Legal terms of use

Acceptance of terms

The services that the Social Design, Inc (we) provide to you are subject to the following Terms of Use ("TOU"). We reserve the right to update the TOU at any time without notice to you, though will post in our forums when a major update has been made. The most current version of the TOU can be seen by clicking on the "Terms of Use" link located at the bottom of our Web pages, then clicking 'legal terms of use'.

Description of Services

The Social Design, Inc. network provides you with access to a variety of resources, including sharing poetry, stories, images, philosophy, etc (Services). These Services, including any updates, enhancements, new features, and/or the addition of any new websites, are subject to the TOU.

Privacy policy

We take your privacy seriously - please check out our separate privacy policy for information about the collection and use of your personal information.

No warranty or fitness for a purpose

This site is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. In no event shall the Authors or copyright holders be liable for any claim, damages or other liability, whether in an action of contract, tort or otherwise, arising from, out of or in connection or dealings with the site or it's software.

We will do our best to keep the site running smoothly, but make no promises about uptime or refunds for time while the site was unavailable to you.

We do not control or endorse the content, messages or information found in any of our Services and, therefore, specifically disclaim any liability with regard to the Services and any actions resulting from your participation in any Services.

Moderators, hosts, volunteers, and managers are not authorized Social Design spokespersons, and their views do not necessarily reflect those of Social Design, Inc. They are empowered to act, hopefully, but not necessarily in the best interests of the site and it's members.

Ownership of content

You maintain ownership and copyright to your poetry, stories, or other original works of art you upload to our sites, including the right to publish it elsewhere. By uploading your digital content, you are granting us the nonexclusive right to display that material on the internet. Displaying your material to others on the internet is a form of publication, and as such you grant us the rights to republish it to each visitor's browser. Some forms of our automatic notifications involve email, and this publication right includes content sent by email. This right is subliscensable, in that any future owner of our Services would maintain the right to display your content. You grant us the right to translate, summarize, publicly display, publicly perform, include in web archives such as google's cache or the wayback machine, and include content in screenshots used for advertising. You also grant us the right to use your username in connection with that work. These rights are perpetual and irrevocable, until such a time as the content has been deleted from our servers.

You may delete your content from the site when you wish. You are responsible for doing this yourself, though if you have been banned, a request for work deletion will be handled within a reasonable timeframe.

By submitting material such as comments, messages, bulletin board topics, bulletin board comments, and anything not a work of art covered above, you grant us the royalty-free and sublicensable right to use, modify, translate, adapt, and republish.

No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Submission, as provided herein. We are under no obligation to post or use any Submission you may provide and may remove any Submission at any time at our sole discretion.

By Posting a Submission you warrant and represent that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to your Submission as described in these Terms of Use including, without limitation, all the rights necessary for you to provide, post, upload, input or submit the Submissions.

For personal and non-commercial use

Unless otherwise specified, the Services are for your personal and non-commercial use. You may not steal, modify, copy, distribute, transmit, display, perform, reproduce, publish, license, create derivative works from, transfer, or sell any information, software, products or services obtained from the Services.

Social Design, Inc grants you a limited license to access and make personal use of this site, but not to download (other than automatic page caching), or use in any non-personal manner without official written permission from us. Material you post on our site(s) you may also use elsewhere, provided you do not include any of our trademarks or copywritten content.

Images

In addition to the warranty and representation set forth above, by Posting a Submission that contain images, photographs, pictures or that are otherwise graphical in whole or in part ("Images"), you warrant and represent that (a) you are the copyright owner of such Images, or that the copyright owner of such Images has granted you permission to use such Images or any content and/or images contained in such Images consistent with the manner and purpose of your use and as otherwise permitted by these Terms of Use and the Services, (b) you have the rights necessary to grant the licenses and sublicenses described in these Terms of Use, and (c) that each person depicted in such Images, if any, has provided consent to the use of the Images as set forth in these Terms of Use, including, by way of example, and not as a limitation, the distribution, public display and reproduction of such Images. By Posting Images, you are granting (a) to all members of your private community (for each such Images available to members of such private community), and/or (b) to the general public (for each such Images available anywhere on the Services, other than a private community), permission to use your Images in connection with the use, as permitted by these Terms of Use, of any of the Services, (including, by way of example, and not as a limitation, making prints and gift items which include such Images), and including, without limitation, a non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty-free license to: copy, distribute, transmit, publicly display, publicly perform, reproduce, edit, translate and reformat your Images without having your name attached to such Images, and the right to sublicense such rights to any supplier of the Services. The licenses granted in the preceding sentences for a Images will terminate at the time you completely remove such Images from the Services, provided that, such termination shall not affect any licenses granted in connection with such Images prior to the time you completely remove such Images. No compensation will be paid with respect to the use of your Images.

If you should go againt our TOU and post material you do not own or control the copyright for, you take full responsibility for legal fees for our defense or court-awarded penalties.

We have the right but not the obligation to modify or delete content for any reason. We reserve all rights with regard to refuse service to anyone, for any reason.

Post content that is appropriate

You agree to use our site to post content that is appropriate, and by way of example, to not:

  • Use the Services in connection with surveys, contests, pyramid schemes, chain letters, junk email, spamming or any duplicative or unsolicited messages (commercial or otherwise).
  • Defame, abuse, harass, stalk, threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights (such as rights of privacy and publicity) of others.
  • Publish, post, upload, distribute or disseminate any inappropriate, profane, defamatory, obscene, indecent or unlawful topic, name, material or information.
  • Upload, or otherwise make available, files that contain images, photographs, software or other material protected by intellectual property laws, including, by way of example, and not as limitation, copyright or trademark laws (or by rights of privacy or publicity) unless you own or control the rights thereto or have received all necessary consent to do the same.
  • Use any material or information, including images or photographs, which are made available through the Services in any manner that infringes any copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret, or other proprietary right of any party.
  • Upload files that contain viruses, trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs that may damage the operation of another's computer or property of another.
  • Advertise or offer to sell or buy any goods or services for any business purpose, unless such Services specifically allows such messages.
  • Download any file posted by another user of a Service that you know, or reasonably should know, cannot be legally reproduced, displayed, performed, and/or distributed in such manner.
  • Falsify or delete any copyright management information, such as User attributions, legal or other proper notices or proprietary designations or labels of the origin or source of software or other material contained in a file that is uploaded.
  • Restrict or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the Services.
  • Violate any code of conduct or other guidelines which may be applicable for any particular Service.
  • Harvest or otherwise collect information about others, including e-mail addresses.
  • Violate any applicable laws or regulations.
  • Create a false identity for the purpose of misleading others.
  • Use, download or otherwise copy, or provide (whether or not for a fee) to a person or entity any directory of users of the Services or other user or usage information or any portion thereof.

Unsolicited Ideas

We encourage you to make suggestions to us, but please understand that we have brainstormed a large amount and may have thought of your idea already. If we do use your idea, or later implement something that appears similar, it is entirely possible we had also thought of the same idea. If you choose to share your ideas with us, you grant us license to use them as we wish, without any payment or creditation, unless any other written agreement is reached.

Applicable Law

By visiting storywrite.com, you agree that the laws of the state of Washington, without regard to principles of conflict of laws, will govern these Conditions of Use and any dispute of any sort that might arise between you and storywrite.com or its affiliates.

Any dispute relating in any way to your visit to storywrite.com shall be submitted to confidential arbitration in Seattle, Washington, except that, to the extent you have in any manner violated or threatened to violate storywrite.com's intellectual property rights, storywrite.com may seek injunctive or other appropriate relief in any state or federal court in the state of Washington, and you consent to exclusive jurisdiction and venue in such courts. Arbitration under this agreement shall be conducted under the rules then prevailing of the American Arbitration Association. The arbitrator's award shall be binding and may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction. To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, no arbitration under this Agreement shall be joined to an arbitration involving any other party subject to this Agreement, whether through class arbitration proceedings or otherwise.

First publication rights

Publication houses often deal in terms of "first publication rights". It is our experience that temporary online publication does not constitute "first publication", but we make no guarantee that any publisher you may deal with in the future will agree. By participating in this site, you release us of any responsibility for your first publication rights.

Claims of copyright infringement

As a site that posts user-submitted content, copywritten content may find it's way onto our website. If you feel something you own the copyright to has been infringed, please contact us at the address below. We don't want anything that doesn't belong here anymore than you do, and promise to work with you in a professional manner to get the matter resolved as soon as possible.

This is in compliance with the DMCA. The DMCA is the Digital Milennium Copyright Act, and in short, provides a formal method of copyright complaint, and in exchange for deleting infringing material within a reasonable amount of time, protects us from being sued for member-contributed infringing content.

This is only for notifying us that your copyrighted material has been infringed. Please include:

  • An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest
  • A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed upon
  • A description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the site (url)
  • Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address
  • A statement by you that you have a good-faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law
  • A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner's behalf.

Submit a ticket online or send paper mail to
Social Design, Inc. Copyright Agent
906 Bowen Ave
San Jose, CA 95123
United States