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Acceptable Use Policy.

ARTICLE I

DEFINITIONS

“Agreement” means this Agreement, including an understanding and acceptance of this and all of the following articles as listed within this document.

“Confirmation” means the acceptance of the agreement between the Chatter and Ethereal, which may be enforced from the time of acceptance of this agreement.

“Ethereal” means the hosting service for the chatting system. Which includes but is not limited to, chatting, posting on message board, the hosting pages, images and/or galleries on it’s severs.

ARTICLE II

CONDUCT

  1. Ethereal, while being itself under the jurisdiction of Canadian law, strives to not only enforce laws which apply directly under it, but maintains a strict code of conduct to which all chatters, hosts, and members of council are bound. Failure to comply with any and all of the following points may result in immediate and irrevocable banning from Ethereal, which is dependent on the severity of the infraction itself.
  2. The practice, discussion and/or advocation of illegal activities will not be tolerated while on Ethereal. This includes, but is not limited to, and any all computer crimes/vandalism related to computer crimes that fall under Canadian law;

a. The proliferation or discussion of child pornography and transmittance of any and all pornographic materials to minors;

b. The creation of material involving scenes that would be considered pedophilic in nature, will not be tolerated. This includes and but is not limited to:

1) Scenes which place a character below the age of concent, in sexual relations with a character of adult age. With the exclusion of the historically accurate instances where such acts would have been socially acceptable.

2) Any scenes which is referred to as pedophilic in nature by Canadian laws.

c. The discrimination/harassment of any groups and/or individuals based of race, creed, beliefs, sex or as defined in the Canadian criminal code of law will not be tolerated and will result in immediate termination of the chatters account.

  1. Recruiting, meaning the act of leading other chatters to other realms and/or systems during their tenure on Ethereal Realms is only allowed under explicit permission from the host(s) of the affected realm. Without any such permission, the hosts of said realm and the council can take it upon themselves to ban offending users at room or system level depending on the severity of the infraction.
  2. The circumvention of bans, through the creation of additional accounts or by violation of terms outlined in Article II (CONDUCT) second paragraph, will result in the permanent, immediate and unconditional banning from Ethereal. The chatter will also accept that these procedures come without the benefit of appeal.
  3. While Ethereal prides itself on the privacy of it’s players, the impersonation of the council, administrators, supervisors or any other chatter will not be tolerated. This of course includes the creation of a handle in order to seed confusion or conflict, or the alteration of said handles in order to lead others to believe the chatter is someone else.
  4. The use of bots, spiders and/or other electronic means to collect other chatters personal information will will result in the immediate termination of the account and subsequently denying all associated address spaces from which those processes originated from.

ARTICLE III

PRIVACY

  1. Information provided during the registration process or during the course of the chatters stay on Ethereal will not be released, or sold in any way, shape, or form. This includes, but it not limited to, selling the information for reasons of profit; Giving out the information to sister sites to encourage a migration and intermixing of players; Referring to confidential information in publicly accessible documents or realms. Ethereal also agrees to not enter into any contract that will force the release of confidential information that is user specific.
  2. The chatter agrees that the information provided is valid (including, but not limited to, a valid email address), allowing the Realms to contact the chatter if the need arises. This can be for reasons ranging from notice of system failure, planned changes regarding the system, or change of ownership. The chatter also agrees to keep said information valid and up to date with the risk of losing their account if the information is proved false.
  3. Furthermore any and all accounts/posts/users activities will be logged, monitored and stored into a database and/or a series of log files. While the information is confidential and will not be distributed as per the prior agreement by Ethereal, the chatter is hereby informed that such a practice is taking place. The chatter also agrees that Ethereal itself can reference this information for the purpose of statistics building, mediation of conflict or any other reason so long as it does not violate the privacy agreement.

ARTICLE IV

HOSTING

  1. While Ethereal allows for the hosting of individual pages for the purpose of out laying characters, promotion of realms, the hosting pictures for play or other reasons, chatters agree that receiving these services will require meeting the criteria of Article VI (DONATIONS) paragraph 4.
  2. The chatter will not be allowed to gain profit in any way shape or form from the hosting of material within Ethereal, the trafficking of any illegal or copyrighted material will not be tolerated and removed as per the agreement to the following paragraph.
  3. The chatter agrees to be bound by copyright laws regarding stored material. This includes, but is not limited to, copyrighted written material, images, logos or anything else protected under the Canadian law.
  4. The chatter also agrees that as a possible user of the home page component, that Ethereal has the right to perform periodic audits and subsequent removal of material that is deemed offensive. If any material is found to violate valid copyright laws or is illegal in nature as per the terms defined in Article II (CONDUCT), the material may not only be removed but can result in subsequent warnings followed by a possible banning of said chatter.
  5. Pages hosted which draw too many complaints as per the nature of the material involved, may also be removed pending an investigation by Ethereal. If the material is found to be offensive in any way, shape or form the material will be removed at once and the chatter informed.

ARTICLE V

EXPOSITION

  1. Ethereal agrees to allow a chatter the ability to expose literary and graphical works with donations meeting criteria as per the Article VI (DONATIONS) paragraph 4.
  2. The chatter agrees to the restriction regarding deriving direct profit from the use of these facilities. This includes, but is not limited to the hyper-linking of works to an existing gallery in which profits are generated from the sale of the specific works and/or merchandise. Nor the exposition of works which include image or text based ads.
  3. The chatter agrees to be bound by Canadian copyright laws regarding stored works. This includes, but is not limited to, copyrighted written material, images which carry with them no permission to be used by the copyright owner. All original works by the chatter will automatically carry forth their copyright unless otherwise specified by said chatter.
  4. The chatter also agrees that as a possible user of the gallery component, that Ethereal has the right to perform periodic audits and subsequent removal of material that is deemed offensive. If any material is found to violate valid copyright laws or is illegal in nature as per the terms defined in Article II (CONDUCT), the material may not only be removed but can result in subsequent warnings followed by a possible banning of said chatter.
  5. Galleries which draw too many complaints as per the nature of the material involved, may also be removed pending an investigation by Ethereal. If the material is found to be offensive in any way, shape or form the material will be removed at once and the chatter informed.
  6. The chatter will agree that any copyright disputes involving the chatter and a third party over copyright material will not be handled by Ethereal. The chatters are themselves responsible for the enforcement of their copyrights across the provided medium.

ARTICLE VI

DONATIONS

  1. Chatters agree that donations made come with no warranty as per Article IX (WARRANTY) and that donations cannot be refunded at any time.
  2. Chatters understand that donations made to Ethereal will go towards the upkeep or upgrades of the site. The chatter will also be aware that donations will not be tracked beyond their initial transaction, meaning that Ethereal will not account for every dollar spent.
  3. In the case of donations done electronically using the existing infrastructure which meet the necessary criteria of a bronze level donation or above will allow users to reach contributor based features. This also allows the chatter to reach previously unavailable content restricted to contributors. The chatter will be aware that having a 3rd party use the automated systems will lose ownership of their accounts.
  4. In the case of donations done in a similar fashion to Article VI (Donations) paragraph 3, but of a level of a silver level donation or above. The chatter understands that Ethereal will provide additional services such as hosting abilities and the ability to create galleries.

ARTICLE VII

RESPONSIBILITIES

  1. Chatters will aid Ethereal in keeping updated contact information as per the agreement of Article III (PRIVACY).
  2. Ethereal reserves the right to revoke your membership if it is discovered that a chatter has infringed this agreement in any manner. Ethereal will monitor any reported problems a chatter may have. If deemed necessary and shall contact the local authorities if the breached as defined in Article II (CONDUCT).

ARTICLE VIII

REVISIONS

  1. The chatter is hereby warned that this document may be changed/adapted at any point in time by Ethereal. However, Ethereal vows that the spirit of the agreement will remain essentially static, and that only supplementary information or more complete definitions will be added in order to make the document more readable.
  2. If the nature or spirit of the document itself is to change, Ethereal is to inform the chatters of this change using email as the chosen transport. The chatter is warned however, to verify for changes on a periodic intervals of time as to keep abreast with possible revisions.

ARTICLE IX

WARRANTY

  1. The chatter agrees that with the use of this service comes no warranty whatsoever as to availability, data integrity, security or quality of service. The service is provided free of charge and will continue solely at the discretion of the council. The service is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind, either expressed or implied, including but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. This is also limited to upkeep of your account with a current e-mail so we may contact you as needed with regards to site business ie, down time of server, moving of links, and important information.

If you have any further questions about the site before joining please send your questions/concerns to [email protected]