united-states licensing
Why Should Anyone Form Official Club Organizations Anymore?
<p>With the rise of Facebook, and the &quot;Groups&quot; it enables it's users to create and join, I worry that the traditional club is now obsolete.</p>
<p>A friend of mine formed a local car &quot;group&quot; on Facebook because he didn't want to pay dues for the local official club. Before he formed the group, which he expected to do things like &quot;spirited&quot; driving events, as well as other social events, he spoke to a lawyer to find out about his potential liabilities. The lawyer told him that because everyone was at his &quot;events&quot; voluntarily, and no one was paying dues, he held no liability whatsoever.</p>
<p>I know that the local official car club that I am a part of has club insurance for our events, and we require dues to be paid each year (a very small sum). I don't know what the insurance actually covers, but if you can get away without being liable simply by not having dues, then are there any advantages to forming or joining an official club?</p>
<p>Can Facebook group members legally receive discounts or gifts from organizations like the parts department of a dealership that likes the group?</p>
<p>Is a Facebook group truly immune to legal action?</p>
<p>What does club insurance typically cover anyway?</p>
<p>Is a Facebook group immune to shutdown attempts by an official organization (eg. could the Porsche Club of America force the shut down of an unaffiliated Jonestown, MA Porsches Facebook group)?</p>
<p>Are there any other benefits to an official club organization that I'm missing?</p>
<h3>EDIT</h3>
<p>I'm not sure what terminology to use here, so I made some stuff up.
Specifically, I got questions about &quot;Official Club Organization&quot;. I'm using this to describe an organization that is legally affiliated with and supported by the Manufacturer of the cars. An example would be the Porsche Club of America.</p>

<p>I think the question answers itself : what's being put forward as a problem (that official organisations can cover their members' liability at events) is actually their main advantage.</p>
<p>Liability doesn't go away - assuming your friend's lawyer's advice was accurate, it might have been better phrased as &quot;liability will be on the participants&quot;.</p>
<p>I'm not sure it's entirely right (though it might just be overly specific) in the way it's been reported - if there was anything that could be considered incitement to, or encouragement of, unlawful activity, there may be an additional liability on the person whose name is attached to the group, and possibly the platform used (though this is a young area of law at the moment).</p>
<p>What's covered by the insurance will be dependent on the policy, so that's not a question that The Bloke On The Internet can answer.</p>
<p>In terms of discounts, I don't see any reason these couldn't be offered on a social media group - or that there would be a significant difference between a social media group, an official or unofficial website, or coupons published in a magazine or distributed in flyers on a street corner. It's worth bearing in mind that distributors don't do this out of kindness - it's just advertising.</p>
<p>If an official club, or the associated manufacturer (the owner of the brand), believed there was quantifiable loss - primarily financial, but possibly reputational - there may be grounds to demand any unofficial group cease and desist, irrespective of where (social media, websites, physical premises) they had a presence.</p>
<p>But perhaps the greatest advantage (though I'm drifting off topic for this SE) for an official group is that it can use whichever medium it considers most useful at the time, or a combination of several. One tied to a specific social media platform will always be limited in its longevity.</p>
