Science Media are a service provided by SMN ScienceMedia Network GmbH (hereinafter, the ″Service Provider″) through an online platform for scientific and expert content (hereinafter, together with this website and all its applications, referred to as the ″Service″). For detailed information on the Service Provider, see Contact.

These General Terms and Conditions (″GTC″) shall be a legally binding agreement between the Service Provider and any natural or legal person using the Service for whatever reason (hereinafter, the ″User″).

These GTC may be supplemented by special GTC such as data protection and data security guidelines.

Any individual conditions and amendments to the GTC shall be binding only if in writing.

(Other) General Terms and Conditions of the User will be not accepted, unless these are expressly approved by the Service Provider.

The Service Provider is entitled, with the consent of the User, to modify the content of the GTC, provided that the modification in due consideration of the interests of the Service Provider is reasonable for the User. The consent to modify the GTC shall be deemed to be granted, if the user does not object to the modification within one month after the receipt of the modification notice. The Service Provider is committed to advise the User in the course of the notification change on the consequences of defaulted objection.

The Service is rendered „as provided″. The Service Provider shall not be liable for any promise or warranty, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, the marketability or suitability of the Service for specific purposes, nor shall the Service Provider guarantee that rights of third parties are not infringed. The Service Provider does not promise that using the Service will produce any goal-oriented or specific results, consequences or effects. Neither the Service Provider, its executives or employees, nor any of its associated providers, users, contracting partners, sponsors, or the executives and employees thereof, shall be responsible or liable for any indirect, incidental, resulting, special, exemplary damage or any other obligations (including, but not limited to, any loss of business, data or profits).

The Service Provider does not guarantee that the provided Services, data and information are correct, up-to-date, complete or reliable. The Service Provider does not accept any responsibility or liability for any damage, disadvantage and loss of turnover or profit, whether of material or immaterial nature, resulting from the use or non-use of the Service. The foregoing shall not apply to any damage, disadvantage and loss of turnover or profit caused by the intent, will or negligence of the Service Provider.

The Service Provider reserves the right to amend, reduce, interrupt or terminate all or part of the Service at any time.

Nobody shall be entitled to use the Service, and the Service Provider reserves the right to exclude certain users.

The Service consists mostly of information that is stored upon the request of the users. Prior to upload, the digital content is not reviewed by the Service Provider nor does the Service Provider automatically check the content. Therefore, the Service Provider is not in a position to have up-to-date knowledge of possible violations of any law contained in the data and digital content stored upon the request of the Users. The Service Provider does not accept any liability for such information (pursuant to the germanTelemediengesetz (TMG)).

Upon obtaining such knowledge and checking for infringements, the Service Provider shall expeditiously remove or disable access to the relevant digital content and information.

Users may claim storage of digital content and information only if they are legally entitled to store and publish such content and information. In addition, the User may not request the storage of digital content and information that violate copyrights, trademark rights or other intellectual property rights of third parties.

The User releases the Service Provider from any claims of third parties arising in relation to digital content and information stored and published upon the request of the respective User. This release comprises all costs incurred, including court and lawyer fees.

All the information made available within the scope of the Service offered by the Service Provider and other Users may be used only by other natural persons equipped with ordinary internet-capable equipment.

Users are not authorized to publish, sell or make available to third parties any of the information made accessible by the Service Provider or other Users within the scope of the Service.

Users may store or process personal data of other Users only for the original purposes intended by the latter, aimed at the publication through the Service Provider.

• Slander of other Users;
• Automated or highly manual retrieval of profile data of other Users („data harvesting″);
• Advertising for any type of commercial products or services;
• Unrequested posting of job openings and business ideas;
• All kinds of technical attacks on the servers;
• The violations of legal provisions, in particular violations (breach) of copyright, trademark and name rights, competition and data privacy regulations
• Publishing of racist, extremist, violent, pornographic or in other form illegal content

• the scanning of external networks or external IP addresses (port-scanning)
• the manual altering of the hardware address (MAC)
• the use of fake source IP addresses
• the use of DDos(Distibuted Denial of Service) attacks
• the counterfeiting of IP addresses, mail and news headers
• he distribution of computer virus

All the behaviours referred to in this Article 5 are strictly prohibited, unless User has previously obtained the customised written approval of the Service Provider.

The software, website design, logos and other graphics, videos, articles and other texts, as well as the database, are subject to copyrights and property rights owned by the Service Provider.

If a User believes that any digital content or information of the Service violates the User’s own rights or those of third parties, such User or third party whose rights appear to be violated shall inform the Service Provider of the alleged infringement, before taking legal steps.

Upon such notification, the Service Provider shall expeditiously examine the digital content and information in question and, if necessary, remove it or disable access to such content (notice and take-down procedure).

The Service Provider shall reply to such notification within 5 working days.

The User shall not take any legal steps, unless the Service Provider objects to the notification or does not react to it within five working days.

The Service Provider does not accept any liability for expenses, especially court and lawyer fees, in case legal steps are taken earlier, except if the Service Provider has acted intentionally or recklessly.

Licence granted to Service Provider: By uploading videos or other digital content, User shall grant Service Provider and its subsidiaries a simple, worldwide, non-exclusive, free-of-charge licence to use such content all over the world within the scope of the Service. The referred licence shall include the right to save, copy, transfer, distribute and publicly display the digital content, using all currently known media or any media created or used in the future. For the supply of the Service, it shall be particularly necessary that the data be provided in such a manner that they can be digitally processed, copied and modified. The User authorizes the Service Provider to display the videos and digital data within the scope of the Service and to store the digital content, in order to be able to use it in case of any legal dispute.

The Service supplied by the Service Provider shall include the permission for Users and the Service Provider to present and publicly display teasers and/or abstracts of the content - but not the entire content - on their own websites using RSS feeds or on other platforms or social media, such as for example Facebook, Youtube, for their own purpose, provided that such teasers and/or abstracts contain a link to the respective Service. The Service shall furthermore include the permission for the Service Provider to present and publicly display teasers and/or abstracts of the content - but not the entire content ‒ also on other media, such as for example print media, for promotional, advertising/ commercial purposes.

Licences granted to other Users: In addition, the Users shall grant to all other Users of the Service the permission to watch their videos for personal, non-commercial purposes.

Duration of the Licences: Licences shall be valid until the User removes the video from the media archive of the Service. As soon as the video is removed, the licence shall expire within a term that is economically reasonable. Notwithstanding the above provisions, the licence shall remain valid indefinitely for the purposes of legal filing and storage of digital content. Please note that any videos and digital content may remain in the cache memory of search engines and that the Service Provide has no control over or influence on such storage.

If, within the scope of the Service, protected trademarks or service marks are used or referred to by third parties, all of these shall be subject to the provisions of the applicable trademark law as well as to the rights of possession of the respective registered owner. The referred brands, trademarks and service marks shall be the property of their respective owner and may not be violated by the Users in any way.

These General Terms and Conditions, including any supplement thereto (see the third paragraph of Article 1 above), shall constitute an agreement subject solely to the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany and the laws of the European Union (European Community), to the extent these are directly applicable in Germany. The Service Provider and the User waive all other legislations, including the laws of the country or region of residence of the User or in which he or she uses the Service (if other than Germany), and all international commercial laws outside Germany and the European Union.

All questions arising from the use of the Service, including these General Terms and Conditions and all supplements thereto (see the third paragraph of Article 1 above) shall be subject to the jurisdiction of Germany, if the User use the Service for commercial purposes.

Insofar as the User is not consumer, is the exclusive place of jurisdiction the registered office of the Service Provider, Wembach. The same applies, if the User has no general place of jurisdiction in Germany or his registered/common residence is not known at the time of the commencement of an action.

If one or more provisions of these General Terms and Conditions or their supplements (see the third paragraph of Article 1 above) are or become invalid, illegal, unenforceable or in conflict with the law of the applicable jurisdiction, this shall not affect in any manner the validity, lawfulness and enforceability of the other provisions.

If you have any questions about this Agreement, please contact us.