless expressly stated otherwise in the Official Competition Rules.

5. Similar Material and Independent Development

You understand that Midas Entertainment Group Inc., Midas Management Group Inc., their affiliates, producers, representatives, employees, partners and persons with whom they work receive, review, develop, acquire, produce and consider numerous creative projects.

Midas may currently be developing, or may later develop, acquire, receive, produce or participate in material containing ideas, concepts, premises, themes, characters, settings, situations, plot elements, titles or other creative elements similar or identical to elements appearing in your Submission.

Similarity alone does not establish that Midas copied or used your Submission.

Nothing in this section authorizes Midas to infringe copyright in protectable expression contained in your Submission.

6. No Implied Business Relationship

Submitting material does not create an implied contract, employment relationship, agency relationship, partnership, joint venture, fiduciary relationship, representation agreement, option, shopping agreement, purchase agreement, financing commitment, development agreement or production obligation between you and Midas.

Except for prizes or benefits expressly stated in the Official Competition Rules, Midas does not owe compensation, credit, representation, employment, development, financing, production or any other obligation merely because material was submitted, reviewed, advanced or found to contain similarities to another project.

7. Possibilities Beyond the Page

Midas may choose to contact an entrant regarding a potential shopping, development, option, acquisition, representation, financing, production or other entertainment-industry opportunity.

Those opportunities are possibilities and are not guaranteed merely because a person enters the competition, becomes a Finalist, becomes a Genre Winner or receives the Grand Prize unless expressly stated otherwise in the Official Competition Rules.

Any binding arrangement will be governed by a separate written agreement signed by the applicable parties.

8. Private Handling of Submissions

Midas treats submitted screenplays and stories as private, unpublished creative material.

Access is limited to persons and service providers reasonably involved in evaluating, operating, administering or securing the competition.

Midas will not knowingly publish an entrant’s complete Submission to the general public without authorization except where required by law.

This provision does not create confidentiality obligations beyond those expressly stated in Midas’s written agreements, policies, Official Rules and applicable law.

9. Entrant Representations

By submitting, you represent and warrant that:

• you are eligible to participate;
• you own or control all rights necessary to submit the material;
• you have authority to submit it;
• all required co-writers and rights holders have authorized the submission;
• the Submission does not knowingly infringe another person’s copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity or other legal rights; and
• information supplied with the entry is accurate.

10. Original Material

Only original full-length feature screenplays and original short stories meeting the Official Competition Rules may be entered.

Work based on pre-existing stories, characters, franchises or other intellectual property is not eligible.

Owning, licensing or obtaining underlying rights does not make an otherwise ineligible adaptation eligible.

11. Co-Writers

Where a Submission has multiple writers or owners, the person completing the entry represents that they have authority to submit on behalf of all applicable writers and rights holders.

12. No Guaranteed Outcome

Entering does not guarantee finalist status, winning, representation, acquisition, financing, production, distribution or development except for prizes expressly awarded under the Official Competition Rules.

13. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Midas Management Group Inc., Midas Entertainment Group Inc., their affiliates and their respective officers, directors, employees, representatives, readers, judges, contractors and agents from third-party claims, liabilities, losses, damages and reasonable costs arising from your breach of representations or warranties concerning ownership, originality, authority or rights in your Submission.

14. Technical Problems

Midas is not responsible for entries lost, corrupted, incomplete, misdirected, inaccessible or not received because of internet failures, unsupported file formats, payment-processing problems, third-party system failures or other technical circumstances outside Midas’s reasonable control.

Entrants are responsible for keeping their own original and backup copies.

15. No Return of Materials

Electronic Submissions will not be physically returned.

Entrants must retain their own copies.

16. Changes to Competition Documents

Competition Rules and legal policies may be updated from time to time.

Except where required by law or separately accepted by you, your completed entry will generally remain governed by the version of the Official Competition Rules and Competition Submission Release in effect when you submitted.

Material later changes may require separate affirmative acceptance.

17. Electronic Acceptance

Checking the required acceptance box and completing your entry constitutes your electronic agreement to this Competition Submission Release, Official Competition Rules, Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.