Terms of Use - Sesame Street in Communities - Sesame Street in Communities

Thank you for visiting our website located at SesameStreetinCommunities.org, which we refer to as the “Site.” The Site, which includes the Forums (as described below), is provided as a public service and for information purposes only. Through the Site, Sesame Workshop (also referred to as “we,” “us” or “our”), as the administrator of the Site, aims to provide resources and tools to parents, guardians, and child care providers. We offer the Site to you (referred to as “you” or “user”) under the Terms of Use described below. By using and accessing the Site, you are agreeing to these Terms of Use, which will be considered a binding, legal agreement (referred to herein as “Terms of Use” or “Agreement”) between you and Sesame Workshop. If you do not agree to these terms, please discontinue your access to and use of the Site immediately.

We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to change these terms at any time, and will publish a revised version of these Terms of Use on the Site. You are responsible for regularly reviewing these Terms of Use. Continued access to and use of the Site following any such change means you accept and will abide by the changes.

Ownership of Site

The Site is owned and operated by Sesame Workshop, a nonprofit educational organization with charitable, tax-exempt status, and with offices at 1900 Broadway, New York, NY 10023, USA. Sesame Workshop and/or its subsidiaries, affiliated companies, distributors, vendors, contractors, licensors and/or licensees (collectively “SW Parties”) own the copyright in all elements of the Site and all related intellectual property rights, including, but not limited to, all trademark rights, patent rights and moral rights. The elements of the Site (collectively, “Site Content”) include without limitation the content, software, code, data, art, graphics, animation, photographs, images, text, music, sound effects, audio and audiovisual elements, look-and-feel, design, layout, organization, presentation, user interface, navigation, trade dress and stylistic convention of the Site. Your use of the Site does not give you ownership of any Site Content.

Trademarks

All trademarks, logos, service marks and trade names (collectively, the “Trademarks”) displayed on the Site or on Site Content are registered or unregistered Trademarks of the SW Parties and/or others, and may not be used unless authorized by the Trademark owner. All Trademarks not owned by us that appear on the Site or on the Site Content, if any, are the property of their respective owners. Nothing contained on the Site should be construed as granting, by implication, estoppel, or otherwise, any license or right to use any Trademark displayed on the Site.

Use of Site Content

You may access and view the Site Content only for your personal, noncommercial use via personal computer or other Internet compatible device to enable you to use the Site, provided that you do not remove or alter any copyright or other legal notices from the Site or any Site Content. You may not (except where we have given you express permission or you are otherwise permitted by law) modify, copy, distribute, download, upload, post, broadcast or transmit, display, disassemble, perform, reproduce, publish, license, decompile, reverse engineer, create derivative works from, transfer, sell, or make other use of any of the Site Content. Any use of the Site Content, other than as explicitly permitted in this paragraph, is unauthorized and may be a violation of copyright or other proprietary rights or other applicable federal or state laws of the United States or other countries.

The Site is for your informational purposes only and is not intended to substitute for appropriate professional consultation and advice. The opinions expressed are for informational purposes only and are not to be considered by you, or anyone, as appropriate or professional, or diagnostic in any respect.

Accessing the Site and Account Security; User Information

We reserve the right to withdraw or amend the Site, and any service or material we provide on the Site, at our sole discretion without notice. We will not be liable if for any reason if all or any part of the Site is unavailable at any time or for any period. From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of the Site, or the entire Site, to users, including registered users.

To access the Site or some of the resources it offers, you may be asked to provide certain registration details or other information including personalized information. It is a condition of your use of the Site that all the information you provide on the Site is correct, current and complete and you acknowledge that it is your responsibility to keep it so. You agree that all information you provide to register with the Site or otherwise, including but not limited to the use of any interactive features on the Site, is governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated herein by reference, and you consent to all actions we take with respect to your information consistent with our Privacy Policy.

If you choose, or are provided with, a user name, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any other person or entity. You also acknowledge that your account is personal to you and agree not to provide any other person with access to the Site or portions of it using your user name, password or other security information. You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized access to or use of your user name or password or any other breach of security. You also agree to ensure that you exit from your account at the end of each session. You should use particular caution when accessing your account from a public or shared computer so that others are not able to view or record your password or other personal information.

In the typical course of operation of the Site, we may process anonymized user information through the Google Analytics program and as a condition of your use of the Site, you acknowledge and consent to such processing. We may use your user ID in combination with Google Analytics and related programs to track and analyze the pages of the Site you visit. We do this only to better understand how you use the Site and the other services, in order to enhance the user experience; and to tailor our business and activities accordingly, both generally and specifically to you. Google Analytics does not provide us with any personal information.

To provide Site users with more choice on how their information is collected by Google Analytics, Google has developed the Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on. The add-on communicates with the Google Analytics JavaScript (ga.js) to indicate that information about the website visit should not be sent to Google Analytics. The Google Analytics Opt-out Browser Add-on does not prevent information from being sent to the Site itself or to other web analytics services. Learn more about the Google Analytics Opt-out Brower Add-on here.

We have the right to disable any user name, password or other identifier, whether chosen by you or provided by us, at any time in our sole discretion for any or no reason, including if, in our opinion, you have violated any provision of these Terms and Conditions.

Consideration

You acknowledge and agree that your access to and use of the Site, the Site Content and the services provided through the Site are valuable benefits that you receive by agreeing to and complying with the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

User Submissions and Forum Posts; Moderation and Editorial Control

We do not ask for nor do we wish to receive any confidential, secret or proprietary information or other material from you through the Site, by email or in any other way. If you post, upload, transmit or submit any materials, content (including, for example, any photographs), information or ideas via the Site (collectively, “Your Content”), including through any forum, message board, blog, chat or other online interface associated with the Site (the “Forum(s)”), (i) you represent and warrant that Your Content is original to you, that no other party has any rights thereto, and that any “moral rights” in Your Content have been waived, and (ii) you grant to Sesame Workshop a non-exclusive, fully-paid, royalty-free, unrestricted, perpetual, irrevocable, fully transferable, assignable and sublicensable, and worldwide license in all current and future media to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, publicly perform and display, distribute, sublicense, create derivative works, sell, and otherwise use Your Content for any purpose Sesame Workshop chooses, commercial or otherwise, in its sole discretion, without any compensation to you and in accordance with our Privacy Policy. We cannot be responsible for maintaining Your Content that you provide to us, and we may delete or destroy Your Content at any time. You shall not be entitled to any rights of attribution in connection with any use of Your Content.

We host Forums on our Site in order to serve as public discussion hubs for users. Any information a user posts on the Site may be visible to anyone on the Internet. Users have the ability to edit or delete their own posts. When posting information on the Site, users agree to be civil, respectful, and constructive especially while discussing sensitive topics. Unless your post arises directly from your personal experience, references should be included to verify the integrity of any information contained within the post.

The SW Parties reserve the right, but do not have an obligation, to moderate, monitor and/or review materials posted to the Site or through the Site’s Forums, services or features through automated or manual means (“Moderation” by automated or human “Moderators”). Moderators are not medical, child care, or legal professionals and should not be considered as such and any of their communications should not be relied on as professional advice. You should consult appropriate professional advisers for advice as needed.

The SW Parties and our Moderators may alter, edit, refuse to post or remove any postings or content, in whole or in part, for any reason and to disclose such materials and the circumstances surrounding their transmission to any third party in order to satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request and to protect ourselves, our clients, sponsors, users and visitors.

We may also impose limits on certain features or restrict your access to part or all of the features or services without notice or penalty if we believe you are in breach of this Agreement or applicable law, or for any other reason without notice or liability.

In addition to any prohibited activities described in this Agreement, when using any Forum you must not delete or revise any material posted by any other person or entity, or submit, upload or otherwise post:

statements or materials that are libelous or defame, harass, abuse, stalk, threaten, intimidate or in any way infringe on the any rights of any third party, including other users;
statements or materials that are bigoted, hateful, racially offensive, vulgar, obscene, pornographic, profane, or otherwise objectionable, including language or images that typically would not be considered socially or professionally responsible or appropriate in person;
material that is likely to be reasonably perceived as objectionable or restricts or inhibits any person or entity from using or enjoying any interactive features or other portions of the Site, or which may expose us or the Site’s users to harm or liability of any nature;
statements or materials that violate other contractual or fiduciary rights, duties or agreements;
personal information, pictures, videos or any other media of another person without their express permission;
statements or materials that in any way harm minors or any third party;
anything that violates the privacy or publicity rights of any other person, including, without limitation, posting any personal identifying information of another individual, including, without limitation, addresses, phone numbers, email addresses, Social Security numbers, or credit card numbers;
statements or materials that constitute junk mail, spam or unauthorized advertising or promotional materials, including, without limitation, links to commercial products or services or any political campaigning; or
material that infringes, or that may infringe, any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other intellectual or proprietary right of any party, or that you otherwise do not have the right to make available, or information for which you have any obligation of confidentiality, without the express permission of the owner of the copyright, trademark or other proprietary right. We don’t have any express burden of responsibility to provide any user with indications, markings or anything else that may aid any user in determining whether the material in question is copyrighted or trademarked. Users shall be solely liable for any damage resulting for infringements of copyrights, trademarks, proprietary rights or any other harm resulting from such submission.

Pursuant to the Termination provisions below, any user failing to comply with these guidelines may be expelled from and refused continued access to the Forums in the future. We may remove or alter any user-created content at any time for any reason. Materials posted and/or uploaded to the various Forums may be subject to size, usage and other limitations. You are responsible for adhering to such limitations. We expressly disclaim all responsibility and endorsement and make no representation as to the validity of any opinion, advice, information or statement made or displayed in these Forums by third parties, nor are we responsible for any errors or omissions in such postings, or for hyperlinks embedded in any messages. Under no circumstances will we be liable for any loss or damage caused by your reliance on information obtained through these Forums. The opinions expressed in these Forums are solely the opinions of the users, and do not reflect our opinions. In addition, we reserve the right to contact users to inform them of policies, hide users’ posts or delete users’ accounts without warning or notice in advance, for any reason, including but not limited to the violation of this Agreement.

Certifications

We may, from time-to-time on this Site, offer courses, training and webinars (collectively, “Programs”) which may generate credit which you can use to achieve certain professional accreditation or certifications (“Certifications”). We are not the accrediting institution for such Certifications, which will be provided by third party agencies and organizations. It is your responsibility to ensure that any Program, credit and Certification is suitable for your intended purpose, that the accrediting organization from which you seek Certification accepts the credits available through this Site for accreditation, and that you understand and comply with any other requirements associated with securing credits and Certification.

We will not keep track of which Programs you completed and you should maintain adequate records as required by the accrediting organization. You should not rely on retrieving such records from us.

We are under no obligation to make any such Programs available, and we may withdraw any Program at any time. To the extent we make available on the Site any Program provided by a third party, we do not necessarily endorse the views of the presenter and/or author.

To the extent we are required by any accrediting institution to share information about you or your activities on the Site in connection with your effort to achieve accreditation, you understand and agree that we have the right to do so.

Prohibited User Conduct

You warrant and agree that, while accessing or using the Site, you will not:

impersonate any person or entity or misrepresent your affiliation with any other person or entity, whether actual or fictitious, including anyone from the Site or the SW Parties;
insert your own or a third party’s advertising, branding or other promotional content into any of the Site Content, materials or services, or buy or sell any products or services from third parties through the Site;
obtain or attempt to gain unauthorized access to other computer systems, materials, information or any services available on or through the Site through any means, including through means not intentionally made publicly available or provided for through the Site;
engage in spidering, “screen scraping,” “database scraping,” harvesting of e-mail addresses or other personal information, or any other automatic or unauthorized means of accessing, logging-in or registering on the Site, or obtaining lists of users or other information from or through the Site, including, without limitation, any information residing on any server or database connected to the Site;
use the Site or its features and services in any manner that could interrupt, damage, disable, overburden or impair the Site, including through posting of files that contain malicious code, viruses, corrupted files, or any other similar software or programs, or interfere with any other party’s use and enjoyment of the Site, including, without limitation, sending mass unsolicited messages or “flooding” servers with requests;
use the Site or its services in violation of the intellectual property or other proprietary or legal rights of the SW Parties or any third party;
use the Site or its services in violation of any applicable law or to engage in any criminal or tortious activity;
attempt (or encourage or support anyone else’s attempt) to circumvent, reverse engineer, decrypt, or otherwise alter or interfere with the Site or its services.

You alone are responsible for the content and consequences of any of your activities while you are visiting or using the Site.

Links From The Site To Third Party Site

As a convenience for users, the Site may contain links to Internet sites maintained by third parties (“Linked Sites”). You acknowledge and agree that the SW Parties do not operate or control in any respect, or necessarily endorse, the information, content, products, services, advertising, or other materials that may be found on a Linked Site. When you click on a link from the Site to a Linked Site, you become subject to their terms of use and privacy policy rather than to ours. You assume sole and complete responsibility for, and we do not accept any responsibility for any losses or penalties incurred as a result of your use of a Linked Site, and any reliance on the contents of a Linked Site is at your own risk.

Links To The Site From Third Party Site

You agree that if you include a link from any other web site to the Site, such link shall open in a new browser window and shall link to the full version of an HTML formatted page of the Site. You are not permitted to link directly to any image hosted on the Site, such as using an “in-line” linking method to cause the image hosted by us to be displayed on another web site. You agree not to link from any other web site to the Site in any manner such that the Site, or any page of the Site, is “framed,” surrounded or obfuscated by any third party content, materials or branding. We may require that any link to the Site be discontinued, and to revoke your right to link to the Site from any other web site at any time.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the SW Parties, and its and their respective affiliates, directors, trustees, officers, employees and agents from and against any and all claims, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) that may arise from your use of the Site in any way, your placement or transmission of any message, content, information, software or other materials on, to or through the Site or your violation of law or breach of the terms of this Agreement. The SW Parties reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, and in such case, you agree to cooperate with the defense of any such claims by the SW Parties.

Copyright Agent

We respect the intellectual property rights of others, and require that the people who use the Site do the same. If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please forward the following information to our Copyright Agent, designated as such pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. ‘ 512(c)(2), named below:

Your address, telephone number, and email address;
A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed;
A description of where the alleged infringing material is located;
A statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
An electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright interest; and
A statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.

Copyright Agent:
David K. Chan
1900 Broadway
New York, NY 10023
Phone: 212-875-6299 / Fax: 212-875-6117 / e-mail: copyrightdmca@sesameworkshop.org

General Disclaimer and Limitation of Liability

Sesame Workshop controls and operates the Site from offices in the United States of America. We make no representation that Site Content is appropriate or authorized for use in all countries, states, provinces, counties or any other jurisdictions. If you choose to access the Site, you do so on your own initiative and risk, and you are responsible for compliance with all applicable laws if and to the extent such laws and restrictions are applicable.

The Site provides information of a general nature only and you are responsible for determining whether it applies to your specific situation. Sesame Workshop specifically disclaims any liability concerning any action that any person may take based on any information or guidance provided at the Site.

Sesame Workshop does not guarantee the accuracy, timeliness, correctness, completeness, performance or fitness for a particular purpose of the Site or any of the Site Content. Sesame Workshop is not liable for any errors, omissions, or inaccurate Site Content on the Site.

THE SITE AND THE SITE CONTENT ARE PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY WARRANTY FOR INFORMATION, DATA, DATA PROCESSING SERVICES, UPTIME OR UNINTERRUPTED ACCESS, ANY WARRANTIES CONCERNING THE AVAILABILITY, ACCURACY OR USEFULNESS OF SITE CONTENT AND ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, SATISFACTORY QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE OR NONINFRINGEMENT, WHICH ARE EXCLUDED FROM THIS AGREEMENT TO THE EXTENT THAT THEY MAY BE EXCLUDED AS A MATTER OF LAW. SESAME WORKSHOP DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE OR THE SERVICES, CONTENT, FUNCTIONS OR MATERIALS CONTAINED THEREIN WILL BE TIMELY, SECURE, UNINTERRUPTED, OR OPERATED FREE OF DELAYS IN TRANSMISSION, FAILURE IN PERFORMANCE, COMPUTER VIRUSES, INACCURACIES, ERRORS, OR DEFECTS. YOU USE THE SITE AT YOUR OWN RISK. SESAME WORKSHOP ALSO ASSUMES NO RESPONSIBILITY, AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR, ANY DAMAGES TO, OR VIRUSES THAT MAY INFECT, YOUR COMPUTER EQUIPMENT OR OTHER PROPERTY ON ACCOUNT OF YOUR ACCESS TO, USE OF, OR BROWSING IN THE SITE OR YOUR DOWNLOADING OF ANY MATERIALS, DATA, TEXT, IMAGES, VIDEO, OR AUDIO FROM THE SITE. YOU ARE RESPONSIBLE FOR IMPLEMENTING SUFFICIENT PROCEDURES AND VIRUS CHECKS (INCLUDING ANTI-VIRUS AND OTHER SECURITY CHECKS) TO SATISFY YOUR PARTICULAR REQUIREMENTS FOR THE ACCURACY AND SECURITY OF DATA INPUT AND OUTPUT. SESAME WORKSHOP MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT THE SITE WILL MEET USERS’ REQUIREMENTS. NO ADVICE, RESULTS OR INFORMATION, WHETHER ORAL OR WRITTEN, OBTAINED BY YOU FROM US OR THROUGH THE SITE SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY NOT EXPRESSLY MADE HEREIN.

EXCEPT AS SET OUT BELOW, UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO BREACH OF CONTRACT, TORT OR NEGLIGENCE, WILL THE SW PARTIES BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT ARISE OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF THE SITE OR WITH THE DELAY OR INABILITY TO USE THE SITE, OR FOR ANY INFORMATION, SOFTWARE, PRODUCTS OR SERVICES OBTAINED THROUGH THE SITE, OR OTHERWISE ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF THE SITE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. BECAUSE SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL OR INCIDENTAL DAMAGES, THOSE ASPECTS OF THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE SW PARTIES BE LIABLE FOR OR IN CONNECTION WITH ANY CONTENT POSTED, TRANSMITTED, EXCHANGED OR RECEIVED BY OR ON BEHALF OF ANY USER OR OTHER PERSON ON OR THROUGH THE SITE (INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, ANY SUBMITTED MATERIALS). IN NO EVENT SHALL THE SW PARTIES’ TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL DAMAGES, LOSSES AND CAUSES OF ACTION EXCEED, IN THE AGGREGATE, THE AMOUNT, IF ANY, PAID BY YOU TO US FOR YOUR USE OF THE SITE OR FOR ANY OF YOUR ACTIVITIES ON THE SITE.

TERMINATION

Sesame Workshop may terminate, change, suspend or discontinue any aspect of the Site at any time. Sesame Workshop may restrict, suspend or terminate your access to the Site and/or this Agreement if we reasonably believe or suspect you have acted inappropriately on the Site or you are in breach of these Terms of Use or applicable law, or for any other reason without notice or liability. Additionally, Sesame Workshop has a policy of terminating use or access privileges to the Site of users who are repeat infringers of intellectual property rights. You may terminate this Agreement by discontinuing your use of and access to the Site. This Agreement is effective until terminated by you or by Sesame Workshop for any reason, with or without notice. Upon any termination of this Agreement, you agree to discontinue your use and access of the Site and to immediately destroy all Site Content obtained from it.

Miscellaneous

This Agreement shall be deemed to include all other notices, policies, disclaimers, and other terms contained in the Site, including our Privacy Policy provided, however, that in the event of a conflict between such other terms and the terms of this Agreement, the terms of this Agreement shall prevail.

You agree that Sesame Workshop may assign any of its rights and/or transfer, sub-contract or delegate any of its obligations under this Agreement. This Agreement is personal to you and you may not transfer or assign it to a third party.

This Agreement is governed by and is construed in accordance with the laws of the State of New York, U.S.A, without regard to conflicts of law provisions. You consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of courts in New York County, New York, U.S.A. in all disputes arising out of or relating to your use of the Site. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Sesame Workshop shall have the right to bring action against visitors of the Site in courts of competent jurisdiction in the jurisdiction in which such visitors reside or are located: (i) to seek injunctive relief against such visitor, (ii) to obtain a judgment against such visitor where a judgment by a United States court will, or may, not be enforced by the jurisdiction in which such visitor resides or is located, or (iii) to enforce a judgment obtained against such visitor in a New York court.

Our failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of this Agreement shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

If any part of this Agreement is determined to be invalid or unenforceable under applicable law including but not limited to the warranty disclaimers and liability limitations stated above, then the invalid or unenforceable provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remainder of the Agreement shall continue in effect.

This Agreement constitutes the entire agreement between you and Sesame Workshop with respect to the Site and it supersedes all prior or contemporaneous communications and proposals, whether electronic, oral or written, between you and Sesame Workshop with respect to the Site. A printed version of this Agreement and of any notice given in electronic form will be admissible in judicial or administrative proceedings based upon or relating to this Agreement to the same extent as other business documents and records originally generated and maintained in printed form.

Any rights not expressly granted in this Agreement are reserved to Sesame Workshop.