Generally in Hollywood new scriptwriters are found through an agent, so a scriptwriter will often seek one through various services such as the WGA.

WGA stands for the Writers Guild of America, it is a very valuable tool for scriptwriters attempting to obtain an agent, including a list of available agents (http://www.wga.org/agency/agencylist.aspx). The process for television is also similar.

 

“Ever since the war France's cinema industry has been heavily backed by the state. Artistic merit was one criterion. Much of the funding for this aid came from a 10% levy on tickets - meaning that Hollywood, which always dominated the French box office, was subsidising its French counterpart” [2]

When writing a script it is important for the scriptwriter to consider carefully if they will be breaching existing copyright when producing the script.

For instance the court case around “Finding Nemo” (Walt Disney -2003) has been criticised for copying “Pierrot Le Poisson Clown” (Pascal Kamina -1995). Although Disney denied the claims [1] there are several plot elements and character similarities (main character and supporting characters) that are very similar. Pierrot Le Poisson Clown was said to have been distributed in screen treatment form around French production companies much before finding Nemo. 

sources:

[1] http://today.msnbc.msn.com/id/3840185/ns/today-entertainment/t/author-claims-finding-nemo-plagiarism/

[2] http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/may/05/filmnews.film