Yes, we saw the article (and had read the book). - shocked! I've also innocently signed contracts, hopefully all in order. Though not sure if this can apply to climbing guides: "No instruction or advice contained in the work, if followed, will cause injury, death or other harm to the user." Not my fault if the climber takes risks, or a hold breaks, or they get trapped in storm etc. Same applies to trekking, caving, canyoning of course. Mountains are dangerous - enter at your risk!
I have always obtained explicit riders to that clause excluding the normal risks of climbing hillwalking etc as of course I can't guarantee that no reader will come to harm. Was in just such a negotiation last week.
It's part of why I'm in the Authors Guild here in the U.S., which offers a free contract review for members and speaks out very forcefully on legal matters affecting authors.
Agee with all of this. Those indemnification clauses are fearsome in how they protect publishers.
But to my knowledge as a non-lawyer, here in the U.S. those clauses don't protect publishers from lawsuits alleging false advertising (as opposed to libel or another tort), including class action suits: that is, readers can sue if they bought a book based on an ad saying that a book was a "true" story that wasn't. They did that in the James Frey case, and the publisher offered refunds. Class-action lawsuits by readers can also seek remedies such as requiring publishers to withdraw books from circulation or to stop promoting them. That kind of moral victory may appeal to some readers more than the small refund they might get.
In my understanding, a distressed reader is (in the UK) free to sue the publisher, the author, and even in the case of libel the printer. The warranties mean that if the publisher gets sued, they still have to pay up, but they can then sue the author and attempt to recover as much of the cash as they can. I don't know that this has ever actually happened to any author. Yet. The Warranties protect the publisher in a very partial way (eg if the author doesn't actually have any money, most of us don't!) and I see it as mainly being there to terrify the poor author.
Yes, we saw the article (and had read the book). - shocked! I've also innocently signed contracts, hopefully all in order. Though not sure if this can apply to climbing guides: "No instruction or advice contained in the work, if followed, will cause injury, death or other harm to the user." Not my fault if the climber takes risks, or a hold breaks, or they get trapped in storm etc. Same applies to trekking, caving, canyoning of course. Mountains are dangerous - enter at your risk!
I have always obtained explicit riders to that clause excluding the normal risks of climbing hillwalking etc as of course I can't guarantee that no reader will come to harm. Was in just such a negotiation last week.
It’s the very reason I’m a member of SoA.
It's part of why I'm in the Authors Guild here in the U.S., which offers a free contract review for members and speaks out very forcefully on legal matters affecting authors.
I’ve been rubbernecking this scandal and this is a very interesting bit of context, thanks
Agee with all of this. Those indemnification clauses are fearsome in how they protect publishers.
But to my knowledge as a non-lawyer, here in the U.S. those clauses don't protect publishers from lawsuits alleging false advertising (as opposed to libel or another tort), including class action suits: that is, readers can sue if they bought a book based on an ad saying that a book was a "true" story that wasn't. They did that in the James Frey case, and the publisher offered refunds. Class-action lawsuits by readers can also seek remedies such as requiring publishers to withdraw books from circulation or to stop promoting them. That kind of moral victory may appeal to some readers more than the small refund they might get.
In my understanding, a distressed reader is (in the UK) free to sue the publisher, the author, and even in the case of libel the printer. The warranties mean that if the publisher gets sued, they still have to pay up, but they can then sue the author and attempt to recover as much of the cash as they can. I don't know that this has ever actually happened to any author. Yet. The Warranties protect the publisher in a very partial way (eg if the author doesn't actually have any money, most of us don't!) and I see it as mainly being there to terrify the poor author.
Thanks! U.S. and U.K. contracts sound a bit different, and I’d love to read a lawyer’s explanation of how they do.