The Project Wombat Legal Page (Terms of Service)

General Legal Disclaimer

The project-wombat.org organization (including the owner(s) of the project-wombat.org domain, the project-wombat.org advisory board, the list moderators, and any other parties acting on their behalf, and the organization(s) providing e-mail distribution, web hosting, or other related technical services for the Project-Wombat list(s)) accept no liability for any of the following:

• The accuracy, safety, feasibility, or utility of replies sent via the list(s), even if said answers are approved by the list moderators.
• The speed of operation of the list.
• The ability of the list(s) to provide answers to questions.
• Personal information provided in the body of messages sent to the list(s).
• The copyright protection of materials sent to the list(s).
• Copyright or patent violations perpetrated by persons posting to the list(s), beyond a good-faith effort to remove texts which are in violation upon notification from the holders of the rights to works being violated. (This does not include usage which falls within “fair use” guidelines.)
• Copies of web pages, e-mail messages, or other related material which may be held by third parties, including cached copies held by Internet search engines.
• The language or nature of messages sent to the list(s).
• Damages caused to electronic equipment by web pages, messages, or other related materials.
• The behavior, via communication other than the list(s), of subscribers to the list(s).
• Use of the list(s) to commit other illegal acts not specifically mentioned above.

In addition, in the event of a change in hosting, former e-mail or web hosts of the Project Wombat list(s), web page, or associated materials accept no liability for materials no longer hosted through their services, even if said materials still carry their name, address, or other contact information.

The project-wombat.org organization reserves the right to edit copies of messages stored in the archives, particularly for the purposes of legal compliance or to maintain standard index terms.

This disclaimer may be subject to change without notice.

Copyright and Patent Statement

Sending a message to the list(s) implicitly assigns to the public domain any previously unpublished content in the message. In the case of previously published work:

• If the rights are held by the sender of the message then it is implicitly to be understood that the segment sent to the list(s) is automatically to be considered “fair use” even when used by a third party, and particularly in the message sent to the list(s).
• If the rights are held by a third party, it is understood that any liability for copyright violation is to be retained by the sender of the message, even if the message is archived; the sole concession of Project Wombat is a good-faith effort to remove texts which are in violation of the rights of third parties.

Removal of Copyrighted or Patented Materials

If a message in the archives contains copyrighted or patented material, the project-wombat.org organization will make a good-faith attempt to remove the portions of the text which are in violation, provided that the message was not sent by the copyright or patent holder. (In that case, the message would be considered publication and would not be a violation of rights.)

Specifically: copyrighted or patented information will be replaced by “[Copyrighted or Patented text removed]”.

If you wish to have material removed from the archives, you must send a message to the address rights-violation@project-wombat.org. This message must have “[Project Wombat Rights Violation]” in the subject line, and must contain:

• Your name and mailing address
• The URL(s) of the page(s) containing the text in question
• The patent number, a copy of the copyright registration, or reasonable proof that you hold an enforceable copyright on the text in question

Obviously spurious requests — such as claims to have a copyright on a phrase — will not receive responses, nor will requests to remove material in cases where the use would certainly fall under the heading of “fair use”, such as quoting one paragraph of a book to answer a specific question.