Book Legality Question

[Siawn]

Advertisement Expert: Cathy Clamp - 6/20/2008 Hi,

I'm getting ready to start a book about a whole bunch of experiences i've had with clients...I'm a personal trainer and I've got some interesting stories about their drive and determination etc. so, nothing too juicy etc....I'm wondering if as long as I don't use names, places etc. if I'm in the clear as far as infringing on anyone's privacy and so forth. If there's something i should be doing like getting them to sign off etc...please let me know.

thx.

[Haele]

Hy, Byron!

Sorry for the delay in answering, but apparently I didn't get the question the first time. Yes, there could be problems with infringing, so you definitely want to get releases wherever you can. This is really a question you're going to need to pose to an attorney that deals with publishing. That area of practice is called intellectual property law, or entertainment law(two halves of the whole of publishing). If you can afford an attorney, you can find one in your area by visiting the Martindale-Hubbell law directory, which is an online database of pretty much every attorney in the country(as well as several other countries.) It's not like a lot of the doctors or dentists sites where the people have to pay money to be there. It's ALL attorneys, and they're rated by their peers for quality and knowledge. You can search either by area of practice or geographic location. Here's a link:http://www.martindale.com

If you can't afford an attorney, there are a lot of attorneys who volunteer their time to help out authors and artists with just this sort of question.  You can visit this link to see if there's someone in your area to help out, or you can Google "volunteer attorneys & arts & [insert your state name]" and you'll probably come up with something. But the Starving Artists site is really good about keeping up to date with resources.http://www.starvingartistslaw.com/help/volunteer%20lawyers.htm

Hope that helps, and good luck with your book! :)

Cathy