As many of you I am sure have followed, both Erin and I were hit with legal threats from a company post our reviews. Given the unfairness of the situation, many of you came to our defenses and provided incredible level of support both financially and in many other ways such as legal and business advice. While I have always had this risk in mind and had prepared for it in some ways, it was still major source of pain for me and especially for Erin. While this crisis is not fully over, I think we need to look to the future to see how we could be better prepared for it.
I propose that a new lightweight organization be created that I call Right to Fair Review (RFA) Association (RFAA). The things we need to cover in there are:
1. Education. What are the legal issues involved in writing independent reviews of products? What is the law exactly? What are the best practices for writing/creating video reviews as to lower chances of litigation? What to do when threat of litigation or actual litigation is occurring? Advice regarding incorporation, LLC, etc. You get the idea.
2. Access to a lawyer for initial consultation. I am thinking half hour talking to an attorney with knowledge of the field (audio in our case) would do a world of good. While I have great attorneys, they don't know audio so it would take me a lot to explain things to them while paying $500/hour. And even then, they may not fully understand the situation. We have member attorneys here that could do a far more efficient job in a 30 minute conversation than many hours with a general attorney.
To keep such expenses low, such consultation could be limited to say, 1 per year for ordinary members, with option to go higher levels and get more of this.
3. Insurance. The insurance market has hardly any products to offer for this type of defamation claim. They have policies to insure large newspapers and such but not necessarily for small independent reviewers. I know, I had my broker look for months for such a policy until they found one a few years ago. I paid them nearly $5000/year for the policy, just to have them write me a cold letter a couple of months ago saying they no longer wanted to offer such a product. The search continued and again took a couple of months for my broker to find another policy with similar cost.
The organization could do such a search and create a proper market for such a policy. Even the policy I found needs better customization as their application form had tons and tons of irrelevant questions that I had to fill out in order to be qualified.
4. Referral to legal firms situated to handle the proper defense should the case go to trial, etc.
5. I am thinking reviewers could sign up by paying reasonable yearly fees. I am thinking $100 to $300 per year. Organization would then rely on donations for rest of its operational budget.
6. Staff attorneys could have day jobs and take these calls after hours. They could be compensated per hour or through advertising for their firm.
7. Guidelines for company conduct could be created as far as how they approach reviewers with objections, issues. Then, they could be allowed to become members and have a seal of "fair review supporters" which they could display as being good citizens. So while the number of reviewers is small, this class could be quite large. We have already seen a number of companies speaking out in support of value of fair reviews of audio products.
8. This is a much larger goal but campaigning politically for specific laws to protect fair reviews as opposed to having old laws regarding defamation, etc. be repurposed to go after reviews.
9. Guidelines for reviews. Just as there will be some for manufacturers, there needs to be things that reviewers do to be in good standing with the organization. For example, posting manufacturer responses in reviews. Available contact information.
10. Ability to create arbitration to settle issues early and without much expense.
All of this said, there are down sides to such things as some orgs get the life of their own and wind up servicing themselves than their members, etc.
11. A private forum where like minded reviewers and members can exchange experiences and knowledge about this topic.
But here are my thoughts. What say you?
I propose that a new lightweight organization be created that I call Right to Fair Review (RFA) Association (RFAA). The things we need to cover in there are:
1. Education. What are the legal issues involved in writing independent reviews of products? What is the law exactly? What are the best practices for writing/creating video reviews as to lower chances of litigation? What to do when threat of litigation or actual litigation is occurring? Advice regarding incorporation, LLC, etc. You get the idea.
2. Access to a lawyer for initial consultation. I am thinking half hour talking to an attorney with knowledge of the field (audio in our case) would do a world of good. While I have great attorneys, they don't know audio so it would take me a lot to explain things to them while paying $500/hour. And even then, they may not fully understand the situation. We have member attorneys here that could do a far more efficient job in a 30 minute conversation than many hours with a general attorney.
To keep such expenses low, such consultation could be limited to say, 1 per year for ordinary members, with option to go higher levels and get more of this.
3. Insurance. The insurance market has hardly any products to offer for this type of defamation claim. They have policies to insure large newspapers and such but not necessarily for small independent reviewers. I know, I had my broker look for months for such a policy until they found one a few years ago. I paid them nearly $5000/year for the policy, just to have them write me a cold letter a couple of months ago saying they no longer wanted to offer such a product. The search continued and again took a couple of months for my broker to find another policy with similar cost.
The organization could do such a search and create a proper market for such a policy. Even the policy I found needs better customization as their application form had tons and tons of irrelevant questions that I had to fill out in order to be qualified.
4. Referral to legal firms situated to handle the proper defense should the case go to trial, etc.
5. I am thinking reviewers could sign up by paying reasonable yearly fees. I am thinking $100 to $300 per year. Organization would then rely on donations for rest of its operational budget.
6. Staff attorneys could have day jobs and take these calls after hours. They could be compensated per hour or through advertising for their firm.
7. Guidelines for company conduct could be created as far as how they approach reviewers with objections, issues. Then, they could be allowed to become members and have a seal of "fair review supporters" which they could display as being good citizens. So while the number of reviewers is small, this class could be quite large. We have already seen a number of companies speaking out in support of value of fair reviews of audio products.
8. This is a much larger goal but campaigning politically for specific laws to protect fair reviews as opposed to having old laws regarding defamation, etc. be repurposed to go after reviews.
9. Guidelines for reviews. Just as there will be some for manufacturers, there needs to be things that reviewers do to be in good standing with the organization. For example, posting manufacturer responses in reviews. Available contact information.
10. Ability to create arbitration to settle issues early and without much expense.
All of this said, there are down sides to such things as some orgs get the life of their own and wind up servicing themselves than their members, etc.
11. A private forum where like minded reviewers and members can exchange experiences and knowledge about this topic.
But here are my thoughts. What say you?
