The Terms and Conditions for any opinion, discussion forums, blogs or articles operated and/or provided by RSPB.org.uk.
These Terms and Conditions are the terms for use for any opinion, discussion forums, blogs or articles with public comment (each of them called the Community in these Terms and Conditions) operated and/or provided by the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB) on our website www.rspb.org.uk (our Website).
Anyone may view the Website to use for their own personal use only and not for reproduction on any other website or for commercial gain. The information contained within the Website includes content that is either owned or controlled by the RSPB and content that is owned or controlled by third parties and licensed to the RSPB. Any links to the Website must be notified and approved by the RSPB before they are created.
These Terms and Conditions apply to all users. Any submission of contributions or material by you to the Community means that you accept and agree to abide to all these Terms and Conditions.
These Terms and Conditions supplement the use and Privacy Policy applicable to our Website and are in addition to any terms of use applicable to other websites on which a Community may be hosted. The RSPB takes your privacy very seriously; we will only use your personal information in accordance with the terms of our Privacy Policy. By submitting a contribution to the RSPB you acknowledge and agree that you have read and accept the terms of our Privacy Policy.
The Website is a site operated by the RSPB (we or us). We are a registered charity in England and Wales number 207076 and in Scotland number SC037654. Our registered office is at The Lodge, Sandy, Bedfordshire, SG19 2DL.
We provide the use of the Community 'as is' without any express or implied warranty, including, but not limited to, implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.
Access to the Community is free of charge. However, when accessing the Website, you may incur charges from third parties, such as your operator or internet service provider, over which we have no control.
The Community and social parts of our Website are for people who love nature and want to share enthusiasm and ideas to help protect it. We hope you will share your experiences and encourage others.
Everyone is welcome to browse the Community and is encouraged to do so before registering a user profile. You must be a registered user in order to add a post, leave a comment or upload an image. To complete registration, all users must submit a valid email address and to ensure child safety and welfare, the community is only open to people 18 years old or over.
By registering, you confirm that you are 18 years old or over and certify that the information you provide in the registration is accurate. You agree to keep your information accurate and up to date. We reserve the right to test your email address and, should any email we send to you bounce or is rejected for any reason, we reserve the right to suspend your registration until you provide us with a valid email address.
We will do our best to assess any possible risks for users from third parties when they use the Community, and we will decide in each case whether it is appropriate to use moderation of the relevant service (including what kind of moderation to use) in the light of those risks. However, we are under no obligation to oversee, monitor or moderate any Community, and we expressly exclude our liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of the Community by a user in contravention of our content standards below (Content Standards), whether the Community is moderated or not.
If a Community is moderated, contributions submitted to the Community (Contribution) may be checked by us for compliance with the Content Standards. The Community may include occasional contributions from RSPB staff, who will clearly identify themselves as such.
If we moderate, we may stop moderating the Community at any time.
We reserve the right to remove, re-post or disable access to any Contribution at our complete discretion. In the event that we choose to investigate a Contribution, we reserve the right to remove the Contribution for 28 Working Days (meaning days other than a Saturday, Sunday or public holiday in England when banks in London are open for business), whilst we make an assessment. If a Contribution is found not to breach the Content Standards, it may be re-posted. We expressly exclude liability for any loss or damage arising from the use of the Community by any person in contravention of these Terms and Conditions.
All posts have a 'Report abuse' button which you can use to complain to a moderator if you believe a post breaks these terms and conditions.
You can flag any material you think is offensive, anti-social or in breach of these Terms and Conditions using the 'Report abuse' button. That will bring the content to the attention of RSPB community moderators. Postings within the Community do not necessarily reflect the views of the RSPB and thus, the RSPB will not be held accountable for any postings deemed offensive in the first instance.
You should follow the instructions pertaining to the Community to add a Contribution, including:
Be aware that users will have a wide range of interest, experience and knowledge - so please treat everyone with the respect and courtesy you would expect to receive yourself. We appreciate that not everyone shares our views all of the time, and ask you to respect that too. Please do not use it to air claims of personal or organisational grievance.
You may not post material to the Community that breaches the Content Standards. In particular, you must be clear that any view you express/post is your own and relevant to the Community topic.
These Content Standards apply to each part of a Contribution as well as to its whole. The Content Standards must be complied with in spirit as well as to the letter. We will determine, in our discretion, whether a Contribution breaches the Content Standards.
A Contribution must:
A Contribution must not:
Please do not pass off other people’s texts, images or works as your own. Any Contribution must be your own work; it must not infringe the rights of third parties including copyright, trade mark, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, personal or proprietary rights, or covered by a public access or creative commons licence.
You are welcome to attach your own images or photographs, but files may be modified or removed if there are technical or legal reasons for doing so. By uploading a file, you agree to others making a copy of that file for personal use.
Please respect the privacy of others. If your Contribution features other people who are recognisable, you are responsible for ensuring that you have their permission for the Contribution in accordance with these terms and conditions. Contributions featuring children under 18 or vulnerable adults can only be accepted if you are the parent or guardian; by accepting these terms and conditions you warrant that you are the parent or guardian and that you grant permission for the Contribution to be treated according to the uses set out in these Terms and Conditions.
Full copyright title shall be retained by the author of any submissions. By submitting any Contribution to the RSPB, you specifically give us the following permission: you grant us a non-exclusive, transferable, sub-licensable, royalty-free, irrevocable worldwide licence to use freely, edit, alter, reproduce, publish and/or distribute the Contribution you produce on the Website and/or in any promotional material. This licence will be free of charge and perpetual. Contributions that you post onto the Community may be available in perpetuity and be shared with other users or third parties over which we have no control.
Furthermore, by submitting your Contribution, you are warranting that you have the right to grant us the non-exclusive copyright licence described above. You must not post any Contribution for which you are not in a position to grant such a licence, and you agree that in doing so, you are in breach of these Terms and Conditions, and are fully and solely responsible for any liability or action including but not limited to all legal costs and expenses that may arise out of your breach of any intellectual property rights or other law.
When you publish Contributions or information, it means that you are allowing other users and anyone accessing the Website, to access and use that information, and to associate it with your user details. Permission will be sought and the author credited where possible. Any Contribution provided will be non-confidential and in accordance with privacy restrictions set out in the RSPB’s Privacy Policy. You accept that we have no control over, or responsibility for, the uses to which third parties may use your Contribution. If you do not grant the RSPB to use your Contributions in accordance with the Terms, please do not share or submit them to the RSPB.
The names and logos of the RSPB and all related trademarks are the property of the RSPB. These may not be used without the prior consent of the RSPB.
If we consider that a breach of the Content Standards above has occurred, we may at our discretion take such action as we deem appropriate. Failure to comply with these Terms and Conditions constitutes a material breach of the terms of use under which you are permitted to use the Community, and may result in us taking all or any of the following actions:
We exclude liability for all action we may take in response to breaches of these Terms and Conditions. The actions described above are not limited and we may take any other action we reasonably deem appropriate.
Save as expressly provided for in these Terms and Conditions neither the RSPB nor its trading subsidiaries shall be liable for any direct, indirect or consequential loss or damage or for any costs, claims or demands of any nature whatsoever arising directly or indirectly out of the use of your Contribution or any part thereof.
You agree to indemnify the RSPB and its trading subsidiaries in full against all liabilities, costs, claims or expenses in relation to a third party claim that your submission or Contribution infringes the intellectual property rights of that third party.
From time to time RSPB may run competitions, free prize draws and promotions. In each case, these will be subject to additional competition terms, which will be made available at the appropriate time.
The RSPB may retain your Contribution and may choose to display your postings elsewhere on our Website. The RSPB may also publish your Contribution in other media; where possible we will approach you directly to confirm your permission for publication.
Publication of your Contribution will be at the RSPB's sole discretion; we will try to credit authors where possible but may not always do so.
You should never disclose any confidential information, especially your or someone else’s address or telephone numbers.
You may, if you wish, give some more details about yourself in the 'My profile' section, such as location, gender and interests, which is visible to other members but is entirely optional and at your discretion.
The Privacy Policy will apply whenever you provide personal information, except as required by law, where the RSPB can pass on personal data without consent for example for the purpose to prevent and detect crime; or in accordance with these Terms and Conditions.
The RSPB Community site is securely hosted by a USA and EEA-based company (Verint Americas Inc. Registered address: 175 Broadhollow Road, Melville, NY 11747, United States with principle business address at 800 North Point Parkway, Alpharetta, Georgia 30005) in Ireland therefore, any personal data you provide will be transferred to this territory. The company operates from the United States therefore, your data may be accessible by Verint staff in the USA.
Please report any inappropriate or excessive use of any facilities of this Website to moderators.
If you wish to complain about any Contribution posted to the Community, please e-mail us using the e-mail address wildlife@rspb.org.uk. We will then review the Contribution and decide whether it complies with the Content Standards above. We will deal with any Contribution which, in our opinion, violates the Content Standards as described above (see section "Breach of these Rules"). We will inform you of the outcome of our review within a reasonable time of receiving your complaint.
These Terms and Conditions (as amended from time to time) constitute the entire agreement between you and the RSPB concerning your Contribution to the RSPB. The RSPB reserves the right to update these Terms and Conditions from time to time and at any time.
We may revise these Terms and Conditions at any time and an updated version will be effective as soon as published on the Website. You are expected to check this page from time to time to take notice of any changes we may make, as they are legally binding on you.
The terms and conditions and the use of the website shall be governed by English Law. All claims or disputes arising out of or in connection with this Website shall be subject to the jurisdiction of the courts of England.
If you have any queries relating to terms of use or this Website please contact us at wildlife@rspb.org.uk
