
LICENSING / TERMS OF USE
Licensing
Terms of Use
The Site
These Terms of Use comprise a legal contract between you and Vinyard Software, Inc. governing your access to, and use of the Site, Site Information (defined below) and our Services (i.e., collectively, the services that provide you access and use of the Site Information and other Services available through our Site), whether you are using the Site on your own behalf, on behalf of your designated group (e.g., high schools, colleges, college dorms, neighborhoods, non-profit organizations, community-based organizations, etc.) or on behalf of an entity. These Terms of Use apply to all users of the Site, including users who register their home energy conservation activities, contribute photos, news, information, data, jokes, videos, text, and other content and materials on, to or through the Site.
You are authorized to access and use the Site and related Site Information as set forth in these TOU, provided that: (i) your use of the Site and Site Information as permitted hereunder is solely for your personal, non-commercial use; (ii) you will not copy, distribute or transfer any portion of the Site on any media without VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC.’s prior written approval; (iii) you will not alter, adapt or otherwise modify any part of the Site other than as may be reasonably necessary to use that part of the Site for its intended purpose; and (iv) you will otherwise comply in full with the terms and conditions of this TOU.
This website is controlled and operated by Vinyard Software, Inc. from its offices within the United States. Vinyard Software, Inc. makes no representation that the Products or other materials accessed through this website are appropriate or available for use in other locations, and access to them from other countries where their contents are illegal is prohibited. Those who choose to access the Products or the website from other locations do so on their own volition and are responsible for compliance with applicable local laws. You may not export or re-export any Product received under this Agreement except in full compliance with all United States laws and regulations. In particular, the Products may not be exported or re-exported into (or to a national or resident of) any country to which the United States embargoes goods, or to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department’s list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Commerce Department’s Table of Denial Orders). In addition, you are responsible for complying with any local laws in your country, which may impact your right to import, export or use the Product.
You shall be solely responsible for any Contributor Materials you submit and the consequences of posting or publishing them. With respect to any Contributor Materials you submit, you affirm, represent and warrant that: (i) you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents or permissions to use and authorize VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. to use all patent, copyright, trade secret and trademark rights (collectively, “Intellectual Property Rights”) or other proprietary rights to enable inclusion and use of Contributor Materials in the manner contemplated by the Site and these TOU; and (ii) you have the written consent, release and/or permission of each identifiable individual person in your Contributor Materials to use the name, likeness or other personal characteristics of each such identifiable individual to enable inclusion and use of such Contributor Materials in the manner contemplated by the Site and these TOU.
As between you and VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC., you shall retain all of your ownership rights in and to the Contributor Materials. However, by submitting Contributor Materials to VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC., you hereby grant VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. a worldwide, non-exclusive, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable (through multiple tiers) and transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, edit, modify, translate, reformat, prepare derivative works based upon, display publicly, perform publicly and otherwise exploit (including but not limited to over the Internet, broadcast television or any other uses or media), the Contributor Materials, in whole or in part, including future rights that VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. (or its successor) may otherwise become entitled to that do not yet exist, as well as new uses, media, means and forms of exploitation throughout the universe exploiting current or future technology yet to be developed to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law. You also hereby grant each user of the Site a non-exclusive license to access your Contributor Materials through the Site, and to use, access, watch, reproduce, distribute, transmit, forward, display and perform such Contributor Materials, in whole or in part, to the extent permitted by the Site under these TOU (the “User License”). This User License granted by you will terminate as to your Contributor Material once you remove or delete the particular Contributor Material from the Site. In addition, VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. will have the right to refuse, remove or delete any Contributor Materials which it reasonably considers to violate this TOU or to otherwise be illegal or objectionable.
With respect to Contributor Materials and the Site, you agree you will not: (i) submit Contributor Materials that are copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to any third party Intellectual Property Rights or proprietary rights, including any privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from the rightful owner of such rights to post such Contributor Materials and to grant VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. all of the license rights and other rights granted herein; (ii) upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit any Contributor Materials or other Content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, or racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable; (iii) use the Site to harm minors in any way; (iv) impersonate any person or entity, including but not limited to, a representative of VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC., or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity; (v) forge headers, tamper with the TCP/IP packet header, or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any Contributor Materials or other content transmitted to or through the Site; (vi) upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail”, “spam”, “chain letters”, “pyramid schemes” or any other form of solicitation; (vii) upload, post, e-mail or otherwise transmit any Contributor Material or other content that contains computer viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment; (viii) intentionally or unintentionally violate any applicable local, state, national or international law, including but not limited to, regulations promulgated by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, any rules of any national or other securities exchange, including, without limitation, the New York Stock Exchange, the American Stock Exchange or NASDAQ, and any regulations having the force of law; and (ix) collect or store personal data about other users.
Many information products and other materials available from websites are protected by copyright. This is the case irrespective of whether the materials actually bear a copyright notice. Posting materials on the web is considered a public display implicating the exclusive copyright right to display a work publicly. Since copyright rights vest automatically in the author by operation of law from the moment of creation and fixation in tangible media, the author of the materials has a copyright in and to the materials without regard to whether copyright rights were sought and irrespective of whether the materials include a copyright notice. The prudent strategy is to assume that copyrightable subject matter found on the internet is subject to the exclusive rights of a copyright holder.
The foregoing list of prohibitions is illustrative and is not intended to be complete or exclusive. Vinyard Software, Inc. reserves the right to terminate these Terms of Use and prohibit your access to the Site or any of the Services for any action that Vinyard Software, Inc., in its sole judgment, determines to be inappropriate or disruptive to the Site, Services or to any other user or the vinyardsoftware.com community generally.
You will not use the Site or any of the Site Information in any way that is unlawful or harms VINYARD SOFTWARE.com or any user of VINYARD SOFTWARE.com. You may not use the Site in any manner that could overburden, or impair any VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. Site (or the networks or systems connected to any VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. Site). You may not use any device, software or instrumentality to interfere with the proper working of our Site or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies or regulations of networks connected to the Site.
(i) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of a copyright that is allegedly infringed;(ii) Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;(iii) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material;(iv) Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address;(v) A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and(vi) A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC.’s Designated Copyright Agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement is: [Vinyard Software, Inc., Copyright Agent, 502 Wandering Woods Way, Ponte Vedra, FL 32081-0621], e-mail address: copyright@VINYARDSOFTWARE.com, telephone number: [703 615 3987]. Please send only DMCA notices to our Designated Agent. You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with all of the above requirements of this Section, your DMCA notice may not be valid.
No “scrapers,” or “bots” may be used on this site.
You may never use another’s account without permission. You are solely responsible for the activity that occurs on your account, and you must keep your account password secure. You must notify VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. of any breach of security or unauthorized use of your account.
You acknowledge and agree that VINYARDSOFTWARE.com may preserve Contributor Materials and other Site Information if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation and disclosure is reasonably necessary to (i) comply with the legal process; (ii) enforce the TOU; (iii) respond to claims that any Site Information violates the rights of third-parties; or (iv) protect the rights, property, or personal safety of VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC., its users and the public.
Contributors are asked to link only to the main page of any site, rather than use “deep linking”, “framing,” or “in-lining.” Framing is a variation of linking and may be used in various e-business applications. The practice uses frames to incorporate third-party content into a website. The user may reasonably believe that all information displayed is from the same website. Framing allows the display of the contents of two or more websites on the same web page even though the content is located on different sites. Pages from other websites can be presented as the content of the “framed” website without the casual observer being aware that the “framed” web page is from a different site. Inlining content from other websites is framing without the border around the framed content.
In order to provide contributor materials you must be 18 years of age. By contributing this content you are affirming that you are 18 years old or more, an emancipated minor, or possess legal parental or guardian consent, and are fully able and competent to enter into the terms and conditions of these TOU, and comply with these TOU.
The TOU, and the Privacy Policy incorporated herein, constitutes the entire agreement between you and VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. relating to your use of our Site and Site Information. The TOU and the relationship between you and VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. shall be governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia without regard to any conflict of law provisions. You and VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. agree to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within Fairfax County of the Commonwealth of Virginia. You hereby consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the State and Federal courts in Fairfax County, Virginia in all disputes arising out of or relating to this TOU, the Site and Site Information. The failure of VINYARD SOFTWARE, INC. to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the TOU shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. Should any part of the TOU be declared invalid or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, this shall not affect the validity of any remaining portion and such remaining portion shall remain in full force and effect as if the invalid portion of the TOU had been eliminated.
Our thanks go to our legal counsel, J. T. Westermeier of DLA Piper.
