Standard Terms of Use

Preamble

The following Standard Terms of Use shall apply to the relationship between the MACE project consortium
  • Fraunhofer Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e. V., for its Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology (FIT), for its Fraunhofer Informationszentrum Raum und Bau (IRB) (CO-ORDINATOR)
  • Fachhochschule Potsdam, Germany
  • Katholieke Universiteit Leuven, Belgium
  • Open Universiteit Nederland, Heerlen, The Netherlands
  • Universita’Politecnica Delle Marche, Venice, Italy
  • Humance AG, Cologne, Germany
  • Nautes SRL, Ancona, Italy
  • Universita’IUAV Di Venezia, Venice, Italy
  • Universitat Politecnica De Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
  • Politecnico Di Milano, Milan, Italy
  • Collaboratio s.n.c, Venice, Italy
  • Deutsches Forschungszentrum für Künstliche Intelligenz, Kaiserslautern, Germany
represented by Fraunhofer FIT, represented by its managing director Prof. Dr. Matthias Jarke and the project coordinator Dr. Martin Wolpers, Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, Germany, as the provider of the web based information system “MACE System” (hereinafter referred to as MACE System) and registered users (hereinafter referred to as the user) and shall apply to all offerings of the MACE system and to the services offered on the associated sub-pages and additional pages.

§ 1 Description of the MACE System

1.1 The MACE system provides a number of services that facilitate different ways of searching and finding learning resources. Based on these services, the user is provided with links into digital repositories to access learning resources. The digital repositories are not under the control of the MACE system, nor are they part of the MACE system and therefore the MACE consortium cannot take any responsibility whatsoever in respect to the repositories nor their content. In addition, the MACE system incorporates the ALOE platform offered by the DFKI GmbH in Kaiserslautern. The users are referred to and agree to be bound by and to comply with their standard terms of usage, available at http://aloe-project.de/AloeView/standard_terms_of_use_en.html.
1.2 MACE is entitled to modify the terms of use anytime. Such modification will be announced to the users by email. If a user does not consent to the amended Terms of Use, he can terminate his MACE system membership by cancellation or serving notice. The user is committed to abide by the amended Terms of Use if he continues to use the MACE system after one month following announcement of the amendments.
1.3 The MACE consortium reserves the right to change the MACE system offerings as and when required.
1.4 The MACE consortium reserves the right to delete or privatize members' names and user accounts, keywords (tags), URLs (links), content provided by the user, and groups if they:
  • contain racist, sexist, insulting, slanderous, inciting, religiously injurious, or threatening content
  • have content that is criminally relevant in any way or violate legal regulations
  • may be regarded as spam (see § 8 Anti-Spam Guidelines).
  • improperly use the name of a natural person or legal entity or any other legally protected names or trademarks
  • misuse the function for sending messages to other users for the purpose of distributing spam, advertising, or bulk messages.
  • affect or compromise the functionalities offered by the MACE system, e.g., by automatically generating information such as tags and comments.

§ 2 Registration; Conclusion of a Contract

2.1 Part of the MACE system is accessible without registration as a user. However, in order to save and manage personal content on the MACE system it is necessary to register as a user.
2.2 A contract concerning use of the MACE system comes into force upon submission of registration after prior acceptance of the present Standard Terms and Conditions.
2.3 The User can cancel his registration with the MACE system at any time in text form (e.g. letter, email) without having to state reasons. Cancellation must be sent to:
Fraunhofer FIT, Dr. Martin Wolpers, Schloss Birlinghoven, 53754 Sankt Augustin, info@mace-project.eu

§ 3 Users' Rights and Duties

3.1 Registered users shall be entitled to use all MACE system services in full within the scope of these Terms of Use.
3.2 Upload of User content
The User who is uploading content to the MACE system declares expressly that he is either the legitimate owner of the uploaded content or entitled to do so by the legitimate owner/author. Each User agrees that such content will be filed in a database and publicly presented via the MACE system. Each User acknowledges that its content may be accessed and copied/downloaded as usual information available on the internet
The User grants to the MACE consortium and to the other users of the MACE system a non-exclusive, non-sublicensable, non-transferable and royalty free right to use its uploaded content. Such license is limited to the User's participation as a member of MACE. After termination of the User's membership his content will be deleted.
Each User uploading content must decide which license must apply to its content. There are six different licenses available (http://creativecommons.org/about/licenses).These licenses consider the intention of the MACE system as a platform for information exchange.
The uploading User shall be liable for the content provided and shall hold the MACE consortium harmless from any claims of third parties resulting from a violation of the obligations mentioned above - especially in case that the content provided by the User should infringe the rights of third parties.
Each User downloading content acknowledges that such content may be subject to rights of third parties, especially copyright. Each User agrees to observe such rights and to comply with the particular license applied to the content before downloading.
The downloading User shall be liable for its compliance with these Terms of Use and shall indemnify the MACE consortium from corresponding claims of third parties.
3.3 When MACE system services are being used, general laws must be observed. In particular, users are not allowed to use the MACE system
  • in order to disseminate material that is either illegal or in any other way defamatory or offensive
  • in order to threaten or harass third parties or to violate third-party rights (especially the general right of personal privacy, copyrights and any other rights involving industrial rights protection)
  • in order to upload to the MACE system any data that is either infected or harmful in any other way
  • in order to make incorrect or erroneous entries concerning their person upon registration, especially registering with a false identity.
3.4 Notwithstanding any consequences in common law and/or criminal law, non-observance of the above code of conduct shall entitle the MACE consortium to terminate the relevant user's access without notice and to permanently exclude the same from use for the future, or to restrict the visibility of the information he provided. The method of sanctioning is at the MACE consortium discretion.

§ 4 MACE System’s Rights and Duties

4.1 The MACE system is not obliged to make its services available at all times or to ensure that it can be used without errors. This particularly applies if access to the MACE system is affected by disruptions that are beyond the influence of the MACE consortium. Furthermore, the MACE consortium shall be entitled, at all times and without prior notice, to temporarily completely discontinue or restrict the availability of the MACE system for maintenance or modernization work.
4.2 The MACE consortium shall be entitled, in response to such a request, to surrender the data saved by the user in the event of any criminally relevant actions on the part of the user (especially such concerning pornographic or anti-alien or discriminatory content as listed in 1.4) and any other common-law violations, especially with respect to trademark law, competition law or copyright law concerning third parties (e.g. criminal prosecution authorities, parties involved or injured directly or indirectly).
4.3 The MACE consortium shall be entitled but not obliged to check the user's bookmarks, links and any other content provided by the user (hereinafter referred to as "content") with regard to compliance with general laws and these Terms of Use and to delete such content at its own discretion if a violation is revealed.
4.4 The MACE consortium shall be entitled but not obliged to use all logged data about the activities of the user within the MACE system for further research and development.

§ 5 Guarantee and Liability

5.1 The MACE consortium does not give any guarantee that the MACE system made available by it is available at all times without any errors or that it is suitable for certain purpose. This particularly applies if access to the MACE system is affected or unavailable on account of disruptions, the cause of which is beyond the influence of the MACE consortium.
5.2 The MACE consortium is not responsible for content provided by users and in particular it is not obliged to check such content for legal violations.
5.3 The liability of the MACE consortium, its legal representatives and agents in the case of violation of obligations and tort shall be limited to intent and gross negligence. Only in case of violation of essential contractual obligations (cardinal obligations) the MACE consortium, its legal representatives and agents shall also be liable in case of slight negligence. In any case, liability shall be limited to the foreseeable, contractually typical damages. This particularly applies to any loss of data that has not been caused by willful intent on the part of the MACE consortium and its employees.

§ 6 Data Protection

The MACE consortium and system respects the privacy of its users. The MACE system treats the personal data of its users confidentially and only makes such data available to third parties if this conforms to applicable law or the user has consented to data being passed on.
We refer to our privacy declaration which is expressly included.

§ 7 Term of Contract and Termination

7.1 The contract of use is concluded for an unlimited period of time.
7.2 Either party may terminate this contract at any time without having to state reasons.
7.3 The MACE consortium is also entitled to cancel membership at any time for a good reason. A good reason in particular is if the user has violated these Terms of Use or applicable law.

§ 8 Anti-Spam Guidelines

According to § 1 para. 5 the MACE consortium reserves the right, in the case of spamming, to perform permanent privatization (or deletion) of an account, a URL or a whole domain (blacklist); these will then no longer appear publicly on the MACE system.
Spam is defined by the MACE consortium as follows:
  • Use of a number of accounts in order to manipulate the popularity of a bookmark
  • Saving pure affiliate links or partner links
  • Made for AdSense websites which only serve the purpose of presenting AdSense, banners and affiliate links and do not have far-reaching personal content
  • Get rich quick websites ('Get rich with only 5 minutes of work a day')
  • Saving websites under construction and domain sale offers
  • Saving an usually large number of bookmarks pointing to just one domain
  • Use of advertising in the description of the bookmarks
  • Unsuitable and/or erroneous descriptions of bookmarks that are not associated with the website proper
  • Misuse in order to develop link popularity
  • Links to pornographic, right-wing extremist, violence-glorifying, illegal, morally objectionable and/or unreasonable content
  • Links to dialer sites, phishing sites or sites with other damaging content
  • Automatically redirecting websites and websites that open a large number of advertising windows
  • Saving bookmarks for advertising purposes

§ 9 Referrals and Links

The MACE consortium has no influence whatsoever on the current or future design, content, or authorship of the linked sites. For this reason the MACE consortium explicitly dissociates itself from all content on all linked sites. This shall apply to all links and references placed on its own website and to any third-party entries. With regard to any illegal, erroneous or incomplete content, and particularly any damage or loss that may result from use or any information not disclosed in such a way, liability is held solely by the owner of the site to which the linked pointed, and not the party that merely points to the respective publication in links.

§ 10 Copyright and Distinctive Mark Law

In all publications the MACE consortium endeavors to observe the copyrights of the pictures, graphics, sound documents, video sequences, and texts used, to use pictures, graphics, sound documents, video sequences, and texts created by the MACE consortium itself, or to resort to license-free graphics, sound documents, video sequences, and texts.
All brand names and trademarks indicated on the website and possibly protected by third parties are entirely subject to the provisions of distinctive mark law as amended and the property rights of the various registered owners. On the basis of a mere naming it is not possible to infer that brand names are not protected by third-party rights!
The copyright for published items created by the MACE consortium itself remains solely with the MACE consortium. Duplication and use of such graphics, sound documents, video sequences, and texts in other electronic or printed publications is not permitted without the MACE’s consortium explicit prior written consent (email to: info@mace-project.eu).

§ 11 Assignments

The MACE consortium shall be entitled to assign its obligations to a third party. Such an assignment shall be announced on the website of the MACE system.

§ 12 Final Provisions

11.1 In the event of disputes in connection with the MACE system German law shall apply and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods shall not apply.
11.2 For the partners who can effectively stipulate, the place of jurisdiction shall be Bonn, Germany.
11.3 If individual clauses of these Terms of Use should be or become entirely or partially invalid, this shall not affect the validity of the other Terms of Use. If any provision should be invalid, a provision shall apply that commercially comes as close as possible to the spirit and meaning of the invalid provision. The same shall apply to any provisions omitted.
March 2009