Dealing with Legal Threats and Risks

Publishing your own content on the Internet sometimes seems like a daunting endeavor, especially when you read press accounts of this blogger or that website getting sued over what they publish online. The hard fact is that there are a number of legal risks involved in online publishing. Nevertheless, proactive measures exist that can help you minimize these risks and/or make them manageable. This section addresses the following four topics:

  • Managing Your Site and Reducing Your Legal Risks: This section addresses what to consider in drafting your website's terms of use and privacy policy, which are documents that help you structure your relationship with your users and inform them of your policies regarding private information. It also discusses the steps you can take in order to shield yourself from liability for the copyright infringements of your site's users and for linking to copyright infringing material from other online sources.
  • Finding Insurance: This section addresses how to assess whether your online activities are covered by your existing homeowners or renters insurance. It also discusses other option like purchasing media liability insurance.
  • Finding Legal Help: This section looks at what you should think about in deciding whether to hire a lawyer or represent yourself in a lawsuit or in responding to another kind of legal threat. It also explains what you can do to find effective legal representation.
  • Responding to Legal Threats: This section goes into detail about how to respond to the different kinds of legal threats that you may face as a result of your online publishing activities.