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AOSIS Legal Centre

Terms of Use

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1. Introduction

 

These are the general terms of the relationship between

  • you – the visitor to our websites; and
  • us – African Online Scientific Information Systems (Pty) Ltd (Registration number: 2002/002017/07), also known as AOSIS – the owner of our websites.

 

These terms cover any use of our websites, with their main page accessible at www.aosis.co.za, and they apply to the use of:

  • our websites themselves; and
  • their content, including the text, images and other substantive information on our websites.

 

You agree to be legally bound by the terms by visiting and using our websites. Please do not use our websites if you do not agree to the terms.

2. Definitions and interpretation

 

2.1. Definitions. In the agreement:

our websites means this website at www.aosis.co.za, and any other linked or affiliated websites that we own;

terms means the terms, consisting of:

  • these terms of use; and
  • any other relevant specific terms, policies, disclaimers, rules, and notices agreed to between the parties, (including any that may be applicable to a specific section or module of our websites);

we, us, or our means our organisation, the owner of our websites and includes our officers, agents, employees, owners, co-branders, and associates where the terms limit or exclude our liability;

you or your means any visitor to our websites, including any other person, website, business, or agent (including any virtual or robotic agent) associated with the visitor.

 

2.2. Interpretation. If the meaning of any of these general terms conflicts with any other relevant specific terms, the specific terms will apply. For the purposes of this clause, specific terms means our terms of service, privacy policy, security policy, unique terms that apply to a specific service or class of services that we provide, or any other terms that have been specifically agreed between you and us.

3. Use of our websites

 

3.1. Non-commercial licence. We grant you a limited licence to use our websites on these terms, for non-commercial purposes. We may cancel your licence at any time for any reason. Your licence is automatically cancelled if you do not get our written permission before using our websites in a way these terms do not allow.

 

3.2. Rights to access. You may view, copy, download to your device, print or distribute the content available through our websites, provided that:

  • you use the content for only informational and non-commercial purposes; and
  • any reproduction of the content includes the relevant copyright notice.

 

3.3. Breach. If you breach any of the terms or infringe any other person’s rights (including copyright), we may cancel your licence, block you from using our websites, claim specific performance or damages against you, and take any other steps the law allows, without affecting our rights.

4. Prohibited use

 

4.1. Prohibited conduct. You must not, directly or indirectly, or allow anybody else to:

  • do anything that violates any of these terms;
  • do anything which is illegal, fraudulent or violates or infringes any rights, title or interest (including, any intellectual property rights) in or to our websites or their content;
  • frame our websites or any of their pages in a way that we have not expressly authorized;
  • link to any page of our websites in any way that could suggest that we endorse or support you, or that you have any rights in our websites or intellectual property, unless we have given you written permission to do so;
  • remove, disable, bypass, or circumvent any protection mechanisms or access control mechanisms on our websites;
  • use any technology (including spiders, crawlers, bots, and similar virtual agents) to search or gain any information from our websites, unless we have given you permission to do so;
  • introduce any materials that are designed to impede the operations of our websites or their content;
  • damage, disable, overburden, impair, or gain unauthorized access to the content or our websites;
  • remove, modify, disable, block, obscure or otherwise impair any advertising displayed on, or used in connection with, our websites;
  • use our websites or their content to advertise or promote products or services that we have not expressly approved in writing in advance;
  • interfere with anyone else’s use and enjoyment of our websites;
  • attempt to discover or reverse engineer the source code and other materials forming part of the technology used to provide our websites or forming part of their content;
  • receive or charge money, favours or other consideration for allowing any other person to use or access our websites or their content.

 

4.2. Apply to cached elements. These terms and any restrictions on the use of our websites will also apply to any part of our websites and content that is cached when using our websites.

 

4.3. Monitoring and suspension. We may monitor whether you are complying with these terms. We may limit, suspend or terminate your access to and use of our websites if we, in our sole discretion, believe that you have violated these terms of use, or are otherwise likely to infringe the rights of another party.

5. Website content

 

5.1. Website content not our opinion. You acknowledge that any scholarly books and journals published on our websites are the work of their relevant authors, and that any opinions or findings expressed by such works do not necessarily reflect our views. You must not rely on such content for any purpose, because it may not be accurate, complete, adequate, or current.

 

5.2. No warranties. We, members of our group, and third party data providers give no warranties with respect to our websites or their content, including in relation to the accuracy, completeness, adequacy, timeliness, or comprehensiveness of the content.

 

5.3. No responsibility. We, members of our group, and any third party data providers accept no responsibility, and will not be required, to update our websites or their content or to notify you or other users of content that is inaccurate, incomplete, inadequate or out-of-date.

6. Capacity

You promise that you are entitled to visit our websites and agree to the terms because you:

  • are at least 18 (or regarded as legally adult), and have the legal right and capacity to do so; or
  • are not 18 yet, but have permission from your parent (or legal guardian) to do so.

7. Accurate information

You promise that you will only give accurate information to us and our websites.

8. Intellectual property

 

8.1. Ownership. Except as provided to the contrary in the agreement, all rights, title, interest, and ownership (including all rights under all copyright, trademark, patent, and other intellectual property laws) in, to, or of our websites and the content appearing on them are the property of and will vest in us or our third party licensors. All moral rights are reserved.

 

8.2. Certain content licenced. Certain materials and content published on our websites are provided by their relevant copyright owners for publishing under open access, Creative Commons licences. You may use and distribute these materials and content as allowed under the applicable licence. Unless otherwise indicated, books are licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0) licence, and journal articles are licenced under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) licence.

 

8.3. Trademarks. Our logo and sub-logos, marks, and trade names are our trademarks and no person may use them without our permission. Any other trademark or trade name that may appear on our marketing material is the property of its respective owner.

 

8.4. Restrictions. Except as expressly permitted under the agreement, our websites may not be:

  • modified or used to make derivative works;
  • rented, leased, loaned, sold or assigned;
  • reverse engineered or copied; or
  • reproduced or distributed.

 

8.5. Please notify us. If you believe that any content appearing on our site infringes any of your own intellectual property rights, please notify us.

9. Feedback

 

9.1. Basis. We value your feedback about our websites and their content. It helps us improve them. But, please ensure that your feedback does not contain any unsolicited ideas. The purpose of this restriction is to avoid potential misunderstandings or disputes if our websites and their content incorporate an idea similar to an unsolicited idea that you submitted to us in your feedback.

 

9.2. Definitions. In this clause:

  • feedback means any comments or suggestions you send us or post on a website that we control related to our goods or services; and
  • unsolicited ideas means any original intellectual property (that you or a third party own) related to our goods or services or new goods or services that we have not asked you for in writing.

 

9.3. No obligation to you. We are not obliged to compensate or credit you for your feedback in any way unless we have a written agreement with you to do so.

 

9.4. Your obligation to us. When you submit your feedback to us, you:

  • grant to us a perpetual, non-exclusive, royalty free licence to use, reproduce and, modify your feedback for any purpose related to our goods or services;
  • agree to deliver all documents and perform all actions necessary to ensure that our rights to use, reproduce, and modify your feedback are effective and enforceable; and
  • give up any claim that our use, reproduction, or modification of your feedback violates any of your rights, including your intellectual property rights or your moral rights (the rights not to have your work distorted and to be credited for your work).

 

9.5. Submission. You can submit any feedback to us by email or through any of our other feedback channels.

Ideas. Please send us your contact details if you have an unsolicited idea. Please do not send us anything related to the actual unsolicited idea. We may contact you directly for more information about your unsolicited idea, but are under no obligation to do so.

 

9.6. Ideas. Please send us your contact details if you have an unsolicited idea. Please do not send us anything related to the actual unsolicited idea. We may contact you directly for more information about your unsolicited idea, but are under no obligation to do so.

10. Limits to our liability

 

10.1. Own risk. We provide our websites “as is”. We do not give any express or implied warranty or make any other promise about our websites. For example, we do not warrant that they are good quality, fit for any particular purpose, accurate, complete, up-to-date, legally effective or secure. We also do not warrant that they are free of latent defects, errors, malicious software or infringing content, or that you will have quiet or uninterrupted use of them.

 

10.2. Indemnity. You indemnify (or promise to protect) us against any claim, demand, loss, damage, cost, or liability (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) related to your use of our websites or your violation of these terms or any rights of another party.

 

10.3. Faults. We will do our best to fix any fault in our websites as soon as reasonably practical after we find out about it. This is the limit of our responsibility and liability for any fault in our websites.

 

10.4. Direct damages limited. If the previous clause does not apply for any reason, our maximum liability to you for all claims for direct damages is R100. This limit applies whether a claim is based on contract, delict (tort) or any other legal cause of action.

 

10.5. Indirect damages. We will never be responsible for any indirect or consequential damages or losses, even if we should have foreseen them. These may include any loss of profit, loss of goodwill, loss of use or damages related to lost or damaged data.

 

10.6. Website content and other websites.

 

10.7.You acknowledge and agree that we do not endorse, are not responsible for, and are not liable for any damages that you may suffer as a result of:

  • any opinions, findings or other information found in scholarly books or journal articles published on our websites; or
  • anyone else’s website or resources, despite the fact that we may link to these from our websites.

11. General

 

11.1. Entire agreement. The terms are the entire agreement between the parties on the subject.

 

11.2. Changes to our websites. We may change or stop publishing our websites without notice and will not be responsible for any consequences.

 

11.3. Changes to terms. We may change the terms at any time by placing a notice on this website or updating this web page. If you do not agree with the change, you must stop using our websites or the changed terms will apply to you.

 

11.4. Facts about our websites. If an administrator of our websites signs a letter confirming any fact related to our websites, that letter is conclusive proof of its contents. These may include the version of the terms that apply to any dispute, or what content or functions our websites had at a particular time or date.

 

11.5. Waiver. We never waive (give up) our rights, even if we allow you any favour or extension of time, or we delay enforcing our rights against you.

 

11.6. Severability. Any term that is invalid, illegal, or cannot be enforced must be regarded as deleted. The remaining terms continue as intended.

 

11.7. Law and jurisdiction. South African law and conditions (such as time and date) govern the terms, and you agree that conflict of law provisions do not apply. Only the South African courts may decide any dispute about the terms.

 

11.8. Claims limited. To the extent allowed by applicable law, you agree that you may only bring a claim against us or our personnel within one year from the cause of action arising.

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