Please read these Terms of Service (“Terms”) carefully. They contain legal terms and conditions which govern your use of Fur Affinity (the "Service"), also referred to in these terms as "we", "our", "us" “Administration” and “Staff”. This includes all information, text, images, audio, graphics, data or other materials ("Content") provided through Fur Affinity's websites ("Domains") on http://www.furaffinity.net, http://forums.furaffinity.net and http://wiki.furaffinity.net. This Service is operated free of charge and provided on an “as is” basis.
By using the Fur Affinity Service you (the “User”) agree to all rules and guidelines listed within the Fur Affinity Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy. The Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy are subject to change at any time and without prior notice. Use of the Service after updates or modifications to the Terms will constitute your acceptance and agreement with any and all changes made to these Terms.
Users have full right to terminate this contract at any point.
Disagreement to changes made to this document or termination of this contract will yield users a seven (7) day grace period in which they can access their account to send messages, remove submissions from the server or finalize their business. Any new submissions posted during or after the grace period will be considered continued acceptance to the Terms of Service.
Disclaimers
http://www.furaffinity.net, http://forums.furaffinity.net and http://wiki.furaffinity.net are not intended for use by children under the age of thirteen (13). If we detect that a User is under thirteen (13) years of age we will suspend the User's account until they can prove, through legal means, that they are of sufficient legal age to use the Service.
Fur Affinity contains artistic works which may be of mature Content. By enabling the ability to view mature work (disabled by default) Users agree and submit that they are a minimum of eighteen (18) years of age or older and that their date of birth is factual and accurate. Fur Affinity will not be held liable for underaged Users' intentional misrepresentation or falsification of age, birth date and personal data.
We encourage parents and guardians to be familiar with the web sites that their children visit and to monitor their children’s usage regularly.
You agree that you take full responsibility and liability for any and all of your actions while using our Service and that Fur Affinity, its Administration and Staff is in no way, shape or form responsible or liable for any willful action on your behalf. “Action” is defined as the willing transfer of data from your ISP to our Domains as outlined in the Service. This is referred to as the “Willing Click” policy.
If you have visited the Fur Affinity Service by accident and/or disagree with the Terms you agree to willingly cease use of the Service immediately and to take no further action while on the site.
Fur Affinity is not responsible for the expressions, comments, journals and/or media Content uploaded to the Service by Users. Fur Affinity does not endorse nor accept/deny the words, expressions, comments, journals, actions, and/or submissions of its Users on its Domains (http://www.furaffinity.net, http://forums.furaffinity.net and http://wiki.furaffinity.net).
Our Rights
Fur Affinity Administration and Staff reserve the rights of the following:
- To remove any and/or all submissions found not in accordance with the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy. Fur Affinity will attempt to notify Users of any and all action taken upon submissions removed in this manner.
- To edit and/or modify submissions in ways deemed necessary by the Fur Affinity Staff to keep in alignment with the Terms of Service. Such editing will be limited to: adding/editing tags, descriptions, comments or re-labeling the submissions accordingly. Fur Affinity will not modify or censor original uploads.
- To temporarily or permanently ban any User from the Service to protect the interests of the site, the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy. Permanent bans only occur with the consent of the Admin majority (50% or more members of Staff agreeing upon the punishment).
- To monitor User’s private data, submissions, comments and/or notes to investigate issues which could constitute illegal activity by state, Federal or International Law or to further protect the interests of the site, the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy or to monitor transmissions which could be considered threatening, "spam" or "flaming". In such an event where Fur Affinity must divulge a user's private information it will only do so with recognized legal authority figures.
Compliance of the Terms of Service
By joining and/or browsing Fur Affinity, you agree to all rules and guidelines listed within the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy. The Fur Affinity Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy are subject to change at any time without notice, and any changes made will become retroactive to all previous Content.
Registration and User Information
You must be a minimum thirteen (13) years of age to use the features provided by the Fur Affinity Service. You agree that the information you provide upon registration is accurate, correct and complete.
You also agree that you will ensure that this information is kept accurate and up-to-date at all times. Failure to keep information up-to-date is a violation of the Terms of Service. This is especially important with respect to your email address, as Fur Affinity Staff may need to contact you to ensure validation of information and/or for security purposes. Keeping your information up-to-date is also the primary verification system for your recovering lost passwords. Fur Affinity takes no responsibility for accounts lost due to inaccurate or false information, compromised security or User neglect.
Forgery and/or falsification of information provided to the Service may result in instant termination of your membership.
Content Submission
Fur Affinity allows the submission of visual art, stories, poetry and music to the site so long as the information complies with the rules and terms set forth by the Submission Agreement.
Copyrights
All artwork found on the Fur Affinity website is copyright the original artist, unless otherwise stated by the poster. Submissions may only be posted if they comply with the “By You, For You” Policy. Submitters are bound to the Terms set forth both in this document (the Terms of Service), the Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy. By clicking “submit” to upload Content, you, the User, agree to all conditions listed and set forth by the Terms.
The Fur Affinity name, site mascot (Fender), website coding and graphics are sole property of Fur Affinity, unless otherwise stated. You may not reproduce, distribute and/or display Fur Affinity graphics or works without express permission.
Copyrights – The “By You, For You” Policy
You agree that the Content posted by you was created by yourself (as the original artist) OR was created explicitly for you (and was posted with permission of the original artist). When posting submission(s) created for you, you must cite your sources at all times and attribute credit where it is due. Failure to do so may result in the submission(s) being removed with or without notice.
Users posting artwork created for them may have their submission(s) pulled without notice or warning upon request of the original artist. Users found to be posting multiple submissions by various artists without permission may have action taken upon their account.
There are no exceptions to this policy.
Code of Conduct
You agree to respect the rights of others and their rights to join and engage in the Fur Affinity community. The basic guidelines listed below will be enforced by Fur Affinity Administrators and Staff. By using the Service, you also agree to Fur Affinity’s "Three Primary Laws of Common Courtesy"
The Three Laws of Courtesy:
- A User may not intentionally harass, slander or disrupt another User of the site, or, through inaction, intentionally allow another User to come to be harassed.
- A User must obey the requests and guidelines given to them by the Administration, except where such orders would conflict with the first law.
- A User may protect their interests, as long as such protection does not conflict with the first or second Law.
“Inaction” is defined as the User being aware of harassment, slander or other abuse and not notifying a member of the Administration of the Staff. If you see harassment taking place you are obligated to report it.
Fur Affinity does not tolerate bigotry and will remove and take action against Users leaving remarks found to be crude and vulgar. Crude and vulgar is defined as, but not limited to: racist slurs, anti-Semitic insults and/or other derogatory remarks regarding philosophies, religion, sexuality, race, gender or association.
Users agree that they will not engage in "disruptive behavior" in chat areas, forums, galleries, or any other area of the Fur Affinity community. Disruptive behavior shall be deemed to include, but will not be limited to, conduct which purposefully interferes with the normal flow of website enjoyment, personal galleries, or dialogue in the chat or forums.
You also agree that you will not abuse or exploit bugs, undocumented features, design errors or other problems on Fur Affinity. You also agree to report all problems, errors or bugs to Fur Affinity Administration and Staff as soon as they are found, as their continued use can damage the enjoyment and community integrity for all members.
Fur Affinity will do everything within its power to fix these types of issues in a timely manner, but fixes may be in limited release due to the nature of Fur Affinity being an all volunteer site.
Enforcement Policy
Fur Affinity Administration and Staff will uphold the policies set forth by the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy, and will protect the general interests of the Service. This includes, but is not limited to: art theft, identity theft, harassment, defacement, piracy or other illegal activity.
Fur Affinity is committed to fair and equal treatment of all members. Suspected TOS violations will be fully investigated before action is taken. Members of Fur Affinity are expected to follow any reasonable requests and/or instructions given to them via Administration and Staff within the boundaries of the site's Domains. All international copyright laws and intellectual property laws apply to your galleries. Violating these laws may result in civil fines and/or imprisonment. We shall enforce the rules of the site against all violations of the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and Acceptable Upload Policy.
Users found to be in violation of the policies set forth by the Terms of Service will have action taken against their account which may involve removal of submissions, temporary suspension from the Service and/or outright termination of their Fur Affinity membership.
Repeated violations of the TOS rules will result in permanent suspension of your account.
Suspension and Termination of Membership
You agree that Fur Affinity may, at any time and without notice, suspend or terminate a User’s membership with the Service and/or remove Content without notice. You agree that we are not liable for the loss of data, information or other material stored on the Service.
Account Privacy
Fur Affinity values your privacy, and as such is committed to safeguarding your data and personal information. Fur Affinity will never use, share or distribute personal identifiable information provided to the Service, except for ways as described in this document. We reserve the right to modify and/or revise the privacy policy with or without prior notice.
Fur Affinity, its Administration and Staff, will never ask you for your password. Do not give it out to anyone, ever. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your personal information and accept any and all responsibility for any harm, lost or missing Content resulting from willful distribution of said personal information. If you provide your information to anyone other than yourself, Fur Affinity is not responsible for any loss or damage done to your account, emotional distress or discontent caused by your actions.
Fur Affinity will, however, make an attempt to recover missing or lost Content as the result of an account breach but is under no obligation nor guarantee to restore any lost Content.
Account Privacy - Data Collection
The Fur Affinity Service reserves the right to collect information on your account, using the following methods:
By registering and creating an account on the Fur Affinity Service, you willingly volunteer to submit personal information regarding your identity (age. e-mail address). We attempt to verify that the information you submit is truthful and accurate whenever possible.
Fur Affinity and its Administration may not be held responsible for inaccurate information submitted to the site. We reserve the right to terminate membership to any account found submitting fraudulent information to the Service.
We reserve the right to use any information and/or data you submit to your account to improve the Fur Affinity site and its Services based on individual Users' site usage and information Users voluntarily submit. This information will not be made public and is used to benefit the site. User data, e-mail and information submit to the Service will be retained by Fur Affinity and will not be resold and/or distributed to external organizations, except as stated below.
The IP address and server of all members is recorded with each login. This information is used to track Users actions and duplicated accounts. This information will not be resold and/or distributed to external organizations, except as stated below.
Fur Affinity reserves the right to display all information posted to your personal Userpage and/or submissions. Information provided on these pages is listed as public. Information submit to the Account page, including required fields for your birth date and password are private information, and will not be displayed publicly.
Disclosure of personal information for legal purposes and protection of the Fur Affinity Service:
Fur Affinity reserves the right to share your personal information with third parties if such action is necessary to:
- conform with the requirements to the full extent of the law and/or to comply with legal processes served upon us;
- protect or defend our legal rights or property, http://www.furaffinity.net or our Users;
- © investigate, prevent or take action regarding illegal activities, suspected fraud, threats, situations involving any potential risk or endangerment to the physical safety of the Services’ Users.
Account Privacy - Monitoring Content
Fur Affinity does not have the ability to control Content during transmission to the Service, and as such, is under no obligation to monitor or control such Content for any purpose. You acknowledge that you are solely responsible for all Content, material and information that you upload and transmit to the Fur Affinity Service. Information and Content found to be in violation of the articles found within the Terms of Service, Submission Agreement and/or the Acceptable Upload Policy may be removed at any time without warning.
Network Availability
Fur Affinity will make every effort possible to achieve maximum up-time, but that is not always possible. As such, the Fur Affinity Service is provided on an "as is” basis, and reserves the right to modify, suspend or discontinue Service and/or features at any time without prior notice and/or warning. You agree that Fur Affinity will not be liable for any modification, suspension, loss of data or personal finances resultant due to unavailability or discontinuance of the Service.
Storage Policy
Fur Affinity provides free online storage of Content uploaded by registered members of the Service. You acknowledge and agree that the Service may change this policy without prior notice in regards to its Services. Fur Affinity reserves the rights to change and/or establish limits on accounts without notice concerning usage of the site, upload limits or data storage quotas in effort to regulate disk space or bandwidth.
Any changes made to the Service in such manner will be posted for all users to digest with a minimum of 30 days notice ahead of time.
Site Coding
Fur Affinity's site code is not covered under GPL and is not open source. Fur Affinity code is intellectual property of Fur Affinity, Alkora and the Coding Team. Components, parts or any code, past code or present, may not be re-used for either personal use or used inclusion in other applications or republished in digital or physical format.