Terms of use (aka ‘Terms and Conditions’)

 

Please read these Terms of use as soon as possible after entering this site for the first time. If you continue to browse and use this website, you shall be deemed to have agreed to comply with and be bound by these Terms which, together with our Privacy policy, govern Stirnet’s relationship with you in relation to this website. If you do not agree to these Terms, you should refrain from using this site. Agreement with these terms & conditions is required before you may register with the site.

Contact & other details for Stirnet Limited may be seen at Contact us. More information about Stirnet may be found at Stirnet Limited FAQ.

Information is provided below in 2 main ways, through ‘tabs’ and ‘collapsibles’. Presentation of information through one way rather than another has been made somewhat arbitrarily and shall not be viewed as giving precedence to some information over other information.

 

DEFINITIONS AND CERTAIN ISSUES

‘Terms of use’ should be interpreted in the ‘normal way’ for Internet sites of this type and covers the Terms & Conditions for using this site including, inter alia, the processes & consequences of (including the obligations resulting from) Registration & Subscription.

A ‘Registered User’ is a person who has registered or been allocated a Username, Password and e-mail address with Stirnet and thereby has opened or been allocated a User Account with Stirnet. Registration of a Username requires agreement to these Terms & Conditions.

‘Members’ are Registered Users who have paid for or been granted a Membership Subscription Period which is still current. It is possible that different categories of Membership will be established in due course. Members become Guests on the expiry of their subscription.

‘Guests’ are Registered Users who do not have a current Membership.

Your agreement with these Terms of Use signifies your acceptance of (inter alia) our Privacy Policy (see below) and your agreement to our recording & keeping (in our computer system(s) and/or manual records) those details about yourself that you have inputted into our system for the purposes of registering with us (i.e. First Name, Last Name and E-mail address) along with details about your subscriptions (dates, system identification numbers, Username and subscription types) and about your country of residence (as notified to us by PayPal, this being required for analytical purposes and in case we become subject to VAT). For more information on matters relevant to Data Protection, see Privacy and Cookies.
This site provides a facility named The Stirnet Portal which offers certain connections between this site and other sites. That facility identifies some ‘Terms & Conditions of the Offer’. Those Terms & Conditions supplement and do not replace these Terms of Use.
We offer people who lead others to subscribe to this this site an opportunity to benefit from that referral under a Referral Policy. The Terms & Conditions set for that policy supplement and do not replace these Terms of Use.
This site does not at present contain a Forum. However, should it do so in the future, use of such a Forum will be covered by these Terms of use.
We reserve the right to change these Terms at any time, without notice, by amending this page. We will draw attention to any such change through a News item. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we have made, as they are binding on you.
Stirnet Limited is registered in England and operates in England. These Terms of use, and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter or formation (including non-contractual disputes or claims), are governed by and shall be construed in accordance with the law of England and Wales, and are subject to the jurisdiction of the English courts.

 

OTHER ISSUES

Benefits of Registration »

1. Subject to these Terms of use, Members who have logged-in to this site will have uninterrupted access to this site’s Families Database.

2. Members & Guests who have logged-into this site may comment on a blog within Stirnet Histories. However, there is no obligation on Stirnet to publish that comment so that others may see it. Furthermore, Stirnet may delete that comment at any time for any reason or whim and are not obliged to notify the Member or Guest of that deletion.

Limitations of Registration »

Logging-in to an account with Stirnet can be done through only one IP address at a time. If you move between different IP addresses then you may find yourself locked out of the site for a few minutes.For more information on this, see ‘Why can’t I log-in?’ on the Troubleshooting page.

Expiry of Registration »

At the end of a subscription period, Membership status is converted automatically into Guest status. We do not set any fixed period for the expiry of Guest status but we reserve the right to terminate a Guest account at any time for any reason or whim.

Obligations of Registered Users »

Registered Users shall:

(i) respect the copyrights of Stirnet Limited and its contributors.

(ii) not advise any other party about any information that has been provided by Stirnet on a confidential basis. For the avoidance of doubt it is confirmed that this applies to any coupon code that may be or may have been provided to enable certain Members to obtain discounts on any products or services provided by Stirnet or any of Stirnet’s associates.

(iii) not distribute (or be involved in any way with the distribution of) an e-mail to Stirnet or to any associate of or contributor to Stirnet or to any (other) Member or Guest that contains abusive or pornographic content or which, in connection with other e-mails, may reasonably be viewed as unwanted or intrusive.

(iv) comply with any terms or conditions of participation that may be set for any part of the site..

Cancellation and Refund »

(1) Membership may be cancelled by the Member at any time by e-mail sent to our main contact address. No refund of all or any part of a Membership Fee will be made except at our discretion in exceptional cases. Members will be deemed to have had adequate & sufficient opportunity to obtain, before they applied for Membership, such assurance as they required or may require that this site contained information which was likely to be of interest to them and that they are/were able to receive & operate this site in a way that is/was acceptable to them. Stirnet is not able to provide such assurance and accepts no obligation to do so.

(2) Guests may cancel their registration at any time by e-mail sent to our main contact address.

(3) Registration (and Membership) may be cancelled or revoked by Stirnet Limited at any time should the Registered User either breach any of these Terms & Conditions or behave in a manner which gives rise to serious complaint by Stirnet or another party and which may reasonably be deemed by Stirnet to be unacceptable. Stirnet may ban a person or organisation from Registration or Membership for such breach or behaviour and any subsequent subscription by that person or organisation shall be forfeit (in favour of Stirnet or such charitable cause as Stirnet may prefer) unless made in accordance with any conditions set by Stirnet.

Accessibility »

(1) We will take reasonable steps to ensure that our site remains accessible through the Internet throughout the period of the Membership of a Registered User. However, we shall not be held responsible for loss or restriction of that access either if our Internet Service Provider fails to maintain that access or otherwise in circumstances not under our control.

(2) Subject to (1) just above, we reserve the right to suspend or withdraw this site at any time without notice.

* In order to comply with (1) just above, in a circumstance in which we have decided to withdraw the site from the Internet, we shall endeavour to keep this site accessible until all Memberships have expired.

* In the event that we have suspended the site temporarily, we shall endeavour to extend the subscription periods of affected Members to compensate for the period of suspension.

(3) Registered Users who have set their browsers or firewalls to exclude or act as a barrier to javascript or other commonly-used forms of active coding may not be able to enjoy all of the benefits of Membership. Such loss of benefits will be deemed to be a consequence of their voluntary action.

Use of Cookies and our Privacy Policy »

(1) Information on our use of cookies is provided on Privacy & Cookies. Your agreement to these Terms & Conditions shall be deemed to signify that you have agreed to and accepted the way in which we use cookies and so have given us permission to use cookies in the way that we have reported in this site.

(2) When you have Registered a Username, logging-in will result in a cookie being sent to your computer that will enable our ISP’s server to see that you have logged-in and identify whether or not you have a current Membership. It is likely that most people’s computers/browsers will accept our cookie without problem as our cookie is a simple one, the same as or similar to the cookies used by other online membership schemes. However, if you have set your browser (or firewall) to exclude or act as a barrier to cookies then you will probably not be able to log-in properly as a Stirnet Member, thereby stopping you from enjoying the benefits of Membership. Such loss of benefits will be deemed to be a consequence of your voluntary action.

Use of e-mail addresses »

Our system will send you an email automatically upon registration and upon each subscription. It may (but may not) also send you an email warning you when your current subscription is soon to expire. Otherwise, it is likely that we will contact you only in response to contact from you or if a particular problem has arisen with your account or with a post-expiry ‘Don’t forget us’ email. However, except for people who have specifically instructed us to exclude them from our Mailing List, we reserve the right to include all Registered Users on a Mailing List and to contact all persons on that Mailing List should there be an important change to this site. [See also the note on Personal information on Privacy and cookies.]

Contents of the site »

(1) The contents of this website are for your general information & use only and should not be viewed as providing or constituting legal or professional advice and shall not be relied upon as such. The contents are subject to change without notice. Neither we nor any third parties provide any warranty or guarantee as to the accuracy, timeliness, performance, completeness or suitability of the information and materials found or offered on this website for any purpose. You acknowledge that such information and materials may contain inaccuracies or errors and we expressly exclude liability for any such inaccuracies or errors to the fullest extent permitted by law.

(2) Your use of any information or materials on this website is entirely at your own risk, for which we shall not be liable. It shall be your own responsibility to ensure that any products, services or information available through this website meet your specific requirements. We do not accept any responsibility for any loss which may arise from accessing or reliance on the information on this site and, to the fullest extent permitted by English law, we exclude all liability for loss or damages direct or indirect arising from use of this site.

Intellectual property rights »

We are the owners or licensees of all intellectual property rights in our site and in the material published or displayed on it. This material includes but is not limited to the content, design, layout, look, appearance and graphics. The materials are protected by copyright laws and treaties around the world.  All such rights are reserved.

You must not use any part of the material on our site for commercial purposes without obtaining a licence to do so from us or our licensors in advance and in writing. We do not mind Members using modest amounts of genealogical data from this site for their own private non-commercial purposes. However, we do require people who use more than a trivial amount of data from ANY PART of this site to identify this site as their source for that data.

* Part of the reason why we developed this site was to enable others to share the genealogical data we show in our Families Database. However, our willingness to share such data applies only to Members and applies only to the data, not to the specific method by which the data is displayed. Anyone who takes more than a modest extract from this site and passes it off as their own creation and/or use it for their own commercial benefit shall be deemed to have breached our Copyright. Anyone who is not sure whether or not the amount of information they wish to use from this site should Contact us and advise us of their wish.

* We draw your attention to the notes about Copyright given below but confirm that they are given for information only and do not form part of these Terms of Use.

Viruses, hacking and other offences »

(1) You must not misuse our site 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. Should you breach this provision, you would commit a criminal offence under the Computer Misuse Act 1990. 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.

(2) 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.

Links from our site »

Where our site contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for your information only. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them. When accessing a site via our website, we advise you check their terms of use and privacy policies to ensure compliance and determine how they may use your information.

Changes to the site »

We aim to update our site regularly and may change the content at any time. Any of the material on our site may be out of date at any given time. We have no obligation to update such material.

 

@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@

 

The following comments provide information abour Copyright that you may find useful. They do NOT form part of our Terms of Use but we reserve the right to refer to our provision of this information should anyone claim ignorance of the application of Copyright Law.

These comments focus on issues we think are relevant to this site and do not aspire to give more than a partial view of selected aspects of the scope of Copyright and other Intellectual Property rights. Our comments are provided in good faith after some limited research but we are not ‘experts’ on the subject of Copyright so the following must not be relied on for legal purpose, particulary if it is considered for application under the law of any country outside of the United Kingdom. We ask anyone who knows that we have reported something here in error, or have given a misleading impression on anything, to contact us and advise us accordingly so that we may correct this page and not propagate any misunderstandings.
We respect the Copyrights of others. If anyone believes that we may have breached any of their copyrights then they should get in touch with us right away. We have tried to be careful to ensure that all of the data and other material we display EITHER is not subject to copyright protection OR is outside of its copyright period (ie. for data – was sourced from databases that were either themselves prepared a long time ago or, if relatively recent, are merely copying extracts from earlier databases; for text – was sourced from books that were published a long time ago) OR is being provided with permission from the copyright owner. We apologise in advance should we have failed to comply with that intention in any way.
We expect & require others to respect our copyrights and also those of the people who have retained copyrights over material contained in any part of this site. We reserve our own copyrights and have identified in part what we expect from others in the Intellectual property rights section above.
The main purpose of the laws of Copyright (and other Intellectual Property Rights) is to ensure that people who are creative in some way do not lose out from benefiting from their creativity by having other people steal their ideas. This is done so that creative people are encouraged BOTH to continue to be creative AND to share their ideas with others. Without such laws, we would all lose out as many people would keep their good ideas to themselves. This basic concept has gradually found acceptance around the world so that even those governments which used to value the short-term benefits that come from ‘pirating’ other people’s ideas have come to appreciate that, over the long term, they would lose out from such short-sightedness. Member countries of the World Trade Organisation are obliged to pass laws to enforce respect for intellectual property rights. In rough terms, these rights enable copyright owners to stop other people from using their work and to obtain damages (financial compensation) if anyone does. If breach of copyright is done on a commercial scale it may constitute theft and so be treated as a criminal/public offence rather than just a civil/personal offence.

The scope of Copyright is very wide. For example: it covers the creativity used in taking a photograph so that, even though the photographer may not own the subject of the photo, he does have copyrights over the actual picture itself. A work may give rise to different copyrights to different people (eg. a film may be scripted by one person, directed by another, acted by another, recorded by another, and edited by another – in practice, the rights that each has is normally subjected to contractual agreement before work starts as otherwise arguments may arise !). ‘Creativity’ is not just restricted to ‘arty stuff’ but covers anything that has required elements of skill, labour or judgement. The key requirement is that THE WORK MUST BE ORIGINAL. Copying someone else’s work does not produce any rights over that copied work. Repeating work done earlier does not enable you to pretend that the new version is ‘original’. However, if you present old work in a new way then there may be elements of originality that may be copyrighted or otherwise protected from being copied by others.

Copyright does not apply to ideas for they are dealt with by Patent Law. Copyright applies only to work that has been produced in some viewable or measurable way. It does not apply to basic matters of fact. However, it does apply to works that involve the collation or display of such facts. Hence, although basic genealogical data is outside of the scope of copyright, an original compilation of a genealogical database does produce a right of ownership that is protected by law.

Copyrights do not last forever. The laws of individual countries may vary slightly but the copyright protection period they normally provide for works of literature, drama, music and art is 70 years after the death of the creator or, if published (deliberately made available to the general public), 70 years after publication. ‘Database rights’ are a form of copyright that apply to computerised (electronically generated) databases. These provide copyright-style protection in respect of the extraction and re-utilisation of the contents of a database. They apply for 15 years from the making of the database but, if published during this time, then the term is 15 years from publication. Most genealogical databases on the Internet are electronically generated – but not Stirnet’s which was typed in line by line, page by page, and so should obtain copyright protection for 70 years.

For more information:

– on relevant UK law: see www.copyrightservice.co.uk and www.ipo.gov.uk

– on relevant USA law: www.loc.gov/copyright

– comments by the World Trade Organisation: www.wto.org/english/tratop_e/trips_e/trips_e.htm

If you have any general queries about the subject of Copyright, or related Intellectual Property rights, DO NOT contact us but seek information yourself from the above-mentioned web sites, your lawyer, or another qualified source. Only contact us if you have a specific query about your use of material from our site.