Screenwriting book legalities

[Wassdeet]

CA

I've just finished a book on screenwriting (yes, in spite of the thousands already out!), based on my UCLA lectures as well as many anecdotal stories which include real people and real places, not to mention talking about movies. I'm assuming this is ok, no slanderous stuff, but wonder what the best solution is to make sure no lawsuits happen.

 

[quincy]

The wisest thing to do to protect yourself and your book from a lawsuit is to have your manuscript reviewed by a publishing law professional, who can assist you in carefully editing, revising or deleting the areas most likely to spawn a lawsuit.

Having insurance, enough to cover the costs of a lawsuit should one arise despite your best efforts to avoid one, is also advised.

Good luck.

 

[BigMouthWino]

The wisest thing to do to protect yourself and your book from a lawsuit is to have your manuscript reviewed by a publishing law professional, who can assist you in carefully editing, revising or deleting the areas most likely to spawn a lawsuit.

Having insurance, enough to cover the costs of a lawsuit should one arise despite your best efforts to avoid one, is also advised.

Good luck.

All services which a major book publisher will provide you if they have interests in publishing your work, which to be frank, is highly unlikely.

 

[quincy]

Right.

A major publishing house will help the author by ensuring the proper releases are obtained from the people who and entities that will appear in the book. They will review the content carefully to see that any potentially libelous content is edited out. They will review the content for any material that may infringe on privacy or publicity rights, or infringe on any trademarks or copyrights.

Those who self-publish are most in need of professional advice and direction, and insurance, but are also less likely to seek professional assistance or purchase insurance, which puts them at risk of being sued over their published content. A possible plus to self-publishing, however, is that the self-published books are generally not widely distributed, so the audience for the book is smaller and the book is read by fewer people, meaning there are less people to take offense at the content and sue.

 

[BigMouthWino]

Right.

A major publishing house will help the author by ensuring the proper releases are obtained from the people who and entities that will appear in the book. They will review the content carefully to see that any potentially libelous content is edited out. They will review the content for any material that may infringe on privacy or publicity rights, or infringe on any trademarks or copyrights.

Those who self-publish are most in need of professional advice and direction, and insurance, but are also less likely to seek professional assistance or purchase insurance, which puts them at risk of being sued over their published content. A possible plus to self-publishing from a legal standpoint, however, is that the self-published books are generally not widely distributed, so the audience is smaller and the book is read by fewer people, which means there are fewer people to take offense at the content and sue.

And most of those who self-publish because of said limited audience have little chance of recouping the costs of publishing their work let alone the professional advice and insurance they should procure prior to doing so.

Moral of the story: if there is money to be made with your book a publishing house will take the work. If you find yourself getting rejected at every submission it might just be that you're not writing something worth publishing. Unless, of course, you're doing it purely for your ego and don't care about losing the money.