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TERMS OF USE
Welcome to the Parallel Worlds, The Author Hour, and Media Fan Clubs sites ("Site" or "Sites" or "Parallel Worlds"). This document applies to The Author Hour web sites which includes TheAuthorHour.com and other aliases, the Parallel Worlds web sites which includes paraworlds.com, paraworlds.net, and all other aliases, and Media Fan Clubs sites which include authorfanclubs.com and other aliases. These sites also include official alias domain names that mirror or take you to these sites, as well as any successor pages thereto, and other web sites owned and operated by Matthew Peterson. The phrases "we," "us," "our," and "Parallel Worlds" refers to Matthew D. Peterson, the author of the Parallel Worlds series. The term "Moderators" refers to one or more specific users that Parallel Worlds has chosen or will choose to moderate the message boards, chat rooms, or other public areas within, or in connection with, this Site ("Forums"). The terms "you," "your," "user," and "users" does not include Parallel Worlds but does include everyone else, as well as Moderators.
PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF USE CAREFULLY BEFORE USING THE SITE. USE OF THE SITE SIGNIFIES YOUR AGREEMENT TO THESE TERMS OF USE.
Legal Restrictions and Terms of Use Applicable to this Site
YOUR ACCEPTANCE OF TERMS
By using this Site you will be deemed to have irrevocably agreed to these terms. If you do not agree to these terms of use, please do not use the site.
Please note that these Terms of Use may be revised and reissued without notice at any time by updating this posting. You should visit this page regularly to review the current Terms of Use, since your continued use of the Site will be deemed as irrevocable acceptance of any revisions. These Terms of Use were last updated on October 10, 2009.
REGISTRATION
To access this Site (particularly the Forums) or some of the resources it has to offer, you may be asked to provide registration details. It is a condition of use of this Site that all the details you provide will be correct, current, and complete. If Parallel Worlds or any of the Moderators believes the details are not correct, current, or complete, Parallel Worlds and any of the Moderators have the right to refuse you access to the Site, or any of its resources, and to terminate or suspend your account. Parallel Worlds has the final say in all matters.
Unless we have received a properly completed and acceptable parental consent form governing your use of this Site, we will assume (and by using this Site you warrant that) you have legal capacity to enter into the agreement set out in these Terms of Use (i.e., that you are of sufficient age and mental capacity and are otherwise entitled to be legally bound in contract).
TERMINATION
You agree that Parallel Worlds, as well as any Moderators, in their sole discretion, may terminate any account (or any part thereof) you may have with us or use of the Site and remove and discard all or any part of your account or any Submissions, for any reason whatsoever. Parallel Worlds also in its sole discretion and at any time may discontinue providing access to the Site, or any part thereof, with or without notice. You agree that any termination of your access to the Site or any account you may have or portion thereof may be effected without prior notice, and you agree that Parallel Worlds and the Moderators shall not be liable to you or any third-party for any such termination
ONLINE PRIVACY NOTICE
Your privacy is important to us. To better protect your privacy, we provide a notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used at this site. Click Here to show this notice, which forms part of these Terms of Use.
COPYRIGHTS AND TRADEMARKS
This Site is owned and operated by Matthew Peterson. All materials found within this Site, unless otherwise indicated, are protected, without limitation, pursuant to U.S. and foreign copyright and trademark laws. These rights apply especially to the written text, audio recordings, videos, and images produced by Parallel Worlds. Parallel Worlds does not, however, redeem any rights or responsibility for the posted, emailed, transmitted or submitted messages or private/personal messages (collectively "Messages") of users inside and outside of Forums, nor do we take responsibility or credit for the "Avatars" (small images used by registered users of the Forums) or "Smilies" (tiny images users can include in their Messages on the Forums) and the origin of the said images. Both types of images have been provided as a convenience and can be removed or replaced at any time without warning. If any authorized person would like any of these images to be removed or replaced, please follow the guidelines at the bottom of this page under "Claims of Infringement." Users can remove or add an Avatar to their account through a login name and password.
USE OF MATERIALS
Modification or use of the "Material" (all materials incorporated by Parallel Worlds on this Site) or any other content on this Site for any purpose not permitted by these Terms of Use may be a violation of the Copyrights and/or Trademarks and is prohibited.
You may access and display Material and all other content displayed on this Site for non-commercial, personal, entertainment use on a single computer only. The Material and all other content on this Site may not otherwise be copied, reproduced, republished, uploaded, posted, transmitted, distributed or used in any way unless specifically authorized by Parallel Worlds, except that you may download one copy of the materials on any single computer for your personal non-commercial use only, provided you keep intact all copyright and other proprietary notices. Using any Material on any other web site or networked computer environment is prohibited, unless you have received written and signed authorization from Parallel Worlds.
USER CONDUCT
You are welcome to post, email, transmit or submit Messages to other registered users in the Forums as far as the law permits.
You may only use this Site and its contents for lawful purposes and in accordance with applicable law, and you are prohibited from storing, distributing or transmitting any unlawful material through this Site. You may not collect or store personal information regarding other users. You recognize that storing, distributing or transmitting unlawful material could expose you to criminal and/or civil liability. You agree that if a third party claims that material you have contributed to the Site is unlawful, you will bear the burden of establishing that it is lawful. You understand and agree that all materials publicly posted or privately transmitted on or through this Site are the sole responsibility of the sender, not Parallel Worlds, and that you are responsible for all material you upload, post or otherwise transmit to or through this Site.
Derogatory, harmful or unlawful conduct is not permitted on this Site. Users are not permitted to upload to, distribute through, or otherwise publish through this Site any content which is libelous, defamatory, obscene, pornographic, threatening, invasive of privacy or publicity rights, abusive, illegal or otherwise objectionable that would constitute or encourage a criminal offense, violate the rights of any party, or that would otherwise give rise to liability or violate any law.
Users are solely responsible for the content of their messages. As stated earlier, Parallel Worlds will not be responsibility for the Messages of users in the Forums or any other place on this Site or away from this Site, written or vocal. Parallel Worlds does claim the right to post user comments or portions thereof in special sections of the Site for advertising of the Site, Parallel Worlds products, books, movies, or anything else Parallel Worlds sees fit. You agree that any Message whatsoever submitted by you becomes the property of Parallel Worlds and may be used, copied, sublicensed, adapted, transmitted, distributed, publicly performed and published, displayed or deleted as Parallel Worlds sees fit. You also agree and are aware that Messages you post can be altered, edited, moved, and/or deleted for any reason and at any time by either Parallel Worlds or by any of the Moderators with or without notice and at the sole discretion of either Parallel Worlds or the Moderators involved.
Parallel Worlds does not endorse and has no control over the content of Messages submitted by others to Forums. Messages submitted to Forums do not necessarily reflect the opinions or policies of Parallel Worlds. Parallel Worlds makes no warranties, express or implied, as to the content of the Messages in the Forums or the accuracy and reliability of any Messages and other materials in the Forums.
In submitting Messages to Forums, you agree to strictly limit yourself to discussions about the subject matter for which the Forums are intended. You (except for Moderators who are performing a disciplinary action) also agree to permit any other user of this Site, as well as guests, to access, view, store or reproduce the material for that other user's or guest's personal use and not to restrict or inhibit the use of the Site by any other person.
The following is a list of things that we deem inappropriate. In regards to this Site, you agree that you will not email, transmit, or post Messages that
(a) libels, defames, invades privacy, stalks, is obscene, pornographic, racist, abusive, harassing, threatening or offensive;
(b) contains inappropriate language or swearing which may be considered lewd, crude, or vulgar;
(c) seeks to exploit or harm children by exposing them to inappropriate content, asking for personally identifiable details or otherwise;
(d) infringes any intellectual property or other right of any entity or person, including violating anyone's copyrights or trademarks or their rights of publicity;
(e) violates any law or may be considered to violate any law;
(f) you do not have the right to transmit under any contractual or other relationship (e.g., inside information, proprietary or confidential information received in the context of an employment or a non-disclosure agreement);
(g) advocates or promotes illegal activity;
(h) impersonates, misrepresents or claims the identity, characteristics or qualifications of any other person or entity; or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity or are false, inaccurate or misleading; or otherwise manipulates headers or identifiers to disguise the origin of the content;
(i) advertises any commercial endeavor (e.g., offering for sale products or services) or otherwise engages in any commercial activity (e.g., conducting raffles or contests, displaying sponsorship banners, and/or soliciting goods or services), except as specifically authorized on this Site;
(j) solicits funds, donations, advertisers or sponsors;
(k) includes programs which contain viruses, worms and/or 'Trojan horses' or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications;
(l) disrupts the normal flow of dialogue, causes a screen to scroll faster than other users are able to type, posting abnormally long Messages, or otherwise act in a way which affects the ability of other people to engage in real time activities via the Site;
(m) copies any other pages or images on this Site except with appropriate authority;
(n) includes illegal MP3, WMA, WAV, or other format files or illegal MPG, AVI, DIVX movies, including web links to such media;
(o) discuss illegal transactions or web sites such as warez, cracks, serial numbers, ISOs, ROMS, etc;
(p) amounts to a 'pyramid' or similar multi-level marketing scheme;
(q) amounts to 'data warehousing' (i.e., using any web space made available to you as storage for large files which are only linked from other sites). You must provide a reasonable amount of content to accompany such material in order that at least some of the traffic to your site comes directly via us;
(r) grossly duplicates previous messages by you or by others, or can be contrived as spam;
(s) disobeys any policy or regulations established from time to time regarding use of this Site or any networks connected to this Site; or
(t) contains links to other sites that contain the kind of content, which falls within the descriptions set out at (a) to (s) above.
You agree and are aware that by breaking any of the above rules, especially by posting pornographic material or links, you could forfeit any and all rights or privileges you may have (this applies to all users--Moderators included) and that you could be banned from the Site entirely. We do not tolerate pornography or the exploitation of children in the least degree, and if you are caught breaking either of these two rules, (this may apply to any of the other rules as well), you could face legal repercussions.
DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES
YOUR USE OF THIS SITE IS AT YOUR OWN RISK. PARAWORLDS.COM, PARAWORLDS.NET, ALL ALIAS SITES, AND ALL THE MATERIALS, INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, FACILITIES, SERVICES AND OTHER CONTENT IN THESE SITES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMISSIBLE PURSUANT TO APPLICABLE LAW, PARALLEL WORLDS DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. PARALLEL WORLDS DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE FUNCTIONS CONTAINED IN THESE SITES WILL BE AVAILABLE, UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT PARALLEL WORLD'S WEB SITES OR THE SERVERS THAT MAKE THEM AVAILABLE ARE FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. PARALLEL WORLDS DOES NOT WARRANT OR MAKE ANY REPRESENTATIONS REGARDING THE USE OR THE RESULTS OF THE USE OF THE MATERIAL, INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, FACILITIES, SERVICES OR OTHER CONTENT IN PARAWORLDS.COM, PARAWORLDS.NET, THEAUTHORHOUR.COM, AUTHORFANCLUBS.COM, MEDIAFANCLUBS.COM, AND ALL ALIAS SITES IN TERMS OF THEIR CORRECTNESS, ACCURACY, RELIABILITY, OR OTHERWISE. PARALLEL WORLDS MAKES NO WARRANTIES THAT YOUR USE OF THE MATERIALS, INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, FACILITIES, SERVICE OR OTHER CONTENT IN PARAWORLDS.COM, PARAWORLDS.NET, AND ALL ALIAS SITES WILL NOT INFRINGE THE RIGHTS OF OTHERS AND PARALLEL WORLDS ASSUMES NO LIABILITY OR RESPONSIBILITY FOR ERRORS OR OMISSIONS IN SUCH MATERIALS, INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, FACILITIES, SERVICE OR OTHER CONTENT OF PARAWORLDS.COM, PARAWORLDS.NET, THEAUTHORHOUR.COM, AUTHORFANCLUBS.COM, MEDIAFANCLUBS.COM AND ALL ALIAS SITES. IF APPLICABLE LAW DOES NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE IMPLIED WARRANTIES TO APPLY TO YOU, THE ABOVE EXCLUSIONS WILL APPLY TO YOU ONLY TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
LIMITATION OF LIABILITY
PARALLEL WORLDS DOES NOT ACCEPT ANY LIABILITY FOR ANY LOSS OR DAMAGE (DIRECT, INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, ACTUAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY OR OTHERWISE) RESULTING FROM ANY USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, PARAWORLDS.COM, PARAWORLDS.NET, ALL ALIAS SITES, OR THE MATERIAL, INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, FACILITIES, SERVICES OR OTHER CONTENT ON THESE SITES, REGARDLESS OF THE BASIS UPON WHICH LIABILITY IS CLAIMED AND EVEN IF PARALLEL WORLDS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE. WITHOUT LIMITATION, YOU (AND NOT PARALLEL WORLDS) ASSUME THE ENTIRE COST OF ALL NECESSARY SERVICING, REPAIR OR CORRECTION IN THE EVENT OF ANY SUCH LOSS OR DAMAGE ARISING. IF APPLICABLE LAW DOES NOT ALLOW ALL OR ANY PART OF THE ABOVE LIMITATION OF LIABILITY TO APPLY TO YOU, THE LIMITATIONS WILL APPLY TO YOU ONLY TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW.
LINKS
This Site includes links to other Internet sites solely as a convenience to users. Parallel Worlds does not endorse any such linked sites or the information, material, products or services contained on other linked sites or accessible through other linked sites. Furthermore, Parallel Worlds makes no express or implied warranties with regard to the information, material, products or services that are contained on or accessible through linked sites. Access and use of linked sites, including information, material, products and services on linked sites or available through linked sites is solely at the user's own risk, especially links contained in Messages posted by users in the Forums.
SUBMISSIONS
Parallel Worlds does not accept or consider creative ideas, suggestions, or materials other than those it has specifically requested. Accordingly, we must request that no visitors to this Site submit or send any original creative materials, including but not limited to submissions of scripts, story lines, fan fiction, characters, drawings, information, suggestions, ideas or concepts. If at our request you send certain specific submissions (e.g., postings to chats, surveys, message boards, contests, or similar items) or, despite our request that you not send us any other creative materials, you send us creative suggestions, ideas, notes, drawings, concepts, or other information (collectively the "Submissions") shall be deemed and shall remain the property of Parallel Worlds in perpetuity. By making any Submission, the sender automatically grants, or warrants that the owner of such material expressly grants, Parallel Worlds the royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, and distribute such material (in whole or in part) throughout the universe and/or to incorporate it in other works in any form, media or technology now known or hereafter developed, for the full term of any copyright, trademark or patent that may exist in such material for any purpose that Parallel Worlds chooses, whether internal, public, commercial, or otherwise, without any compensation, credit or notice to the sender whatsoever. The sender waives all so-called "moral rights" in all Submissions. The sender further waives the right to make any claims against Parallel Worlds relating to unsolicited or solicited submissions, including, but not limited to, unfair competition, breach of implied contract and/or breach of confidentiality.
SYSTEM ABUSE
Without limitation, you agree not to send, create or reply to so called "mailbombs" (i.e., emailing copies of a single message to many users, or sending large or multiple files or messages to a single user with malicious intent) or engage in "spamming"(i.e., unsolicited emailing for business or other purposes) or undertake any other activity which may adversely effect the operation or enjoyment of this Site by any other person.
You may not reproduce, sell, resell or otherwise exploit any resource, or access to any resource, contained on this Site without written and signed permission by Matthew D. Peterson, the author of the Parallel Worlds series.
SECURITY
Any passwords used for this Site are for individual use only. You shall be responsible for the security of your password (if any). Parallel Worlds shall be entitled to monitor your password and, at its discretion, require you to change it. If you use a password that Parallel Worlds considers insecure, Parallel Worlds will be entitled to require this to be changed and/or terminate your account.
You are prohibited from using any services or facilities provided in connection with this Site to compromise security or tamper with system resources and/or accounts. The use or distribution of tools designed for compromising security (e.g. password guessing programs, cracking tools or network probing tools) are strictly prohibited. If you become involved in any violation of system security, Parallel Worlds reserves the right to release your details to system administrators at other sites in order to assist them in resolving security incidents.
INVESTIGATIONS
Parallel Worlds reserves the right to investigate suspected violations of these Terms of Use, including without limitation any violation arising from any Messages you make or send to the Forums. Parallel Worlds may seek to gather information from the user who is suspected of violating these Terms of Use, and from any other user. Parallel Worlds may suspend any users whose conduct or postings are under investigation and may remove such material from its servers as it deems appropriate and without notice. If Parallel Worlds (as well as any of the Moderators) believes, in its sole discretion, that a violation of these Terms of Use has occurred, it may edit or modify any submission, posting or e-mails, remove the material permanently, cancel postings, warn users, suspend users and passwords, terminate accounts or take other corrective action it deems appropriate. Parallel Worlds will fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing Parallel Worlds to disclose the identity of anyone posting any e-mails, or publishing or otherwise making available any materials that are believed to violate these Terms of Use. BY ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT YOU WAIVE AND HOLD HARMLESS PARALLEL WORLDS AND ALL MODERATORS FROM ANY CLAIMS RESULTING FROM ANY ACTION TAKEN BY PARALLEL WORLDS OR ANY OF THE MODERATORS DURING OR AS A RESULT OF ITS INVESTIGATIONS AND/OR FROM ANY ACTIONS TAKEN AS A CONSEQUENCE OF INVESTIGATIONS BY EITHER PARALLEL WORLDS, MODERATORS, OR LAW ENFORCEMENT AUTHORITIES.
LOCAL AND JURISDICTIONAL REGULATIONS
Parallel Worlds makes no representation that Materials or other content in the Site are appropriate or available for use outside the United States, its territories, possessions and protectorates. Parallel Worlds is controlled and operated from its United States offices in Arizona. If you choose to access the Site from other locations you do so on your own initiative and at your own risk. You are responsible for complying with local laws, if and to the extent local laws are applicable. You specifically agree to comply with all applicable laws concerning the transmission of technical data exported from the United States or the country you reside in. No software from these Sites may be downloaded or otherwise exported or re-exported (i) into (or to a national or resident of) Cuba, Iran, Iraq, Libya, North Korea, Syria or any other country to which the United States has embargoed goods; or (ii) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's list of Specially Designated Nationals or the U.S. Commerce Department's Table of Deny Orders. By downloading or using the Software, you represent and warrant that you are not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of any such country or on any such list.
If any provision of these Terms of Use shall be unlawful, void, or for any reason unenforceable, then that provision shall be deemed severable for this agreement and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions. This is the entire agreement between the parties relating to the matters contained herein.
The failure of Parallel Worlds to exercise or enforce any right or provision of the Terms of Use shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. These terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Arizona, without giving effect to any principles of conflicts of law. You agree that any action at law or in equity arising out of or relating to these terms or the Site shall be filed only in the state or federal courts in and for Maricopa County, Arizona and you hereby consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action.
INDEMNITY
You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Parallel Worlds, and its officers, directors, employees, agents, distributors and affiliates, as well as Matthew D. Peterson and any Moderators that have been selected or will be selected for the message boards from and against any and all claims, demands, liabilities, costs or expenses, including reasonable attorney's fees, resulting from your breach of any of the foregoing provisions, representations or warranties, and/or from your placement or transmission of any content onto Parallel World's servers, and/or from any and all use of your account.
WEB LINKING
You may link to the webpages of our site, so long as the actual webpage is not embedded within a frame or website. Do not link directly to individual audio, pdf documents, or images. Thank you.
Example of linking (html tags):
<a href="http://theauthorhour.com">http://theauthorhour.com<\a>
<a href="http://authorfanclubs.com">http://authorfanclubs.com<\a>
<a href="http://paraworlds.com">http://paraworlds.com<\a>
<a href="http://paraworlds.net">http://paraworlds.net<\a>
COPYRIGHT INFRINGEMENT CLAIM NOTICE AND PROCEDURE
Notification of a copyright infringement claim must be submitted to the following:
Click Here to send an Email
Fax: 1-888-376-8693
Address:
Matthew Peterson
20403 N. Lake Pleasant Road, Suite 117-125
Peoria, AZ 85382
The notification must be in writing and include:
1. A signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
2. Identification of each alleged infringing copyrighted work or works;
3. Identification of the allegedly infringing material and information reasonably sufficient to enable us to locate such material;
4. Information reasonably sufficient to enable us to contact the party complaining of an alleged infringement (e.g. an address, telephone number, and email address);
5. A statement that the complaining party has a good-faith belief that use of the allegedly infringing material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
For other questions about The Author Hour, Media Fan Clubs, and Parallel Worlds, please visit the forum or FAQs.
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