Book Reviews and Legal Risk

Question:

What are the legal issues involved with book reviews? Can a reviewer be sued? What are the defenses?

Response By Geanne Rosenberg:

(Posted on May 25, 2009)

The primary areas of legal risk for book reviewers are in libel and, to a much lesser extent, copyright law.  See, Rule 1 and the related defamation materials (http://www.kcnn.org/legal_risk/Rule_1 and http://www.kcnn.org/legal_risk/rule_1_defamation).  See, Rule 6 on copyright concerns (http://www.kcnn.org/legal_risk/rule_6).

In the United States, there are very powerful protections against libel claims. For example, opinion is protected.  So if you were to say that you really disliked a book, you found it extremely boring, and you’d prefer to spend your time in a dental chair, no problem.  The biggest concern would be the possibility of false statements of fact being included in a review.  For example, if you were to state that you think the author is an alcoholic and must have been intoxicated at least half the time she was writing, or that the author, in writing about child abuse, reveals an understanding that can only come with being the perpetrator of horrible abuses, and those things are untrue and provably false, that’s legally risky.  Also, if the book includes libelous statements about someone and you repeat those statements in your review, you can be legally vulnerable.  So, if the author writes that his ex-spouse engaged in criminal activity and you repeat that without first verifying the truth of the statements and it turns out the purported facts you’re repeating are false, you can be at risk. 

Bottom line: Opinions are fine, but assertions of fact that might be damaging to someone’s reputation should be verified.  Truth, after all, is a complete defense to any defamation claim.

Quoting too much of a book’s content without permission could raise copyright concerns, although you would have some powerful protection under the “fair use” doctrine.  How much is too much is debatable.  If you were to download the entire text, that would be a big problem.  On the other hand, quoting short excerpts of text in the context of your opinions and commentary generally would be fine.  Publishing with permission of the copyright holder eliminates the legal risk under copyright law.  Again, please see Rule 6 (http://www.kcnn.org/legal_risk/rule_6) for a more complete discussion of copyright law and for further resources.

—Geanne