Protecting IP when you pitch

Joseph Austin · 2012-06-08T23:06:57

Hello, everybody. I have recently started work on a game design, not for a particular company but as a pitch. I'm flying solo, here. There are, however, a few opportunities I have on hand, but they request a design document as evidence that I have the kind of ideas they want. Although I am not paranoid, I do not feel very comfortable with providing people with my complete idea for a game unless I have some way of keeping my IP safe from plagiarism. Is there something that I can do, or is this just a risk in the industry? As I understand it, game designs cannot themselves be copywritten or patented. I did have the idea of providing a website that hosts the link as PDF that can only be downloaded when a consent checkbox is toggled, consent being for a TOS/NDA. Thank you in advance.