I was wondering if there is a trade group that represents the interest of publishers.
My company had an exclusive contract with an advertising network that guaranteed us monthly revenue for years as long as we hit traffic minimums.
Long story short, the economy went south, the network tried tried to get out of the contract, and claimed we breached it. Thus, we’re in court. Without getting into the technical details I believe the merits of the case are of interest to other publishers and the courts don’t seem to have a lot of experience in these matters.
Is there an internet trade group that represents publishers? Getting them on my side might not only help me but help other publishers down the road.
I’m not sure in regards to a legal group who represents publishers of online content but the following may be helpful:
http://www.publishers.org/ <<< these guys represent book publishers (as an industry), they may be able to refer you to an equivalent body.
As for your particular issue, you would probably be better off finding a lawyer who deal in Internet law or perhaps contracts as the issue is less relevant to publishing and more inline with a breach in contract as to goods and services delivered as agreed upon. It’s not really an issue in relation to the content being published itself so a trade group for publishers (either of the blogging community, content writing groups or trade book groups) wouldn’t really be of much use. Hope that’s helpful 