Litopia

Please read these Terms and Conditions of use carefully as they govern Your relationship with Litopia® Writers’ Colony and contain restrictions on liability that affect Your rights.

Litopia® Writers' Colony is owned and administered by The Redhammer® Management Limited and references in these Terms and Conditions to “Litopia® Writers’ Colony” or “We” or “Us” or “the Colony” shall be deemed for all purposes to include reference to The Redhammer Management Limited and any subsidiary or holding company of The Redhammer Management Limited that is from time to time involved in the ownership and/or administration of Litopia® Writers’ Colony. Reference to “You” or “Your” in these Terms and Conditions means the user or member of the Colony.

1. Like every effective community, We have rules. So please take a few moments to familiarize yourself with the following Terms and Conditions of Use (“Terms”). You cannot become a member of the Colony without agreeing to these Terms. Agreement to the Terms includes agreement to our Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.

2. While You are a member of the Colony We expect You to uphold these rules, and not to act either here or anywhere else on the internet or elsewhere in a manner which would tend to bring the Colony into disrepute. We are proud of our members and their achievements - please allow us to be proud of You, too.

3. Access to and use of the Colony is subject to these Terms including the following:

a. By using the Colony You agree to be legally bound by these Terms, which shall take effect immediately on Your first use of the Colony. If You do not agree to be legally bound by these Terms You may not access and/or use the Colony. In addition, specific terms and conditions may apply to the use and enjoyment of and access to certain areas of this website and the Colony. Your use thereof and access thereto may be restricted or prohibited unless You have also agreed to such specific additional terms and conditions.

b. The Colony may change these Terms at any time by posting changes online and/or changing this page. Please review these Terms regularly to ensure You are aware of any changes made by the Colony as they are binding upon You as soon as the changes are posted online. Your continued use of the Colony after changes are posted means You agree to be legally bound by these Terms as updated and/or amended. Some of the provisions contained in these Terms of use may also be superseded by provisions or notices published elsewhere on our site.

4. Use of the Colony

a. You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use the Colony content in any way except for Your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any the Colony content. Any other use of the Colony content requires the prior written permission of the Colony.

b. You agree to use the Colony only for lawful purposes and in a way that does not infringe the rights of, restrict or inhibit anyone else's use and enjoyment of the Colony. Prohibited behavior includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any person, transmitting obscene or offensive content or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue within the Colony.

5. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

a The Colony content, including the information, names, images, pictures, logos and icons regarding or relating to the Colony, its products and services (or to third party products and services), is provided "AS IS" and on an "AS AVAILABLE" basis without any representations or any kind of warranty made (whether express or implied by law) to the extent permitted by law, including the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.

b The Colony does not warrant that functions contained in the Colony content will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that the Colony or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs.

6. Intellectual Property

The names, images and logos identifying the Colony or third parties and their products and services are subject to copyright, design rights and trade marks of Redhammer Management Ltd, and/or third parties. Nothing contained in these Terms shall be construed as conferring by implication, estoppel or otherwise any licence or right to use any trademark, patent, design right or copyright of the Colony, or any other third party.

7. Contributions to the Colony

All contributions to the Colony remain Your copyright.

However, in order for the Colony to function, You agree to give us an irrevocable non-exclusive license to use Your words. Without this, We would not be able to publish Your posts here.

8. Further to paragraph 7, by submitting Your contribution to the Colony, You warrant that Your contribution:

a. is Your own original work and that You have the right to make it available to the Colony for all the purposes specified above;

b. is not defamatory; and

c. does not infringe any law; and

d. You agree to indemnify the Colony against all legal fees, damages and other expenses that may be incurred by the Colony as a result of Your breach of the above warranty on a full indemnity basis; and

e. You waive any moral rights in Your contribution for the purposes of its submission to and publication on the Colony and the purposes specified above.

9. the Colony (including Forum) Rules:

a. You agree to use the Colony (including its message boards and forums) in accordance with the following Rules. These apply across all the Colony sites and services. You should, however, read the local rules of the particular site or service you’re using, as there may be some local variations to these Rules.

b. About Your posts: the following sets out the minimum standards of acceptable behavior and some specific remedies available to Litopia Writers Colony if You fail to comply:

c. Contributions must be civil and tasteful

i No disruptive, offensive or abusive behavior: contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble.

ii No unlawful or objectionable content: unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.

iii You may only create one identity here, i.e. multiple identities with different user names are prohibited. Your use of other related or similar ruses tricks or techniques whose effect is to disrupt the community or to annoy other users will result in action being taken against You and recovery of any associated costs and damages.

iv Be patient: users of varying ages and abilities may be taking part in the Colony.

v No spamming or off-topic material: We don’t allow the submission of the same or very similar contributions many times. Please don't re-submit Your contribution to more than one discussion, or contribute off-topic material in subject-specific areas.

vi No advertising of external products or services. This does not include promoting your own book(s); we are pleased to hear about our members' successes.

vii Contributions containing languages other than English may be removed unless allowed in the relevant local section or forum rules.

viii No impersonation

ix No inappropriate (e.g. vulgar, offensive etc) user names

10. You must not misuse the Colony by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs or other material which is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorised access to Our site, the server on which Our site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to Our site. You must not attack Our site via a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack.

11. By breaching the above provision, You would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990 and possibly other legislation. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities and We will co-operate with those authorities by disclosing Your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, Your right to use our site will cease immediately.

12. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect Your computer equipment, computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to Your use of our site or to Your downloading of any material posted on it, or on any website linked to it.

13. Whenever You make use of a feature that allows You to upload material to Our site, or to make contact with other users of Our site, You must comply with the content standards set out above and You warrant that any such contribution does comply with those standards, and You indemnify Us for any breach of that warranty.

14. Any material You upload to Our site will, subject to these Terms and Conditions be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary and We have the right to disclose Your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by You to Our site constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights, or of their right to privacy.

15. Safety

We advise that You do not reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example: telephone number, home address or email address), and please do not include postal addresses of any kind.

16. The Role of Guardians

The forums and other interactive content are moderated by Guardians, who are appointed by the Colony to ensure Your experience in using the Colony is a positive and rewarding one. You are expected to follow their instructions concerning conduct on the forums or other moderated content and they have the power to remove posts or ban members from the forums or other moderated content or take the actions envisaged by clause 20(c) or any of them. However, please be aware that Guardians do not have any authority to enter in to any agreements for or to bind contractually the Colony and comments made by Guardians do not necessarily reflect the views of the Colony or its members or staff.

17. Restrictions

a. You may not submit any defamatory or illegal material of any nature in the Colony forums. This includes text, graphics, video, programs or audio.

b. Contributing material with the intention of committing or promoting an illegal act is strictly prohibited.

c. You agree to only submit materials which are Your own original work.

d. You must not violate, plagiarize, or infringe the rights of third parties including copyright, trade mark, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, personal or proprietary rights. You agree that You will not submit other members’ work to large language model-based chatbots (such as Chat GPT). Large language model-based chatbots are known to retain data submitted to them. Submitting material from the Colony (such as but not restricted to other members’ work or work-in-progress and guides, learning material and material originated by Us) to large language model-based chatbots is a violation of these Terms and Conditions which may render You liable to claims of damages from the affected parties.

e. The views expressed in the Colony are those of members of the public and are not necessarily those of the Colony.

18. If you're under 18 years of age:

You may not use the Colony.

19. Revealing Personal Information

Never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example, telephone number or home address).

20. Breaches of these Terms

a. If You fail to abide by these Terms (and/or any variations in the relevant local forum rules) when taking part in a Colony forum, Your contribution may be removed or edited without prior notice. Your membership may be immediately terminated, You may be banned from the Colony, or You may receive a warning that continuing to break the rules will result in further action being taken against You.

b. If You post or send content which in Our sole judgement is offensive, defamatory or inappropriate (including any content that breaches these Terms including any alleged infringement of a third party’s intellectual property rights) anywhere on or to the Colony or otherwise engage in any conduct that We in Our sole judgement regard as disruptive behavior, We may ban You from accessing the Colony and its associated websites and seek redress against You.

c. We and our moderators appointed to represent Us have to ensure that the Colony operates at all times in accordance with these Terms and the Privacy Policy, as may be amended from time to time. While We and our moderators endeavour to act fairly, by joining the Colony and/or submitting any material to it or participating in its forums, You expressly acknowledge that We may take any step We or any moderators think fit for any alleged breach of these Terms or for the proper management of the Colony without any alleged breach being proven, including, without limitation, the following

i. Suspension or cancellation of Your membership

ii. The immediate removal without notice of all infringing content

iii. Informing relevant third parties such as Your employer, college or email provider about the infringement/s

iv. The deletion of any contribution

v. Passing Your personal data held by Us to third parties who have complained about any such content, as permitted by the Privacy Policy

vi. Further take action against any account, at any time, for any reason.

21. Exclusion of liability:

Under no circumstances will the Colony, or anyone acting on its behalf, be liable for any loss or damage of any kind, however arising and whether caused by tort (including negligence), breach of contract, defamation or otherwise, even if foreseeable. The exclusion specifically includes any alleged loss You may believe You have suffered as a result of the taking by the Colony or by its staff (including moderators) of any of the actions referred to in Clause 20 (c) above whether or not the conduct that led to that action being taken is subsequently found not in fact to have infringed these Terms, or the Privacy Policy.

This exclusion of liability therefore covers all liability for any of the following categories of loss or damage (whether such losses were foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise): (a) loss of data; (b) loss of revenue or anticipated profits; (c) loss of business; (d) loss of opportunity; (e) loss of goodwill or injury to reputation (including defamation); (f) losses suffered by third parties; (g) any indirect, consequential, special or exemplary damages arising from the use of the Colony regardless of the form of action.

This clause 21 does not affect the Colony’s liability for death or personal injury arising from Our negligence, nor the Colony’s liability for fraudulent misrepresentation or misrepresentation as to a fundamental matter, nor any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

22. Reliance on Information Posted

Commentary and other materials posted on the Colony are not intended to amount to advice on which reliance should be placed. We therefore disclaim all liability and responsibility arising from any reliance placed on such materials by any visitor to the Colony, or by anyone who may be informed of any of its contents.

23. The Colony Changes Regularly

We aim to update the Colony regularly, and may change the content at any time. If the need arises, We may suspend access to the Colony, or close it indefinitely. Any of the material on the Colony may be out of date at any given time, and We are under no obligation to update such material.

24. Subscriptions and Recurring Payments

Once You cancel Your membership, subscription or any other recurring payment to the Colony, the account changes will take effect immediately. There are no refunds for partial use of a subscription period. The Colony provides access to various valuable digital downloads and streaming media as an integral part of its subscription membership and You agree to waive your rights respecting any cooling-off period as specified in the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013.

25. General

If any of these Terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these Terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction in which that term is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from these Terms and the remaining Terms shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.

25. These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.

26. Any dispute or difference whatsoever arising our of or in connection with Your membership and/or use of Litopia Writers Colony and/or these Terms and any update or changes thereto shall be referred to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English Courts, and no other jurisdiction shall be applicable.

Litopia Writers’ Colony

25^th August 2024