This Terms of Service covers the rules and regulations that apply to your use of Council Chronicle, also referred to as “we”, “our”, “us”, or the “website”. Council Chronicle is an online news media outlet that offers multiple services including, but without limitation, the online website, mobile-optimized versions, the mobile application as well as other services, collectively referred to as the “Services”.
Apart from this document, there may also be additional terms and guidelines that may govern your use of certain features or portions of the services. These rules will be incorporated by reference in this Agreement. Please note that there is also a Privacy Policy that describes in detail our privacy practices.
THE PRESENT TERMS OF USE AGREEMENT REPRESENTS THE LEGALLY BINDING AGREEMENT THAT GOVERNS YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES. UPON ACCESSING OR USING THE SERVICES, YOU AUTOMATICALLY ACCEPT THIS AGREEMENT AND WARRANT THAT YOU COMPLY WITH THE REQUIREMENTS OF ACCESSING THE WEBSITE (YOU CONFIRM THAT YOU ARE AT LEAST THIRTEEN YEARS OLD, THAT YOU HAVE THE RIGHT AND CAPACITY TO ENTER THIS AGREEMENT AND CONFIRM THAT YOU AGREE TO COMPLY WITH ALL THE PROVISIONS AND REQUIREMENTS THAT THIS AGREEMENT SETS FORTH. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE WITH THIS AGREEMENT, PLEASE DO NOT ACCESS THE WEBSITE OR USE THE SERVICES.
1. USER REGISTRATION
Certain portions of the services may be accessible to you upon registration, in which case you will be asked to create a user account. When registering, you warrant that all the information you have provided is accurate and truthful and that you will regularly update that information so that it is maintained up-to-date. Please note that you are solely responsible for:
- Maintaining that information confidential
- Any and all activity that originates from your account (even if that activity has not been authorized by you)
- Any misuse of your account by third parties
- Notifying Council Chronicle of any suspected unauthorized activity stemming from your user account
Council chronicle assumes no responsibility and will not be liable for any damage, loss or expense arising from your inability to comply with the aforementioned requirements.
2. WEBSITE USE AND ACCESS
Council Chronicle offers a multitude of Services and with those services, you are granted a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Services in question for your personal, educational, informational, non-commercial use. Additionally, you are also offered a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to make use of, download and install the software that Council Chronicle makes available to you via the Services. Please note that your use of the Services is restricted by the following regulations:
- You are prohibited from transferring, licensing, assigning, hosting, leasing, selling renting or distributing the Services;
- You are prohibited from exploiting the services in any way;
- You are prohibited from using, modifying, disassembling, creating derivative works, reverse-engineering, decompiling, editing, copying distributing, publicly performing, selling, distributing, reproducing, distributing, republishing, displaying, downloading or otherwise exploiting the services, the content and the materials offered to you by Council Chronicle.
- Use, upload, transmit, distribute or in any way make available worms, computer viruses, malware, spyware or any other type of malicious software intended to damage hardware or data.
- Collect any type of information pertaining to the users of Council Chronicle, including but without limitation, email addresses, names, social security numbers, passwords.
- Engage in behavior or employ software that disrupts, interferes with, creates undue burden on the servers ensuring the proper workings of the Services;
- Tamper with or attempt to gain unauthorized access to certain portions of the Services that are unavailable to you or to any copyright mechanisms (such as deleting the copyright, trademark or any other proprietary right notices from the materials of the Services).
- Employ software or any other types of automated agents that create multiple user accounts, that “scrape”, “crawl” or “spider” the Services in order to mine for data of the content. Without limiting the foregoing, we have granted a temporary, revocable permission to public search engine operators to perform such activities in order to provide a searchable index of the materials, content and Services.
3. TERMINATION, SUSPENSION AND MODIFICATION
Council Chronicle reserves the right to modify any portions of this Agreement at any time, without any prior notice to you, and for any reason. The modifications in question will become enforceable immediately after being posted. Your continued use of the services represents your acknowledgement that you have read and agreed to comply with the modifications.
Similarly, Council Chronicle also reserves the right to terminate, suspend or restrict your access to the services for any reason, at any time and without any notice to you. Even in the case of a termination or suspension, you are still required to comply with your obligations as they are presented herein.
4. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY OWNERSHIP
With the exception of your personal user generated content, you hereby acknowledge that Council Chronicle is the sole intellectual property rights owner of the content available to you. This content includes, but is not limited to, written content, text, articles, photographs, images, audio and video clips, podcasts, website design, software, and website appearance. By acknowledging that Council Chronicle is the sole intellectual property rights owner, including trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and patents, you also agree that this provision does not transfer any of the Council Chronicle’s interests, titles or rights to such intellectual property rights to you.
The Website, Services and all their included content, as previously stated, including, but without limitation, text, articles, files, images, illustrations, scripts, photographs, sounds, music, graphics, information, materials, products, URL’s, software, documentation, and interactive features are the sole property of Council Chronicle.
5. USER CONTRIBUTED CONTENT
Aside from the Services being put at your disposal, users also have the opportunity of engaging one and other by contributing to the community in the discussion threads that Council Chronicle provides. Users of the Services are capable of contributing to the community with a multitude of information, such as photos, audio and video files, text, documentation, messages, files and any other type of content. Please note that you are solely responsible for any activity that originates from your account and for any risk associated with the user content that you have contributed.
User contributed content is publicly visible and as such, the information you choose to share will be viewed by any user of Council Chronicle. Consequently, please be advised that you should not contribute any content that you wish not to become public. Additionally, you hereby agree that you are solely responsible for the user content that you contribute, including its correctness, accuracy and usefulness. Moreover, you warrant that you have contributed original content, and that you are not submitting materials that are infringing upon the intellectual property rights, trademark, patent, or any other types of proprietary rights of another. Any and all damage and loss stemming from your inability to obtain the necessary licenses to such materials represents your responsibility. By submitting user contributed content to Council Chronicle you agree to grant us an irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and fully paid license to exploit, reproduce, edit, modify, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, create derivative works based upon, incorporate into other works, sell or otherwise exploit the content you have submitted. Additionally, you also irrevocably waive any and all claims that you may have of moral rights and attribution that may pertain to that user content.
Users of Council Chronicle wishing to submit content to the Services are prohibited from:
- Contributing content or material that is hateful, intimidating, harassing, degrading, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, pornographic or sexually explicit, libelous, invasive of other people’s privacy, threatening to minors, hateful towards individuals or groups of individuals belonging to specific religious groups, on the basis of gender, race, age, disability, ethnicity or sexual orientation;
- Content that reveals personally identifiable information about other people, such as social security number, address, email address, name and surname, etc.;
- Content and materials that represent advertising or promotional materials;
- Content and materials that are misinformative, deceitful, misleading, false or represent an impersonation of other people;
- Content and materials that infringe upon the rights of any third party, including but without limitation, copyright, trademark, moral right, patent, right of publicity, trade secret, privacy right or any other type of intellectual property or proprietary right;
- Engaging in behavior that inhibits, restricts or limits the experience of any other Council Chronicle users;
Council Chronicle reserves the right (however not the obligation) to review, alter, edit, delete or remove any portions of the User Content you contribute. This means that we will remove, without any prior notice, any content that does not adhere to the rules and regulations as they are mentioned above.
In relation to your contributed content, you hereby agree to release, hold us harmless and forever discharge Council Chronicle from, as well as waive and relinquish any and all present and future claims, disputes, controversies, demands, obligations, liability action and cause of action that may have arisen as a result of your contributed content.
6. INDEMNIFICATION
You hereby agree to indemnify and hold Council Chronicle (including all of its managers, directors, employees, contractors, contributors, agents, partners, affiliates and licensors) harmless from and against all claims or demands made by any third party that may result in connection with or because of:
- Your use or misuse of the website and the services;
- Your inability to use the website or services;
- The user content that you have submitted (via your user account, regardless of whether it was or was not authorized by you);
- Any alleged or actual violations of this Agreement;
- Any and all violations on your part of any applicable local, state or federal law and regulation;
7. DISCLAIMERS
Council Chronicle hereby disclaims any and all warranties and conditions, whether express or implied, regarding your use of the website. The content of the website and the information provided to you via the Services are offered to you on an “as available”, “as offered”, and “as is” basis. Consequently, we, as well as our suppliers expressly disclaim all warranties and responsibilities, including those of merchantability, particular purpose fitness, quiet enjoyment, title, correctness, completeness, non-infringement, and accuracy.
COUNCIL CHRONICLE OFFERS NO WARRANTIES THAT THE SERVICES WILL BE CAPABLE OF MEETING YOUR EXPECTATIONS, WILL BE PROVIDED TO YOU FREE OF INTERRUPTIONS, ON A TIMELY MANNER, FREE OF ERRORS, OR SECURE. ADDITIONALLY, WE ALSO OFFER NO WARRANTIES PERTAINING TO THE RELIABILITY, SECURENESS, ACURATENESS, COMPLETENESS, VIRUS-FREE NATURE OR SAFETY OF THE MATERIALS OFFERED TO YOU VIA THE SERVICES. THE INTERNET REPRESENTS AN UNSTABLE AND UNSAFE MEDIUM, ACCESSIBLE TO ALL, AND AS SUCH, WE OFFER NO GUARANTEES, WARRANTIES AND TAKE NO RESPONSIBILITY THAT THE INFORMATION BEING TRANSMITTED TO YOU THROUGH THE INTERNET WILL BE FREE FROM UNWANTED INTRUSION BY THIRD PARTIES, INCLUDING HACKERS. COUNCIL CHRONICLE AND ITS MANAGERS, DIRECTORS, PARTNERS, AFFILIATES, EMPLOYEES, CONTRIBUTORS, LICENSORS AND SUBSIDIARIES ASSUME ABSOLUTEL NO LIABILITY FOR THE FOLLOWING:
- ERRORS, OMISSIONS, PUNCTUATION OR GRAMMAR MISTAKES, INACCURACIES
- COMMUNICATION INTERRUPTIONS, DELETIONS, DEFECTS, DELAYS IN OPERATION
- COMMUNICATION LINE FAILURES, DESTRUCTION OR UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS
- ALTERATION OF USER CONTENT
YOU HEREBY AGREE THAT, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTNACE, WILL COUNCIL CHRONICLE BE HELD RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY AND ALL LOSSES, DAMAGES, OR COSTS, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PERSONAL INJURY OR DEATH THAT HAS RESULTED IN CONNECTION TO YOUR USE OF THE WEBSITE OR THE SERVICES.
8. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCE AND IN NO EVENT WILL COUNCIL CHRONICLE (INCLUDING, BUT WITHOUT LIMITATION, OUR SUPPLIERS, MANAGERS, DIRECTORS, PARTNERS, AFFILIATES, EMPLOYEES, CONTRIBUTORS, LICENSORS AND SUBSIDIARIES) BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR THE FOLLOWING:
- PROFIT LOSS
- DAMAGES (INCLUDING BUT WITHOUT LIMITATION, CONSEQUENTIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, EXEMPLARY, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE)
- COSTS
- OTHER TYPES OF DAMAGES THAT HAVE RESULTED IN CONNECTION TO YOUR USE, MISUSE OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICES, EVEN IN THE CASE THAT COUNCIL CHRONICLE HAS PREVIOUSLY RECEIVED ADVICE AS TO THE POSSIBILITY THAT SUCH DAMAGES OCCUR.
9. THIRD PARTY CONTENT AND LINKS
Please note that the Services may, at times, contain materials and content that has been provided by third party websites or services. Additionally, they may also contain advertisements for third parties or links to third party websites. Please be advised that such third party content and links are not under the control of Council Chronicle and that, as such, we do not approve, endorse, monitor, review, warrant, or make any representations as to these third party elements. Ensure to consult the Privacy Policy and Terms of Service documents that govern your use of those websites, so that you may be informed as to the practices enforced on such websites.
10. CLASS ACTION WAIVER
You hereby agree, by entering the present agreement, that both you and Council Chronicle will waive our rights of undergoing a trial by jury or to take part in any class action. In fact, both you and we hereby agree that we will refuse to either bring claims against one and other or to enter another member’s class action in any representative proceeding or other such arbitration.
The hereby document (including the Privacy Policy and the Additional Terms) as they hare herein included represent the sole and entire agreement between Council Chronicle and you.
Last update: 12.08.2015