Terms

Version 1.1 – 02nd March 2020

Introduction

Beauty is not just a candy for the eye or a subject of arts. It’s a value. Some beauties are so valuable that they are priceless. Our goal is to communicate through visual arts and teach how to do that; how to use the tools, how to see, process and convey what you see as beautiful and ultimately to help create your own artistic value whether personally or professionally.

Photophily is currently one man show run privately by Süleyman Dereköy until (hopefully) it grows enough to become its own commercial entity. The start of Photophily is another story.

I had written the above paragraph in the first version of this page. Thankfully, Photophily is it’s own commercial entity which is Photophily OÜ (LLC) as of March 2nd, 2020.

Photophily is starting out with lots of free content like articles, tutorials and courses on photography. There might be paid courses and services in the future. And since we want to have a community of photography lovers on Photophily, there might be services enabled related to the community aspect as well. Should you decide to be a part of our community and use any of the services whether they are active at the time of your registration or use them as they are enabled in the future, it means that you accept our Terms of Service.

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) describe our commitments to you, and your rights and responsibilities when using our services. Please read them carefully and reach out to us if you have any questions.

Terms of Service

These “Terms” govern your access to and use of “Photophily” which includes Photophily.com, Photophily.net as well as all content and “Photophily” products and services available at or through these websites, collectively, “Services” owned by Photophily OÜ (LLC), in Sepapaja tn 6, 15551 Tallinn, Estonia.

These Terms also govern visitors’ access to and use of any websites that use our Services, such as websites hosted on Photophily.com and Photophily.net that are operated by our users.

For Photophily’s certain other products and services additional Terms of Service may apply and will be posted on the websites for those products and services.

Our Services are offered subject to your acceptance, without modification, of all of the terms and conditions contained herein and all other operating rules, policies (including, without limitation, Photophily’s Privacy Policy), and procedures that may be published from time to time by Photophily (collectively, the “Agreement”). You agree that we may automatically upgrade our Services, and the Agreement will apply to any upgrades.

Please read the Agreement carefully before accessing or using our Services. By accessing or using any part of our Services, you agree to become bound by the Agreement. If you do not agree to all the terms of the Agreement, then you may not access or use our Services.

1. Who’s Who

Throughout these Terms, “you” applies to both individuals and entities that access or use our Services. If you are an individual using our Services on behalf of an entity, you represent and warrant that you have the authority to bind that entity to the Agreement and that by using our Service(s), you are accepting the Agreement on behalf of that entity.

We refer to Photophily OÜ (LLC) collectively as “Photophily” or “we” throughout these Terms.

This is an agreement between Photophily OÜ (LLC) based in Sepapaja tn 6, 15551 Tallinn, Estonia, and “you”.

2. Your Account

Where use of our Services requires an account, you agree to provide us with complete and accurate information when you register for an account. You will be solely responsible and liable for any activity that occurs under your username. You are responsible for keeping your account information up-to-date and for keeping your password secure.

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and any Service-related website, store, or other content, and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your account and any other actions taken in connection with our Services. You shall not share or misuse your access credentials. You must immediately notify us of any unauthorized uses of your account, store, or website, or of any other breach of security. We will not be liable for any acts or omissions by you, including any damages of any kind incurred as a result of such acts or omissions.

You can have only one account on Photophily. Having multiple accounts is a reason for deletion and we do not hold any responsibility for any kind of loss due to account termination.

3. Minimum Age Requirements

Our Services are not directed to children. Access to and use of our Services is only for those over the age of 16. If you are younger than this, you may not register for or use our Services. Any person who registers as a user or provides their personal information to our Services represents that they are 16 years of age or older.

4. Responsibility of Visitors and Users

We have not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the content (such as, but not limited to, text, photo, video, audio, code, computer software, items for sale, or other materials) posted to our Services by users or anyone else (“Content”) and are not responsible for any use or effects of such Content. So, for example:

• We do not endorse any Content or represent that Content is accurate, useful, or non-harmful. Content could be offensive, indecent, or objectionable; include technical inaccuracies, typographical mistakes, or other errors; or violate or infringe the privacy, publicity rights, intellectual property rights (see our Copyright Infringement Policy section to submit copyright complaints), or other proprietary rights of third parties.
• If you post Content, comment on a website, or otherwise make (or allow any third party to make) Content available on our Services, you are entirely responsible for the Content, and any harm resulting from, that Content or your conduct.
• We disclaim any responsibility for any harm resulting from anyone’s use, purchase, or downloading of Content. If you access or use any Content, you are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content.
• Any Content offered for sale through any of our Services are the seller’s sole responsibility, and you agree that you will look solely to the seller for any damages that result from your purchase or use of Content.
• We are not a party to, and will have no responsibility or liability for, any communications, transactions, interactions, or disputes between you and the provider of any Content.
• Please note that additional third party terms and conditions may apply to the downloading, copying, purchase, or use of Content.

We also have not reviewed, and cannot review, all of the material, including computer software, made available through the websites and web pages that link to, or are linked from, Photophily or our other Services. For example:

• We do not have any control over those websites and are not responsible for their contents or their use.
• The existence of a link to or from one of our Services does not represent or imply that we endorse such website.
• You are responsible for taking precautions as necessary to protect yourself and your computer systems from viruses, worms, Trojan horses, and other harmful or destructive content.
• We disclaim any responsibility for any harm resulting from non-Photophily websites.

5. Fees, Payment, and Renewal

Fees. Some of our Services are offered for a fee — such as certain articles, courses, coaching sessions, webinars and photography tools – while other Services may be free with optional paid upgrades, such as a subscription plan (collectively, “Paid Services”). By using a Paid Service, you agree to pay the specified fees. Depending on the Paid Service, there may be a one-time fee or recurring fees. For recurring fees, we’ll bill or charge you for in regular intervals (such as monthly, annually, or biennially), on a pre-pay basis until you cancel, which you can do at any time by relevant procedures.

Taxes. To the extent permitted by law, or unless explicitly stated otherwise, all fees are exclusive of applicable federal, provincial, state, local or other governmental sales, goods and services, harmonized or other taxes, fees, or charges now in force or enacted in the future (“Taxes”). You are responsible for payment of all applicable Taxes relating to your use of our Services, your payments, or your purchases. If we are obligated to pay or collect Taxes on the Fees you’ve paid or will pay, you are responsible for such Taxes, and we may collect payment for such Taxes.

Payment. If your payment fails or Paid Services are otherwise not paid for on time, we may immediately cancel or revoke your access to the Paid Services. If you contact your bank or credit card company to decline or reverse the charge of fees for Paid Services, we may revoke your access to our Services in general.

Automatic Renewal. To ensure uninterrupted service, recurring Paid Services are automatically renewed. This means that unless you cancel a Paid Service before the end of the applicable subscription period, it will automatically renew, and you authorize us to invoice you or use any payment mechanism we have on record for you to collect the then-applicable subscription fee (as well as any Taxes). Your Paid Services are renewed for the same interval of time. For example, if you purchase an annual subscription plan, you will be charged each year.

Refunds. You can request a refund for the products or services that you have purchased from Photophily within 30 days.

While you may cancel a paid service at any time, refunds are issued in our sole discretion, unless otherwise required by applicable law. Downloadable digital goods, by their nature, are exempt from this refund policy. We do not refund courses that are watched in the most part or downloaded as well. Digital products or services that have trial periods are also subject to this non-refund policy. However most of the content on Photophily is free and this should give you a good idea of what to expect. 

Please contact us if you have a refund request.

Fee Changes. We may change our fees at any time. When applicable, we may give you advance notice of the fee changes. If you don’t agree with the fee changes, you can cancel your Paid Service.

6. General Representation and Warranty

You represent and warrant that your use of our Services:

• Will be in strict accordance with these Terms;
• Will comply with all applicable laws and regulations (including, without limitation, all applicable laws regarding online conduct and acceptable content, privacy, data protection, and the transmission of technical data exported from the country in which you reside);
• Will not use the Services for any unlawful purposes, to publish illegal content, or in furtherance of illegal activities;
• Will not infringe or misappropriate the intellectual property rights of any third party;
• Will not overburden Photophily’s systems, as determined by us in our sole discretion;
• Will not disclose sensitive personal information of others;
• Will not be used to send spam or bulk unsolicited messages;
• Will not interfere with, disrupt, or attack any service or network; and
• Will not be used to create, distribute, or enable material that is – or that facilitates or operates in conjunction with – malware, spyware, adware, or other malicious programs or code.

7. Specific Service Terms

a. Photophily Accounts

A Photophily account enables you access to free or paid exclusive content such as articles, tutorials, courses, tools and services to publish your own photos, galleries and blogs. A Photophily account also allows you to sign into some of our Services.

Most of the Photophily’s services are free. We offer some paid services, products and subscriptions as well, such as premium photography tools, courses, classes, training, coaching services, portfolio sites and blogs.

You must own or have the necessary permissions to post any kind of content to the related services with your Photophily account. You have to be reasonable in what you publish and comply with the User Guidelines.

If you find a Photophily user whom you believe to violate these Terms, please contact us at [email protected].

Photophily Sites: If you create a website on Photophily, you get to use a Photophily-owned subsite, such as photophily.com/example or example.photophily.net or example.com. You must not engage in “domain squatting,” claim an unreasonable number of subsites (as determined by us), or sell access to any subsites.

Licence we grant: We grant you a non-exclusive, nontransferable, limited and revocable license to access and use our Services and Content such as text, images, videos, trademarks, logos, tools, software or any other material that belongs to us for personal, non-commercial use only. 

License you grant: By submitting Content to Photophily for inclusion on your website, comments, forums (or any part of Photophily) you grant Photophily a world-wide, royalty-free, and non-exclusive license to reproduce, modify, adapt, and publish the Content solely for the purpose of displaying, distributing, and promoting your content. This license also allows Photophily to make any publicly-posted Content available to third parties selected by Photophily so that these third parties can analyze and distribute (but not publicly display) the Content through their services.

Removing Content: If you delete Content, we will use reasonable efforts to remove it from public view (or in the case of a private website, from view by the authorized visitors) on Photophily, but you acknowledge that caching or references to the Content may not be made immediately unavailable.

Web Traffic: We use a third party analytics tools and software disclosed in the Privacy Policy to track audience and usage of Photophily and services. By using our services, posting your Content, publishing your images, portfolio, blogs, hosting your website on Photophily, you agree your website is subject to such traffic reports under Photophily. If we require additional documentation to verify ownership of your website or domain name, you agree to make reasonable efforts to accommodate such requests.

Prohibited Uses: By using Photophily, you represent and warrant that your Content and conduct do not violate the User Guidelines.

HTTPS: We offer free HTTPS on all Photophily websites by default, including those using custom domains, via Let’s Encrypt. By signing up and using a custom domain on Photophily, you authorize us to act on the domain name registrant’s behalf (by requesting the necessary certificates, for example) for the sole purpose of providing HTTPS on your website.

Advertisements: We reserve the right to display advertisements on your website unless you have purchased a plan that includes the removal of ads.

Attribution: We reserve the right to display attribution text or links in your website footer or toolbar, attributing Photophily or the theme author, for example. Some of these attributions may not be altered or removed.

b. Academy

“Academy” is the training portal within Photophily. It includes training materials and services on photography, videography, post-processing and such in the forms of video, text, quizzes etc. some of which are free. You can purchase a license for certain courses to view on Photophily whenever you want. You can also choose to pay for a monthly or yearly subscription fee in order to access those training materials for a set amount of time.

We offer free and paid courses as well as a subscription based service to our Academy which consists of training materials such as videos, slideshows and text. You can use the Academy, free and paid training services via your Photophily account.

If you bought a course or have an active Academy subscription, you can access these Services whenever you want via logging in your account. However, you cannot download any course material unless specified. By using the Academy and enrolling in free or paid courses, you understand, acknowledge and accept that you will not download any course material unless it is a downloadable item.

8. Copyright Infringement

As we ask others to respect our intellectual property rights, we respect the intellectual property rights of others. If you believe that material located on or associated with a Photophily product or service violates your copyright, please notify us via support@photophily.com We will respond to all such notices, including as required or appropriate by removing the infringing material or disabling all links to the infringing material. We will terminate a visitor’s access to and use of the website if, under appropriate circumstances, the visitor is determined to be a repeat infringer of the copyrights or other intellectual property rights of Photophily or others. In the case of such termination, we will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid to us.

9. Intellectual Property

The Agreement does not transfer from Photophily to you any Photophily or third party intellectual property, and all right, title, and interest in and to such property will remain (as between the parties) solely with Photophily. Photophily, Photophily.com, Photophily.net, the Photophily logo, and all other trademarks, service marks, graphics, and logos used in connection with Photophily or our Services, are trademarks or registered trademarks of Photophily or Photophily’s licensors. Other trademarks, service marks, graphics, and logos used in connection with our Services may be the trademarks of other third parties. Your use of our Services grants you no right or license to reproduce or otherwise use any Photophily or third party trademarks.

10. Third Party Services

In using the Services, you may enable or use services, products, software (like themes or plugins), embeds, or applications developed by a third party or yourself (“Third Party Services”) on your website.

If you use any Third Party Services, you understand that:

Third Party Services are not vetted, endorsed, or controlled by Photophily.

Any use of a Third Party Service is at your own risk, and we shall not be responsible or liable to anyone for Third Party Services.

Your use is solely between you and the respective third party (“Third Party”) and will be governed by the Third Party’s terms and policies. It is your responsibility to review the Third Party’s terms and policies before using a Third Party Service.

Some Third Party Services may request or require access to your (yours, your visitors’, or customers’) data, for example, via a pixel or cookie. If you use the Third Party Service or grant access, your data will be handled in accordance with the Third Party’s privacy policy and practices. We do not have control over how a Third Party Service may use your data. You should carefully review Third Party Services’ data collection, retention, and use policies and practices before enabling Third Party Services.

Third Party Services may not work appropriately with your website, and we may not be able to provide support for issues caused by any Third Party Services.

If you have questions or concerns about how a Third Party Service operates, or need support, please contact the Third Party directly.

In rare cases, we may at our discretion, suspend, disable, or remove Third Party Services from your account or website.

11. Changes

We are constantly updating our Services and that means sometimes we have to change the legal terms under which our Services are offered. These Terms may only be modified by the posting of a revised version by Photophily. If we make changes that are material, we will let you know by posting on one of our blogs, or by sending you an email or other communication before the changes take effect. The notice will designate a reasonable period of time after which the new terms will take effect. If you disagree with our changes, then you should stop using our Services within the designated notice period, or once the changes become effective. Your continued use of our Services will be subject to the new terms. However, any dispute that arose before the changes shall be governed by the Terms (including the binding individual arbitration clause) that were in place when the dispute arose.

12. Termination

We may terminate your access to all or any part of our Services at any time, with or without cause, with or without notice, effective immediately. We have the right (though not the obligation) to, in our sole discretion, (i) reclaim your username or website’s URL due to prolonged inactivity, (ii) refuse or remove any content that, in our reasonable opinion, violates any Photophily policy or is in any way harmful or objectionable, or (iii) terminate or deny access to and use of any of our Services to any individual or entity for any reason. We will have no obligation to provide a refund of any amounts previously paid.

If you wish to terminate the Agreement or your Photophily account, you may simply discontinue using our Services, or, if you are using a paid service, you may cancel at any time, subject to the Fees, Payment, and Renewal section in these Terms.

All provisions of the Agreement which by their nature should survive termination shall survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity, and limitations of liability.

13. Disclaimer of Warranties

Our Services are provided “as is.” Photophily and its suppliers and licensors hereby disclaim all warranties of any kind, express or implied, including, without limitation, the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement. Neither Photophily, nor its suppliers and licensors, makes any warranty that our Services will be error free or that access thereto will be continuous or uninterrupted. You understand that you download from, or otherwise obtain content or services through, our Services at your own discretion and risk.

14. Jurisdiction and Applicable Law

Except to the extent any applicable law provides otherwise, the Agreement and any access to or use of our Services will be governed by the laws of the Republic of Estonia, excluding its conflict of law provisions. The proper venue for any disputes arising out of or relating to the Agreement and any access to or use of our Services will be the courts located in Tallinn, Estonia.

15. Limitation of Liability

In no event will Photophily, or its suppliers or licensors, be liable with respect to any subject matter of the Agreement under any contract, negligence, strict liability or other legal or equitable theory for: (i) any special, incidental or consequential damages; (ii) the cost of procurement for substitute products or services; (iii) for interruption of use or loss or corruption of data; or (iv) for any amounts that exceed the fees paid by you to Photophily under the Agreement during the twelve (12) month period prior to the cause of action. Photophily shall have no liability for any failure or delay due to matters beyond their reasonable control. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

16. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Photophily, its contractors, and its licensors, and their respective directors, officers, employees, and agents from and against any and all losses, liabilities, demands, damages, costs, claims, and expenses, including attorneys’ fees, arising out of or related to your use of our Services, including but not limited to your violation of the Agreement, Content that you post, and any activities conducted through your or another user’s website.

17. Economic Sanctions

You expressly represent and warrant that your use of our Services and/or associated services and products is not contrary to applicable European Sanctions. Such use is prohibited, and we reserve the right to terminate accounts or access of those in the event of a breach of this condition.

18. Translation

These Terms were originally written in English (US). We may translate these terms into other languages. In the event of a conflict between a translated version of these Terms and the English version, the English version will control.

19. Miscellaneous

The Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between Photophily and you concerning the subject matter hereof. If any part of the Agreement is held invalid or unenforceable, that part will be construed to reflect the parties’ original intent, and the remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. A waiver by either party of any term or condition of the Agreement or any breach thereof, in any one instance, will not waive such term or condition or any subsequent breach thereof.

You may assign your rights under the Agreement to any party that consents to, and agrees to be bound by, its terms and conditions; Photophily may assign its rights under the Agreement without condition. The Agreement will be binding upon and will inure to the benefit of the parties, their successors and permitted assigns.

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Changelog:

Version 1.1: Change of ownership and updates regarding change of ownership. 2020-03-02

Version 1.0: Terms of Service created. 2019-06-18

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This document is adapted from Automattic’s (the folks behind WordPress) Terms of Service which is released under Creative Commons Sharealike license. Therefore you can copy, adapt and repurpose it for your own use. Make sure to revise the language so that your Terms reflect your actual practices. Also, if you do use these Terms, give a credit and link to Automattic somewhere on your website.