The Pen Shop Terms of Service

The Pen Shop Terms of Service

IMPORTANT -- PLEASE READ: These Terms of Service, The Pen Shop Website Terms of Use and The Pen Shop Privacy Policy govern your use of The Pen Shop Forum. These Terms of Service describe the proper kinds of conduct and prohibited uses of The Pen Shop Forum. These terms are not exhaustive and The Pen Shop reserves the right to modify them at any time, effective upon posting of the modified terms on the Forum. By registering as a user or using the Forum, you agree to abide by these terms as modified from time to time. Any violation of these terms may result in the suspension or termination of your right to access the forum.

Definitions

“You”, “Yours”, “Yourself”, “Member”, “User”, or “Visitor” means a person, corporation, or legal entity that accesses the The Pen Shop Web Site via the Internet. “Us”, “We”, “Ours” means the The Pen Shop Web site, hereinafter referred to as “TPS” or “The Pen Shop”. The legal owner of The Pen Shop is Tom Radachi, hereinafter referred to as “Tom Radachi” or "Radman". “Service” is defined as all information content, discussion forums, resources, email, and products provided by or via The Pen Shop.

Permissible Uses

The Pen Shop believes that the forum is a valuable place for penturners to exchange information and learn from one another. Like any community, the Forum is most valuable when everyone follows certain basic guidelines and rules of conduct. The Forum Terms of Service sets forth these Rules and Guidelines so that you know what is expected of you and what you can expect from other participants when using the Forum.

At The Pen Shop, we want the Forum to be appropriate, friendly, informative, and fun for all of our users. We want our users to utilize the Forum only to answer questions, correct problems, and learn more about penturning. If everyone follows the Terms of Service, then the Forum will remain a fun and informative community.

The Pen Shop is an English language forum. Use of the Forum is governed by U.S. law. Although penturners from other countries are welcome to use it.

Member Registration

Membership is available to any person over the age of 13 who registers and accurately provides all the required information, submits a legitimate electronic mail address and obtains a unique member name and password. Membership is non-transferable. All membership information must be accurate and belong to the person registering. Invalid, incomplete, or falsified information can result in the immediate termination of all membership privileges for that user. The Pen Shop may suspend or delete the membership of any user for violation of any expressed or implied condition of the Terms of Service. Membership is a privilege not a right, and we reserve the right to deny service to any person at any time without cause.

You agree that The Pen Shop may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your access to all or part of the Service for any reason, including, without limitation, breach of the Terms of Service or any subsequent modifications. Any suspected fraudulent, abusive or illegal activity may be grounds for termination of your membership account and may be referred to appropriate law enforcement authorities. The Pen Shop shall not be liable to you or any third party for the termination of Service or any claims related to the termination of Service. You may terminate your membership at any time by submitting a written request for termination to The Pen Shop via the email address or postal address listed on the site. Whether termination is initiated by The Pen Shop or you, the specific means of termination is our choice; we may lock or otherwise disable your account, leaving submitted content, including discussion forum posts and submitted photos in place, or we may entirely delete the account, removing said content. We may refuse to grant you, and you may not use, a screen name (or email address) that is already being used by someone else, impersonates another person, belongs to another person (without his or her prior consent), violates the intellectual property or other rights of any person, is vulgar or otherwise offensive, or that we reject for any other reason at our sole discretion.

The Pen Shop reserves the right to allow only certain usernames to be used. The Pen Shop will notify you in writing via Private Message or email that your username is not acceptable. The Pen Shop will allow your username to be changed to an acceptable username that both you and The Pen Shop can agree upon.

In consideration of your use of the Forum, you agree that all information provided in your profile is accurate, true, current and complete. The Pen Shop may terminate your account if any of the information provided is found to be inaccurate, false, out of date, or incomplete.

Membership

Membership to The Pen Shop is open for anyone providing the required information on the registration form. Certain categories of the forum are for private groups only. In order to have access to that forum you must become not only a member of The Pen Shop, you must also become a member of that category. Each category will have its own set of requirements for membership. The Pen Shop reserves the right to refuse membership to anyone without reason

Membership Termination

You agree that The Pen Shop may, in its sole discretion, terminate or suspend your access to all or part of the Service for any reason, including, without limitation, breach of the Terms of Service or any subsequent modifications. Any suspected fraudulent, abusive or illegal activity may be grounds for termination of your membership account and may be referred to appropriate law enforcement authorities. The Pen Shop shall not be liable to you or any third party for the termination of Service or any claims related to the termination of Service. You may terminate your membership at any time by submitting a written request for termination to The Pen Shop via the email address or postal address listed on the site. Whether termination is initiated by The Pen Shop or you, the specific means of termination is our choice; we may lock or otherwise disable your account, leaving submitted content, including discussion forum posts and submitted photos in place, or we may entirely delete the account, removing said content.

Posting Content/ Sending Private Messages

Participation in the Forum is governed by the Rules of Conduct, set forth below and incorporated herein by reference. Messages sent by the Private Messages component are subject to all rules set forth in these Terms of Service. Private Messages may not be forwarded to other members without the express consent of both parties involved.

Posts that are made in the private forums, such as the Moderators forum, Chips & Dust forum and any other forum shall not be sent to other parties via private message, email or other means of transportation without the express written or oral consent of all parties involved.

Violation of these policies will result in expulsion from the Forum according to the Terms of Service policy and any legal action that may be taken against the offending party.

Links

The Pen Shop Forum permits users to post hypertext links to content hosted and maintained by third parties. Although linked sites are not generally reviewed by Moderators, links are subject to treatment like any other type of content posted to the Forum. You may not include a link in the Forum that directs users to any content or information that, if posted in the Forum, would constitute a violation of these Terms of Service.

The linked sites are not moderated by The Pen Shop, are not under The Pen Shop's control and your access to any linked site is at your own risk. You should use your own judgment before you use any link or access any linked site. When leaving the Forum using any link provided by a user, you should be aware that The Pen Shop’s terms and policies no longer govern, and, therefore, you should review the applicable terms and policies, including privacy and data gathering practices, of that site. If you access a linked site and find that materials to be in violation of these Terms of Service, you may report the link as described below.

The Pen Shop makes no claim or representation regarding, and accepts no responsibility for, the quality, content, nature or reliability of sites accessible by hyperlink from the Forum. The ability to include links is provided only as a convenience to you, and the inclusion of any link by a user of the Forum does not imply affiliation, endorsement, or adoption by The Pen Shop of the linked site or any information contained therein.

Transactions between Members

Certain areas of the discussion forums at The Pen Shop facilitate the buying, selling, and trading of items related to pen turning. You agree that The Pen Shop is not brokering or otherwise participating in any purchase, sale, or trade. We have no knowledge of the terms of sale, the condition of any items offered for sale, the accuracy of any aspect of the sale or the use to which any item shall be put. Buyers or trading partners assume all responsibility for proper use of any item so received.

Limitation of Re-Use

The content available through the Service is the property of The Pen Shop and its licensors and is protected by copyrights, trademarks, service marks, patents or other proprietary rights and laws. Content received through the Service may be displayed, reformatted and printed for your personal, non-commercial use only. You agree not to reproduce, retransmit, re-post, distribute, sell, publish, broadcast, create derivative works from, perform, or in any way commercially exploit any of the content, or infringe upon trademarks or service marks displayed or received through the Service, including but not limited to others in the same company or organization, without the express prior written consent of The Pen Shop. The one exception to this is occasional reposting of a message board post to another message board, provided that a link to the original post is provided.

Enforcement

The Pen Shop generally does not pre-screen, verify or edit the content posted by users in the Forum. However, The Pen Shop and its agents reserve the right to investigate any violation of The Pen Shop Terms of Use and these Forum Terms of Service and to take appropriate remedial action. The Pen Shop has absolute discretion to enforce the terms of these documents, including, but not limited to warning users of violations, disabling or suspending Private Message privileges and/ or Forum access, deleting, screening or editing any content, or prohibiting any behavior that does not comply with these Terms of Service, including the Rules of Conduct, or which is otherwise inappropriate for this Forum, harmful, objectionable, or inaccurate. If it is deemed necessary to delete content for violation of the Terms of Service, the entire thread, including the original post and all replies, may be deleted. The Pen Shop Forum Moderators generally will not edit users' posts to remove content; however, at their sole discretion, they may request that a user edit a post to delete the objectionable content and resubmit it.

The Pen Shop also may release information concerning your use of the Forum (including posted content, registration information, and network records) when The Pen Shop believes release is appropriate to comply with the law (e.g., a lawful subpoena, warrant or court order); to enforce or apply The Pen Shop 's the Terms of Use and these Terms of Service; to protect The Pen Shop's rights or property, or to protect The Pen Shop 's users from fraudulent, abusive, or unlawful use of the Forum; or if The Pen Shop reasonably believes that an emergency involving immediate danger of death or serious physical injury to any person requires disclosure of communications or justifies disclosure of records without delay.

Deliberate attempts by you or someone on your behalf to evade or circumvent your suspension or termination of your rights to use the Forum violates these Terms of Service, constitutes an unlawful trespass to The Pen Shop 's equipment and systems, and may result in legal action.

To report violations of The Pen Shop Forum Terms of Service, please write to the Forum Administrator at Radman@longlines.com . Please include the message board name, the post's subject, the post author screen name, the link of the post in question and any other applicable information in your email.

Rules of Conduct

By participating in The Pen Shop Forum, including the posting of content and sending of Private Messages, you agree that you will not upload, post, or otherwise transmit any content (including text, links, communications, software, images, sounds, data, or other information) that:

1. Is not consistent with the permissible uses outlined by the Terms of Service, including, but not limited to, content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, invasive of another's privacy, vulgar, profane, sexually explicit, obscene, racially or ethnically offensive or otherwise objectionable;

2. Infringes on any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party;

3. Constitutes advertising or promotion, junk mail, "spamming," chain letters, or any other form of unauthorized solicitation. Links that connect to commercial websites will not be considered unauthorized solicitations unless the link or the website content appears to be intended as a means of solicitation as determined by The Pen Shop in its sole discretion;

4. Contains software viruses, Trojan horses, worms, time bombs, cancelbots or any other computer code or files that are designed to disrupt, damage, or limit the functioning of any software or hardware;

5. Provides any non-public information about The Pen Shop or any other company or person without the proper authorization to do so. This includes providing the names and extension numbers of The Pen Shop Forum participants;

6. Intentionally interferes with the operation of the Forum or with a fellow user's message box, without limitation, mail or "post" bombing, news bombing, other flooding techniques, deliberate attempts to overload a system and broadcast attacks, or attempts to avoid messaging blocking.

7. Impersonates any person or entity, including a Pen Shop employee or forges any TCP-IP packet header, e-mail header or any part of a message header. This prohibition does not include the use of aliases or anonymous remailers.

8. Attacks or insults another The Pen Shop Forum user or moderator;

9. Suggests or encourages illegal activity; or

10. Violates U.S. export law, including, without limitation, the Export Administration Act and Export Regulations maintained by the Department of Commerce.

Additional Guidelines

These Guidelines are intended to set the Forum's tone and visitor expectations, in order to improve the Forum experience.

Do not reveal information that you do not want to make public. Any personal information that you post can be obtained and used by others. Anything you post in the Forum, you post at your own risk.

You use the Forum at your own risk. In any online forum like The Pen Shop Forum, it is not possible to be sure that other users are who they say they are, know what they say they know, or are affiliated with whom they say they are affiliated.

Please refrain from posting where you do not know the answer. Incorrect, misleading or incomplete responses do not help other users. Please feel free to respond to any post where you know the answer. Forum users have come to trust that they will get good answers. Please help build and maintain that trust.

The Pen Shop Forum Moderators do not respond to every post. The Forum is a place for users to help users. Forum Moderators will review the message boards, and respond at their discretion. If you need to contact The Pen Shop support, please do so by phone or email. You can contact The Pen Shop Support by starting at: Radman@longlines.com

Be respectful of other users. Some Forum users are new to computing and may not have extensive knowledge of computers and their use. Belittling or insulting remarks are not conducive to the creation of a strong online community.

Disclaimer of Warranties and Limitation of Liability

Most of the content posted to The Pen Shop Forum and sent in Private Messages is provided by third parties like you. Such third-party content is the sole responsibility of the person originating that content. The Pen Shop does not control, and is not responsible for this third-party content. You agree to indemnify and hold The Pen Shop, and its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, agents, and employees harmless from any claim, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of content you submit, post, transmit or make available through the Forum or its Private Message feature, your use of the Forum, your violation of these Terms of Service or the Website Terms of Use, or your violation of any rights of another.

Although the Forum is moderated by The Pen Shop administrators who will do their best to answer your questions and assist you, they may not have time to fully research answers before posting them due to time pressures.

The Pen Shop does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy, reliability, completeness, usefulness, non-infringement of intellectual property rights, or quality of any content on The Pen Shop Forum, regardless of who originates that content. You expressly understand and agree that you bear all risks associated with using or relying on that content. The Pen Shop will not be liable or responsible in any way for any content posted on or linked from the Forum or in Private Messages, including, but not limited to, any errors or omissions in content, or for any losses or damage of any kind incurred as a result of the use of or reliance on any content. This disclaimer and limitation on liability is in addition to the disclaimers and limitations contained in the Site Terms of Use.

In the event that a court should hold that the limitations of liabilities or remedies available as set forth in this Agreement, or any portions thereof, are unenforceable for any reason, or that any remedies under this Agreement fail of their essential purpose, you expressly agree that under no circumstances shall our total liability to you or any party claiming by, through or under you for any cause whatsoever, and regardless of the form of action, whether in contract or in tort, including negligence, in the aggregate, exceed the amount of charges paid by you for use of the Service under this Agreement during the twelve-month period preceding the date such claim first arose, or one United States Dollar, whichever is greater.

Service Outages

Routine maintenance and periodic system repairs, upgrades, and reconfigurations, public emergency or necessity, terrorism, hosting provider problems, restrictions imposed by law, acts of God, force major, labor disputes and other situations, including mechanical or electrical breakdowns may result in temporary impairment or interruption of service. The Pen Shop does not guarantee continuous or uninterrupted service and reserves the right to reduce or suspend service without notice.

Use and Storage

Any and all content posted or displayed for inclusion in publicly accessible areas of The Pen Shop are the responsibility of the creator. The Pen Shop makes no claims or warranties about such information or its authenticity. When you post messages and upload photos, you grant The Pen Shop the perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, world-wide, royalty free license to publish, modify and use such content solely for the purpose of displaying such content.

You acknowledge that The Pen Shop may establish general practices and limits concerning use of the site, including without limitation the maximum number of days that message board content or other uploaded content will be retained by the site, the maximum disk space that will be allotted on The Pen Shop servers on your behalf, and the maximum number of times (and the maximum duration for which) you may access the site in a given period of time. You agree that The Pen Shop has no responsibility or liability for the deletion or failure to store any content maintained or transmitted by the site. You acknowledge that The Pen Shop reserves the right to remove your account if it is inactive for an extended period of time. You further acknowledge that The Pen Shop reserves the right to change these general practices and limits at any time, in its sole discretion, with or without notice.

Intellectual Property

It is the policy of The Pen Shop to respond expeditiously to claims of intellectual property infringement. The Pen Shop will promptly process and investigate notices of alleged infringement and will take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Should a violation of intellectual property be discovered, the document(s) or messages in such violation will be removed in a timely manner after any and all investigating has been completed to prove the authenticity of such a claim.

Entire Agreement

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between the parties and no other representations or statements will be binding upon the parties. If any part of this agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable for any reason, the remaining terms and conditions of this Agreement shall remain in full force and effect.

Governing Law and Venue

THIS AGREEMENT SHALL BE GOVERNED IN ACCORDANCE WITH THE LAWS OF THE STATE OF TEXAS AND ITS VALIDITY, CONSTRUCTION AND EFFECT SHALL BE GOVEREND BY AND ENFORCED PURSUANT TO THE SUBSTANTIVE LAWS OF THE STATE OF TEXAS. THE PARTIES AGREE THAT ALL LEGAL PROCEEDINGS IN CONNECTION WITH THE ENFORCEMENT, CONSTRUCTION, INTERPRETATION, BREACH OR VIOLATION OF THIS AGREEMENT SHALL BE SUBMITTED TO THE STATE OR FEDERAL COURTS AND THAT JURISDICTION AND VENUE ARE PROPER IN SUCH COURTS. YOU AGREE THAT ANY CAUSE OF ACTION ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE MUST COMMENCE WITHIN ONE (1) YEAR AFTER THE CAUSE OF ACTION AROSE; OTHERWISE, SUCH CAUSE OF ACTION IS PERMANENTLY BARRED.

These terms of Service were originated on March 24, 2006

revised May 2008