These are the legal terms governing your use of our website, our services and our products.
Effective from: 01st April 2022
THESE TERMS OF USE ARE ENTERED INTO BY AND BETWEEN YOU AND VAVISUAL ABSTRACT GMBH (“COMPANY”, “WE” OR “US”). THE FOLLOWING TERMS AND CONDITIONS, TOGETHER WITH ANY DOCUMENTS THEY EXPRESSLY INCORPORATE BY REFERENCE (COLLECTIVELY, THESE “TERMS OF USE” OR “TERMS”), GOVERN YOUR ACCESS TO AND USE OF ANY VAVISUAL ABSTRACT SERVICE (“VISUAL ABSTRACTS” OR THE “SERVICE(S)”), INCLUDING ANY CONTENT, FUNCTIONALITY, AND FEATURES OFFERED ON OR THROUGH THE VAVISUAL ABSTRACT WEBSITE, WWW.VISUAL-ABSTRACT.COM, ALL SUBDOMAINS THEREOF, AND SOCIAL MEDIA ACCOUNTS AND PAGES WE OPERATE (COLLECTIVELY, THE “SITE”), WHETHER YOU ARE A GUEST OR A REGISTERED USER. REFERENCES HEREIN TO “VAVISUAL ABSTRACT” SHALL ALSO MEAN AND INCLUDE THE SITE, AS THE CONTEXT REQUIRES. REFERENCES HEREIN TO “YOU”, “YOUR”, OR “YOURS” SHALL REFER TO YOU. IN CASE YOU ARE ACTING ON BEHALF OF A LEGAL ENTITY OR ORGANIZATION (ALSO, A “CORPORATE USER”), REFERENCES HEREIN TO “YOU”, “YOUR”, OR “YOURS” SHALL ALSO MEAN YOUR INTERNAL USERS WHO ACCESS OR USE VAVISUAL ABSTRACT THROUGH YOUR ACCOUNT AND WITH WHOM YOU HAVE AN EMPLOYMENT, CONTRACTOR, OR AGENCY RELATIONSHIP (COLLECTIVELY, “END USERS”).
PLEASE READ THESE TERMS CAREFULLY BEFORE YOU REGISTER WITH, USE, OR ACCESS VAVISUAL ABSTRACT. BY REGISTERING WITH, USING, OR ACCESSING THE SERVICES, (A) YOU ACKNOWLEDGE THAT YOU HAVE READ AND UNDERSTAND THESE TERMS AND OUR DATA PROTECTION POLICY, (“PRIVACY POLICY – https://www.visual-abstract.com/privacy-policy/), INCORPORATED HEREIN BY REFERENCE; (B) YOU ARE AT LEAST 18 YEARS OLD. IF YOU ARE UNDER 18, YOU MAY NOT USE OR ATTEMPT TO REGISTER FOR THE SERVICE.”; AND (C) ACCEPT THESE TERMS AND AGREE THAT YOU ARE LEGALLY BOUND BY IT. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS OF USE OR THE PRIVACY POLICY, YOU MUST NOT ACCESS OR USE THE SITE NOR THE SERVICE. REFERENCES HEREIN TO “USE” OR “ACCESS” SHALL INCLUDING REGISTERING WITH, USING, AND/OR ACCESSING THE SITE OR THE SERVICE, INCLUDING USING THE CONTENT, FEATURES, FUNCTIONALITY, AND/OR SERVICES OF THE SITE.
Use of the Services may require that you register and/or create an account (“Account”) or provide your data for establishing a business relationship with VAVisual Abstract. To register and create an Account, you may need to select an account user ID and/or password and provide certain personal information. In consideration of the use of the Site and/or the Services provided by us, you agree to: (a) provide true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as to any the registration form, and (b) maintain and promptly update the personal information you provide to keep it true, accurate, current and complete. If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, or we have reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, not current or incomplete, we have the right to immediately terminate your access to the Site (or any portion thereof) and/or the Services. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality and security of your Account and password, and you are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your password or Account, and for any other actions taken in connection with the Account or password. You agree to (a) immediately notify us of any known or suspected unauthorized use(s) of your password or Account, or any known or suspected breach of security, including loss, theft, or unauthorized disclosure of your password or credit card information; and (b) ensure that you exit from your Account at the end of each session. We will not be liable for any injury, loss or damage of any kind arising from or relating to your failure to comply with (a) and (b) or for any acts or omissions by you or someone else using your Account and/or password.
We may use all Account registration information, subject to compliance with our Privacy Policy. By indicating your agreement to these Terms, you are consenting to have your personal data used by us as set forth in the Privacy Policy.
If you are a Corporate User, you represent that you (a) are authorized to bind your entity or organization, (b) that your acceptance of these Terms legally binds such entity or organization; (c) all information provided by you with respect to the entity or organization and the account will be true and accurate and (d) your entity or organization is duly incorporated and is in good standing under the laws of your entity’s or organization’s local jurisdiction as of the date of these Terms. You agree that you will not use the entity or organization account for any purposes other than representation of the entity or organization to use the Services.
If you are a Corporate User, you further agree that we may use the name and logo of your legal entity or organization solely for purposes of identifying your legal entity or organization in connection with the Services and not as an endorsement of our Services.
At times, the Site or the Service may allow you and others to, transmit, distribute, or otherwise submit material including, but not limited to articles, manuscripts, preprints, photos, publications and reviews of the Services offered by us or our partners (collectively, “Contributions”). You agree not to provide to us in connection with the Services, any Contribution that:
Each time you post or publish or provide a Contribution to the Site or to the Service, you represent and warrant, on behalf of yourself and your co-authors, that you have the right to provide such Contribution, which means:
In order to receive the Services, you must pay in advance the applicable fee unless we agree that you may make payment pursuant to another payment plan. We may increase the fees for Services at any time without notifying you. Prices are subject to change without notice. In certain cases, you must complete a sign-up form in order to use the Services.
You acknowledge and agree that the Contributions will be provided to us and our other users under the Creative Commons CC BY License Agreement 4.0 (the “CCLA”). This means that with respect to the Contribution, you will grant to us and our users, the applicable rights that are set forth in the CCLA. Please review the CCLA carefully as it includes, without limitation, the right for others to reproduce, distribute, remix, transform, or build upon the Contribution. The CCLA may be found here – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/. You agree to the terms of the CCLA for each Contribution that is submitted either on this Site or any other Site providing VAVisual Abstract services including but not limited to resellers of VAVisual Abstract. If the law requires that the Contribution be published in the public domain, you will notify us at the time of submission, and in such cases not only the data but also the article shall be released under the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver. For the avoidance of doubt it is stated that the authorizations granted to VAVisual Abstract by the authors in this license agreement and the promise to remain responsible for all aspects of the accuracy and integrity of the Contribution shall apply and prevail regardless of whether the Contribution is published under Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0 or the Creative Commons 1.0 Public Domain Dedication waiver. You agree that all authors have consented to submit the Contribution on the Site or the Service. If the Contribution submitted by you is a preprint, we reserve the right to add a notice on the Visual Abstract indicating such nature of the Contribution and you further agree that we may display a disclaimer on Visual Abstracts stating that VAVisual Abstract neither peer-reviews nor assesses a content’s suitability to inform clinical practice.
If you have purchased the Services, you acknowledge and agree that the Visual Abstracts are provided to you under the Creative Commons CC BY-ND License Agreement 4.0 (the “CCNDLA”). Please review the CCNDLA carefully as it includes, without limitation, the right for others to copy and redistribute the Visual Abstracts. The CCNDLA may be found here – https://creativecommons.org/licenses/. Additionally, all images that are incorporated in a Visual Abstract (so called “Icons”) remain our or our licensors’ property. We reserve the right to re-use the “Icons” to produce and sell further Visual Abstracts, as indicated at the chapter “Our Intellectual Property Rights”.
Subject to the terms of the CCLA, we may reproduce, distribute, remix, transform, or build upon the Contribution and/or the Visual Abstracts in any form, media, software or technology of any kind now existing or developed in the future solely on our Site and associated social media for the purposes of promoting the Visual Abstract and making them accessible to our users. You further acknowledge and agree that we may further apply any learning capabilities to the Contributions to train the Services. Without limiting the generality of the previous sentence, you authorize us to include the Visual Abstracts in a searchable format that may be accessed by users of the Site or by search engines from the World Wide Web. You also grant us the right to use the name and any other identifiable information included with any Contribution solely in connection with the use, reproduction or distribution of such Contribution and our provision of Services to you. You grant all rights described in this paragraph in consideration of your use of the Site and/or the Services, without compensation of any sort to you. We do not claim ownership of Contributions.
We will provide the Visual Abstract(s) during a 5 (five) business day period upon your submission of the Contribution. You have 14 (fourteen) days to accept the Services starting from the day of delivery. If you provide reasonable objections regarding the Visual Abstract Service and content provided to you, we will review them for one time free of charge and provide a modified Visual Abstract to you. In such a case, the Services shall be deemed accepted upon the provision of the revised Visual Abstract Service. If you fail to accept or review the Services during the 14-day period, the Services shall be deemed accepted.
Contributions are not endorsed by us, and do not represent our views or views of our subsidiaries and affiliates, agents, officers or directors. You acknowledge and agree that we do not control Contributions and disclaim any responsibility for Contributions. We specifically disclaim any duty, obligation, or responsibility, to review, screen, remove, or edit any Contribution.
We do not represent or warrant that any other content or information accessible via the Site is accurate, complete, reliable, current or error-free. We assume no responsibility or liability for any errors or omissions in the content provided via the Site.
You acknowledge and agree that the Site contains proprietary information and content that is protected by intellectual property and other laws and may not be used except as provided in these Terms of Use without advance, written permission of us. All designs, text, graphics, interfaces, and images (and the selection and arrangements thereof), and software, hypertext markup language (“HTML”), scripts, active server pages, and other content and software used in the Site are reserved.
You agree that your use of the Site and/or the Services is subject to all applicable laws and regulations. You also agree:
We reserve the right, in our sole and absolute discretion, to modify, suspend, or discontinue at any time, with or without notice, the Services or the availability of the Site (or any part thereof). We may refuse to provide one or more of the Services to you or a group of users, at any time and for any reason at our sole discretion. We may refuse to provide the Services to you if we are unable to create Visual Abstracts pursuant to your request. In the event that we have accepted payment for any Services, and subsequently refuse, or are unable to provide the Services, we will promptly refund to you the applicable payment we received for which Services is not provided.
We make no claims on any work submitted to us for review. Any documents, content, material, photos, images, Contributions, works or other intellectual property submitted by you for our use solely in connection with, as required as a condition to us, providing the Services to you (collectively, “Documents”), will remain your intellectual property, User Representations and Warranties
By submitting any content to the Site or for a Service, you represent and warrant that: (i) you have obtained all necessary third party rights, including, without limitation, copyrights, for any Documents or portions thereof that belong to third parties, which are necessary for us to provide Services in connection with the Documents; (ii) the Documents do not include any infringing, misappropriated or plagiarized content that you do not have the rights to use; and (iii) you are permitted to provide Documents under your publishing agreement or the publisher’s copyright policies or your institution’s license agreement or under a Creative Commons license. You will be responsible for making back-up and archival copies of your Documents. In no event will we be responsible to you or any other person for any loss, corruption or alteration of Documents. Note that if you have assigned any rights to your Document to a journal or other publication, it is your sole responsibility to ensure that you have either retained sufficient rights in the Document to engage us to provide the Services or you have obtained permission from the applicable journal or publication to allow us to provide the Services. If you are a Corporate User, it is your sole responsibility to ensure that you own the Document provided to us, and/or you have obtained all necessary rights from the Document author in order to allow us to provide the Services.
You also represent and warrant that you shall not make any submission anonymously, that you are who you say you are, that you have not submitted fictitious, false or inaccurate information about yourself, and that all information contained in the submitted content is true, original and your own work or work you are authorized to submit, and that the Documents do not contain any threatening, harassing, libellous, false, defamatory, offensive, obscene, or pornographic, material, or other material that would violate any other applicable law or regulation. You agree that you will not knowingly and with intent to defraud provide material and misleading information.
You further represent and warrant that:
We respect the intellectual property rights of others, and we request that our visitors do the same. If you think your work has been copied or used in a manner that constitutes copyright infringement, you may notify us using the contact at our legal notice webpage – www.visual-abstract.com/imprint-legal-notice.
Please include all of the following in your notification:
In rare cases, for example where copyright infringement claims have been made, we may remove or withdraw Visual Abstracts on our website, while the matter is under investigation.
You agree to indemnify, defend and hold us and our directors, officers, agents, contractors, partners and employees, harmless from and against any loss, liability, claim, or demand, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or related to (i) your breach of any representations or warranties made by you hereunder or your breach of any term of this Agreement; (ii) your use of the Site and/or the Services in violation of this Agreement; or (iii) your Contributions and Documents provided by you for use in Visual Abstracts infringe the rights of a third party; (iv) claims by an author, a journal or publication that we do not have the rights or license to create a Visual Abstract; (v) any violation by you of these Terms of Use, including without limitation the terms in the Section “Our intellectual property rights” below as they relate to your use of a Visual Abstract.
You acknowledge that we own all right, title and interest in and to the Site and/or the Services and related documentation and materials, including, without limitation, all patent, copyright, trademark, and trade secret rights, embodied in, or otherwise applicable to the Site and/or the Services, whether such rights are registered or unregistered, and wherever in the world those rights may exist. You shall not commit any act or omission or permit or induce any third party to commit any act or omission inconsistent with Company’s rights, title and interest in and to the Site and/or the Services and the intellectual property rights embodied therein or applicable thereto. All materials embodied in, or comprising the Site and/or the Services, including, but not limited to, graphics, user and visual interfaces, images, code, applications, and text, as well as the design, structure, selection, coordination, expression, “look and feel”, and arrangement of the Site and/or the Services and its content, and the trademarks, service marks, proprietary logos and other distinctive brand features found in the Site and/or the Services, are all owned by Company or its licensors. There are no implied rights or licenses in this Agreement. All rights are expressly reserved by the Company. You also agree that you will not use any robot, spider, other automated device, or manual process to monitor or copy any content from the Site nor our Services provided. Your use of the Services is also subject in all respect to the following:
All images that are incorporated in a Visual Abstract (so called “Icons”) remain our or our licensors’ property. We reserve the right to re-use the “Icons” to produce and sell further Visual Abstracts. We agree to indemnify, defend and hold you and your directors, officers, agents, contractors, partners and employees, harmless from and against any loss, liability, claim, or demand, including reasonable attorneys’ fees, arising out of or related to any claim or alleged claim that the materials incorporated by us into a Visual Abstract violates the rights of a third party, provided that you are in compliance with these Terms of Use.
We are not responsible for the conduct, whether online or offline, of any user of the Site. The Site and/or the Services may be temporarily unavailable from time to time for various reasons. We assume no responsibility for any error, omission, interruption, deletion, defect, delay in operation or transmission, communications line failure, theft or destruction or unauthorized access to, or alteration of, the Site. We are not responsible for any problems or technical malfunction of any telephone network or lines, computer online systems, servers or providers, computer equipment or software, or the failure of email on account of technical problems or traffic congestion on the Internet or at any web site, including injury or damage to any person’s computer related to or resulting from participating or downloading materials or Documents in connection with the Site and/or the Services. THE SITE, THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED “AS-IS”, AND WE DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE CANNOT GUARANTEE AND DO NOT PROMISE ANY SPECIFIC RESULTS FROM USE OF THE SITE AND/OR THE SERVICES.
Without limiting the generality of the foregoing, you acknowledge and agree that we do not guarantee the quality, accuracy or results of the Services.
IN NO EVENT WILL WE BE LIABLE TO YOU FOR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING DAMAGES FOR ANY LOST PROFITS OR LOST DATA ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SITE AND/OR THE SERVICES, EVEN IF WE ARE AWARE OR HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ANY WARRANTIES FOR SERVICES RECEIVED THROUGH OR ADVERTISED ON THE SITE. NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED HEREIN, EXCEPT FOR BREACHES OF CONFIDENTIALITY AND EACH PARTY’S INDEMNIFICATION OBLIGATIONS, EACH PARTY’S LIABILITY TO THE OTHER FOR ANY CAUSE WHATSOEVER, AND REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF THE ACTION, WILL AT ALL TIMES BE LIMITED TO THE LESSER OF (A) THE AMOUNT PAID BY YOU TO US FOR THE SERVICES AND (B) EUR 100. THE PARTIES AGREE THAT THESE LIMITATIONS ARE AN ESSENTIAL PART OF THIS AGREEMENT AND SHALL SURVIVE ANY REMEDY’S FAILURE OF ESSENTIAL PURPOSE. CERTAIN STATE LAWS DO NOT ALLOW LIMITATIONS ON IMPLIED WARRANTIES OR THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN DAMAGES. IF THESE LAWS APPLY TO YOU, SOME OR ALL OF THE ABOVE DISCLAIMERS, EXCLUSIONS OR LIMITATIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU, AND YOU MAY HAVE ADDITIONAL RIGHTS.
As a courtesy to you, the Site may offer links to other websites. We are not responsible for the contents of any website pages created and maintained by organizations independent of us. Visiting any such third-party website pages is at your own risk. We have no control of these third-party website pages, nor can we guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or timeliness of information in third-party website pages. Your use of such information is voluntary, and your reliance on such information should be made only after independent review. References to commercial products or services within any such third-party website pages do not constitute or imply an endorsement by us. If you receive any products or services from a third party web site, your use of such services or receipt of such products will be subject to the terms and conditions of the applicable third party web site. By using the Site and/or the Services you acknowledge that we are responsible neither for the availability of, nor the content located on or through any third-party website pages.
The Services will be provided according to the plan level you select. You may opt to upgrade or downgrade to any other plan level that Company offers at any time during the period of your plan; provided that a downgrade will not be effective until the next renewal date.
Additional in-app purchases, when and if available, within VAVisual Abstract will be added to your subscription, and you will be charged a fee and any applicable tax. You agree to pay the Company or Company’s authorized reseller, as applicable, all fees. Fees will be billed by our authorized resellers or our third party payment providers to the credit card or other payment account you provide in accordance with the billing terms in effect at the time a fee or charge is due and payable. You acknowledge and agree that Company or its third party payment providers will automatically charge your credit card or other payment account (including when you have authorized ACH payments) on record with Company in connection with your use of VAVisual Abstract: in advance of each subscription term and at the time of purchase for any additional in-app purchases, when and if available, you make during the subscription term. Subscriptions will automatically renew for the same term as the initial term, as set forth in the Term; Cancellation and Refund Section below. You represent and warrant to the Company that all of your payment information is true and that you are authorized to use the payment instrument. You will promptly update your account information with any changes (for example, a change in your billing address or credit card expiration date) that may occur. If payment is not received by Company or Company’s authorized reseller or cannot be charged to your credit card or other payment account for any reason, Company reserves the right to either suspend or terminate your access to the Services and terminate this Agreement. All fees are non-refundable, except as expressly stated otherwise in this Agreement. If you have purchased the Services through an authorized reseller, you further agree that the terms governing such purchase (“Authorized Reseller Terms”) shall apply in addition to these Terms. In case of discrepancies between these Terms and Authorized Reseller Terms, these Terms shall prevail.
You will pay all applicable taxes, duties, withholdings, backup withholding and the like; when Company has the legal obligation to pay or collect such taxes, the appropriate amount shall be paid by you directly to Company or Company’s authorized reseller, as applicable. If all or any part of any payment owed to Company under these Terms is withheld, based upon a claim that such withholding is required pursuant to the tax laws of any country or its political subdivisions and/or any tax treaty between the Federal Republic of Germany and any such country, such payment shall be increased by the amount necessary to result in a net payment to Company of the amounts otherwise payable under these Terms. Company may change its fees and payment terms at its discretion; provided however, that such changes will not take effect for you until the start of the next payment period. Company will provide written notice to you (or, if you have purchased through an authorized reseller, notice to the reseller) for any changes to the fees that affect the subscription purchased by you. Your continued use of the Services after the price change becomes effective constitutes your agreement to pay the changed amount.
Company may offer rewards to users, in the form of credits or other forms, based on their actions on the Services and in accordance with Company policies.
THE TERM OF YOUR SUBSCRIPTION TO THE SERVICES WILL AUTOMATICALLY RENEW FOR SUCCESSIVE TERMS EQUAL IN DURATION TO THE INITIAL SUBSCRIPTION TERM UNLESS YOU CANCEL THIRTY (30) CALENDAR DAYS IN ADVANCE OF THE RENEWAL DATE BY WRITING A CANCELLATION LETTER USING THE CONTACT AT OUR LEGAL NOTICE WEBPAGE.
Subject to earlier termination as provided below, Company may terminate your account and these Terms at any time by providing thirty (30) calendar days prior notice to the administrative email address associated with your account. In addition to any other remedies Company may have, Company may also terminate this Agreement upon ten (10) days’ notice (or two (2) days in case of non-payment to Company), if you breach any of the terms or conditions of these Terms.
All sections of these Terms, which by their nature should survive termination, will survive termination, including, without limitation, accrued rights to payment, confidentiality obligations, warranty disclaimers, and limitations of liability.
Upon the termination of these Terms for any reason: (i) the licenses granted under these Terms for the Services shall immediately terminate and you and your End Users shall cease use of the Services; (ii) Company will cease providing the Services to you; and (iii) you shall pay to Company the full amount of any outstanding fees due hereunder.
By signing up for an Account with us or becoming our customer, and opting-in may have opted in to receive communications from us regarding our products and services, you agree to receive such communications, including customer newsletters, special offers and exclusive discounts. You may opt out of these communications at any time by following the “unsubscribe” link at the bottom of any email where applicable or sending us a communication to do so. For more details about how we collect and use customer information, please read our Privacy Policy.
Except as otherwise provided herein, we will treat all Documents you provide to us in confidence and will disclose the Documents only to our employees and agents that are providing the Services. Except as provided herein, your Documents will not be provided to any other third party and will not be used for any purpose other than to provide Services to you. With respect to the Contributions that are provided by you in connection with these Terms, Visual Abstracts created based on such Contributions may be used by us, disclosed to our users, and reproduced and distributed by our users pursuant to the terms of the CCLA.
You agree to cooperate fully with us in relation to any legal action that might arise from the publication of the Contribution and shall give us access at reasonable times to any relevant accounts, documents and records within your power or control. You agree that the distributing entity is intended to have the benefit of and shall have the right to enforce the terms of these Terms.
You authorize us to take such steps as we consider necessary at our own expense in your name and on your behalf if we believe that a third party is infringing or is likely to infringe copyright in the Contribution including but not limited to initiating legal proceedings, Governing Law and Jurisdiction
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, without regard to the conflict of laws principle. The place of jurisdiction for any claims arising under these Terms, as far as permissible, shall be the competent courts of Mannheim, Germany.
You may make use of your right of withdrawal were by law applicable. Please use the official form for this purpose under www.bmj.de. However, please note that after a free-of-charge review of your Visual Abstract (as stated at the chapter “Services” in this agreement), the services shall be deemed accepted.
The Site and/or the Services are operated by VAVisual Abstract GmbH.
All other comments, feedback, requests for technical support and other communications relating to the services should be directed to the contact provided at our Privacy Policy.
Copyright 2023 VAVisual Abstract GmbH, all rights reserved.
