SAHAPEDIA TERMS OF USE
1. WELCOME!
- Welcome to Sahapedia (“Sahapedia” / “we”/ “us” / “our”), a not-for-profit society registered under the Societies Act of 1860, whose principal place of business is New Delhi, India.
2. OUR VISION AND SERVICES
- Sahapedia is an online knowledge resource on Indian culture, heritages and histories. It is an informational and educational project that seeks to transform the way people access and create knowledge on Indian cultural heritage.
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Sahapedia aims to foster knowledge, encourage engagement and generate action towards understanding and revitalizing the diversity of Indian culture. Sahapedia will provide its users with in-depth knowledge resources in ten broad areas of Indian culture and heritage: knowledge traditions, visual and material arts, performing arts, literature and languages, practices and rituals, histories, institutions, people, built spaces, and the natural environment.
- Information will be provided in multiple media formats, such as text, video, audio, maps, images and through the use of data-visualization tools such as Thinkmap. Users will have personal workspaces to develop drafts of articles / image galleries etc. which they may submit for editorial review. If the submissions satisfy our editors, they will be published on Sahapedia. Users may form groups of interest through our ‘Community’ section, and engage in discussions on common topics of interest. Users may also use the ‘Events’ section to get information on cultural programs, ‘Current’ section to read news, opinions and debates on cultural matters, and use the ‘Library’ section to peruse pre-published content such as journal articles, books, visual material, etc.
- Sahapedia will continue to expand the range of its services in the future.
3. SUMMARY
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This summary is provided in good faith, and for informational purposes only. Where there is any variation between this summary and these Terms of Use, the latter shall prevail.
- These Terms of Use are divided into the following sections:
- About the Terms of Use
- Acceptance of the Terms of Use
- Amendment of these Terms of Use and Related Policies
- Amendments of the Services Offered on the Platform
- Severability
- Account Registration
- Your Use of the Platform
- Content
- Licensing - Creative Commons
- Disclaimer - Informational Only
- Warranties and Liabilities
- Your Content
- Your Actions
- Third Party Content
- Advertisers
- Spiders, Bots and Scripts
- Governing Law – Indian law, arbitration
1. ABOUT THESE TERMS OF USE
- These Terms of Use contain important information regarding the legal relationship between the User (“you” / “your”) and Sahapedia (“us” / “we” / “our”).
- These Terms of Use govern your use of sahapedia.org “Website”, and all related tools, applications, data, software, widgets, and other services provided by Sahapedia (“Platform”).
- These Terms of Use include an explanation of our intellectual property licensing policy, and legal rights, obligations and remedies. These Terms of Use also include information regarding limitations on our liability and dispute settlement.
- Please read these Terms of Use carefully.
2. ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS OF USE
- These Terms of Use, taken together with our Privacy Policy, and Specific Disclaimer and any other terms specifically referred to, as set forth and as may be revised, from time to time, constitute a legally binding agreement (the “Agreement”) between you (as “User”) and Sahapedia in relation to your use of the intellectual property content, related tools, applications, data, software, widgets, and other services provided by Sahapedia, known as the Platform.
- Please read the Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Specific Disclaimer very carefully. If you do not agree to any of the provisions set out in those documents, you should stop using the Platform immediately. If you continue using the Platform, you understand and agree that Sahapedia will treat the User’s (your) use of the Platform as acceptance of these Terms of Use and other related policies as mentioned above, from that point onwards.
- By accessing or using the Platform, registering an account, or by viewing, accessing, streaming, uploading or downloading any information or content from or to the Platform, you represent and warrant that you have read and understood these Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Specific Disclaimer, and will abide by them. You further warrant that you are either 18 years of age or more, or you are 13 years of age or more and have your legal guardian(s)’ permission to use the Platform.
- These Terms of Use do not create an employment, agency, partnership, or joint venture relationship between you and us.
- You agree that, unless otherwise agreed to in writing by us, you have no expectation of compensation for any activity, contribution, or idea that you provide to us.
- If you have not signed a separate agreement with us, these Terms of Use and related policies mentioned above are the entire agreement between you and us.
- If there is any conflict between these Terms of Use and related policies mentioned above, and a signed written agreement between you and us, the signed agreement will prevail unless otherwise mentioned.
- You agree that we may provide you with notices, including those regarding changes to the Terms of Use, by email, regular mail, or postings on the Website, or otherwise through the Platform.
- If in any circumstance, we do not apply or enforce any provision of these Terms of Use, that shall not be considered as a waiver of that provision.
3. AMENDMENT OF THESE TERMS OF USE AND RELATED POLICIES
- We reserve the right at any time, and from time to time as we desire, to amend in any way, including by way of modification, suspension or discontinuance, temporarily or permanently, these Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Specific Disclaimer (or any part thereof) with or without prior or other notice.
- You agree that we shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any amendment of the Terms. You further agree that it shall be your responsibility to check for amendments to these Terms of Use, and Privacy Policy and Specific Disclaimer.
4. AMENDMENT OF THE SERVICES OFFERED ON THE PLATFORM
- We reserve the right at any time, and from time to time as we desire, to amend in any way, including by way of modification, suspension or discontinuance, temporarily or permanently, the Website and/or the Platform (or any part thereof) with or without prior or other notice.
- You agree that we shall not be liable to you or to any third party for any amendment of the Website and/or the Platform.
5. SEVERABILITY
- To the extent that any provision of these Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Specific Disclaimer and any other terms specifically referred to, as set forth and as may be revised, from time to time, is found by any competent court or authority to be invalid, unlawful or unenforceable in the applicable jurisdiction, such finding shall not affect the validity, lawfulness or enforceability of the remainder of these Terms of Use, and related policies mentioned above.
- We reserve the right to change the Terms of Use and other documentation without any notice.
6. ACCOUNT REGISTRATION
- In order to use certain portions of the Website and/or the Platform, you may be required to first register for membership, and create and maintain an account with the Website and/or the Platform.
- You are prohibited from registering for membership to the Website and/or the Platform where prohibited by law.
- Sahapedia offers its users the ability to register themselves only as a Simple User account, wherein the account can be used for drafting Content, sending it to Sahapedia’s editorial team, and creating User groups.
- Sahapedia may, at its own discretion, appoint certain Simple User accounts as Moderator Accounts, or Regulator Accounts for a specified period of time, and upon certain specified terms and conditions.
- Moderator Accounts will be able to edit and take responsibility for managing suggested edits over certain specified Content on the Platform.
- Regulator Accounts have complete administrative and editorial control over all Content on the Platform, including the ability to ban or delete a Simple User Account for violating the Terms of Use, or for any other reason.
7. USE OF THE PLATFORM
- If you choose to register for membership as a Simple User account, in consideration of your use of the Website and/or the Platform, you agree to maintain the security of your password and identification and to be fully responsible for all use of your account and for any actions that take place using your account.
- We may terminate your account, delete your profile and any content or information that you have posted on the Website and/or the Platform and/or prohibit you from using or accessing the Website and/or the Platform for any reason, or no reason, at any time, at our sole discretion, with or without notice of any kind.
- You may terminate your account at any time by deleting your account and thereafter by ceasing to use the Platform, unless your account has been designated as a “Moderator account” in which case, you will have to give 30 days prior written notice to any “Regulator account”.
- A “Regulator account” will not be able to delete its account without prior written permission from Sahapedia’s authorized representative in this regard.
- Violating these Terms of Use, especially with regard to deletion of specified accounts will lead to liability for the user in charge of the account
8. CONTENT
- Sahapedia aims to be a web-encyclopedia of Indian art and culture.
- Users may submit, upload and post inter alia audio, text, photos, pictures, graphics, comments, and other content, data or information (“Content”) under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
- User Content will be stored by Sahapedia and may be shared and distributed by Sahapedia, as well as other Users of the Platform, under a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
- Sahapedia has complete editorial discretion over the Content that it creates, shares and distributes, and may make changes, edits, transformations, amendments, modifications, deletions and all other things as permitted by the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
- Sahapedia has limited editorial discretion over user-shared and distributed Content, including comments, which will be curated by Sahapedia largely to ensure that the Content is in conformity with style and formatting guidelines.
- Sahapedia will make reasonable efforts to check the accuracy of information contained in the Website and/or the Platform for Content that it shares and distributes, and for which it takes editorial responsibility; however, we do not give any warranty that all information will be accurate, complete or up-to-date.
- Any views or opinions, or other Content shared and distributed on the Website and/or the Platform over which Sahapedia has no editorial control, are solely those of the author specified and do not necessarily represent the views of Sahapedia. Further, Sahapedia makes no claims, and gives no warranty that any information over which it has no editorial control will be accurate, complete or up-to-date.
- Sahapedia will, as far as possible, seek to share and distribute images and video-related content in a reasonably low-resolution format, or with watermarks, so as to protect the commercial viability of such Content.
- Where there is a contract or other form of written agreement with a third party which owns intellectual property in particular content, Sahapedia may, by virtue of that contract or agreement, share the particular content on the Platform in any resolution it deems fit, upto and including the highest quality resolution available to it.
- Without prejudice to the conditions set forth in Your Use of the Platform above, you must not upload, store, and make available any Content to which you do not hold the necessary rights.
- Any use of copyright protected material within your Content may infringe someone else’s rights, and as such, is strictly prohibited.
9. LICENSING - CREATIVE COMMONS
- Unless otherwise stated, we will be adopting the Creative Commons approach to licensing of intellectual property.
- Unless otherwise stated, we grant you the right to use this Website and the Platform for personal uses only, and in strict accordance with the terms of the CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0licence only.
- We are committed to acquiring content from our Users through their membership accounts only through a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
- We are committed to acquiring content from institutions, artists, experts and other persons only through a CC-BY-NC-SA 4.0 licence.
- In certain cases, we may acquire content under a CC-BY 4.0licence, or through a copyright assignment, or licencing arrangement.
10. GENERAL DISCLAIMER - INFORMATIONAL ONLY
- Our content is for general informational purposes only and should not be taken as professional advice on medical, legal, financial or other matters.
- Please consult a qualified professional if you require any advice.
11. WARRANTIES AND LIABILITIES
- Other than as expressly set out in these Terms of Use, Sahapedia does not make any specific promises about the Platform. For example, we don’t make any commitments about the Content, their reliability, availability, or ability to meet your needs.
- You accept that under no conditions or circumstances will we be liable in any manner whatsoever for any Content, including but not limited to liability for copyright infringement, errors through amendment/omission of Content, or for any loss or damage sustained through the use of the content accessible in any manner whatsoever from the use of the Website and/or of Platform in whole or in part.
- Any part of the Website and/or the Platform is offered by us on an "as is" and "as available" basis. You accept that we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, in the Content and/or all and/or any part of the Website and/or the Platform to the fullest extent permitted by law.
- You understand that by using the Website and/or the Platform, you may be exposed to Content that may be considered offensive, indecent, or objectionable.
- You agree that you are solely responsible for your use / reuse of Content made available through the Website and/or the Platform. You should review the conditions of the applicable licence before you access the Content.
- We will not be liable for any damages of any kind arising from the use of the Website and/or the Platform other than as expressly set out in these terms.
- We will not be liable for any damages, including but not limited to direct, indirect, incidental, punitive, and consequential damages, and you release us, our directors, officers, employees, and agents from any claims and damages, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with any claim you have/might have.
- Specifically, we will not accept any liability in respect of any Content, made available on the Website and/or the Platform (or any part thereof) and the author will be personally liable for any damages or other liability arising out of such claims.
- Further, any information, or other material, downloaded or otherwise obtained by you through the Website and/or the Platform is done at your own discretion and risk.
- You will be solely responsible for any damage or injury caused by any failure of performance, computer virus or other similar infection that could cause destruction to your computer system or loss of data or to any associated party.
- In all cases Sahapedia, will not be liable for any loss or damage that is not reasonably foreseeable.
- In no event shall our liability exceed fifty thousand rupees (INR 50,000) in aggregate.
12. YOUR CONTENT
- You must not use the Platform to communicate Content, or store Content that is offensive, libelous, defamatory, obscene, indecent, that promotes hate speech, terrorism, or illegal acts, and is otherwise illegal in anyway.
- You must not use the Platform to communicate Content, or store Content that is plagiarized, or to which you do not hold intellectual property rights, or which is confidential.
- You must not use the Platform to communicate Content, or store Content that contains any unwanted virus, or other spyware, adware, malware, etc. or indulge in unauthorized advertising, promotional messages, spam etc.
13. YOUR ACTIONS
- You must not deliberately impersonate any identity that does not belong to you.
- You may find some material objectionable or erroneous on the Platform. We ask that you use common proper judgment and exercise an open mind when using our services
- You must not use or attempt to use another person's account, password, or other information, unless you have express permission from that other person.
- You must not stalk, exploit, threaten, abuse or otherwise harass another User or Sahapedia employee, or associated person.
14. THIRD PARTY CONTENT
- Hyperlinks to other resources that are provided on the Website or contained in the Platform are for informational purposes only.
- We shall have no liability for third party content or websites or websites linking to or framing the Website and/or the Platform. If you decide to visit any third-party websites using links from the Website and/or the Platform, you do so at your own risk.
- References to any products, services, or other information by trade name, trademark, or otherwise does not constitute or imply its endorsement, sponsorship or recommendation by Sahapedia.
- The presence of such links does not constitute or imply any endorsement or approval of any of the content at the linked sites and Sahapedia makes no representations regarding the content or accuracy of materials on such sites.
15. ADVERTISERS
- We do not endorse in anyway any advertisers/ contents of advertisers on our/third parties’, pages or other communication.
16. SPIDERS, BOTS AND SCRIPTS
- You must not collect or attempt to collect any Content, including, without limitation, any media, content, information, data, and/or images, in any form available, through spidering or any form of scraping, unless in accordance with the sections below.
- Any unauthorized reproduction, in any form, of any Content, including, without limitation, any media, content, information, data, and/or images, collected using mechanisms such as spiders, bots and scripts, or in any other way, without Sahapedia’s prior written approval will be a violation of Sahapedia’s legal rights, including, without limitation, its intellectual property rights, and shall constitute a breach of these Terms of Use.
- Spiders, bots, and scripts that read the Website and Platform must obey all reasonable restrictions on mass downloading and content privacy. Any violation will result in necessary defensive action, including through the blocking of the respective IP addresses at protocol and program level.
17. GOVERNING LAW - INDIAN LAW, ARBITRATION
- All disputes arising from or relating to the Website and/or the Platform or any part thereof, your access and/or use of the Website and/or the Platform, shall be governed by the laws of the Republic of India.
- In the event of any dispute of whatever nature, you agree that both parties will first try to settle such dispute in good faith, through negotiations.
- In case, such dispute cannot be resolved by negotiation within sixty (60) days of the initiation of the dispute, as decided by Sahapedia, such dispute shall be referred to a binding arbitration in accordance with the provisions of the Arbitration and Conciliation Act, 1996.
- The dispute will be settled by a sole arbitrator, who is appointed by Sahapedia.
- The seat of arbitration shall be New Delhi, India, and the location of arbitral proceedings shall also be New Delhi.
- You agree that the exclusive jurisdiction and venue for any litigation or arbitration shall be in New Delhi, India and you irrevocably consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of such court and venue.
- In case of the dispute requiring intervention of the courts, please note that all disputes are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New Delhi, India.
- For any queries on these Terms of Use, Privacy Policy, and Specific Disclaimer, please contact Sahapedia at contact@sahapedia.org.in
18. Donation(Refund and cancellation policies)
- Any request for cancellations and refund of online donations via our online payment gateway once duly placed on the website, shall not be entertained under any circumstances. No cash or refund of money will be allowed after completing the online donation as it is an extremely cumbersome process. We therefore request you to be sure before you donate.
- We strongly support ethical practices and reserve the right to return any donation, in the rare circumstances , should the donation be from a source that does not align with our ethical objectives.