Independent Story Terms & Conditions

These terms of use apply to all websites (hereinafter: https://independent-story.com/) that are managed by Independent Story and all its affiliated companies (hereinafter collectively: Independent Story). By accessing and using a Website, you agree that these terms of use apply and are accepted by you. If you do not agree to these terms of use, you should not use the Website.

Intellectual property rights

The (intellectual property) rights that rest on or arise from the (content of the) Websites – including the texts, images, design, data files, photos, videos and other (still and/or moving) visual material, sound material, formats , software, brands (including domain names) and other materials located on the Websites – are owned by Independent Story, its licensors or contributors to the Websites. The Websites are for your personal, non-commercial use only. Any other use of the (contents of the) Websites – including distribution, reproduction, framing, modification, publication or transmission – requires the prior written permission of Independent Story.

Liability Independent Story

Independent Story takes the utmost care in collecting, compiling and publishing information on the Websites. Nevertheless, it hereby excludes any liability for any consequences (including direct and indirect damage) that are in any way related to the use of the Websites or the inaccessibility of the Websites, including malfunctions, interruptions or errors in the electronic delivery of via services requested on the Websites, except when these are the result of intent or willful recklessness on the part of Independent Story. If the information on the Websites is incomplete or contains errors, Independent Story cannot be held liable for this, except in the event of intent or deliberate recklessness on the part of Independent Story.

Intellectual Property Rights

The copyright and all other rights in the material on the Website, including all information, music, images, photographs, videos and other content displayed on and/or made available through the Website (“Materials“) are owned by Independent Story or are licensed to Independent Story from the relevant owner or licensor of the rights. You may download a single copy of the Materials on a single computer for your own private use only. The Materials may be printed out for the sole purposes of enabling the person printing the Materials to retain a copy for their own personal records. No copying, distribution or other use of the Materials for any commercial or business purposes is permitted without our prior written consent. No photography, filming, broadcast, alteration or modification of the Materials is permitted without our prior written consent, except as may be reasonably necessary to use the Website in good faith. Your use of the Materials shall at all times be subject to you acknowledging our status (or that of any identified contributors) as the right-holder of the Materials. You must not use any Materials in any manner that may infringe any of our rights or the rights of a third party, or use the Materials in any way that may be illegal or breach these Web Terms & Conditions. All rights in Materials on the Website are reserved to Independent Story.

Acceptable and prohibited use

3.1. You agree not to use (including linking and/or uploading content to) the Website:

to create a database (electronic or otherwise) that includes material downloaded or otherwise obtained from the Website except where expressly permitted on the Website;

to disseminate advertisements on the Website or use the Website for any other commercial purposes (which would include using the Website to promote or encourage the sale of your goods/services);

to place links on the Website where those links take users to unlawful material or material that contravenes these Web Terms & Conditions;

to transmit or re-circulate any material obtained from the Website to any third party except where expressly permitted on the Website;

in such a way so as to remove the copyright or trade mark notice(s) from any copies of any material made in accordance with these Web Terms & Conditions;

to disseminate any unsolicited or unauthorised advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail”, “spam”, “chain letters”, “pyramid schemes”, or any other form of solicitation;

to disseminate any material that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, damage, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;

to disseminate any material which is or may infringe the rights (including intellectual property rights) of any third party or be unlawful, threatening, defamatory, obscene, indecent, offensive, pornographic, abusive, liable to incite racial hatred, discriminatory, menacing, scandalous, inflammatory, blasphemous, in breach of confidence, in breach of privacy, which may cause annoyance or inconvenience or may restrict or inhibit the use of the Website by any person or which constitutes or encourages conduct that may be considered a criminal offence or give rise to civil liability in any country in the world;

to disseminate any material which compromises the privacy or security of anyone other than yourself (in particular, you shall ensure that you have any and all necessary consents of any individual featured in any content giving permission for his/her image and/or voice to be used in accordance with the permissions that you grant to us in respect of your content);

to disseminate any material which does or may bring Independent Story or any of its brands or subsidiaries into dispute or in any way damage their reputation;

to disseminate any material where use of the material by Independent Story, or any third party licensed or permitted by Independent Story, will give rise to any third party claims; and/or

to post link(s) that take users to material that contravenes any of the above restrictions.

3.2 In addition to the above, you shall not conduct, facilitate, authorise or permit any text or data mining or ‘screen scraping’ in relation to our Website or any services provided via, or in relation to, our Website without our express written consent. This includes using (or permitting, authorising or attempting the use of):

any “robot”, “bot”, “spider”, “scraper” or other automated algorithm, code, device, program, tool, method, system, software, methodology or manual process to access, use, search, copy, monitor or extract any Material or any portion of the Website (in whole or in part) accessed via the Website; and

any automated analytical technique aimed at analysing text and data in digital form to generate information which includes but is not limited to patters, trends and correlations.

3.3 The provisions in clause 3.2 should be treated as an express reservation of our rights in this regard, including for the purposes of Article 4(3) of Digital Copyright Directive ((EU) 2019/790) to the extent that you are a user based in the European Economic Area.

User contributions

On some parts of the Websites it is possible to make a voluntary contribution (including, for example, participation in a forum, chat, providing texts, images, photos and other visual materials, sound materials, ideas and concepts, etc.) to the Websites. . However, a number of rules apply to these contributions:

The user will observe the general norms and values ​​of society and the legal rules. This means, among other things, that no sexist, pornographic, racist and discriminatory contributions are submitted or statements that are offensive, defamatory or hurtful. The user will not infringe on the privacy of others; by participating, the user guarantees that he has all (intellectual property) rights – including copyrights and trademark rights – to the contribution(s) offered and indemnifies Independent Story against possible claims from third parties in this respect;

All rights to the contribution – with the exception of the rights to photos, videos and other image or sound material – are transferred by the user to Independent Story at the time of participation, without Independent Story owing any compensation for this. As a result of this transfer of rights, Independent Story can use the contribution unrestrictedly and (have it) exploited via any media and in any form whatsoever, for example, but not limited to the use of the contribution in television and radio programs, for telecommunication services, internet sites or other internet applications, etc. If a further deed is required for the transfer, the user will fully cooperate with this.

With regard to photos, videos and other image or sound material, the rights to the material remain with the user. The user grants Independent Story an unlimited license to use the material, without Independent Story owing a fee for this. On the basis of this license, Independent Story is entitled to use and/or exploit the material without restriction and for any purpose via any media and in any form whatsoever, for example, but not limited to broadcasting in television and/or radio programmes, for telecommunication services, internet sites or other internet applications, etc.

The user will not misuse the Websites, for example by flooding forums or similar services with (almost) the same messages;

Independent Story reserves the right at all times to immediately remove and/or edit (parts of) contributions that it deems unacceptable. In addition, Independent Story has the right to exclude users from participation in the event of repeated abuse; statements, opinions and impressions expressed in the contributions of users/third parties on the Websites are submitted in their own capacity and under the responsibility of these users/third parties and are not those of (employees of) Independent Story;

The user will not include commercial messages in the contribution (for example, do not place advertisements in weblogs, forums and/or chat groups);

Any files sent by the user will not contain viruses, show technical defects or damage the operation of computers, servers and the like;

User contributions are posted at the user’s own expense and risk. Independent Story cannot be held liable in any way for user contributions.

The user agrees that his nickname as stated in the Independent Story ID is mentioned with the photo/video. For other purposes, Independent Story does not have to quote the source.

choice of law

Dutch law applies to these terms of use. Any disputes will be submitted to the competent court in Amsterdam. These terms of use may be amended by Independent Story at any time. These adjustments are effective from the time they are posted on the Websites. We therefore recommend that you regularly review the terms of use.

Questions

If you want to know more about our general game conditions and user conditions, you can contact admin@independent-story.com.

If you want to know more about our privacy and cookie statement, you can contact admin@independent-story.com.