I know this is prob a stupid question but is there a difference between having your script bought and having it optioned?
When your script is bought, it is bought outright meaning the company owns it and you have transfered the appropriate rights to that company. It's a full purchase price, paid in one sum or spaced out according to production.
When there is an option, it just means that you have agreed to allow a producer/production company/studio the right to explore the viability of selling the script for a certain defined time period. You have agreed not to sell the script or agree to a sale with anyone else during the option period. There is no set purchase price with an option, it can be as little as free or as high as anyone wants to pay. But it always has to have a limited amount of time (three to six months is good). The producer is going to take your script around and "shop" it to find interest. If someone bites, that producer has the first right to buy your script outright and, then, sell it to the interested party.
The option agreement protects your ownership rights but also protects the producer from being screwed over by you. If you agree to let him do all the work to take it around, then a studio is interested, he'd be screwed if you now left him out of the deal.
At the end of the option period, you can either renegotiate another option term of the script rights are returned to you and you can continue to try and sell it or get another producer interested in optioning. Any option money paid to you is yours to keep.
So, in short, when you sell the script, it is gone, bye-bye, the producer/studio owns it. You may never see it again or recognize it if/when it is produced. With an option, you are merely giving a producer the right to take it to studios for possible sale within a certain time limit.
In either cases, make sure you have a contract that defines the provisions of a sale or option. WGA franchised companies have to follow certain guidelines designed to protect you. But there are no provisions for option agreements except what is explicitly outlined in the legal contract.
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