By using and/or visiting IFTF or any content uploaded/controlled by the Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation, (collectively, including but not limited to submitting, accessing and/or viewing any and all content available through and/or at the site located at iftechfoundation.org, ifcomp.org, ifarchive.org, twinery.org and any of IFTF’s subdomains thereof, and any mobile applications, RSS feeds, syndicated feeds, curated content, digital and print collections, audio recordings, blogs, vlogs, podcasts, social media accounts including those hosted on third party platforms and/or resources owned, controlled or created by or for IFTF or its designees including Twine (collectively the “IFTF Services”, “Services” or “Website”)), you signify your agreement to (1) these terms and conditions (the “Terms of Service”) and (2) the terms and conditions of third party sites/hosts/subprocessors used by IFTF (collectively, your “Agreement”). If you (the “User”) do not agree to any of these terms, the IFTF privacy notice, or the Community Guidelines, please do not use the IFTF Services to share, read, recommend, or comment on content hosted by or for IFTF.
Our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy explains what information we collect, how we use it and who we share it with; your use of IFTF is governed by that site’s Terms and Policy. We do not sell the data that you post on, submit to or share on the Service to third parties; we do not include or accept paid advertisements from third parties that include tracking elements or that collect data on or from IFTF Services users.
We strive to make IFTF’s Terms of Service and Privacy Policy readable. We have tried to provide explanations for the more unusual legal terms. If you have terminology questions not covered here, Law.com’s glossary may help, though we cannot vouch for the accuracy of outside sources, including those referenced in the ToS.
There are five parts to the Terms of Service (ToS):
The ToS constitute the entire agreement between you and Interactive Fiction Technology Foundation(hereinafter “Us” or “IFTF”) and govern your use of the IFTF Service on the web or via an app (hereinafter “Service” or “IFTF”). It takes the place of all prior agreements between you and IFTF concerning your use of the Service.
This IFTF ToS, the relationship between you and the IFTF, and all disputes arising out of or related to it, shall be governed by the laws of the United States and specifically the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, without regard to its conflict of law provisions.
You and the IFTF agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located within Massachusetts, and to waive any objection to the laying of venue there.
IFTF’s failure to enforce any part of the ToS will not waive the IFTF’s ability to enforce it, and any waiver with regard to a specific instance shall not constitute a waiver of any other breaches of the ToS, even with regard to the same user.
If any provision of the ToS is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, you agree that the court should give effect to the party’s intentions as reflected in the provision, and that the other provisions of the ToS remain in full force and effect.
You agree that, regardless of any statute or law to the contrary, any claim or cause of action arising out of or related to use of the Service or the ToS must be filed within one (1) year after such claim or cause of action arose or be forever barred.
IFTF hosts and shares Content created by third parties (“User Submissions”). Our Privacy Policy is a part of these Terms of Service and is contained in Section III of these Terms of Service. By submitting User Submissions including a work, comment, image, tag, item of information including Personal Data like an email address, User Name, link, embedded image, audio file or video, or any other form of content (“Content”) to IFTF, or by creating a User Account and/or by viewing any Content on IFTF, you affirm, confirm and state that you comply with and assent to the ToS, which incorporates the IFTF Privacy Policy.
We may update the ToS as necessary. Although we may attempt to notify site users when major changes are made to these Terms of Service, you should periodically review the most up-to-date version (https://iftechfoundation.org/terms-of-service/). IFTF may, in its sole discretion, modify or revise these Terms of Service and policies at any time, and you agree to be bound by such modifications or revisions by your continuing use of the IFTF Services including allowing IFTF to host your User Submissions as defined herein.
Subject to amendments of the update process by the IFTF Board, this is the only means by which the Terms of Service may be altered. The Terms of Service cannot be changed by, e.g., emails, Tweets, or oral communications with you.
IFTF provides services on an “as is” and “as available” basis. IFTF does not warrant (that is, does not make a legally binding promise) that our services will meet your requirements; that our services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; or that the results you get from using the services will be accurate, reliable, or satisfactory to you. We will endeavor to provide the best possible service to users of the Service, but many things (e.g., possible outages, hackings, etc.) are not within our control and we cannot provide for all eventualities. In the event we learn of a breach of Personal Data that users have submitted to the Service, we will notify affected users as soon as practicable.
Please notify info@iftechfoundation.org of any known or suspected unauthorized use(s) of your account, or any known or suspected breach of security, including loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure of your password or other site-accessing information. If you access IFTF via a mobile device, we recommend that said device be password-protected to prevent unauthorized access of your IFTF account.
Content may not be downloaded, copied, modified, produced, reproduced, distributed, transmitted, broadcast, displayed, sold, licensed, translated, published, performed or otherwise exploited for any other purposes whatsoever without the prior written consent of the Content’s owner(s). IFTF reserves all rights not expressly held by third parties, or granted to third parties, in and to the Content it creates.
The content on the IFTF Services, except all User Submissions including without limitation, the text, software, scripts, graphics, photos, sounds, music, videos, interactive features and the like (“Content”) and the trademarks, service marks and logos contained therein (“Marks”), that are owned by or licensed to IFTF, are subject to copyright and other intellectual property rights under the law.
Any material you download, view, or otherwise access through the Service is at your own risk. You will be solely responsible for any damage or loss of data that results from the download of any such material.
IFTF expressly disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. The ToS govern your use of the Service, and therefore no communication from anyone associated with the IFTF Service will create any warranty that isn’t expressly stated in the ToS.
You expressly agree that IFTF shall not be liable to you for any damages of any kind (even if IFTF has been advised of the possibility of such damages) resulting from the Service, including but not limited to your use of or inability to use the Service; unauthorized access to or changes in Content or information you submit; and the acts and statements of third parties who use the Service.
You agree that IFTF shall not be liable to you or any third party for any termination of or limitation on your access to IFTF. IFTF may change, end, or put on hiatus the Service, or parts of its Services, at any time.
You agree that IFTF shall not be liable to you for any claim arising out of Content you make available, your use of the Service, your connection to the Service, your use of the ToS, or your violation of any rights of another.
IFTF reserves the right to discontinue any aspect of its Service at any time.
In other words, IFTF is not liable to you for allowing you to post Content, download Content, use the Service, or interact with IFTF. IFTF does not assume whatever legal risks you face by posting, viewing, or doing other things with Content.
You agree not to use the Service (as well as the e-mail addresses and URLs of IFTF sites):
to make available any Content or work that violates the Content Policy as defined herein;
to impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, an IFTF representative or volunteer, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity (fiction marked as such, including real-person fiction in first-person format, is not subject to this policy);
to forge headers or otherwise manipulate identifiers in order to disguise the origin of any Content transmitted to or through the Service or any IFTF Content, sites, servers, networks, or services (headers and identifiers are defined as information actually used or intended to be used to route or authenticate Content, and do not include Content that simulates identifiers as part of a story, such as a fictional e-mail exchange);
to remove watermarks or source identifiers, logos and/or code from content created by or hosted by third parties, including other users, on IFTF;
to make available any Content that a court has ruled constitutes patent, trademark, trade secret or copyright infringement (please be aware of IFTF’s position on the legality of transformative works);
upload, post, e-mail, transmit or otherwise make available any User Submission where you reasonably believe that said submission constitutes patent, trademark, trade secret or copyright infringement, taking into consideration IFTF’s position on the legality of transformative works;
to make available any unsolicited or unauthorized advertising (defined as solicitations for direct or indirect commercial advantage), junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, or any other form of solicitation;
to make available 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 or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
to interfere with or disrupt the Service, any IFTF-hosted Content or sites, servers, Services or networks connected to IFTF sites;
to create an account if you are a resident or national of any country to which the U.S. has prohibited transactions by mandating a trade embargo, as detailed further by the State Department;
to access User Submissions of other users and/or IFTF and its designees for purposes other than solely for your information and personal use and as intended through the normal functionality of the IFTF Service.
to create an account if you are under the age of thirteen;
to create an account if you are: under the age of 16, and a resident or citizen of a country, including a European Economic Area country, that states an age that is older than thirteen is required to consent to the processing of personal data without our obtaining written permission from a parent or legal guardian. A list of countries that apply the GDPR can be found here. Each user is responsible for knowing the laws of their own country.
to use IFTF services to break any law that applies to you, including any rules or regulations having the force of law. Just by way of example, do not use the services to disseminate restricted technologies or violate laws governing the export of technical data. This provision is not intended to deal with matters subject to the Content Policy, but the Content Policy cannot cover every law in every country. As a general matter, the Services follows US law. Content that is alleged to violate the law of a relevant jurisdiction will be dealt with according to the procedures established in the Abuse Policy.
As an IFTF account holder you may submit textual, audio, visual, or audiovisual content including but not limited to stories, poetry, polls, profile images, forum messages or instant messages. Such user submitted content are collectively and individually referred to as “User Submissions”. You understand that whether or not such User Submissions are published/made available to the public, IFTF does not guarantee any confidentiality or privacy with respect to any User Submissions.
You shall be solely responsible for your own User Submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with your User Submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use needed pursuant to your User Submission, including but not limited to privileges you hold pursuant to Fair Use and laws regarding transformative works in the country or jurisdiction where you reside. By submitting any User Submission, you immediately grant to IFTF the license described in Paragraph C of this Section in and to said User Submission as well as all patent, trademark, trade secret, right of publicity or other proprietary rights in and to any User Submissions, and affirm that you have all necessary consents to collect, use and disclose any personally identifiable information contained or displayed in any and all said User Submission that is required to include said User Submission in and/or on the IFTF Service to enable inclusion and use of the User Submissions in the manner contemplated by the Website IFTF and these Terms of Service.
In connection with User Submissions, you agree that you will not submit material that is (a) protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party rights regarding privacy and publicity rights, unless you have permission from their rightful owner and the necessary consents from any individuals whose personally identifiable information is contained in such material to post the material and to grant IFTF all of the license rights granted herein (b) copyrighted by a third party unless said User Submission is a Fair Use of said content under US copyright laws.
For clarity, you retain any ownership rights that you have in and to your User Submissions. However, for the IFTF site to exist and provide fantastic content to readers around the world, in submitting a User Submission to IFTF, you hereby grant IFTF a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, display, edit, modify, tag, cache, index, codify, adapt or create derivative works of, host and perform the User Submissions in connection with the IFTF Services and its affiliates, where such right is terminated only upon a user’s deletion of said User Submission, at which time IFTF may copy, retain, use and distribute User Submissions that have been removed or deleted by the individual who submitted/uploaded the User Submission. You hereby waive any moral rights you may have in your User Submissions and grant each user of the IFTF Services a non-exclusive license to access and archive, but not to distribute, your User Submissions through the IFTF services.
You further agree that you will not, in connection with User Submissions, submit material that is contrary to applicable local, national, and international laws and regulations.
IFTF does not endorse any User Submission or any opinion, recommendation, or advice expressed therein, and IFTF expressly disclaims any and all liability in connection with User Submissions. IFTF supports robust fair use and hosts transformative works, but IFTF does not permit copyright infringing activities and infringement of intellectual property rights on its Website, particularly those that constitute counterfeiting or piracy. IFTF will remove Content and User Submissions if properly notified that such Content or User Submission infringes on another’s intellectual property rights or contravenes any applicable privacy legislation. IFTF reserves the right to remove Content and User Submissions without prior notice.
IFTF may from time to time host in-person events or experiences. All individuals attending such events are asked to conduct themselves in comportment with these Terms of Use and violations of said Terms of Use or the harassment of any individual at or in connection with said event shall be treated by IFTF in the same manner that such violation would be treated by IFTF were it to have happened online. If IFTF or the third party entity hosting such event, makes available a Safety Policy regarding any in-person event and/or experience then for the duration of the event/experience said Safety Policy is incorporated by reference into this Agreement, and these Terms of Use are incorporated into said Safety Policy.
If you indicate upon registration with IFTF or at any time subsequent that you want to receive information from and/or about IFTF’s affiliates, partners and trusted third parties, IFTF may provide your information to third parties regarding information about products and services or otherwise provide you with such information directly.
IFTF reserves the right to send electronic mail, SMS messages and other communications to you for the purpose of informing you of changes or additions to the IFTF Service as well as new content on the IFTF Service, or with regard to surveys, polls, site analytics and usage and IFTF’s curatorial content.
IFTF reserves the right to disclose demographic and site-access information, and will take reasonable steps to not reveal your personal identity in connection with the disclosure of such information. Advertisers and/or Licensees on our Web site may collect and share personal information pursuant to our Privacy Policy.
IFTF or users of its services may provide links to or content via sites that are owned or controlled by third parties, and may use such sites, including Twitter and Facebook, to communicate information about IFTF. IFTF has no control over such sites or their terms of use or privacy policies, and you agree that IFTF is not responsible for and does not endorse their content, terms or availability.
While we limit the types of embedded content visible or accessible via Services-hosted Content, some of the content and/or works that you see displayed at the Services are not hosted on the Services. Such embedded content can include videos, tweets, images that are hosted by third-party sites, or audio files (“User-Embedded Content”). If you access a page that includes User-Embedded Content, the content file may share data with the hosted site as if you were on or at the hosted site. Although all visible Content, including embedded images or other works, must comply with our Content Policy, User-Embedded Content is not otherwise governed by these Terms of Use or the Services Privacy Policy, and instead is covered by the Terms of Use and/or Privacy Policy of the service that hosts the User-Embedded Content. The Services reserves the right to provide an indicator to users that User-Embedded Content is present on or visible via your Content.
You understand that when using the IFTF Services, you will be exposed to User Submissions from a variety of sources, and that IFTF is not responsible for the accuracy, usefulness, safety, or intellectual property rights of or relating to such User Submissions. You further understand and acknowledge that you may be exposed to User Submissions that are inaccurate, offensive, indecent, blasphemous or objectionable, and you agree to waive, and hereby do waive, any legal or equitable rights or remedies you have or may have against IFTF with respect thereto, and agree to indemnify and hold IFTF, its Owners/Operators, affiliates, and/or licensors, harmless to the fullest extent allowed by law regarding all matters related to your use of the site. Content, including User-Embedded Content, is the sole responsibility of the submitter.
You recognize that IFTF does not endorse Content on the Services in any way, except when material appears as an official statement of IFTF. No committee members, officers, or directors of IFTF are acting in an official capacity when they post works, commentary, or other Content of the type generally provided by site users.
IFTF is not liable to you for any Content to which you are exposed on or because of the Services.
As part of your registration, you agree to provide an accurate and current e-mail address and to update the address as necessary. If your e-mail address is inaccurate or not current, IFTF may suspend your account. Content provided by suspended accounts before the suspension will not be removed unless the IFTF Board reasonably believes that presence/inclusion of said Content exposes the Services and/or IFTF to liability.
By registering or otherwise using an e-mail address in connection with IFTF, you assert that the e-mail address is not listed on any child protection registry. (There are child protection registries in Michigan and Utah, and our policy applies to any others that exist or may be adopted, whether local, state, or national, including any outside the U.S.)
IFTF does not claim any ownership or copyright in your Content. Repeat: we do not own your Content. Nothing in this agreement changes that in any way. Running IFTF, however, requires us to make copies, and backup copies, and process Content, on servers that may be located anywhere around the world including outside the EU.
You agree that we can make those copies and show your Content to other people; specifically, by submitting a work in or to any IFTF competition, you contractually grant IFTF a world-wide, royalty-free, non-revocable, nonexclusive license to make that Content available. “Making available” includes distributing, reproducing, performing, displaying, compiling, and modifying or adapting.
Modifying and adapting here refer strictly to how your work is displayed—not how it is written, drawn, or otherwise created. But because your Content may be transmitted over various networks, we may have to make changes to the formatting or display of your Content in order to adapt to the technical requirements of different networks or devices. Multimedia content may not display properly on all devices. In some circumstances, we may make changes to improve accessibility. For example, we may automatically convert html tags (e.g., changing “bold” html to “strong”). Or we may make special provisions for accessibility, such as allowing you to use nonstandard fonts but also providing an alternate format for those who cannot read such fonts. We may use an internal search engine whose results display relevant snippets from your Content.
You also grant IFTF a world-wide, royalty-free, nonexclusive license to make your Content available. You acknowledge and agree that IFTF may preserve Content and may disclose Content if required to do so by law or in the good faith belief that such preservation or disclosure is reasonably necessary to: comply with legal process; enforce the ToS; respond to claims that any Content violates the rights of third parties; or protect the rights, property, or personal safety of the IFTF services’ users and the public.
IFTF and the IFTF Service exist to host Content by creative people like you. In order to host or share User Content, as well as comments, Profiles and Votes, we have to process certain data and information including Personal Data that we collect from Users, and that each User inputs. In order to operate the site, host IFTF and user Content, and prevent technical issues and breaches, we need to process (e.g. collect, store, retrieve, disseminate, make available, and delete) certain data and information including personally identifying information, also known as “Personal Data”. Personal Data includes your username, your email address, your IP information and any personally identifying information you enter on the Services, including information that you put into your profile, a work’s notes or tags, into the body of a work or other Content itself.
By using the site, you consent to our collection, processing, retention and display of your Content as set forth and explained in these Terms of Use so we can operate, manage, display and share the creativity on IFTF; if we believe that using, retaining and/or sharing that information is necessary to preserve the integrity of the Services and the Content that we host; for legitimate legal and/or accounting audit purposes; when we have a good faith belief it is required by law, such as pursuant to a subpoena or other legal process; or when we have a good faith belief that doing so will help prevent imminent harm to someone.
This Age Policy covers the Services’s treatment of users (a) who are residents or citizens of the European Union and of the age where consent of a parent or legal guardian is required for the processing of personal data of children including email addresses and IP addresses, as well as certain uses of cookies; and (b) who are under the age of thirteen (13) and residents or citizens of any other country.
In compliance with United States regulations regarding online privacy for children, the Services does not knowingly solicit or collect information from children under the age of thirteen (13). Children under the age of thirteen (13) are therefore not permitted to have an account or upload Content of any type to the Services. By submitting Content to the Services, you thereby confirm that you are thirteen (13) years old or older, and of the age to legally grant consent to have us use, process and retain your Personal Data as well as Special Categories of Personal Information in the country where you reside and/or are a citizen.
Asking a parent or legal guardian to upload Content does not constitute submitting Content under this policy. If you are under the age of thirteen (13) and not an Age-Barred Individual (as defined below), your parent or legal guardian may upload your Content through their account.
We as an organization have opted to protect teen users’ privacy. As a result, we cannot receive or host Content from individuals that we know are under the age of sixteen and residents/citizens of the European Union, unless they are residents/citizens of the EU countries that allow the collection of Special Categories of Personal Data from those at a younger age (“Age-Barred Individuals”). Age-Barred Individuals may not maintain accounts or submit Content. IFTF Personnel may, in their reasonable discretion, hide and/or delete accounts held by and/or Content submitted by Age-Barred Individuals.
The IFTF Website is overseen by our administrative staff who process all support requests as well as ensuring new registrations are integrated smoothly into the workflow of the website. These individuals also periodically review existing content to ensure compliance with IFTF ToS.
Support and development is handled by our development Volunteers of coders and UI/UX specialists who periodically update the site with new features and patches addressing existing issues.
This Privacy Policy covers IFTF’s treatment of Personal Data, including personally identifying information submitted to us, and which we collect when you use our services in the course of ordinary communications. The IFTF Services may contain links to third party websites that are not owned or controlled by IFTF and embedded content that is not created, controlled or owned by IFTF. IFTF has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party websites. In addition, IFTF will not and cannot censor or edit the content of any non-user third-party. By using the Website, you expressly relieve IFTF from any and all liability arising from your use of any third-party website. Additional terms and conditions may apply when you use affiliate services or third-party content, including but not limited to Facebook, Twitter, GitHub, YouTube, Twitter, Tumblr, Yahoo, Google+ and others; IFTF does not control said terms and conditions, and your use of such sites is at your own responsibility and your own risk. By accessing any page hosted, controlled or otherwise managed by IFTF or submitting any content to IFTF including but not limited to emails or postings on our Facebook page, YouTube postings or Forums, you state that you agree with, and agree to comply with, the Terms of Use.
If these Terms of Service and/or this Privacy Policy change at any point in the future, we will post the policy changes to the Website. Such changes will be used only for information provided by those who have visited, used, or accessed the Service after the effective date of such policy changes. If you are concerned about how your information is used, you should check back at the Services site periodically to review the policies.
If you feel that this Service is not following its stated information policy, please contact IFTF Personnel at info@iftechfoundation.org.
Any information you include in your work, comment, profile, bookmark, summary, or other Content, including information about your religious views, political views or your sexual identity, or any personally identifying information such as your email address, location, or account User Name for other sites will be accessible by the general public if the Content is marked public, and by IFTF users and Volunteers if the Content is marked accessible to IFTF users only. If you save the Content in Draft form, it will be accessible by certain IFTF Volunteers.
We collect personally identifying information such as your IP address and e-mail address when you request an Services invitation, register for a user account with the Services, visit any of the sites and Services that are part of IFTF family of sites, or use any of the Services’s Services. We may use third-party services to store, process, or transmit data, or perform other technical functions related to operating the Service. These services may include spam detectors, backup services, icon hosting, and e-mail services; a list of third-party services is provided in our Subprocessor List. We cannot guarantee other services’ performance. We or the services we use may store or process your Personal Data in data centers which may be located in the United States or other countries.
We will use your e-mail address internally for purposes of managing IFTF and maintaining site integrity; if you agree to allow your e-mail address to be public, it will be public and you can change that setting any time. You can choose to leave it private, or make it public on the Site; if you opt to make it public, everyone has the ability to access it and use it for any purpose. We may occasionally send e-mails to you from IFTF about your Content and account, the Services, and our fundraisers, as well as news that we reasonably believe to be of use to our registered users; we will send you your invitation to register for the Services via e-mail as well. By creating and maintaining a User Account on and with IFTF, you consent to receiving such emails, including fundraising e-mails. We reserve the right to send you notice of complaints raised against you, or alleged violations by you of the Terms of Service, as well as to reply to any e-mail message you send to the Services and/or its Volunteers.
We collect, process and retain the following data for the following reasons:
E-mail Addresses: We collect e-mail addresses of and from those who communicate with us via e-mail and any Content or Personal Data included in e-mails to us. We need this information so we can respond to you, and so we can handle complaints about the Service and any users who may have violated the Terms of Use or other policies, and for other legal and accounting/audit reasons including maintaining the integrity of the Services and the Content that we host;
User-Specific Information: We collect information about what pages users access or visit including your interactions with integral Services features such as Votes, Comments, Bookmarks and the tags that you “favorite”, IP address (which may manifest with approximate or inaccurate location information) browser and operating system types, access times and dates, as well as referral information (i.e. data about what site you are coming to the Services from) and whether there are errors in displaying Content to you. We need this information to maintain the integrity of the site, the Service and the Content that we host; to provide you with the Content that you are seeking; to minimize “gaming” Votes counts and spam; and for other legal and accounting/audit reasons.
The IP address of IFTF visitors including registered users is collected and processed by IFTF; we need this information so we can provide you with the Content that you are requesting, to allow you to submit Comments, Content and Profile information, and leave Votes, and for other legal and accounting audit reasons including maintaining the integrity of the Services and the Content that we host. Certain IP information may be collected by the server for log purposes and used for limited technical assessments of the Service.
Logs of server interactions, as well as event logs are collected and processed. We need this information for legal and accounting/audit reasons, including maintaining the integrity of the Services and the Content that we host and providing users with Content.
We use cookies to store visitors’ preferences; customize web pages and Content delivery based on visitors’ browser type or other information that the visitor sends; and record activity at the Services in order to provide better service when visitors return to our site. Cookies must be enabled for certain IFTF Services to function properly with your computer. IFTF has no access to cookies set by entities other than IFTF.
If for any reason you terminate your user account with us, we will destroy active records containing your Personal Data as soon as reasonably possible; however, we may have to retain some information for a longer period as legal records or for auditing purposes. If we terminate your service, we may retain enough information to prevent you from signing up for the service in the future.
If we receive a complaint about a violation of someone’s intellectual property rights, we reserve the right to disclose the information provided by the rightsholder or the rightsholder’s representative to the subject of the complaint. If we receive a complaint about other matters, such as plagiarism or harassment, we will follow the Abuse Policy, which explains what information provided by the complainant may be disclosed to the subject of the complaint.
IFTF will not provide any third party with any of your personal information or any of the information we collect, except as provided under our Terms of Service. We will not use your Personal Data to tailor or target marketing of third party products and services to you via the Services.
We will not sell, trade, or rent your Personal Data. Except as provided under this policy, we will not disclose your Personal Data to any third party without your prior consent unless we (1) are legally compelled to do so, (2) have a good-faith belief that such action is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order, or legal process served on IFTF, or (3) are cooperating with law enforcement authorities. As to (3), we will cooperate with all investigations conducted by law enforcement authorities within the United States of America when legally required to do so. Cooperation with law enforcement authorities from other countries and cooperation when it is not legally required are at our sole discretion. Our discretion looks favorably on freedom and justice, and unfavorably on oppression and violence.
Unless legally prohibited, we will attempt to notify you any time we disclose your Personal Data to a third party. In some cases, the information we have, such as an IP address, may be insufficient for us to notify you.
We recognize that there is no such thing as a popular abuse policy. By their nature, abuse complaints are unpleasant at best. And policy needs to be applied by people, which always complicates matters. We have tried to set out clear procedures to minimize and channel the inevitable conflicts.
IFTF Services will contain content that has not been screened, reviewed, read, viewed, approved or curated by or for IFTF; IFTF has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for, User Submissions. IFTF makes no warranty that the IFTF Services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, accurate or error-free or that any information contained in any User Submissions thereon shall be accurate, informational or in comportment with your views or beliefs. Complaints are investigated only when they are submitted through the appropriate channels and with the appropriate information.
Complaints may be submitted by email to info@iftechfoundation.org except that copyright issues should be reported via our DMCA procedure. We reserve the right to record the IP address from which each complaint is submitted, to prevent misuse of the system and/or Service.
The administration of the site reserves the right to lock, limit and/or terminate any account without notice.
A user whose account has been permanently suspended for reasons other than age may not rejoin under another identity. Penalties apply to users, not to screen names/pseudonyms. Penalties are not retroactive: a suspended user’s nonobjectionable Content will not be automatically removed unless the user is an Age-Barred Individual.
You agree not to use the Website for any commercial purpose without the prior written authorization of IFTF. Prohibited commercial uses include any of the following actions taken without IFTF’s express approval and/or via IFTF’s official advertising and promotion settings and/or channels:
sale of access to the Website or its related services on another website;
use of the Website or its related services for the sole purpose of gaining advertising or subscription revenue;
the sale of advertising, on the IFTF Services or any third-party website, targeted to the content of specific User Submissions or IFTF content;
creation of an app that scrapes or otherwise access content hosted on or by IFTF or that is part of the IFTF Services
and any use of the Website or its related services that IFTF finds, in its sole discretion, to use IFTF’s resources or User Submissions with the effect of competing with or displacing the market for IFTF, IFTF content, or its User Submissions.
Repeated identical or nearly identical posts in multiple places, e.g., a large number of identical comments promoting a website, will also be considered spam regardless of commercial content.
Anything we determine is spam will be removed. Users may be permanently suspended for spam the first time they post spam content.
We may use automated means to filter out spam. If you submit Content that is erroneously caught in a spam filter, please notify Services administrators.
Conduct that threatens the technical integrity of the Services, e.g. attempts to hack the Service or spread viruses through it, will result in an immediate account suspension and deletion of any Content that is hazardous to the operation of the Service or to users’ computers. Users may be permanently suspended for threatening the technical integrity of the Services the first time they do so. Such suspensions may be appealed using the ordinary appeal process.
Uploading technically misnamed files or Content—e.g., non-image files with an image file extension used to disguise their actual format—constitutes a threat to the technical integrity of the site.
Please be aware that IFTF believes that transformative works are legal; therefore, complaints based merely on the existence of work based on copyrighted content or mentioning trademarks will not be pursued.
If you believe that content that you hold a copyright in has been reproduced in whole or in part, without transformative use (transformative use is defined by IFTF as adding something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the source with new expression, meaning, or message), please follow our procedures for reporting copyright infringement.
The report must clearly and specifically indicate the exact location (URL), nature, and extent of each instance of allegedly infringing content, as well as the exact copyrighted material that is being infringed, as well as full and complete contact information for the copyright holder and/or an authorized agent.
Epigraphs and short quotations, including quotations from song lyrics and poetry, are allowed. Content that is set within or draws on an existing work is allowed. Reproductions of entire copyrighted works—whether songs, poems, transcripts, or other material—are not allowed without the consent of the copyright owner.
IFTF is committed to protecting the privacy of our users; unauthorized disclosure of another’s personal information and/or data which is included within the definition of Special Categories of Personal Data violates the Terms of Service. For these purposes, “personal information” may include legal names and other information sufficient to identify a person in the physical world that they have not voluntarily shared on the Services itself. “Personal information” may also include the identity of the creator of a Stricken work. The Services reserve the right to delete, hide, mask or otherwise make unavailable to the general public any personal information and/or data which is included within the EU’s GDPR definition of Special Categories of Personal Data which includes personal data revealing racial or ethnic origin, political opinions, religious or philosophical beliefs, trade union membership, personal relationships, sexual orientation and/or health data.
If you are a resident or citizen of the European Community, you are generally entitled to access personal information that IFTF holds and to have inaccurate data corrected or removed to the extent IFTF has access to and/or maintains it. In certain circumstances, you also may have the right to object for legitimate reasons to the processing or transfer of personal information. If you wish to exercise any of these rights, please email info@iftechfoundation.org to make a request.
Harassment is any behavior that produces a generally hostile environment for its target. This includes activities such as bullying and hazing by groups of people as well as personal attacks by individuals. Not everyone agrees about what is offensive and unacceptable. Individual users are encouraged to try to resolve problems on their own before contacting the IFTF Volunteers.
Harassment is not allowed. Users engaging in this behavior may be warned, suspended, or permanently suspended as described in the general abuse procedure.
When judging whether a specific incident constitutes harassment, the Volunteers will consider factors such as whether the behavior was repeated, whether it was repeated after the offender was asked to stop, whether the behavior was targeted at a specific person, whether that target could have easily avoided encountering the behavior, whether the behavior would be considered unacceptable according to normal community standards, etc. Additionally, making complaints that are both (a) repeated and (b) baseless, particularly those targeting a specific user, can be considered harassing behavior and may be deemed a violation of the ToS.
The Services are a place for creativity. Content may not be uploaded to IFTF’s servers if it contains or links to child pornography; malicious warez; trade secrets, restricted technologies, or classified information; or pirated software defined as commercially distributed games that are not in the public domain and which are uploaded without the copyright owner’s permission in violation of said game’s license agreement. Uploading such Content is a violation of the ToS.
We may determine that we need to remove Content to resolve a threatened or pending lawsuit or mitigate other liability. If so, we will remove the Content. Unless said Content or data otherwise violates the ToS or was submitted by an Age-Barred Individual, removal for such reasons will not lead to a suspension.
If you believe Content violates a specific law, you may report it to us. Please, however, read our Offensive Content Policy below.
As provided in theseTerms of Service, IFTF is not liable to you for any Content to which you are exposed on or because of the Service.
Unless it violates some other policy, we will not remove Content for offensiveness, no matter how awful, repugnant, or badly spelled we may personally find that Content to be.
One of the goals of IFTF is to provide a permanent long-term home for creative content. We also understand that circumstances can arise in which creators wish to remove their name or pseudonym from a work; if such a situation arises, please contact the administrators.
Please be aware that IFTF believes fair use is a lawful use of copyright; therefore, complaints based merely on the existence of work based on copyrighted content or mentioning trademarks will not be pursued.
Epigraphs and short quotations, including quotations from song lyrics and poetry, are allowed. Content that is set within or draws on an existing work is allowed. Reproductions of entire copyrighted works—whether songs, poems, transcripts, or other material—are not allowed without the consent of the copyright owner.
If you believe that your content has been reproduced in whole or in part, without transformative use (transformative use is defined by IFTF as adding something new, with a further purpose or different character, altering the source with new expression, meaning, or message), please follow our procedures for reporting copyright infringement.
The report must be submitted via an email to dmca@iftechfoundation.org and must clearly and specifically indicate the exact location (URL), nature, and extent of each instance of allegedly infringing content, as well as the exact copyrighted material that is being infringed, as well as full and complete contact information for the copyright holder and/or an authorized agent.
As part of IFTF’s copyright policy, IFTF may terminate user access to the website some or all of the IFTF Services if a user has been determined by IFTF in its sole discretion to infringe on third-party content. IFTF believes in strong Fair Use, and will not deem a work to be infringing if it can reasonably be deemed Fair Use. However, IFTF recognizes that Fair Use laws in the United States can and do change, and IFTF thus reserves the right to remove and/or hide certain works at any time if IFTF believes that such work is unable to fall into the parameters of then-current Fair Use laws.
To file a copyright infringement notification with us, you will need to send a communication to us with all of the following information in it, using this format:
Include a statement telling us that you have found Content on IFTF which you believe infringes your copyright (for example, “I hereby confirm that I believe the story identified below infringes my copyright”).
Tell us which country your copyright applies to.
Tell us the title of the content concerned and the full URL for its page.
Explain to us in what way that content infringes your copyright (e.g. the text is copied, the entire story is a copy of an original work made by you, etc.)
Identify the type (e.g. a book, a short story, a poem, etc.). and details of (e.g. title, publisher, dates, etc.) the copyright work which you own the rights in, and which you believe has been infringed. If this information is available on the internet, it is helpful to send us a link.
Let us have contact information so that we can get in touch with you (email address is preferred).
Let us have the contact information which we can pass on to the submitter of the content concerned, so that they can get in touch with you to resolve your complaint directly (email address is preferred).
Include the following statement: “I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted work described above is not authorized by the copyright owner (or by a third party who is legally entitled to do so on behalf of the copyright owner) and is not otherwise permitted by law. I swear that the information contained in this notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner (or legal representative thereof) or otherwise have an the exclusive right in law to bring infringement proceedings with respect to its use.”
Sign the notice. If you are providing notice by e-mail, a scanned physical signature or a valid electronic signature will be accepted.
Send the notice, in English, to the below address:
Our DMCA Agent is Heidi Tandy, and her address is 1691 Michigan Ave., Suite 250, Miami Beach, FL 33139.
Please also note that the information provided in this legal notice may be forwarded to the person who provided the allegedly infringing content and any other party designated by IFTF.
Before submitting a report of infringement to IFTF, be sure you know whether the content that you have seen on IFTF infringes your copyright. Be aware that there may be adverse legal consequences in your country if you make a false or bad faith allegation of copyright infringement by using this process and remember that most countries’ copyright law does not give one person ownership of an idea, but ownership of the specific words or image used to express that idea.