SECTION 3 – COMMUNITY FEATURES
Section 3.1 – General Community Information In consideration for your use of the Website’s Community Features and functionality, you agree to (i) comply with the “Community Guidelines” set forth below, (ii) provide GSN with accurate, complete and true information about yourself as required on the registration form (your “Registration Information”) in order to create your Account, and (iii) maintain and update, as applicable, your Registration Information with current and complete information. Users who violate the Community Guidelines, or provide inaccurate, false, or non-current Registration Information may, at GSN’s sole discretion, have their Accounts suspended or terminated, and may be permanently banned from using the Services and/or any other GSN service.
As part of your Account, you will be responsible for creating, and maintaining the confidentiality of, your username and password. We ask that you select a username other than your real name or the real name of any other person. We also urge you to memorize your password or keep it in a secure place, away from the rest of your Account information, as sharing your password with others may lead to unauthorized access to your Account information. You are responsible for all activity occurring under your Account. You agree that you will (i) immediately notify GSN of any unauthorized use of your username or password, and (ii) ensure that you properly exit a Community Feature at the completion of your session. GSN shall have no liability for any loss or damage arising from your Account or your failure to comply with these requirements.
Section 3.2 – Profiles, Buddy Lists, Comment Walls, Virtual Assets and Private or Public Communications As a convenience to its visitors, GSN provides or may provide, at its sole discretion, one or more chat areas, message boards, e-mail functions, messaging services, file communities, virtual communities featuring digital or virtual assets, polls, surveys, and other services (collectively, the “Community Features”). Community Features are provided by GSN to you and others subject to the TOS, the “Community Guidelines” set forth below and the Other Policies. The User who posts Community Content in the Community Features is responsible for the reliability, accuracy and truthfulness of such Community Content, and GSN has no control over same. Additionally, GSN has no control over whether any such posted material is of a nature that Users will find offensive, distasteful or otherwise unacceptable and expressly disclaims any responsibility for such material.
ENTERING ANY COMMUNITY FEATURE WILL CONSTITUTE ACCEPTANCE OF THE COMMUNITY GUIDELINES. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ABIDE BY THE COMMUNITY GUIDELINES, PLEASE DO NOT ENTER ANY COMMUNITY FEATURES.
Section 3.3 – Community Guidelines You are entirely responsible and liable for all activities conducted by you and/or any authorized use of your Account within the Community Features, including the transmission, posting, or other provision of Community Content to any portion of the Community Features. Listed below are some, though not all, violations that may result in GSN terminating or suspending your access to Community Features on a temporary or permanent basis, as determined by GSN in its sole discretion (“Community Guidelines”). You agree not to do any of the following actions while using any of the Community Features:
• Violate these Community Guidelines or abuse the community purpose of the chat areas.
• Participate in any part of the Services if you are a resident of a country or state who is under the age of 13.
• Use profanity, obscenities, or asterisks or other “masking” characters to disguise profane or obscene words.
• Use obscene, lewd, slanderous, pornographic, abusive, violent, insulting, indecent, threatening and harassing language of any kind.
• Impersonate other Users.
• Attack (flame or “cyberbully”) individuals, companies or products, although you are otherwise welcome to offer your opinions or comments on the subject at hand.
• Post topics on message boards, on the Services or within any of the Community Features that are unrelated to the subject of the Services.
• Advertise or promote other companies or URLs.
• Share personal information (your name, phone number, home address, password, etc.) with others on the Services.
• Include advertising in communications.
• Post material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant GSN all of the license rights granted herein.
• Include advanced fonts, java, tables, html, or other programming codes or commands in messages.
• Distribute or otherwise publish any Community Content containing any solicitation of funds, promotion, advertising, or solicitation for goods or services. You also hereby acknowledge that you are prohibited from soliciting other guests to join or become members of any commercial online service or other organization.
• Collect or harvest the information of any User or otherwise access the Services using automated means (including but not limited to harvesting bots, robots, spiders or scrapers).
Information disclosed in Community Features is by design revealed to the public. GSN is not responsible for any information you choose to disclose to others. GSN reserves the right, but not the obligation, to remove any posts for any reason. GSN does not endorse the Community Content in the Community Features and specifically disclaims any responsibility or liability to any person or entity (including, without limitation, persons who may use or rely on such material) for any loss, damage (whether actual, consequential, punitive or otherwise), injury, claim, liability or other cause of any kind or character based upon or resulting from any Services Materials or Community Content provided through a Community Feature. Without in any way limiting the generality of Paragraph 2.3 of these TOS, by posting or uploading Community Content to any Community Feature or submitting any other Community Content to GSN, you automatically grant (or warrant that the owner of such rights has expressly granted) GSN a perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free, irrevocable, non-exclusive right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, sub-license, create derivative works from and distribute such materials or incorporate such Community Content into any form, medium, or technology now known hereafter devised throughout the universe in perpetuity. In addition, you warrant that the content as uploaded or posted by you does not violate any person’s so-called “moral rights” or other similar or analogous rights under any applicable laws in any country or region of the world.
You understand that the uploading to and/or posting of any Community Content in any Community Feature shall not be subject to any obligation of confidence on the part of GSN, and GSN shall not be liable for any use or disclosure of any Community Content. Without limitation of the foregoing, GSN shall exclusively own all now known or hereafter existing rights to the Community Content of every kind and nature, in perpetuity, throughout the universe and shall be entitled to unrestricted use of the Community Content in any and all media, now known or hereafter devised, throughout the universe, in perpetuity for any purpose whatsoever, commercial or otherwise, without compensation or credit to the provider, author or owner of the Community Content.
From time to time, GSN may offer Users the opportunity to create or acquire digital or virtual assets (collectively, “Virtual Assets”). Such opportunities are considered Community Features, and the Community Guidelines shall apply to them, but such Virtual Assets also involve additional considerations. In particular: (1) each User acknowledges and agrees that they are granted a limited, non-exclusive license to use the Virtual Assets in connection with, and solely as a part of, their use of the Services and then only for the duration permitted by GSN, and Users shall have no ownership or property right, title, or interest in or expectation of the Virtual Assets, and any use of the Virtual Assets other than as permitted by these TOS will constitute a violation of these TOS and may constitute copyright infringement; (2) any modifications, combinations, alterations or other changes that a User makes to any Virtual Assets (“Alterations”) shall be deemed a work-made-for hire for GSN and GSN shall be considered, forever and for all purposes throughout the universe, the author thereof and the sole copyright owner thereof and the owner of all rights therein and of all proceeds derived there from and in connection therewith, with the right to make such changes therein and such uses and disposition thereof, in whole or in part, as GSN may from time to time determine as the author and owner thereof, together with all neighboring, rental, lending, fixation, reproduction, distribution and any and all other ownership and exploitation rights now or hereafter recognized in any territory, by any and all means, media, devices, processes and technology, and all rights generally known as the “moral rights of authors”, and to the extent such Alterations do not constitute a work-made-for-hire, each applicable User hereby grants, transfers, sells and assigns all right, title and interest therein to GSN throughout the universe in perpetuity; and (3) Virtual Assets have no cash value and may not be redeemed for cash and may not be sold, auctioned, bartered, brokered, purchased outside of the Services or used to engage in any gambling activity. Any Virtual Assets obtained in this manner by any person or entity will be considered to have been fraudulently obtained and deemed void. For all other purposes of these TOS, Alterations shall be considered Community Content.
You agree to indemnify GSN for any and all third party claims, damages, losses, and causes of action arising as a result of your posting or uploading any Community Content to any Community Feature or submitting any Community Content to GSN, or your failure to comply with the Community Guidelines. GSN does not and cannot review every message posted by users on the Services, and is not responsible for the content of these messages or the views or opinions expressed by the Users of the Services. GSN reserves the right to, but is not obligated to, delete, move or edit Community Content, in whole or in part, submitted by you to the Services and/or GSN for any reason. In no event does GSN assume any obligation to monitor the Community Features or remove any specific material.
Section 3.4 – Promotional Activities By registering for an Account, you agree that the Services may display your username throughout the Services, including, but not limited to areas such as leader boards, individual tournament records, message boards, chat rooms, etc. By accepting any prize from the Services, you agree to allow GSN to print, publish, broadcast and use, and to authorize its affiliates and distributors to print, publish, broadcast and use, on a worldwide basis, in any and all media now known or hereafter devised, your name, picture, voice, likeness, statements, biographical information, a description of the prize(s) you won and any other personal characteristics for any purpose, including without limitation, promotional or related purposes without additional compensation, and you release GSN from any liability with respect thereto. Please note that sweepstakes, contests or promotions offered via the Services may be, and often are, governed by a separate set of rules that, in addition to describing such sweepstakes, contest or promotion, may have eligibility requirements, such as certain age or geographic area restrictions, terms and conditions governing the use of material you submit, and disclosures about how your personal information may be used. It is your responsibility to read such rules to determine whether or not you want to and are eligible to participate, register and/or enter. By entering any such sweepstakes, contest or other promotion, you agree to comply with abide by such rules and the decisions of the sponsor(s) identified therein, which shall be final and binding in all respects.
Section 3.5 – Privacy Policy Submissions are governed by these TOS even if they include information about you or information that could be used to personally identify you. Any other personal information collected at the Services will be governed by GSN’s Privacy Policy located at http://www.gsn.com/cgi/corporate/privacy.html, which is incorporated into these TOS by reference.
Section 3.6 – Anti-Spam Policy The Services are vigorously against the practice commonly referred to as “Spamming.” Any User who is reported to be generating Spam, and whose “Spamming” is validated by the Services, will have their respective Accounts either immediately TERMINATED or SUSPENDED, at the sole discretion of GSN. Additionally, any prizes (if any) may be voided at the sole discretion of GSN. GSN defines “Spam” as it is commonly understood, and includes the following:
• Electronic mail messages addressed to a recipient with whom the initiator does not have an existing business or personal relationship or is not sent at the request of, or with the express consent of, the recipient;
• Messages posted to message boards that are off-topic (unrelated to the topic of discussion), cross-posted to unrelated newsgroups, or posted in excessive volume;
• Solicitations posted to chat rooms or sent to groups or individuals via Internet Relay Chat or “Instant Messaging” system (such as ICQ).
GSN may undertake, at its sole discretion and with or without prior notice, the following enforcement actions described in detail below:
• Account Suspension: Upon the receipt of a credible and validated complaint, GSN may elect to immediately suspend the membership of the user implicated in the abuse. Suspension serves as a “final” warning and will prevent the abuser from continuing his/her abusive “Spamming” behavior. GSN will evaluate each validated abuse incident on a case-by-case basis and impose termination or suspension at its sole discretion, and may void any associated prizes. GSN reserves the right to lift the suspension of a user at any time, at its sole discretion.
• Account Termination: Upon the receipt of a credible and validated complaint, GSN may immediately terminate the membership of the individual user implicated in the abuse and may void any associated winnings.