In 'traditional' publishing, book publishers normally take great care to avoid printing material which may make them liable for damages - the thinking is, I guess, that if they edit the thing, they should have a fair idea of the content and whether it is kosher. However, the rise of so-called 'Print on Demand Publishers'/vanity printers - who simply take a manuscript and print/distribute it for a cost - generally don't have a clue what is in 'their' books.
However, a recent case provided a test for their culpability - a defamation action was lodged over a book that was printed and distributed by BookSurge. And as MediaShift has recently reported, the decision was in favour of Booksurge, which has interesting ramifications for all parties involved in such cases in future:
The question prior to Sandler v. Calcagni was whether the law would saddle these kinds of services with potential liability that would force them to vet their authors’ works in the same manner as traditional publishers. If print-on-demand services were found not to be liable, they would have less incentive to weed out books that could give rise to legal action, almost certainly allowing more content to make its way into the stream of public discourse — for good or ill, as this case arguably demonstrates.
Of course, there’s an upside and a downside to all things. Freeing print-on-demand services from liability places the entire legal responsibility for content on authors, to the detriment of plaintiffs and defendants alike. Plaintiffs could not hope to recover much without a publisher’s deep pockets, while authors would lose the protection of the publisher’s attorneys and liability carrier. Such liability could bankrupt some authors, and the threat of legal action could cause authors to self-edit.
Go read the entire article, there's plenty of food for thought in it.