Terms of Service

PubPub is an end-to-end, open-source publishing platform developed by Knowledge Futures, Inc (KFI). KFI is a community of technologists, information creators, and scholarly publishers that is committed to addressing a core set of pressing and complex issues within research-intensive institutions. PubPub’s goal is to develop open tools, infrastructure, and transparent business models that will bend the arc of knowledge creation and consumption toward equity and independence.

This is a legal agreement between us, Knowledge Futures, Inc., a Massachusetts nonprofit organization with offices at 245 Main St, Cambridge MA, and you.

By accessing the PubPub website after those changes have become effective, you agree to be bound by all the modified terms.

BY ACCESSING CONTENT ON THE PUBPUB WEBSITE, YOU ACCEPT THESE TERMS OF SERVICE. If you are using PubPub on behalf of an entity, “you” refers to that entity.

Communities

PubPub allows registered users to create a Community. A Community may reside on the PubPub domain or on a domain of the Community administrator's choice but displayed from a PubPub server. You may submit your Content for inclusion in a Community, but it is up to the discretion of the Community’s administrator to decide whether to include it. PubPub may display in your profile a list of your Content and the Communities in which they appear. We may also send you a notification each time a Community has elected to include your Content, if you have opted in to receiving email from PubPub.

Site Content

Except where otherwise noted, Site Content is licensed by its owners under the Creative Commons Attribution (CC-BY) 4.0 License.

Acceptable Use

We may establish written policies for your use of the Site, and those policies will be published at elife-container.pubpub.org/legal/aup. You must abide by those policies, and if you fail to do so, we may immediately terminate and remove your account and Community or limit your access to it. We may update those policies from time to time. We may also establish policies regarding your Community, such as how long your Community content will be retained on the Site. We have no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any content.

User-Generated Content

PubPub includes features that allow you or others to contribute User-Generated Content. The Site, Third Party Publishers, and Communities may solicit and publish User-Generated Content through blogs, video postings, and chat features, among other forums.

By submitting User-Generated Content, you hereby make that User-Generated Content available under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to provide your User Generated Content under that license, that all of that User Generated Content is either authored by you, or provided by third parties under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License or in the public domain, and that your User Generated Content contains no personally identifiable information of third parties who have not expressly authorized you to provide it as part of your User Generated Content. All of your User-Generated Content must be appropriately marked with licensing and attribution information.

We, and any Third-Party Publisher or Community,

  • may monitor User-Generated Content on the Site,
  • may modify, edit, or remove any of said content at our or their discretion, without notice, and for any reason,
  • may prescreen User-Generated Content and may decide, in our or their discretion, without notice, and for any reason, not to publish it,
  • will not modify or edit any scholarly work that you submit for posting on the Site, but may decide, in our or their discretion, to withhold it from publication in its entirety, and
  • will have no liability for monitoring, modifying, removing, or declining to publish User-Generated Content on the Site.

At all times, PubPub, in its sole discretion, may decide to assign to any Third-Party Publisher or Community, any or all of the rights to modify, edit, remove, prescreen, or withhold from publication the User-Generated Content on the Site.

You acknowledge that the views and opinions expressed by other users on the Site are theirs alone and should not be ascribed to us. You understand that by using the Site, you may be exposed to User-Generated Content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate. Under no circumstances will we or any Third-Party Publisher or Community be liable in any way for any User-Generated Content, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in any User-Generated Content, or any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any User-Generated Content made available via the Site or disseminated elsewhere.

Registration and Termination of Access

Certain areas of the Site may require registration or may otherwise ask you to provide information in order to participate. The decision to provide this information is optional; however, if you elect not to provide such information, you may not be able to access certain features of the Site. When you register, you must provide information to PubPub that is accurate, current and complete (excepting the use of a pseudonym). You must keep that information up to date. You must immediately notify PubPub of any unauthorized use of your password or any other breach of security. We will not be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to protect your password or account login information.

We reserve the right to terminate any registration and otherwise deny Site access to any person for any reason. We have the right to refer any suspected fraudulent, abusive or illegal activity that may be grounds for suspension or termination of your account and/or use of the Site, to appropriate law enforcement authorities. You agree that we may terminate your account at any time for any reason or no reason. If we do so other than for breach of these terms or the AUP, we will refund to you a pro-rated portion of fees you have already paid to us, if any, for the remaining term pertaining to those fees.

Disclaimer of Warranty / Limitation of Liability

Your use of the Site is at your sole risk. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY THE LAW, WE AND ALL THIRD-PARTY PUBLISHERS AND COMMUNITIES (COLLECTIVELY, “THE DISCLAIMING PARTIES”) DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN CONNECTION WITH THE SITE AND YOUR USE THEREOF, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES AS TO MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT.

You agree that the Disclaiming Parties will not be liable to you for any indirect loss or damages, including without limitation consequential or incidental damages, arising out of or relating to these Terms, or your use or inability to use the Site whether based in contract, tort, or other law.

Indemnification

You will indemnify and defend us, each Third Party Publisher, each Community, and each of our or their affiliates, employees, faculty members, fellows, students, governing board members, contractors and agents (collectively, the “Indemnified Parties”), and hold the Indemnified Parties harmless, from and against any claim, and all related loss, damage, damage, or expense, including without limitation reasonable attorneys’ fees, incurred by Indemnified Parties, in connection (1) use of the Site; (2) posting of User-Generated Content; (3) breach of these Terms of Service or any representation or warranty made by you; or (4) violation of applicable law, by you or by any person whom you authorize to use your PubPub account.

The Indemnified Parties shall have the right, at their own expense, to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you.

Third-Party Beneficiaries

All Third-Party Publishers and Communities are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms of Service, to the extent their interests may appear, and the administrators of the Third-Party Publishers and Communities may, by working together with PubPub, enforce the provisions of these Terms of Service only as related to such Third-Party Content or Communities. PupPub will reasonably cooperate with such administrators in enforcing the provisions of these Terms of Service. Third-Party Publishers and Communities may assign or transfer these Terms of Service, as applicable to their relationship with you, without restriction, as part of any assignment of any Third-Party Content or Community, in whole or in part, to any other publisher or platform, and such Terms of Service will be binding on and inure to the benefit of their successors and assigns.

Third-Party Policies

Third-Party Publishers and Communities may include their own Third-Party Policies on the pages of their Communities, so long as: (i) the Third-Party Policies do not conflict with these Terms of Service, PubPub’s Acceptable Use Policy, PubPub’s Privacy Policy, and any other PubPub terms or policies; and (ii) the Third-Party Publishers and Communities are solely responsible for the enforcement of their Third-Party Policies. To the extent any conflict arises between a Third-Party Policy and any of PubPub’s terms or policies, the relevant PubPub term or policy will control for that conflict.

General

These Terms of Service (including the Acceptable Use Policy) constitute the entire agreement between you and us with respect to your use of the Site, superseding any prior agreements. KFI reserves the right to these Terms of Service and to modify PubPub’s features at any time by posting changes to these Terms of Service at elife-container.pubpub.org/legal/terms, and sending all registered users email notification that changes have been made. KFI will use reasonable efforts to post such changes at least 30 days before their effective date, but non-material changes or changes that are necessary to avoid liability by KFI may take effect more quickly.

The section titles in these Terms of Service are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect.

The provisions of these terms will survive any termination of services to you.

These Terms of Service will be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts without regard to its conflicts of laws provisions. In the case of any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms of Service or your use of the Site, the state and federal courts located within the Commonwealth of Massachusetts will have exclusive jurisdiction, and both we and you agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts.

Any failure to enforce any term or condition of these Terms of Service will not constitute a waiver of rights. If any provision of these Terms of Service is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, it will be interpreted to have the broadest validity consistent with law, and the other provisions of these Terms of Service shall remain in effect.

These Terms of Service are personal to you and non-assignable, except with our prior written permission. If you wish to transfer control of your Community, please contact us at [email protected]. PubPub may assign or transfer these Terms of Service and your agreement thereto upon notice to you. These Terms of Service will be binding on, and inure to the benefit of permitted successors and assigns.

Any notice that we provide to you may be provided to the email address on file for your account. You must inform us of any change in that email address.

Questions and Comments

If you have any questions about these Terms of Service, please contact [email protected].

Definitions

“Acceptable Use Policy” means the policy published by us for the Site.

“Community” means a publicly available content repository on PubPub where common disciplinary interests aggregate around content contributed by creators and readers.

“Site” means the PubPub web site.

“Site Content” means all content, features, and functionality posted to or provided via the Site, such as journals, books, and other publications created by persons other than you (“Third-Party Content”), all User-Generated Content.

”Third-Party Publishers” are persons other than you for which we provide hosting services to for the publication of journals, books, or other curated content.

“Third-Party Policies” are the Third-Party Publishers’ and Communities’ own policies, such as terms of service or acceptable use policies.

“User-Generated Content” means any content, whether or not copyrightable, that users submit to the Site.