Terms of Use
designaffairs general terms of use
Status as at: September 2008
1. Scope
1.1
The use of these Internet pages (below: “designaffairs website”) provided by designaffairs GmbH ("designaffairs") is permitted solely subject to these terms.
1.2
If a user utilizes the designaffairs website as a company or on behalf of a company, i.e. while pursuing an occupation on a commercial or self-employed basis or on behalf of a public corporation, Section 312e (1) Sent. 1 No. 1-3 of the German Civil Code (BGB – Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch) is not applicable.
2. Services
2.1
designaffairs holds certain information and software, if applicable including documentation, ready for retrieval or downloading on the designaffairs website.
2.2
designaffairs is entitled to stop operating the designaffairs website in whole or in part at any time. Due to the nature of the Internet and computer systems, designaffairs does not accept any guarantee for the constant availability of the designaffairs website.
4. Rights to use information, software and documentation
4.1
Use of the information, software and documentation provided on the designaffairs website is subject to these terms or, if information, software or documentation is updated, the relevant license terms already previously agreed with designaffairs. Separately agreed license terms have priority over these terms.
4.2
designaffairs grants the user a non-exclusive and non-transferable right to utilize the information, software and documentation provided on the designaffairs website to the extent agreed, or if this extent has not been agreed, according to the purpose intended by designaffairs holding available and providing the information, software and documentation.
4.3
Software is provided free of charge in a machine-readable form. Users are not entitled to have the source code made available to them. An exception to this rule are the source codes of open source software, of which the license terms - that have priority over these terms when open source software is passed on - stipulate that the source code is made available to users. In this case designaffairs will provide the source code against cost reimbursement.
4.4
Users are prohibited from selling, renting out or providing in any other manner information, software or documentation to third parties at any time. Unless otherwise provided by mandatory legal provisions, users may not modify, reverse engineer or translate the software or its documentation or extract parts from these. Users may create a back-up copy of the software if this copy is required to ensure future use.
4.5
The information, software and documentation are protected by copyright laws, international copyright contracts as well as other laws and agreements on intellectual property. Users must observe these rights. Above all, users will not remove alphanumeric identifications, trade names and copyright notices from the information, the software or the documentation.
4.6
In other respects, Sections 69a ff. of the German Copyright Law (Urheberrechtsgesetz) remain unaffected.
5. Intellectual property
5.1
Irrespective of the special provisions in No. 4 of these terms, information, trade names and other content of the designaffairs website may not be modified, copied, reproduced, sold, rented out, used, supplemented or exploited in any other manner without obtaining prior written approval from designaffairs.
5.2
Apart from the rights of use or other rights expressly granted in these terms, the user is not granted any further rights, irrespective of the kind, in particular to the company name and to industrial property rights such as patents, utility models or brands, nor is designaffairs obliged to grant such rights.
6. Duties of the user
6.1
When using the designaffairs website the user may not:
• damage any person, in particular minors, or infringe their personal rights;
• act against good morals through his/her use;
• infringe industrial property rights, copyrights or other rights of ownership;
• transmit contents with viruses, what are known as Trojan horses or other programs that can damage software;
• enter, save or send hyperlinks or content which he/she is not authorized to do, in particular if these hyperlinks or content infringe confidentiality undertakings or are unlawful; or
• spread advertising or unrequested e-mails (referred to as “spam”) or incorrect warnings about viruses, malfunctions and similar or to invite participation in contests, Ponzi schemes, chain letters, pyramid schemes and similar actions.
6.2
designaffairs may block access to the designaffairs website at any time, in particular if the user acts in breach of his/her duties under these terms.
7. Hyperlinks
The designaffairs website may contain hyperlinks to third-party websites. designaffairs will not accept any responsibility for the content of these websites nor will designaffairs adopt these websites and their content as its own because designaffairs does have any control over the linked information and is not responsible for the content and information provided therein. Use of such websites is made at the user's own risk.
8. Liability for defects of title and defects of quality
8.1
If information, software or documentation is provided free of charge, liability is excluded for defects of title and defects of quality in the information, software and documentation, in particular in terms of their accuracy, freedom from errors, freedom from property rights and from copyrights of third parties, completeness and/or usability except in the event of intent or malice and in case of death, physical injury or an impairment of health.
8.2
The information can contain general descriptions of the technical possibilities of individual products which do not always have to exist in an individual case (e.g. due to product modifications). The desired product features must therefore be agreed in an individual case upon purchase.
9. Other liability, viruses
9.1
The liability of designaffairs for defects of quality and defects of title is based on the provisions in No. 8 of these terms. In other respects, any and all liability of designaffairs is excluded, unless liability is compulsory on account of willful intent or gross negligence, as a result of death, physical injury or an impairment of health, due to the assumption of a guarantee of quality, due to the fraudulent concealment of a defect or due to a breach of essential contractual duties. However, damages based on a breach of essential contractual duties is restricted to foreseeable damage typical for the contract, unless intent or gross negligence is involved.
9.2
Although designaffairs always seeks to keep the designaffairs website free from viruses, designaffairs cannot guarantee that it is free from viruses. Before downloading information, software and documentation, the user must ensure that he/she has reasonable safety measures and virus scanners for his/her own protection and to prevent viruses on the designaffairs website.
9.3
A change in the burden of proof to the detriment of the user is not entailed in the above provisions in Nos. 9.1 and 9.2.
10. Export control
10.1
Exporting certain information, software or documentation may be subject to approval, e.g. on account of its nature, its intended purpose or its final destination. The user will strictly comply with the relevant export regulations for the information, software and documentation, in particular those of the EU or of EU member states and of the USA.
10.2
In particular, the user will check and ensure that
• the information, software and documentation provided will not be used for the purpose of arms, nuclear facilities, weapons or for any other military purpose;
• companies and persons named in the US Denied Persons List (DPL) do not receive goods, software and technology of US origin;
• companies and persons named in the US Warning List, US Entity List and US Specially Designated Nationals List do not receive goods of US origin without approval; and
• the early warning notices given by the German authorities responsible are observed.
Access may only be granted to software, documentation and information on the designaffairs website if this has been checked and the protection ensured as stated above; otherwise designaffairs will not be obliged to render performance.
10.3
Upon demand, designaffairs will inform the user of relevant points of contact for further information.
11. Data protection
When utilizing and processing the non-personal data of the user of the designaffairs website, designaffairs complies with applicable data protection laws and the private policy of designaffairs which is available for inspection via hyperlinks on the designaffairs website. designaffairs will not collect the user’s personal data. Details on data protection are given in the information on data protection available for inspection on this website.
12. Additional agreements, place of jurisdiction, applicable law
12.1
Additional agreements must be made in writing.
12.2
In case of any disputes, the courts in Munich, Federal Republic of Germany, have jurisdiction and venue if the user is a registered merchant as defined by the German Commercial Code (Handelsgesetzbuch).
12.3
The designaffairs website is operated by companies located in Germany which are also responsible for the website. designaffairs accepts no responsibility for the permission to retrieve or download information, software and/or documentation from the designaffairs website at locations outside Germany. If users access the designaffairs website from outside Germany, they are solely responsible for compliance with the relevant regulations based on the laws of the respective country. Access to information, software and/or documentation on the designaffairs website from countries in which such access is unlawful is not permitted. The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany are applicable, excluding the UN Sales Convention.
designaffairs on data protection issues
The protection of personal data is an important concern for us. This is why we conduct our activities in compliance with legal provisions on the protection of personal data and on data security. Below, your will learn what we do with the information we receive.
Personal data
We do not gather any personal data whatsoever via our websites (e.g. names, addresses, telephone numbers or e-mail addresses).
Intended use
We use the personal data you have provided to us to answer your inquiries, to process your orders or to grant you access to certain information or offers. To maintain customer relations, it may also be necessary
• that we save and process your personal data and disclose it to our affiliated German companies so that we can better respond to your requests or improve our products or services, inform you of designaffairs offers that are of benefit to your business operations or conduct online surveys in order to better perform the tasks or meet the requirements of our customers.
If you do not want to provide us with your personal data, we will naturally respect your wishes. We will not sell your personal data to third parties or market it in any other manner.
Purpose-tied use
designaffairs will collect, process and use the personal data you provide us with online only for the purposes you have named, unless the collection, processing or use
• is required to prepare, negotiate and implement a contract between designaffairs and yourself;
• is required based on a legal obligation or order issued by an authority or court;
• is required to substantiate or to protect legal claims or to defend against legal action;
• serves to prevent abuse or other unlawful activities, e.g. intentional attacks on the designaffairs systems to guarantee data security.
Communication-related or use-related information
If you access our websites via telecommunication services, communication-related data (e.g. Internet protocol address) and use-related data (e.g. data on the start and duration of use as well as on the telecommunication services you use) is automatically generated by technical means. It is possible for this data to permit conclusions to be drawn about personal data. We will delete this data as soon as it is no longer required for technical reasons to properly operate our websites. If the collection, processing and use of your communication or use-related data is compulsory for technical reasons for a temporary period, this shall be subject to statutory provisions on data protection.
Automatically collected non-personal data
If you access our websites, information will occasionally be automatically collected (i.e. not via registration) which is not allocated to a specific person (e.g. Internet browser and operating system used; domain name of the website that you came from; number of visits; average time spent on the website; pages called up). We use this information to determine how attractive our websites are and to improve their efficiency and content. The data is deleted after use described above.
"Cookies" – Information that can be automatically left on your computer
When you visit one of our websites, it is possible that we deposit information in the form of a "cookie" on your computer so that it is automatically recognized on your next visit. If you do not want us to recognize your computer, please set your Internet browser so that it deletes cookies from your computer's hard disk, blocks all cookies or warns you before a cookie is stored.
Children
designaffairs does not collect the personal data of children.
Security
designaffairs takes technical and organizational security measures to protect the non-personal data described in these terms against unauthorized disclosure and unauthorized access.
Links to other websites
The designaffairs websites contain links to other websites. designaffairs is not responsible for the data protection policies or the content of these other websites.
Questions and comments
Should you have any questions or comments, please write to info@designaffairs.com. In the course of the further development of the internet we will continually adapt our data protection policy. We will publish amendments on this page in due time.