Terms & Policies
Red Room Terms of Service
These terms were updated on October 23, 2011
Welcome to Red Room!
The most common question we get is “Do I own the copyright to the content I post on Red Room?” and the answer is yes, of course! Below, you’ll find our Terms of Service, which addresses this issue somewhat, but you should also see our Copyright & IP Policy and our Privacy Policy.
We want it to be really easy for you to understand what kind of agreement you’re entering into by visiting or joining Red Room. So we’ve created a short, plain language version of the Terms of Service. Yes, the “short” version is still a few pages long. You can also read the still longer, legalese version, right below it. In our opinion, the longer version means the same thing; it just provides more details and examples. We want you to feel completely comfortable choosing Red Room, so please let us know if you have any suggestions or questions about our terms.
-Abraham Mertens, Vice President and General Counsel
Summary of Terms of Service
1. By using Red Room’s services, such as the website or other products or services, you agree to our Terms of Service (our “terms”). Not just agree in a friendly way, but in a legal way. Because we may need to make changes to what we offer or how we conduct business with you, the terms could change. Any changes will be noted on this page. It’s unlikely we’ll change them, but we need to ability to do so.
2. By using the site, you are bound by whatever terms are in place at that time. If you have any questions about this, please let us know.
3. In general, we attract friendly, civilized people as new members of our community, but for the tiny percentage of people who wind up conducting themselves in an antisocial manner, or sadly, have trouble understanding what is appropriate, we may edit or block their content, account, or transmissions. It’s very rare we need to do this, because we’re good at screening new members before they start participating. Sometimes we notify the person in advance that we are going to intervene, but in some cases, we don’t. What is considered inappropriate and which accounts will be restricted or deleted is at our discretion and may change. Maintain high standards for your private and public content and behavior and you’ll attract others with high standards.
4. We strive to improve what we offer, and so sometimes we might have to discontinue, change, or temporarily make unavailable something that you use or access. We won’t necessarily let you know it’s going to happen and it could affect your content or activities (for example, if we are doing an upgrade to our Clubs feature, it might be temporarily unavailable, although we’ll save all your data while we work on the functionality). And although we don’t currently have an upper limit on the amount of messages you can send to other members, or of online storage you can use, we might have one in the future.
5. You agree to provide accurate information about yourself to us. You agree not to do anything illegal, disruptive, or unauthorized in relation to Red Room, its content, or its members. You are responsible for your own behavior, especially in the case of your breach of these terms.
6. You agree that you are solely responsible for keeping your account secure and password safe, and for any activity through your account, and that you will notify us immediately if there’s any unauthorized use of your account.
7. You have read and agree to our Privacy Policy, too.
8. You agree that you are solely responsible for any content you create or transmit on or through Red Room. You understand our copyright and intellectual property policies, and will abide by them, including not violating anyone’s copyright or intellectual property rights. You also agree that there might be people or content you find objectionable on Red Room and that you view this content or participate at your own risk. You agree that you alone are responsible for the consequences of the content you create, transmit, or display on Red Room.
9. You agree not to infringe on Red Room’s rights, including copyrights and other intellectual property, may not represent Red Room’s work as yours, nor misrepresent the nature of your relationship with Red Room. You agree that you will not disclose any information or communications that Red Room or its team members considers private or confidential.
10. Although you own the copyright and other rights to your own work, Red Room cannot display it without your permission, which means we need what in legal language is called a “license.” You grant Red Room a pretty broad-sounding license to use your content (see the longer version of the terms), which we need in order to provide our products and services to you, and to promote our products and services. Let’s say we want to feature an excerpt of your blog, and your photo, on the homepage; we can’t do that without a license that includes words like “edit,” “modify,” “publish,” “worldwide,” and “promote.” The license is non-exclusive, so you can also grant whatever license you want to others, like to display the same work on another website or publish it in a book. You also promise us that you do have the right to license the content you provide. Feel free to contact us if you have any questions about this.
11. We can terminate our relationship with you at any time at our discretion. This sounds harsh, but it is really unlikely to happen unless we dramatically change our services or business, or you violate our terms. You can terminate your relationship with us, too, but you have to notify us and allow us a little time to properly delete your account (please don’t try to do it yourself). We’ve only had a small handful of people who have ever asked to delete their profiles or to remove content they had posted earlier. Although it’s only happened a couple of times (as of this writing), we might decide to leave a small amount of your content up even if you decide to leave, because, for example, you wrote a comment on someone else’s blog, and other members responded to that comment and it turned into a great conversation in the comment section—if we remove your comment, the whole thread of people responding to you disappears with it, which isn’t fair to the other people involved (to delete their content without their permission), so we might leave it up. You also might be one of our members who have worked with our editors on a special project, which gives us additional rights to use your work; if so, you’ll know because you’ll have a separate written agreement that we propose apart from these terms. There are some obligations that survive even if the agreement is terminated.
12. Of course we can’t bind you to any terms that are unlawful. You understand that you are using Red Room at your own risk and that the services are not perfect and not always available. Also that anything you download or obtain through Red Room is at your own risk, including advice from Red Room or other members. If you’re not happy with Red Room or it doesn’t meet your needs, we’re really sorry. If we make mistakes that affect you, or you find information on Red Room that turns out to be inaccurate, we’re really sorry. We hope to exceed your expectations and that you’re very happy with Red Room, but we can’t guarantee or provide a warrantee that you will be.
13. In a similar vein, you agree that there’s only so much that Red Room can be held responsible for when you use our services. If you use Red Room, you understand that Red Room (and any related companies or people) are not liable for any damages that you suffer, no matter what your theory is of why (like that you met someone on Red Room or Red Room recommended a product to you). We don’t want you to suffer, we don’t want you to be damaged—we like happy stories. But sometimes people make poor decisions, get taken advantage of, lose financial opportunities, lose important data, have a bad hair day, and so on. You cannot hold Red Room liable if you suffer any losses in these or other categories of your life. We care, and we might even help you if we can, but you can’t sue us over it.
14. You understand that we might display advertising or work with sponsors. We will always indicate the difference between paid placement and independent, editorially determined placement. We want the difference to be clear, but we’re not responsible if you can’t tell which is which (although please let us know if we can improve the clarity between the two).
15. We are working on adding new, improved features to the list of benefits for Premium Members, and you agree that we can add or remove or change features at our discretion with or without notice. Premium Membership costs an annual fee. For members who can’t afford a Premium Membership, we often provide a reduced “scholarship” rate; awarding these scholarships is completely at our discretion. If you purchase a Premium Membership at any rate, you can stop your subscription at any time and not be bound to pay anything further, although you are not entitled to a refund of what you’ve already paid, even if you didn’t use the entire time you paid for. If Red Room is for some reason unable to continue to provide the services, or you wish to cancel, you are not entitled to a refund for any portion of fees already paid. Failure to stick by the no refunds term does not mean that we waive that term. There may be benefits of Premium Membership that must be additionally, separately agreed to, and which may carry different or additional terms, in which case, those terms supersede these ones. In addition to annual Premium Memberships, we offer monthly "Trial" Premium Memberships, which do not include some of the benefits and options of Premium Memberships. We may add additional levels of service, such as a level above Premium, without notice, which may carry additional fees and terms.
16. Although your donation or fees paid to Red Room may be tax-deductable for some reason (such as that you are a professional writer and your tax preparer advises you to deduct it), we are not a not-for-profit organization. If we have asked you to select a not-for-profit organization for Red Room to donate funds to, we will send the funds directly to the charity, and it will not be tax-deductible by you since the donation came from Red Room. Let us know if you have any questions about this. We’re very excited about how much money we’ve been able to donate to our members’ favorite causes so far!
17. Red Room is not liable for any state or federal taxes that you may be required to pay because of a purchase you made on Red Room. Red Room only collects taxes as required by the state of California and by the city of San Francisco.
18. Red Room may have “affiliate” relationships with partner companies that pay us a commission.
19. Red Room, as we stated, might change the terms sometimes, with our without notice, and your use of the site at any time indicates you agree to the terms in place at that time.
20. If you download software or purchase something provided by a third party (like Powell’s), it might be subject to separate terms between you and the other company or person. Unless you have a separate written agreement with Red Room, this is it, and this replaces any previous agreements. You agree that we can provide notice to you by any reasonable means, including posting something on Red Room, although as you know, we’re not required to provide notice. You agree that if Red Room doesn’t pursue its rights against you if you do something to breach the agreement, our rights and remedies are still available to us. Even if something in the terms is found by the courts to be invalid, the rest of it is still valid. The terms are governed by the laws of California, and you agree to resolve any legal matters in the windy but charming civic center neighborhood of San Francisco, California. Plus, Red Room can still apply for urgent legal relief in any jurisdiction, if we need to.
If you have any questions or comments about any of the terms, please let us know what we can do better!
Complete Red Room Terms of Service
1. Your relationship with Red Room
1.1 Your use of Red Room’s products, services, and websites (referred to collectively as the “Services” in this document and excluding any services provided to you by Red Room under a separate written agreement) is subject to the Red Room Terms of Service (hereinafter collectively "Terms"). “Red Room” means Red Room Omnimedia Corporation, a virtual company with no offices, founded in San Francisco as a California corporation.
1.2 Unless otherwise agreed in writing with Red Room, your agreement with Red Room will always include, at a minimum, the terms and conditions set out herein. These terms form a legally binding agreement between you and Red Room in relation to your use of the Services. It is important that you take the time to read them carefully.
1.3 Red Room reserves the right to amend the Terms from time to time with or without notice to you. By using the Services, you are bound by the terms that are in place at that time. Updates to the Terms will be noted on this page.
2. Accepting the Terms
2.1 In order to use the Services, you must first agree to the Terms. You may not use the Services if you do not accept the Terms.
2.2 You can accept the Terms by: (a) clicking to accept or agree to the Terms, where this option is made available to you by Red Room in the user interface for any Service; or (b) by using the Services. Your use of the Services is deemed as acceptance of the Terms from the time of your use onward, whether you are an anonymous visitor, a member, or other type of user.
2.3 You may not use the Services and may not accept the Terms if (a) you are not of legal age to form a binding contract with Red Room, or (b) you are a person barred from receiving the Services under the laws of the United States or other countries including the country in which you are resident or from which you use the Services.
3. Our rules of conduct
3.1 The following rules govern basic interaction with and use of Red Room. Please be aware that failure to comply with our rules of conduct may result in the immediate suspension and/or termination of some or all of your Red Room services and privileges, with or without notice to you.
3.2 Red Room may remove or edit any and all users or specific content, comments, communications, images, media, code, or any other upload, creation, or alteration made by users, whether made public or private by that user, for inappropriateness. What is or is not inappropriate is at the sole discretion of Red Room and is subject to change without notice.
3.3 Examples of inappropriate behavior, content, or use include verbal abuse, bigotry, hatred, harassment, threats, lewdness, offensiveness, obscenity, illegality, spamming, commercial messages, mass messages, or even that which is simply deemed antisocial, without value to the discussion, off-topic, irrelevant, or duplicative.
3.4 Red Room strives to provide high quality, accurate, constructive, respectful, entertaining, and educational community participation. Please maintain high standards for your private and public content and behavior, whether it is anonymous or not, when using the Services.
4. Provision of the Services by Red Room
4.1 Red Room is constantly innovating in order to provide the best possible experience for its users. You acknowledge and agree that the form and nature of the Services which Red Room provides may change from time to time without prior notice to you.
4.2 As part of this continuing innovation, you acknowledge and agree that Red Room may stop (permanently or temporarily) providing the Services (or any features within the Services) to you or to users generally at Red Room’s sole discretion, without prior notice to you. You may stop using the Services at any time.
4.3 You acknowledge and agree that Red Room may undertake actions that temporarily or permanently disable access to your account or delete your content, in which case you may be prevented from accessing the Services, your account details, or any files or other content which is contained in your account.
4.4 You acknowledge and agree that while Red Room may not currently have set a fixed upper limit on the number of transmissions you may send or receive through the Services or on the amount of storage space used for the provision of any Service, such fixed upper limits may be set by Red Room at any time, at Red Room’s discretion.
5. Use of the Services by you
5.1 In order to access certain Services, you may be required to provide information about yourself (such as identification or contact details) as part of the registration process for the Service, or as part of your continued use of the Services. You agree that any registration information you give to Red Room will always be accurate, correct, and up-to-date.
5.2 You agree to use the Services only for purposes that are permitted by (a) the Terms and (b) any applicable law, regulation or generally accepted practices or guidelines in the relevant jurisdictions (including any laws regarding the export of data or software to and from the United States or other relevant countries).
5.3 You agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the Services by any means other than through the interface that is provided by Red Room, unless you have been specifically allowed to do so in a separate written agreement with Red Room. You specifically agree not to access (or attempt to access) any of the Services through any automated means (including use of scripts or Web crawlers).
5.4 You agree that you will not engage in any activity that interferes with or disrupts the Services or the servers and networks that are connected to the Services.
5.5 Unless you have been specifically permitted to do so in a separate written agreement with Red Room, you agree that you will not reproduce, duplicate, copy, sell, trade, or resell the Services for any purpose.
5.6 You agree that you are solely responsible for (and that Red Room has no responsibility to you or to any third party for) any breach of your obligations under the Terms and for the consequences (including any loss or damage which Red Room may suffer) of any such breach.
6. Passwords and account security
6.1 You agree and understand that you are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of passwords associated with any account you use to access the Services.
6.2 Accordingly, you agree that you will be solely responsible to Red Room for all activities that occur under your account.
6.3 If you become aware of any unauthorized use of your password or of your account, you agree to notify Red Room immediately.
7. Privacy and your personal information
7.1 Red Room’s Privacy Policy is available on this site. This policy explains how Red Room treats your personal information, and protects your privacy, when you use the Services.
7.2 You agree to the use of your data in accordance with Red Room’s Privacy Policies.
8. Copyright and intellectual property policy
8.1 It is Red Room’s policy to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement that comply with applicable international intellectual property law (including, in the United States, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) and to terminate the accounts of infringers. In addition, Red Room reserves the right to take any other actions it determines necessary to deal with potentially infringing content that is posted on the site. Details of Red Room’s policy regarding responses to claims of copyright infringement can be found here.
8.2 Red Room’s policy regarding copyright and intellectual property as it applies to content on the site is available on this site. This policy explains your and Red Room’s obligation with regard to potentially copyright-infringing material.
8.3 You agree to use Red Room’s site and services in accordance with this policy.
8.4 You understand that by using the Services you may be exposed to content that you may find offensive, indecent, or objectionable and that, in this respect, you use the Services at your own risk.
8.5 You agree that you are solely responsible for (and that Red Room has no responsibility to you or to any third party for) any content that you create, transmit or display while using the Services and for the consequences of your actions (including any loss or damage which Red Room may suffer) by doing so.
9. Proprietary rights
9.1 You acknowledge and agree that Red Room or Red Room’s licensors own all legal right, title, and interest in and to the Services, including any intellectual property rights which subsist in the Services (whether those rights happen to be registered or not, and wherever in the world those rights may exist). You further acknowledge that the Services may contain information which is designated confidential by Red Room and that you shall not disclose such information without Red Room’s prior written consent; if Red Room, or an individual who works in some capacity for or with Red Room, intentionally or unintentionally provides you with information or communications that Red Room considers private of confidential, you agree that you will not disclose it to others through any means.
9.2 Unless you have agreed otherwise in writing with Red Room, nothing in the Terms gives you a right to use any of Red Room’s trade names, trademarks, service marks, logos, domain names, and other distinctive brand features.
9.3 If you have been given an explicit right to use any of these brand features in a separate written agreement with Red Room, then you agree that your use of such features shall be in compliance with that agreement, any applicable provisions of the Terms, and Red Room’s brand feature use guidelines.
9.4 You agree that you shall not remove, obscure, or alter any proprietary rights notices (including copyright and trademark notices) which may be affixed to or contained within the Services.
9.5 Unless you have been expressly authorized to do so in writing by Red Room, you agree that in using the Services, you will not use any trademark, service mark, trade name, logo of any company or organization in a way that is likely or intended to cause confusion about the owner or authorized user of such marks, names or logos.
10. Content license from you
10.1 You retain copyright and any other rights you already hold in content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. By submitting, posting or displaying the content you give Red Room a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, adapt, modify, translate, publish, publicly perform, publicly display, and distribute any content which you submit, post or display on or through, the Services. This license enables Red Room to display, distribute, and promote your content and the Services.
10.2 You understand that Red Room, in performing the required technical steps to provide the Services to our users, may (a) transmit or distribute your Content over various public networks and in various media; and (b) make such changes to your Content as are necessary to conform and adapt that Content to the technical requirements of connecting networks, devices, services, or media. You agree that this license shall permit Red Room to take these actions.
10.3 You confirm and warrant to Red Room that you have all the rights, power, and authority necessary to grant the above license.
10.4 There are some situations in which you might share copyright with Red Room or grant us a license beyond the usual scope, but that would only come up if you had a special, separate agreement in writing with us, such as, for example, if you were creating content as our “Artist in Residence.”
11. Ending your relationship with Red Room
11.1 The Terms will continue to apply until terminated by either you or Red Room as set forth below.
11.2 If you want to terminate your legal agreement with Red Room, you may do so by (a) notifying Red Room at any time and (b) closing your accounts for all of the Services which you use, where Red Room has made this option available to you. Your notice should be sent, in writing, to Red Room’s address which is set out at the beginning of these Terms.
11.3 Red Room may at any time, terminate its legal agreement with you if:
(A) You have breached any provision of the Terms (or have acted in manner which clearly shows that you do not intend to, or are unable to comply with the provisions of the Terms); or
(B) Red Room is required to do so by law (for example, where the provision of the Services to you is, or becomes, unlawful); or
(C) The partner with whom Red Room offered the Services to you has terminated its relationship with Red Room or ceased to offer the Services to you; or
(D) Red Room is transitioning to no longer providing the Services to users in the country in which you are resident or from which you use the service; or
(E) The provision of the Services to you by Red Room is, in Red Room’s opinion, no longer commercially viable.
11.4 Nothing in this Section shall affect Red Room’s rights regarding provision of Services under Section 5 of the Terms.
11.5 When these Terms come to an end, all of the legal rights, obligations, and liabilities that you and Red Room have benefited from, been subject to (or which have accrued over time whilst the Terms have been in force) or which are expressed to continue indefinitely, shall be unaffected by this cessation, and the provisions of paragraph 20.7 shall continue to apply to such rights, obligations, and liabilities indefinitely.
12. EXCLUSION OF WARRANTIES
12.1 NOTHING IN THESE TERMS, INCLUDING SECTIONS 12 AND 13, SHALL EXCLUDE OR LIMIT RED ROOM’S WARRANTY OR LIABILITY FOR LOSSES THAT MAY NOT BE LAWFULLY EXCLUDED OR LIMITED BY APPLICABLE LAW. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OR THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR LOSS OR DAMAGE CAUSED BY NEGLIGENCE, BREACH OF CONTRACT OR BREACH OF IMPLIED TERMS, OR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. ACCORDINGLY, ONLY THE LIMITATIONS THAT ARE LAWFUL IN YOUR JURISDICTION WILL APPLY TO YOU AND OUR LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.
12.2 YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK AND THAT THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.”
12.3 IN PARTICULAR, RED ROOM, ITS AFFILIATES, AND ITS LICENSORS DO NOT REPRESENT OR WARRANT TO YOU THAT:
(A) YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS,
(B) YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE OR FREE FROM ERROR,
(C) ANY INFORMATION OBTAINED BY YOU AS A RESULT OF YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE, AND
(D) THAT DEFECTS IN THE OPERATION OR FUNCTIONALITY OF ANY SOFTWARE PROVIDED TO YOU AS PART OF THE SERVICES WILL BE CORRECTED.
12.4 ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SERVICES IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND THAT YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR OTHER DEVICE OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL.
12.5 NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM RED ROOM OR THROUGH OR FROM THE SERVICES SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY STATED IN THE TERMS.
12.6 RED ROOM FURTHER EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
13. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
13.1 SUBJECT TO OVERALL PROVISION IN PARAGRAPH 12.1 ABOVE, YOU EXPRESSLY UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT RED ROOM, ITS SUBSIDIARIES AND AFFILIATES, AND ITS LICENSORS SHALL NOT BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR:
(A) ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES WHICH MAY BE INCURRED BY YOU, HOWEVER CAUSED AND UNDER ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY. THIS SHALL INCLUDE, BUT NOT BE LIMITED TO, ANY LOSS OF PROFIT (WHETHER INCURRED DIRECTLY OR INDIRECTLY), ANY LOSS OF GOODWILL OR BUSINESS REPUTATION, ANY LOSS OF DATA SUFFERED, COST OF PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSS;
(B) ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE WHICH MAY BE INCURRED BY YOU, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO LOSS OR DAMAGE AS A RESULT OF:
(I) ANY RELIANCE PLACED BY YOU ON THE COMPLETENESS, ACCURACY OR EXISTENCE OF ANY ADVERTISING, OR AS A RESULT OF ANY RELATIONSHIP OR TRANSACTION BETWEEN YOU AND ANY ADVERTISER OR SPONSOR WHOSE ADVERTISING APPEARS ON THE SERVICES;
(II) ANY CHANGES THAT RED ROOM MAY MAKE TO THE SERVICES, OR FOR ANY PERMANENT OR TEMPORARY CESSATION IN THE PROVISION OF THE SERVICES (OR ANY FEATURES WITHIN THE SERVICES);
(III) THE DELETION OF, CORRUPTION OF, OR FAILURE TO STORE, ANY CONTENT AND OTHER COMMUNICATIONS DATA MAINTAINED OR TRANSMITTED BY OR THROUGH YOUR USE OF THE SERVICES;
(III) YOUR FAILURE TO PROVIDE RED ROOM WITH ACCURATE ACCOUNT INFORMATION;
(IV) YOUR FAILURE TO KEEP YOUR PASSWORD OR ACCOUNT DETAILS SECURE AND CONFIDENTIAL;
13.2 THE LIMITATIONS ON RED ROOM’S LIABILITY TO YOU IN PARAGRAPH 13.1 ABOVE SHALL APPLY WHETHER OR NOT RED ROOM HAS BEEN ADVISED OF OR SHOULD HAVE BEEN AWARE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF ANY SUCH LOSSES ARISING.
14. Advertisements
14.1 Some of the Services may be supported by advertising revenue and may display advertisements and promotions. These advertisements may be targeted to the content of information stored on the Services, queries made through the Services or other information.
14.2 The manner, mode, and extent of advertising by Red Room on the Services are subject to change without specific notice to you.
14.3 In consideration for Red Room granting you access to and use of the Services, you agree that Red Room may place such advertising on the Services.
14.4 Red Room intends to indicate what is an advertisement and what is independent, editorially selected content; however, it is at the sole discretion of Red Room how to indicate the distinction, and Red Room is not responsible if you or others cannot or do not discern what is sponsored content and what is not.
15. Premium Memberships
15.1 As part of the Services, Red Room offers users the ability to purchase Premium Memberships. Users who purchase Premium Memberships will be allowed to promote their Published Works by using the Services.
15.2 Premium Memberships can be purchased for an annual fee. Purchasing a Premium Membership from Red Room does not entitle you to additional warranties or rights regarding the Services, except those stated in Section 15. If for any reason, Red Room is not able to continue to provide the Services, you will not be entitled to a refund. If you opt to pay for your Premium Membership at the reduced annual rate and decide to stop using the Service part of the way through that year, you will not be entitled to a refund. A "Trial" Premium Membership may be purchased on a monthly basis but does not have the full benefits or options that Premium Memberships do. There may be benefits of Premium Membership that must be additionally, separately agreed to in order to receive, and which may contradict these, in which case, those terms would supersede these terms. We may add additional levels of service, such as levels above Premium, without notice, which may cost additional fees and have additional terms. Any exceptions to these fee terms, such as reduced-fee "scholarships" for authors in financial need, are at the sole discretion of Red Room.
15.3 Red Room may decide to add features to or remove features from the Premium Membership with or without notice to you. Therefore, please check these Terms of Service from time to time.
16. Donations
16.1 Although your donation or membership fee may be tax deductible for some other reason, because Red Room is not a not-for-profit organization, donations or fees paid to Red Room are not charitable donations as that term is defined by the Internal Revenue Service. Red Room does not make any representations whatsoever regarding the tax deductible nature of any payments or donations made using the Service.
16.2 Donating or paying fees to Red Room does not relieve your obligations under the terms. No refunds will be offered for donations under any circumstances.
16.3 If we have asked you to select a not-for-profit organization for Red Room to donate funds to, we will send the funds directly to the charity, and it will not be tax-deductible by you since the donation came from Red Room.
17. Taxes
17.1 Red Room sells books as well as with the memberships mentioned above. Red Room is not liable for any state or federal taxes that you may be required to pay because of a purchase you made on Red Room. Red Room only collects taxes as required by the state of California and by the city of San Francisco.
18. Affiliates
18.1 Red Room may set up affiliate programs with booksellers or other companies and partners without notice to you, and may accept a commission from said affiliate programs.
19. Changes to the Terms
19.1 Red Room may make changes to the Terms of Service from time to time, with our without notice to you.
19.2 You understand and agree that if you use the Services after the date on which the Terms of Service have changed, Red Room will treat your use, as defined in Section 2.2 of the Terms, as acceptance of the updated Terms.
20. General legal terms
20.1 Sometimes when you use the Services, you may (as a result of, or through your use of the Services) use a service or download a piece of software, or purchase goods, which are provided by another person or company. Your use of these other services, software or goods may be subject to separate terms between you and the company or person concerned. If so, the Terms do not affect your legal relationship with these other companies or individuals.
20.2 The Terms constitute the whole legal agreement between you and Red Room and govern your use of the Services (but excluding any services which Red Room may provide to you under a separate written agreement), and completely replace any prior agreements between you and Red Room in relation to the Services.
20.3 You agree that Red Room may provide you with notices, including those regarding changes to the Terms, by email, regular mail, or postings on the Services.
20.4 You agree that if Red Room does not exercise or enforce any legal right or remedy which is contained in the Terms (or which Red Room has the benefit of under any applicable law), this will not be taken to be a formal waiver of Red Room’s rights and that those rights or remedies will still be available to Red Room.
20.5 If any court of law, having the jurisdiction to decide on this matter, rules that any provision of these Terms is invalid, then that provision will be removed from the Terms without affecting the rest of the Terms. The remaining provisions of the Terms will continue to be valid and enforceable.
20.6 The Terms, and your relationship with Red Room under the Terms, shall be governed by the laws of the State of California without regard to its conflict of laws provisions. You and Red Room agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of San Francisco, California, to resolve any legal matter arising from the Terms. Notwithstanding this, you agree that Red Room shall still be allowed to apply for injunctive remedies (or an equivalent type of urgent legal relief) in any jurisdiction.
Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy
These terms were updated on August 1, 2011
We respect the intellectual property of others, and we ask you to do the same. In fact, we think we take Intellectual Property more seriously than many other social media websites. Thousands of our members are authors, our founder is an author, and I know that copyright and other rights associated with your writing and creative works are very important to you. Please let us know if you have any questions about our policies, or if you have information about a violation. In late 2011, look for some special resources we’ll have developed to help you understand more about your intellectual property rights in general. Thanks.
-Abraham Mertens, Vice President and General Counsel
Intellectual Property Policy
It’s our policy at Red Room to disable or terminate the accounts of users who infringe on the intellectual property rights of Red Room, our users, or others.
Determination of whether or not there is or has been an infringement and what action to take or not take is solely at the discretion of Red Room.
Red Room cannot be held responsible for content displayed, created, or transmitted by users on Red Room, or on other websites or in other materials accessed through Red Room’s products or services. Nor can we be held responsible for any adverse consequences of actions taken by Red Room in response to a Notice or Counter-Notice of Violation of this policy.
Material available on Red Room, whether excerpted or complete, and in any creative form, whether content created by Red Room or Red Room users or some combination thereof, is likely to be protected by copyright and intellectual property laws of the United States and/or other countries.
Notice for Claims of Intellectual Property Violations and Agent for Notice
If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or that your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, please provide Red Room Omnimedia Corporation’s Copyright Agent with the following information, using the following format, with section numbers:
(1) An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;
(2) A description of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;
(3) A description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Red Room Omnimedia Corporation site, with enough detail that we may find it on the website, including at a minimum, the URL;
(4) Your address, telephone number, and email address;
(5) A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright or intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law;
(6) A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner’s behalf.
Red Room’s Agent for Notice of claims of copyright or other intellectual property infringement can be reached as follows: counsel (at symbol) red room dot com. If you do not receive a response within five business days, your email may have been mistakenly filtered as spam, so please contact us again at editors (at symbol) red room dot com. We respond to ALL notices of claims except those that have not fully complied with our guidelines to submit all six (6) elements mentioned above. We will not respond to claimants who have not complied (for example, if you don’t include your telephone number, or don’t include an adequate description of what material, exactly, is an infringement, and of what). Because of security concerns, email attachments cannot be accepted. Accordingly, any notification of infringement submitted electronically with an attachment will not be received or processed. Notices received in other ways (such as voicemail messages) will not be received or processed.
Although it is recommended that companies such as ours only accept Notices of claims via postal mail or fax, we believe this is a bit cumbersome, so we have elected to allow email submission; however, if at any time we change our policy to require postal mail, fax, or other method of transmission, which we may do at our discretion, your only notice of the change in policy will be the updated terms as they appear on this page, and any subsequent email Notice will not be received or processed. Further, if the email address at which Notices are received and processed changes, your only notice of the change will be the updated terms as they appear on this page.
Digital Millennium Copyright Act
It is our policy to respond to clear notices of alleged copyright infringement. This page (above) describes the information that should be present in these notices. It is designed to make submitting notices of alleged infringement to Red Room as straightforward as possible while reducing the number of notices that we receive that are fraudulent or difficult to understand or verify. The form of notice specified herein is consistent with the form suggested by the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website) but we will respond to notices of this form from other jurisdictions as well. We may also document notices of alleged infringement on which we act. Please note that in addition to being forwarded to the person who provided the allegedly infringing content, a copy of this legal notice may be sent to a third-party partner for publication and annotation. As such, your letter (with your personal information removed) may be forwarded to Chilling Effects (http://www.chillingeffects.org) for publication. You can see an example of such a publication at www.chillingeffects.org/dmca512/notice.cgi?NoticeID=861.
Frivolous Notices
To file a notice of infringement with us, you must provide a written communication that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is infringing your copyrights. Indeed, in a recent case (please see www.onlinepolicy.org/action/legpolicy/opg_v_diebold/ for more information), a company that sent an infringement notification seeking removal of online materials that were protected by the fair use doctrine was ordered to pay such costs and attorneys fees. The company agreed to pay over $100,000. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether material available online infringes your copyright, we suggest that you first contact an attorney.
Counter Notification
The administrator of an affected site or the provider of affected content may make a counter notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. When we receive a counter notification, we may reinstate the material in question. To file a counter notification with us, you must provide a written communication that sets forth the items specified below. Please note that you will be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) if you materially misrepresent that a product or activity is not infringing the copyrights of others. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether certain material infringes the copyrights of others, we suggest that you first contact an attorney. A sample counter notification may be found at www.chillingeffects.org/dmca/counter512.pdf.
To expedite our ability to process your counter notification, please use the following format (including section numbers):
(1) Identify the specific URLs or other unique identifying information of material that Red Room Omnimedia Corporation has removed or to which Red Room has disabled access.
(2) Provide your name, address, telephone number, email address, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or San Francisco, California, if your address is outside of the United States), and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification under subsection (c)(1)(C) or an agent of such person.
(3) Include the following statement: “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that each search result, message, or other item of content identified above was removed or disabled as a result of a mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled, or that the material identified by the complainant has been removed or disabled at the URL identified and will no longer be shown.”
(4) Sign the document.
(5) Scan the document into pdf format.
(6) Send an email text version of the information contained in the document (not an attachment and not including your signature) to counsel (at symbol) red room dot com. Follow the instructions noted above for Notices, as appropriate, to ensure your communication is received and processed.
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Permissions
If you are seeking permission to use Red Room trademarks, logos, service marks, trade dress, slogans, screen shots, copyrighted designs, or other brand features, please contact the permission requests department, not the copyright agent. Oh wait, it’s the same department. It’s even the same person. Please contact: counsel (at symbol) red room dot com. If you do not receive a response within five business days, your email may have been mistakenly filtered as spam, so please contact us again at editors (at symbol) red room dot com.
Privacy Policy
These terms were updated on August 1, 2011
Everyone on the team at Red Room is concerned about online privacy. We're all consumers, like you. In the course of our daily lives, we all use a variety of websites and provide information to companies that collect our personal and financial data. Some companies use our info legitimately, within a limited scope for the purpose of doing business with us, but some go beyond the scope of what seems reasonable to us.
We don't like our personal data being collected and used in ways we didn't consent to and don't understand how to stop. We don't like getting spam, we don't like being on email lists that are difficult to unsubscribe from, and we don't like companies selling our information to other companies we aren't interested in.
We want all websites we visit and all companies we do business with to be completely transparent about what information is kept private, what information they want to use, and how they want to use it. Most importantly, we want the default settings to err on the side of privacy, and we want it to be extremely easy to understand and manage our privacy settings. And another thing: We'd like to be notified when anything regarding a company's privacy policy or how to manage settings is going to change.
It is also true that it isn't practical to constantly notify you and ask permission for every minor business or data decision we might make that could affect what data is collected or how it is used. And, there is some lawyer language that is neccessary and hard to simplify beyond what we have done already.
So, since we regard our own and your online privacy as an important and serious matter, you have our committment that we will not engage in any practices regarding your privacy that we would not want to be subject to ourselves, and that we will not engage in any practices we consider invasive, sneaky, or spammy. We would also like to hear from you if you have any suggestions or want to point us to the policies other companies leading the way by using best practices from a consumer advocate and privacy advocate standpoint. We want to be part of the solution by respecting your privacy.
–Abraham Mertens, Vice President and General Counsel
Changes to Our Policy: As we continue to expand and improve what we do, we may add new features to Red Room, change the type of information we gather, or how we gather it. That doesn't necessarily affect your privacy, but if it does, we need to have the flexibility to make changes to our privacy policy at our discretion; if we do change our privacy policy, we will notify you. Since not everyone wants to get notifications about privacy issues or these notifications might be combined with other communications (such as announcements in our newsletter), you might opt out of or ignore certain types of communications from us. If you do, please check back here for changes from time to time. We'll post changes to our policy at the bottom of the page so they're easy to find. While your continued use of our site indicates your consent to our privacy policy and any amended versions of it, we want you to be well-informed and in control of your privacy, so please contact us if you have any questions.
Third-Party Special Offers: California and Canadian residents have the right to know how their information may be shared with third parties who engage in direct marketing activities (meaning a company that contacts you directly, not through Red Room), and to opt out of having their information shared for such purposes. We will not share your personal information with third parties for the purpose of direct marketing activities, without your permission. This means we won't sell our email list, for example. From time to time we may ask your permission to let us give your information to companies whose products or services we seriously believe would be of interest to you. For example, you might want to receive special offers from a particular author or publisher, so we'll give you a chance to let us know if you do.
Information We Collect: The IP address of the computer making the request, the URL that is being requested, the date and time of the request, the referring URL, and the browser type and operating system used to make the request. It's good for us to know which pages on Red Room are popular and how people found it, and we're happy to provide data to you about how many people read your Red Room blog.
IP Addresses: An IP address is a number assigned to the computer requesting a page from our site. Usually, it is not your personal computer, but a computer used by your internet service provider or company network. Red Room uses IP addresses to help diagnose problems with our server, to administer our website, and to report aggregate information. An example of aggregate information is how many users we have in a given month from a certain ZIP/postal code.
Cookies: A cookie is a small file that is sent to your browser and stored on your computer. Our cookies save you time. We use cookies to remember certain actions you have taken, such as logging in to Red Room. If we run ads, it can make sure you don't see the same ad repeatedly. We don't like cookies that track behavior beyond the scope you expect and have given permission to track. Most web browsers will allow you to adjust your cookie settings and to even completely prevent cookies. However, some of our online services will not work if you disable cookies; let us know if you need help.
Public Profiles: The application form to register as a member of Red Room requires that you provide your real first and last name, an email address, password, and a brief bio of fifty words or more (the bio can be updated later). All registrations are subject to approval. After successful registration, you must add your photo. A Red Room editor will approve the photo and grant you membership privileges. At that point, your name, photo, and bio will appear publicly on Red Room, and as a result, you will be able to access and use features for members only. We may also offer additional types of profiles on Red Room that do not require that your profile and activity be public, or types of activities that can be kept private from visitors to your profile. We may offer "semi-private" activities such as sending a message to an author through that author's contact form, that are moderated by Red Room, although not posted publicly on your profile. Any type of profile or activity that does not explicitly state that it is private or clarify that it is semi-private should be assumed to be public.
Children: Red Room does not knowingly collect information from children under the age of 13. If you are under the age of 13 and wish to use this site, please contact us and inform us prior to attempting to register so that we can comply with the Children's Online Privacy Protection Act (COPPA).
Newsletters and Communications: After registering, you may receive communications from us regarding Red Room products, services, and programs, including newsletters and correspondence from us. You can instantly opt-out from some or all mailings by managing your subscriptions through the link at the bottom of our newsletters; the exception is that we need to be able to contact you regarding you individually, your account, or changes on Red Room, even if you have opted out of receiving newsletters and promotional email. If you have special preferences or instructions regarding how you would like us to contact or not contact you, please let us know and we will accomodate you, if possible.
Email This Story to a Friend: Red Room offers you the ability to easily email information from our site to your friends. We do not keep or use your friends' email addresses that you enter when forwarding a story to a friend.
Other Websites: Red Room has relationships with other companies and links to other websites. We will keep any individually identifiable information private unless otherwise noted when the information is requested; however, please be aware that Red Room is not responsible for the privacy practices or the content of other websites, even if our name or logo may appear on those sites (for example, we're listed as a sponsor on the Litquake literary festival website, but we can't be responsible for their privacy practices; we have a Red Room group on facebook but can't be responsible for their policies). If you choose to visit or use the services provided by other sites we use, link to, work with, or are even featured on, you may be asked by those sites to provide certain personally identifiable information. Some of this information may, on an individual or aggregated basis, be shared with us. For example, if a writers conference advertises in our newsletter, they might tell us how many people clicked through a link we provided and signed up for their conference.
Third-party websites may appear in a new window, or they may appear in a frame. If frames are used, you may still see our site’s URL in the address window, but you are actually on another website. In most cases, any third party page, even in a frame, is branded with the third party’s name. We encourage you to be aware when you leave our site and read the Privacy Statements of each and every website that you visit, as the privacy policy of those sites may differ from ours. Our privacy policy applies solely to Red Room.
Public Forum: Red Room offers forums, such as blogs and clubs, that are available for viewing by the general public. Please remember that any information disclosed in these areas becomes public information and you should exercise caution when deciding to disclose your personal information. We have noticed several authors and members providing email addresses, phone numbers, and physical addresses displayed on their public profiles and in public forums (such as their blog). If your email address is displayed publicly, it can be read and harvested by spammers; it is much safer to encourage visitors and other members to contact you through Red Room's secure contact form.
Security: Although no system can be guaranteed to be completely secure, Red Room endeavors to make our website safe, and will continue to investigate and implement additonal security features and practices as we are able. Security measures are in place and designed to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information and features under our control. We seek out and work with respected financial transaction companies as vendors to handle our credit card transactions.
Illegal Activity: Red Room may be asked by law enforcement or judicial authorities to provide personally identifiable information to the appropriate governmental authorities. We will disclose personally identifiable information upon receipt of a court order, subpoena, or at our discretion in order to cooperate with a law enforcement investigation, without prior notice to you. Red Room reserves the right to share personally identifiable information to cooperate with law enforcement agencies in identifying those who use our services for illegal activities. We reserve the right to report to law enforcement agencies any activities that we believe to be unlawful. One caveat is that there have been times in recent history when law enforcement agencies have, in our opinion, issued unconstitutional demands for personal information that violate the user's privacy; in these cases, we might pursue legal protection to avoid compliance with such requests.
Sharing Information: In addition to the other situations described in this policy, Red Room may also share or disclose personally identifiable information about you to other companies or individuals when:
• We utilize third party service providers to provide products, services or functions on our behalf (such as sending emails, processing credit cards, fulfilling subscriptions or performing statistical analysis about site usage), and while we ask that these service providers agree to maintain the confidentiality of your personally identifiable information and not to use your personally identifiable information for any reason except to carry out the purpose(s) for which we have associated with them, we cannot guarantee it. Examples of third parties we provide information to might range from an author whose book you have won in a contest, to our company's use of Google Analytics.
• The entity to whom the information is disclosed is one under control of, or under common control with Red Room (if we own twenty percent or more of the other entity);
• We need to protect our legal rights (for example, if we are trying to collect money you owe us);
• We must comply with applicable laws, regulations, or legal or regulatory process; or
• In connection with a sale, merger, transfer, exchange of assets or stock of all or a portion of the business conducted by us. Red Room is independently owned and operated, and if there is ever any proposed change in control or ownership, we will notify you before such change takes place, and advise you about how we believe it will affect your privacy rights, so you can make your own decision about how to proceed.
Non-U.S. Users: If you are located outside of the United States, please note that the information you provide to us will be transferred to the United States. By using Red Room, you consent to this transfer. You also consent to the adjudication of any disputes arising in connection with this website in the federal and state courts of, and in accordance with the laws of, California, United States in which the editorial staff of this website primarily does business.
Contact: We refer to our company as "Red Room," but our full legal name is the impressive-sounding Red Room Omnimedia Corporation, and for the sake of clarity we sometimes call ourselves "redroom.com." If you have any questions about this privacy statement or how to use your privacy settings, please contact us. We want to hear about what you want and don't want in a privacy policy.