Orion's Arm - Terms, Copyright and Submissions

INTRODUCTION

 

 
These Terms of Use (“Terms) contain the legal terms and conditions that govern your use of services provided to you by the Orion’s Arm Universe Project Incorporated (“OAUP” ”Orion’s Arm” ”OA”), including information, text, images, graphics, data or other materials ("Content"), Communication facilitated by the associated Discussion Groups, and products and services provided through www.orionsarm.com (the "Site"). Although the day-to-day activity of this Site is conducted by the Orion’s Arm Membership who is also referred to in these Terms as "we", "our", and "us", oversight and final authority resides with the Senior Membership (“Board”).

By using our Site, or initiating Communication via the associated Discussion Groups, you agree to be bound by Section I of these Terms ("General Terms"), which contains provisions applicable to all users of our Site, including all visitors. By submitting any Content for use by the OAUP, and inclusion on the Site, you are affirming that you have read and agreed to the additional Terms as outlined in Section II (“Additional Terms”).
 

I. GENERAL TERMS

 
1. Adult Content
The OAUP includes occasional stories, settings and images that contain Adult content, including nudity, strong language, and sexual references. If you feel such material would offend you, you are advised not to access this Site or subscribe to the associated Discussion Groups.
 
2. General Content
The OAUP contains Content that is for entertainment purposes only and is not a depiction of fact, shall not be considered factual by you, and you agree to handle this information as non-factual. Other than for entertainment purposes, you acknowledge and agree not to rely on such Content including but not limited to the Site, the associated Discussion Groups, and other information passed along via various methods. The OAUP and associated media may also contain facts, opinions, views, statements and recommendations of third party individuals or organizations. The OAUP and associated media does not represent or endorse the accuracy or reliability of any facts, opinions, views, statements and/or recommendation or other information displayed, uploaded or distributed through the Site or by any other applicable medium.  The OAUP reserves the right, in its sole discretion, to correct any errors or omissions in any portion of the Site.
 
3. External Links
The OAUP may provide links to third-party websites or resources. You acknowledge and agree that the OAUP is not responsible or liable for: the availability or accuracy of such websites or resources; or the Content, products, or services on or available from such websites or resources. Links to such websites or resources do not imply any endorsement by OAUP of such websites or resources or the Content, products, or services available from such websites or resources. You acknowledge sole responsibility for and assume all risk arising from your use of any such websites or resources.
 
4. Use of Site Communications
In connection with your use of any of the associated Discussion Groups, you may not upload to, distribute through, or otherwise publish through this Site any content which is libellous, defamatory, obscene, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, illegal, or otherwise objectionable that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party, or that would otherwise give rise to liability, or violates any law.  You cannot, without the express prior approval of the Board, distribute or otherwise publish any material containing any solicitation of funds, promotion, advertising, or solicitation for goods or services. You acknowledge that transmission to and from the Discussion Groups are not confidential and your Communications may be read or intercepted by others. You acknowledge that by submitting Communications to the Discussion Groups, that no confidential, fiduciary, contractually implied or other relationship is created between you and the OAUP other than pursuant to these Terms.
 
5. Disclaimer of Warranty
The OAUP makes no representations or warranties of any kind, express or implied as to the operation of the Service, or the Content, provided through the Service. You expressly agree that use of the Service is at your sole risk. The OAUP disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including without limitation, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the fullest extent permitted by law.  The OAUP makes no warranty as to the security, reliability, timeliness, and performance of the Service.
 
6. Limitation of Liability
You specifically acknowledge that the OAUP is not liable for your defamatory, offensive or illegal conduct, or such conduct by third parties, and you expressly assume all risks and responsibilities for damages and losses arising from such conduct, even if you have received warning from the OAUP or an authorized representative of the OAUP that such damages or losses may occur. Except for the express, limited remedies provided herein, and to the fullest extent allowed by law, the OAUP shall not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of the Service, including but not limited to direct, indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, even if the OAUP has been advised of the possibility of such damages. The foregoing disclaimers, waivers and limitations shall apply notwithstanding any failure of essential purpose of any limited remedy. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of or limitations on certain warranties or damages. Therefore, some of the above exclusions or limitations may not apply to you. In no event shall the OAUP aggregate liability to you exceed the amounts, if any, whether contract or tort, paid by you for use of the Service.
 
7. Copyright Notice (Limited Rights Reserved)
All unsolicited Content added to the Site(s) prior to January 1, 2008 is protected by the Creative Commons Limited Rights Reserved license. You may go to the Creative Commons Home Page to learn more.
 
The OAUP previously used this attribution, non-commercial, share-alike license. What this means is that you are completely free to publish or distribute a copy, or modify, the relevant Content, without asking for permission from us, as long as:
 
a.      you attribute the original to us
b.      you do not use the work for commercial purposes
c.      you include the same Creative Commons license on the copied or derived work
 
If however you do wish to use the Content for commercial purposes, or don't wish to give it a Creative Commons license, an arrangement must be agreed upon beforehand by either the original Contributor(s) in question and / or the Board.
 
Any Content covered by the Creative Commons license is free to use including any or all concepts or ideas or events or characters or entities unique to the OAUP setting, including all the details, in any project of your own, assuming the above condition is met.
 
a.            Addendum: All of the above conditions do not apply to generic transhuman or hard SF concepts like nanotech, superhuman AI, megascale engineering, traversable wormholes, personality uploading, animal or other uplifts, human-animal splices or hybrids, orbital habitats, terraforming, gengineering, posthumans, the singularity, etc, etc, all of which are already part of the current SF framework, and in any case predate the OAUP in some form or another. Orion's Arm in no way owns, or claims to own, these concepts. Nor does Orion's Arm own the idea of a shared world employing transhumanist or other hard SF themes or tropes. So you may freely write a story, create a game, a shared world, or anything else, bringing together all these themes, in any way, as long as it doesn't specifically copy Orion's Arm.
 
8. Full Copyright
All unsolicited Content added to the Site(s) after January 1, 2008, and all solicited Content, is protected by United States copyright law, international conventions and other applicable laws. Copyright is maintained by the original Contributor(s). The OAUP shall include a copyright notice on the Content as it appears on the Site(s). Copyright registration, if any, is the responsibility of the Contributor.
 
9. Amendment of the Terms
The OAUP reserves the right to amend these Terms from time to time in our sole discretion. If you have registered as a member, we shall notify you of any material changes to these Terms (and the effective date of such changes) by sending an email to the address you have provided to the OAUP. For all other users, we will post the revised terms on the Site. If you continue to use the Service after the effective date of the revised Terms, you will be deemed to have accepted those changes. If you do not agree to the revised Terms, your sole remedy shall be to discontinue your membership within the OAUP.
 
10. Suspension and Termination of Access and Membership
You agree that the duly appointed officers of the OAUP may at any time, and without notice, suspend or terminate your membership to the Discussion Groups and/or delete any Content stored on the Site(s), if you fail to comply with these Terms or applicable laws. The OAUP may at anytime, and at its sole discretion, prosecute if it has been determined that you have breached these Terms or any relevant law, rule or regulation or you have engaged in conduct that the OAUP considers to be inappropriate or unacceptable.
The Board reserves the right to entirely rescind the OAUP membership of individuals or groups deemed by the Board to be offensive. The decision of the Board in such matters is final, and not subject to appeal.

11. Product Purchases from the Orion’s Arm Universe Project
From time to time, the OAUP may make certain products available for purchase through www.orionsarm.com. For example, you may have the opportunity to purchase books, games, software, or apparel that has been made available by the membership. All payments are to be made in US dollars and prices are subject to change at any time. Postage and applicable sales taxes will be added to your order during the checkout process. Prices do not include any import duties that may be added by the order destination country. Delivery dates are provided as an estimate only.

In general, the OAUP accepts returns on defective products or incorrect orders within thirty (30) days after receipt of your order. Please contact the OAUP at OAUP Merchandise and we will let you know whether you need to return the product(s) to us. If you do need to make a return, simply send the product(s) within thirty (30) days of receipt in the original packaging along with a copy of your invoice or order acknowledgement. Original shipping charges are not refunded on returned items. Customers are responsible for all shipping charges back to the OAUP on returned items, and the OAUP will pay the shipping charges on replacement product(s). Returns can be for replacement, refund or credit at the OAUP’s discretion. If your return merchandise is accepted, we will post a credit to your account within 24 hours from the time that we receive the product(s). Each return is credited in the same manner as payment. For example, if you paid for your order with a credit card, the credit will be applied to that card.

Except as expressly provided in this article 11, any product purchased through the oaup is provided on an "as is" basis. the OAUP’s sole obligation, and your sole and exclusive remedy, with respect to any defective product purchased through the OAUP shall be for the OAUP to provide a replacement, refund or credit, as specified in the preceding paragraph.

12. Termination of Services

The OAUP may at its sole discretion, at anytime discontinue providing the Service, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that the OAUP shall not be liable to you or any third party for any such termination.

13. Governing Laws & Jurisdiction
This agreement shall be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of Alabama without regard to its or any other jurisdiction's conflict of laws principles. The sole venue and jurisdiction for disputes arising from this agreement shall be the appropriate court within Hoover, Alabama, and contributor and the Orion’s Arm Universe Project inc. Both irrevocably agree to submit to the jurisdiction of such courts.


 

 

II. Additional Terms

 
This is the agreement ("Agreement") between you as either an individual who is also referred to in this Agreement as “Contributor”, or as the legal authorized representative of a group contributor ("Contributor") and the Orion’s Arm Universe Project ("OAUP"), concerning the uploading of Contributor’s textual, audio, visual, audiovisual and other materials (the "Content" defined below) to the orionsarm.com website or any successor(s) websites and/or websites to which the contents in whole or in part of orionsarm.com are assigned (the "OAUP Site(s)") and concerning OAUP’s use of Content on the OAUP Site(s). If you are agreeing on behalf of a group contributor or a group of contributors then each reference to "Contributor" in this Agreement refers to each member of the group or the group as a whole, as the case may be. Contributor and the OAUP acknowledge the exchange of mutual benefits and promises and other consideration and agree as follows with respect to new submissions of Content and any former submissions of Content.
 
1. Grant of Rights
By submitting any Content to the OAUP, the Contributor, on behalf of the Contributor and the contributor’s heirs, executors, administrators, successors and assignees, hereby grants and assigns the OAUP the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive rights to do the following:
 
a.      use, exhibit, broadcast, rebroadcast, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, transmit, retransmit and distribute such Content (in whole or in part) and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or hereafter developed, for an indefinite period of time, in all languages in all countries of the world for any purpose that the OAUP chooses, whether internal, public, commercial, or otherwise, without any compensation or notice to the contributor whatsoever.
b.      the right to sublicense to any other person or company any of the licensed rights in the Content, or any part of them, subject to these Terms.
c.      during the Term, OAUP licenses under these Terms include the right to use any part of the Content in the promotion, advertising or marketing of the OAUP Site(s).
 
The Contributor waives all so-called "moral rights" for all Content. The Contributor further waives the right to make any claims against the OAUP relating to unsolicited submitted Content, including, but not limited to, unfair competition, breach of implied contract and/or breach of confidentiality.
 
As used in these Terms, the term "Content" means any material uploaded to the OAUP Site(s) which may include without limitation the Contributor’s name(s) (including professional names), trademarks, trade names, likenesses, photographs, biographical materials, artwork, liner notes, and other graphical or textual materials, computer-generated images or other artwork or images that the Contributor submits to the OAUP.
 
In return the OAUP gives credit to the contributor for any contributed material. Credit will be given in a manner that includes the name and contact information (if so desired) of the contributor. The contributor retains copyright (intellectual property ownership) of their material, but agrees to grant the OAUP full rights as outlined above. No additional consent is required for any other licensed uses under these Terms for Content either as part of the OAUP Site(s) or in connection with the distribution of content groups from the OAUP Site(s) and/or for uses of the Contributor.
 
2. Assignment
The OAUP may at any time sell itself, or the majority of itself, its holdings, or licenses. Current Agreements would transfer to the new owner.
 
3. Conduct and Monitoring
The Contributor is responsible for all of the Content he/she may upload, download, and otherwise copy, distribute and display utilizing the OAUP and the associated Discussion Groups. The Contributor must have the legal right to copy, distribute and display all parts of any Content that he/she may upload, download and otherwise copy, distribute and display. Content provided to the Contributor by others, or made available through websites, magazines, books and other sources, are protected by copyright and should not be uploaded, downloaded, or otherwise copied, distributed or displayed without the consent of the copyright owner or as otherwise permitted by law. The OAUP has no ability, or obligation, to monitor such Content for any purpose. The Contributor acknowledges that he/she is solely responsible for all Content and material he/she may upload or otherwise transmit using the OAUP.
 
In order to contribute you agree not…
a.      to upload, post, or otherwise transmit any material that infringes any copyright, trade mark, patent or other intellectual property right or any moral right or artist's right of any third party including, but not limited to, the OAUP;
b.      to harm minors in any way, including, but not limited to, uploading, posting, or otherwise transmitting content that violates child pornography laws, child sexual exploitation laws or laws prohibiting the depiction of minors engaged in sexual conduct, or submitting any personally identifiable information about any child under the age of 18;
c.       to upload, post, or otherwise transmit any material which is likely to cause harm to the OAUP or anyone else's computer systems, including but not limited to that which contains any virus, code, worm, data or other files or programs designed to damage or allow unauthorized access to the Site(s) or affiliated Discussion Groups which may cause any defect, error, malfunction or corruption to the Site(s) or affiliated Discussion Groups.
 
4. Third Party Payments
The Contributor is responsible for all licensing, reporting and payment obligations of any kind to third parties in connection with any Content they have submitted.

5. Indemnity
The Contributor agrees to defend, indemnify, reimburse and hold the OAUP and its parent, subsidiary and affiliated entities, and its and their members, managers, officers, directors, representatives, employees, agents, successors, designees, licensees, sublicensees and assigns harmless from and against any and all liability, loss, damages, judgements, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorney's fees, costs and expenses and court costs) arising out of or related to:
a.      Contributor’s use of the OAUP Site(s) or affiliated Discussion Groups;
b.      Content submitted by the Contributor for use by the OAUP;
c.      Any breach or alleged breach of Contributor’s representations and warranties and/or any breach, alleged breach or violation of the notices, terms and conditions of this Agreement; and
d.      Contributor’s violation or alleged or threatened violation of any rights of a third party, including, without limitation, any trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret, right of privacy or publicity or moral rights of any third party, arising from the submission and/or use of Content as provided in this Agreement.
 
6. Infringement
If during the existence of this Agreement the copyright shall be infringed, the OAUP may, at its own cost and expense, take such legal action, in the Contributor’s name if necessary, as may be required to restrain such infringement or to seek damages therefore. The OAUP shall not be liable to the Contributor for the OAUP's failure to take such legal steps. If the OAUP does not bring such an action, the Contributor may do so in his/her name at his/her own cost and expense. Money damages recovered for an infringement shall be applied first toward the repayment of the expense of bringing and maintaining the action, and thereafter the balance shall belong to the Contributor, provided, however, that any money damages recovered on account of a loss of the OAUP's profits shall be divided equally between the Contributor and the OAUP.

7. Bankruptcy and Insolvency
If a petition in bankruptcy shall be filed by or against the OAUP, or if it shall be adjudged insolvent by any court, or if a Trustee or a Receiver of any property of the OAUP shall be appointed in any suit or proceeding by or against the OAUP, or if the OAUP shall make an assignment for the benefit of creditors or shall take the benefit of any bankruptcy or insolvency Act, or if OAUP shall liquidate its business for any cause whatsoever, this agreement shall terminate automatically without notice, and such termination shall be effective as of date of the filing of such petition, adjudication, appointment, assignment or declaration or commencement of reorganization or liquidation proceedings, and all rights granted hereunder shall thereupon revert to the Contributor.
 

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