Terms of Use

© Copyright 2011-2017, Charles Koch Foundation.

All Rights Reserved.

Effective May 16, 2014

Welcome to a website brought to you by the Charles Koch Foundation (“Foundation”). The following Terms (the “Terms”) govern the use of the website (the “Foundation Site”). By using the Foundation Site, you agree to Foundation’s Privacy Statement (to view our Privacy Statement click here) and the Terms. If you do not agree to any part of the Privacy Statement or to these Terms, please do not use the Foundation Site.

The Foundation Site is intended for use exclusively by persons 18 or older. By accessing or in any way using the Foundation Site, you affirm that you are 18 years of age or older and that you are fully able and competent to enter into these Terms. You represent that you are not a person barred from receiving services under the laws of the United States or other applicable jurisdiction. And you agree to abide by and comply with these Terms.

The Foundation Site Content

Unless otherwise attributed, all materials provided by Foundation contained in the Foundation Site (“Foundation Content”) are the copyrighted or trademarked property of Foundation. Foundation Content may be accessed, downloaded, printed, or transmitted only for personal, non-commercial use. You may not download, republish, retransmit, reproduce, or otherwise use any images on the Foundation Site as a stand-alone file. Foundation Content may not be used or redistributed for commercial purposes. You may not download, copy, reproduce, distribute, modify, display, republish, transmit, repost, upload, or otherwise use Foundation Content in any way or for any other purpose without the prior express written permission of Foundation. To request such permission you may contact us. Furthermore, under no circumstances may you add, delete, distort, or otherwise misrepresent any Foundation Content.

The trademarks used in the Foundation Site are owned by Foundation or their respective trademark owners. The names of actual companies and products mentioned may be the trademarks of their respective owners. Nothing on the Foundation Site should be construed to grant implicitly, by estoppel, or otherwise in right or license to use and of Foundation’s trade names, trademarks, or services marks with the express prior consent of Foundation. You may not use any of the previously mentioned or other trademarks displayed anywhere on the Foundation Site or in any Foundation Content. All rights are reserved.

Any and all attempts to distort, misrepresent, or modify any Foundation Content or to defeat or circumvent the Foundation Site’s technical security measures are prohibited without Foundation’s prior express written permission.

Rules of Conduct

While using the Foundation Site you agree to comply with all applicable laws. You also agree to respect other users of the Foundation Site.

Furthermore, you will not to use the Foundation Site to:

  • Upload, post, email, transmit, or otherwise make available or send through, including linking to, the Foundation Site anything that:
    • Is unlawful, threatening, harassing, abusive, obscene, vulgar, harmful, tortious, defamatory, libelous, false, invasive of another’s privacy, hateful racially, ethnically, or otherwise, or in any other way objectionable;
    • You do not have the legal or contractual right to make available pursuant to any law, or under any contractual or fiduciary relationship (such as inside information, proprietary information, and confidential information, learned or disclosed as part of employment relationships or under nondisclosure agreements); or
    • Infringes on any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary or property rights of any party.
  • Upload, post, email, transmit, or otherwise make available any material or communications that may be deemed, within the meaning of applicable law, to be electioneering communications, intervention in a political or electoral campaign, or lobbying;
  • Harm minors in any way;
  • Impersonate any person or entity, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity;
  • Post any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising, promotional materials, “junk mail,” “spam,” “chain letters,” “pyramid schemes,” or any other form of solicitation unauthorized by the law or Foundation;
  • Post any material that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy, or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
  • Interfere with or disrupt the Foundation Site or servers or networks connected to the site, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies, or regulations of networks connected to the Foundation Site;
  • Launch any automated system, including without limitation, “robots,” “spiders,” or “offline readers” that accesses the website in a manner that sends more request messages to the Foundation Site’s servers in a given period of time than a human can reasonably produce in the same period by using a conventional online web browser;
    • Notwithstanding the foregoing, Foundation grants the operators of public search engines permission to use spiders to copy materials from the site for the sole purpose of and solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials. Foundation reserves the right to revoke these exceptions either generally or in specific cases.
  • Violate any applicable local, state, national, or international law, intentionally or unintentionally; or
  • Collect or store personal data about users.

Foundation reserves the right to remove any and all content, including but not limited to: Foundation Content, user-submitted content, and/or any other content related to the Foundation Site at any time without prior notice. Further, Foundation reserves the right to deny access to any user at any time without any prior notice for violation of these Terms. Content you submit, including but not limited to remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, or comments, that violates these Terms, in the sole discretion of the Foundation, may be removed.

Disclaimer of Warranties

You agree that your use of the Foundation Site shall be at your sole risk. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Foundation, its affiliates, members, officers, directors, employees, and agents, disclaim all warranties, express or implied, in connection with the website and your use thereof. Foundation makes no warranties or representations about the accuracy or completeness of content of the Foundation Site or the content of any sites linked to by the Foundation Site and assumes no liability or responsibility for any:

  • Errors, mistakes, or inaccuracies of content;
  • Personal injury or property damage, of any nature whatsoever, resulting from your access to and use of the Foundation Site;
  • Any unauthorized access to or use of Foundation’s secure servers and/or any and all personal information and/or financial information stored therein;
  • Any interruption or cessation of transmission to or from the Foundation Site;
  • Any bugs, viruses, trojan horses, or the like which may be transmitted to or through the Foundation Site by any third party; and/or
  • Any errors or omissions in any content or for any loss or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of any content posted, emailed, transmitted, or otherwise made available via the Foundation Site.

Foundation does not warrant, endorse, guarantee, or assume responsibility for any product or service advertised or offered by a third party through the website, through any hyperlinked website, or featured in any banner or other advertising, and Foundation will not be a party to or in any way be responsible for monitoring any transaction between you and third-party providers of products or services. As with the purchase of a product or service through any medium or in any environment, you should always use your best judgment and exercise caution where appropriate.

Limitation of Liability

Neither Foundation nor any of its affiliates, directors, members, officers, employees, or consultants are responsible or liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, punitive, or consequential damages whatsoever arising under any contract, negligence, strict liability, or other theory arising from or in any way relating to Foundation, the Foundation Site, materials contained therein, or any content or service linked therein and/or that result from: (1) the use of, or inability to use, the Foundation Site or Foundation Content; (2) the actions or conduct, whether online or offline, of any person or entity, even if Foundation has been advised of the possibility of such damages. Under no circumstance will Foundation its affiliates, directors, members, officers, employees, or consultants be responsible or liable for any failure in performance resulting directly or indirectly from an act of force majeure or causes beyond Foundation’s reasonable control.

The foregoing limitation of liability shall apply to the extent permitted by law in the applicable jurisdiction.

You specifically acknowledge that Foundation will not be liable for user submissions or the defamatory, offensive, or illegal conduct of any third party and that the risk of harm or damage from the foregoing rests entirely with you.

The Foundation Site is controlled and offered by Foundation from its facilities in the United States of America. Foundation makes no representations that the Foundation Site is appropriate or available for use in other locations. Those who access or use the Foundation Site from other jurisdictions do so at their own risk, according to their own volition, and are responsible for compliance with local law.

Certain state laws may not allow Foundation to limit or exclude liability for incidental or consequential damages. If you live in a state whose laws in some cases prohibit limitation or exclusion of incidental or consequential damages, some or all of the above limitation arguably may not apply to you. But, in any event, Foundation’s liability to you for any and all losses, damages, injuries, and claims of any kind will not be greater than the amount you paid to access the Foundation Site.

Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Foundation, its affiliates, related parties, officers, directors, members, employees, trustees, agents, independent contractors, advertisers, partners, and co-branders from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorney’s fees, that may be made by any third party, that is due to or arising out of your conduct or connection with the Foundation Site or service, your submission of content, your violation of any applicable law or these Terms, or any other violation of the rights of another person or party.

Submitting Content to the Site

Any content submitted to the Foundation Site, including but not limited to remarks, suggestions, ideas, graphics, or comments, becomes and remains property of Foundation, even if this agreement is later terminated. Any and all such submitted content is subject to these Terms.

If any portion of the content posted by any visitor is found by Foundation to be in violation of any the policies of the Foundation Site, including these Terms, at any time, Foundation reserves the right to modify or remove such content or delete such submissions at any time without prior notice.

Your Representations and Warranties: By submitting content to Foundation servers, you represent and warrant that all such submitted content complies with all applicable laws and website policies, including these Terms. Furthermore, by submitting content, you represent and warrant that you own the copyright and all applicable intellectual property rights in all submitted content and have all necessary permissions from any persons or places depicted therein to upload the content and to grant to Foundation an irrevocable license to use the submitted content according to Foundation’s sole discretion, including but not limited to use in connection with third-party websites such as Facebook.com,YouTube.com, or any other website Foundation deems appropriate. You warrant that Foundation does not need to treat any such submitted content as confidential or proprietary, and you agree that you cannot and will not sue Foundation for using or republishing in any manner any content or ideas you submit to Foundation.

Your Grant of Rights/License to Foundation: By submitting content to the Foundation Site you grant Foundation (and its successors, assigns, licensees, agents, and affiliates) 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 Foundation Site to modify, adapt, publish, translate, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, sublicense, create derivative works from, transfer, and sell such content in any format either now known or hereafter created, and to use any information identifying the author provided in connection with that content, wholly in accordance with Foundation’s sole discretion. You expressly grant Foundation the right to repost any such submitted content in any modified or unmodified form, without any further authorization from you, to other websites or media Foundation deems appropriate, including but not limited to, Facebook.com and YouTube.com.

DMCA Notice and Takedown

As required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act Section 512(c)(2), if you believe that any material on the Foundation Site infringes your copyright, you must send a notice of claimed infringement to Foundation’s Designated Agent at the following address:

General Counsel’s Office
c/o General Counsel
1320 N. Courthouse Road, Suite 500, Arlington, VA, 22201
Phone: (703) 875-1770
Fax: (703) 875-1766
Email: email@charleskochfoundation.org

Written Notice: To be effective, Section 512(c)(3)(A) of Title 17 of the United States Code requires that your notification of claimed infringement be a written communication provided to Foundation and that it include each of the following elements:

  • A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
  • Information to contact you, including your name, address, telephone number and, if available, your email address.
  • A description of each work claimed to have been infringed, including any relevant information about the infringing activity.
  • A description of the infringing activity or of the work that is claimed to be infringing and information about the location on the Foundation Site (or, if the infringing information is located on another website linked to through the Foundation Site, information about the location of the link or reference on the Foundation Site) where the alleged infringement is occurring that is reasonably sufficient to allow us to locate the infringing material.
  • A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
  • A statement, under the penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice of claimed infringement is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

Foundation does not permit copyright infringing activities and infringement of intellectual property rights on the Foundation Site and Foundation will remove the infringing content if properly notified of infringement. As stated above, Foundation reserves the right to remove any and all content and user submissions without prior notice.

Counter-Notice: If you believe that your submitted content that was removed (or to which access was disabled) is not infringing, or that you have authorization from the copyright owner, the copyright owner’s agent, or pursuant to the law, to post and use the content in your submission, you may send a counter-notice containing the following information to Foundation’s Designated Agent:

  • A physical or electronic signature.
  • Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled.
  • A statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled.
  • Your name, address, telephone number, email address, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court in Arlington, Virginia, and a statement that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement.

If a counter-notice is received by Foundation’s Designated Agent, Foundation may provide the person who submitted the original DMCA Notice against the organization or individual accused of infringing on the copyrighted works a copy of the counter-notice informing that person that he or she may replace the removed content or that Foundation will cease disabling it in ten (10) business days. Unless the copyright owner files an action seeking a court order against the content provider, the removed content may be replaced, or access to it restored, in ten (10) to fourteen (14) business days or more after receipt of the counter-notice, at Foundation’s sole discretion.

Links to Other Sites

The Foundation Site may contain hyperlinks to websites operated by other parties. You agree not to hold Foundation responsible for the content or operation of any and all such third party websites. A hyperlink from the Foundation Site to another website, or from another website to the Foundation Site, does not imply or mean that Foundation endorses the content on that website or the operator or operations of that site. You are solely responsible for determining the extent to which you may or should use any content located at any other websites to which you might link from the Foundation Site. Additionally, any link to a third-party site submitted or posted by you must not in any way represent that you have received the endorsement, sponsorship or support of Foundation or Foundation’s respective employees, agents, or directors.

Termination

Foundation or you may terminate this agreement at any time. You may terminate this agreement by destroying: (a) all materials obtained from all the Foundation Site and (b) all related documentation and all copies and installations. Foundation may terminate this agreement immediately without notice if, in its sole judgment, you breach any term or condition of these Terms. Upon termination, you must destroy all such materials.

Modification of the Terms

Although we may attempt to notify you when material changes are made to our Privacy Statement or these Terms, you should periodically review the most updated versions. Foundation may, in Foundation’s sole discretion, modify, or revise the Privacy Statement and these Terms at any time, and you agree to be bound by such modifications or revisions. Your continued use of the Foundation Site indicates your acceptance of the Privacy Statement, these Terms, and any changes to the Privacy Statement and Terms.

Miscellaneous

This is the entire agreement between the parties relating to the use of the Foundation Site.

These Terms for the Foundation Site are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, United States of America, excluding Virginia’s conflicts of law rules. Through use of the Foundation Site, you expressly agree that the exclusive jurisdiction for any claim or action arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the Foundation Site shall be filed only in the state or federal courts located in the Commonwealth of Virginia.

You may not transfer or assign any rights and licenses granted in these Terms, however, any such rights and licenses may be transferred or assigned by Foundation without restriction.

You and Foundation agree that any claim or cause of action arising out of or related to the website must commence within one (1) year after the cause of action accrues. Otherwise, such claim or cause of action is permanently barred.

If any part of these Terms is unlawful, void, or otherwise unenforceable, that part will be deemed severable and will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. Any possible evidence of use of the Foundation Site for illegal purposes will be provided to law enforcement authorities.

If you need to contact Foundation, please email us at email@charleskochfoundation.org or by mail at:

Charles Koch Foundation
c/o Website Queries
1320 N. Courthouse Road, Suite 500
Arlington, VA, 22201