AJR covers the news media, with a focus on innovation, entrepreneurship and digital storytelling.
RULES AND DEFINITIONS
1. This Terms of Service Agreement governs use of the American Journalism Review and all of its content and services (collectively known as “AJR,” “AJR.org,” and “the site.”) The American Journalism Review is an interactive digital news service operated by the Philip Merrill College of Journalism at the University of Maryland consisting of information, content, features and related services
By choosing to use AJR (including the AJR.org site and any and all of its features and content) you agree to abide by– and be bound by — all terms and conditions set forth in this agreement. Using or accessing the site shall constitute your agreement to the Terms of Service.
AJR reserves the right to change the terms of this agreement at any time. AJR may modify, add to or remove any features of the AJR website and services at any time. Any changes to its Terms of Service will take effect immediately after they are posted on the site at AJR.org. If you continue to use AJR’s services, you agree to any changes or modifications of its terms. You further agree that AJR will not be liable for any modification, suspension or discontinuance of its services in whole or in part.
AJR reserves the right to deny access to its services to anyone who violates the terms or conditions of this agreement or infringes upon the rights of any other AJR user(s).
AJR is free to users at the present time and does not currently require registration or membership to access its services, but AJR reserves the right to charge for any or all parts of its service at a later date, and to require registration in order to access any part of its service. If AJR does impose a charge for its services, it will post a notice on the home page announcing the change.
At any time, AJR may discontinue or suspend the AJR service in its entirety or in part, and may impose restrictions on its use, without providing advance notice or incurring any liability.
AJR CONTENT AND COPYRIGHT
2. The AJR site and all its content — including but not limited to text, photos, video, audio, databases, graphics, widgets and other interactive material – are protected by copyright pursuant to the copyright laws of the United States and other countries. You are required to abide by the copyright notices and restrictions of the AJR service. AJR owns copyright in the original articles and multimedia it creates, as well as the selection, arrangement and enhancement of that content.
You may not change, reproduce, publish, distribute, sell, transfer, modify or create works from or in any way exploit any content or other part of the AJR service. You may only copy individual articles on the AJR service for your personal, non-commercial use, and you may only make one copy of any particular article. Any copying for personal use shall only be done occasionally and must display the copyright notice of AJR. You may not construct any databases from AJR stories or store any copies of AJR material online or offline for any purpose other than personal use, unless you first obtain permission in writing from the Editor or Publisher of AJR.
For additional information on our Rights & Permissions policy, please write to the site’s editors at: AJR Editor, Knight Hall, Philip Merrill College of Journalism, University of Maryland, College Park, MD, 20742. You may also email the editors at editor@ajr.umd.edu.
RIGHTS TO USER-GENERATED CONTENT
3. If you submit any material or information to AJR or any of its services, you grant to AJR and anyone authorized by AJR a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to use, modify, copy, excerpt, transmit, sub-license, publicly display or perform that material, either in whole or in part, in any form of media (either known now or developed hereafter.)
If you submit any material or information to AJR or any of its services, you also agree to grant AJR the right to adapt your material to downloading, streaming or use on mobile and other digital technologies. You further agree to grant AJR the right to edit, delete, modify, publish, transmit or display any of the material you submit to AJR. Additionally, by submitting any material, you grant AJR the right to identify you as the creator or author of that material on its site, those of its affiliates and in promotional materials.
By submitting any content to AJR.org, you are agreeing that your submissions–including comments, posts, ratings, reviews, photos, text and other material–may be edited, changed, deleted, published, transmitted, and displayed by AJR, including for promotional purposes. Your submissions made to AJR also may be retransmitted via AJR’s RSS feeds and republished through our distribution partners.
REPRESENTATIONS AND WARRANTIES
4. In submitting material to AJR, you are representing that none of the materials you submit plagiarizes or violates the rights of others, including copyright, trademark, privacy or other legal rights.
The information on the AJR website is provided on an “as is” basis. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless AJR and its parent organizations (Philip Merrill College of Journalism and the University of Maryland) and all of their employees, officers, managers, agents, information providers and licensees, against any and all liability and costs, in conjunction with any claims stemming from any infringement or violation you make of this Terms of Service agreement or the obligations or representations previously mentioned. AJR and its agents reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense of any claim for which AJR is entitled to indemnification under this agreement.
AJR and its parent organizations and their employees, managers, agents and partners are not liable for damages of any kind, including incidental, indirect, special, punitive, consequential or exemplary; this includes lost revenues, profits or data that may be related to the AJR.org services, or for any other claim, injury or loss relating to errors or interruptions of AJR’s services. Any claim against AJR shall be limited to the amount you paid for use of AJR.
USER-GENERATED COMMENTS AND OTHER USER-GENERATED CONTENT
5. AJR invites users to post comments on our articles and Voices posts, contribute entries to our databases and rate various material on the AJR site. For all user-generated content, AJR requires that users adhere to standards of civility and respectful behavior. Users shall not post, enter, upload or in any way publish to AJR any material that is unlawful, defamatory, libelous, abusive, threatening, pornographic, obscene, vulgar, profane or indecent, nor shall they post anything that encourages unlawful conduct, violates any laws or could provide cause for civil liability.
Users agree not to post language that contains the aforementioned material or includes personal attacks or any material that could be construed as inciting hate, sexual harassment or discrimination on the basis of race, religion, gender, sexual preference, nationality, age or disability. Violating these conditions will be grounds for permanent suspension of the right to post any material to the AJR.org site or any of its related services.
AJR further reserves the right to delete any posted material that contains any of the aforementioned material, but AJR is not obligated to do so.
LINKS and EXTERNAL SERVICES
6. The AJR.org site and its related services offer links to other websites and other material on the Internet, including an array of third-party news sites, advertising services, apps and other kinds of material. AJR assumes no responsibility for any of these external resources; we do not vouch for the accuracy or completeness of any external resources or make representations about their reliability or similar characteristics.
PRIVACY
7. AJR is committed to protecting your privacy. Authorized employees within AJR and its parent organizations use information collected from individual users only on a need-to-know basis. We collect and use Internet protocol (IP) addresses of users’ computers to analyze trends, administer the AJR site, track users’ movements, and gather broad demographic information about site visitors. IP addresses are not linked to personally identifiable information. Additionally, for systems administration, detecting usage patterns and troubleshooting purposes, our web servers automatically log standard access information including browser type, access times, URLs requested, and referral URLs.
From time to time, the AJR site and its partners and affiliates may use cookies, which are alpha-numeric identifiers contained in small text files transferred by our computers to your computer. These cookies are designed to enable us to retrieve user details for each visit. Cookies may be used in some areas of the AJR site to enable special functionality and ease of use for site visitors. Some of our affiliate partners may also use cookies. Your own computer browser program will allow you to stop accepting cookies from this site or anyone else’s website. You are not required to accept cookies in order to browse the AJR site and related digital services.
Children under the age of 13 should not send information to us about themselves or anyone else. Should we learn that we have received information from a child under the age of 13 without verifying that the parents gave consent, we will delete the information promptly.
If you have posted any material on the AJR website using the “comment” system or other submission form, and AJR receives a court order demanding we reveal your identity, we will do so.
OTHER
7. This Terms of Service Agreement has been developed and shall be governed by and enforced in accordance with the laws of the state of Maryland and the United States. Any action to enforce this Terms of Service Agreement shall be brought in the federal or state courts located in Prince George’s County, Maryland. By using the AJR services, you agree to personal jurisdiction for such courts and agree to waive any objections to such courts.
