My second book is in the final stages of publication. There are a couple of open questions in this book for which I'd love to have an answer. I'm thinking about offering prize money (not a huge amount - maybe $1,000 per question - TBD) to the first person to provide a satisfactory answer. I would then roll these answers into a second edition of the book.
My worry: getting sued by someone who believes they deserve the prize money and doesn't get it, for whatever reason (wrong answer, incomplete answer, someone else answered first, etc.) Both of my parents have been sued within the last 5 years for activities associated with a business. No one should have to spend their golden years putting up lawyers and the American legal system.
I googled this topic and found some interesting links. There are insurance companies that will insure someone who offers a huge prize for a highly improbable outcome, and gets nailed by a lucky participant. This doesn't apply to my case.
If I give this a try, to limit my liability I'm thinking about requiring all applicants to publish their work with one of the permissive Creative Commons licenses. So, applicants would not directly send me their proposed answers; instead, they would send me a link to their published work. Publication, in this context, could be a PDF submitted to any public-access website.
Have I forgotten anything? I'm aware that anyone can sue anyone for anything, but it seems that the Creative Common licensing angle would go a long way to limiting my exposure.
My worry: getting sued by someone who believes they deserve the prize money and doesn't get it, for whatever reason (wrong answer, incomplete answer, someone else answered first, etc.) Both of my parents have been sued within the last 5 years for activities associated with a business. No one should have to spend their golden years putting up lawyers and the American legal system.
I googled this topic and found some interesting links. There are insurance companies that will insure someone who offers a huge prize for a highly improbable outcome, and gets nailed by a lucky participant. This doesn't apply to my case.
If I give this a try, to limit my liability I'm thinking about requiring all applicants to publish their work with one of the permissive Creative Commons licenses. So, applicants would not directly send me their proposed answers; instead, they would send me a link to their published work. Publication, in this context, could be a PDF submitted to any public-access website.
Have I forgotten anything? I'm aware that anyone can sue anyone for anything, but it seems that the Creative Common licensing angle would go a long way to limiting my exposure.
