ABSTRACT
Anyone can be a publisher in the UK. You don’t need professional qualifications, or letters after your name, or a practising certificate. All of us ‘publish’ opinions or other information every time we send an e-mail, or circulate anything that anyone other than the intended recipient may see (although there may be an argument about personal text messaging). Most of this is normal Internet and mobile phone traffic, the lifeblood of twenty-first century communication, and most of it – most of the time – keeps well away from the law. But what if an e-mail you send to a list of friends or colleagues defames someone’s reputation? Or what if text or pictures you use on your website infringe someone else’s copyright? The law can quickly become involved, even in such apparently domestic transactions, so anyone who is part of the full-scale business of publishing – either as an author, a publisher, or in any other capacity – needs to keep the law in mind all the time. That is what this book is about, and what it is for – a roadmap of publishing, for those who wish to stay within the law.
