Disclaimer for an App

[Ranadhir]

Hello All,
I'm developing an App, through which illustrators/creators can distribute their own comic books for free and other readers can download the books for free as well. I don't want anyone to distribute comic books that don't fbelong to them or they don't have right to distribute them. Even if they do, the app doesn't hold any liability for that. How can I write a disclaimer for this.
I'm a developer and don't have any knowledge in this law domain. My apologies if the question seems irrelevant. Any help will be highly appreciated.

 

[quincy]

Hello All,
I'm developing an App, through which illustrators/creators can distribute their own comic books for free and other readers can download the books for free as well. I don't want anyone to distribute comic books that don't fbelong to them or they don't have right to distribute them. Even if they do, the app doesn't hold any liability for that. How can I write a disclaimer for this.
I'm a developer and don't have any knowledge in this law domain. My apologies if the question seems irrelevant. Any help will be highly appreciated.

Are you in the US, Ranadhir? If so, what is the name of your state? If not, what is the name of your country?

For help in writing a disclaimer, you should sit down with an IP attorney in your area. We cannot assist with that on this forum.

As a note, though: Disclaimers do not prevent lawsuits. They can only work to mitigate damages in the event of a lawsuit (which is reason enough to have them).

 

[Ranadhir]

Thanks for the answer

Are you in the US, Ranadhir? If so, what is the name of your state? If not, what is the name of your country?

For help in writing a disclaimer, you should sit down with an IP attorney in your area. We cannot assist with that on this forum.

As a note, though: Disclaimers do not prevent lawsuits. They can only work to mitigate damages in the event of a lawsuit (which is reason enough to have them).

Thanks a lot for your response. I stay in India. I was wondering what can be ways to prevent lawsuits. If I can monitor and bring down contents based on objections, would help in anyway.

 

[quincy]

Thanks a lot for your response. I stay in India. I was wondering what can be ways to prevent lawsuits. If I can monitor and bring down contents based on objections, would help in anyway.

The only way to prevent being sued is to hole yourself up in a room and never do anything, including developing apps. There really is, in other words, no other way to prevent a lawsuit. Anyone can sue anyone for pretty much any reason at all.

That said, you should have insurance coverage enough to cover the costs of any lawsuit should you be sued. You should have an attorney review your app plans to look for problem areas so these can be eliminated. The attorney can help you draft notices to your users warning of plagiarism, and infringement penalties. Perhaps a registration process would be doable, where users of your app must sign in with verified contact information so that the user can be held accountable for whatever it is they contribute.

Under US laws, it generally will be the creators of the content who will be held liable for the content they publish rather than the hosts who make the content available to the public. I do not know if India has similar laws. Because of problems with apps that infringe on the rights-protected material of others (many of the apps coming out of India, as a note), stores like Apple have started to pull from their stores apps that are said to infringe on others' copyrighted works. A rights-holder can submit a DMCA takedown notice and the app will be removed. If this happens often enough, there might not be a place for some repeat-offender-developers to market their apps.

At any rate, you will need to seek out assistance in India, as FreeAdvice handles US law questions and legal concerns only. If you or any of your Indian contributors are sued over your app and what is published, it will be in India under Indian laws. Your biggest concern could be finding a place to market your app if you cannot control user contributions.

Good luck.