HOW i SHOT THiS

Terms & Conditions

Validity: October 2020

General Terms of Use of the Platform
How I Shot This – HIST

Section 1: General

(1) We, the private company Melanie Neuhäuser and Shayne Thomas Melli & Shayne GbR, as represented by its managing partners: Melanie Neuhäuser and Shayne Thomas, Jenaer Straße 71, 91058 Erlangen, Federal Republic of Germany, (also referred to in the following as “we”, the “platform operator” or “HIST”) operate the E-Learning portal “HIST”, where natural persons and legal entities as well as legal majorities of persons with legal capacity can obtain information on the subject of photography and educate themselves on this subject.

(2) The use of our platform is determined exclusively by these General Terms of Use, unless otherwise contractually agreed in individual cases. Deviating general terms and conditions of the users are expressly rejected.

(3) If you are trading as a merchant (Section 14, BGB [German Civil Code]), a legal entity or a special fund under public law, these General Terms of Use shall also apply to all future legal transactions on our platform, even if they are not expressly agreed upon again.

 

Section 2: Definitions

With regard to these General Terms of Use, the following is understood:

  1. “users” – people who access the internet pages on our platform;
  2. “participants” – registered users;
  3. “account” – the user account of the participant;
  4. “open area” – the total number of pages freely accessible to all users on our platform, and
  5. “restricted area” – the total number of pages on our platform reserved to participants;
 
 

Section 3: Our services

(1) We provide the technical requirements for the use of our platform in accordance with the following provisions and to the extent described therein.

(2) We provide the participant with an account, and in the restricted area, we make a pool of user reports from partner photographers available which shall increase in number over the long term, and which describe the creation of photographs we manage in terms of the technical and actual (location, weather, travel etc.) circumstances.

(3) Your data communication with our platform takes place on the basis of your personal online access – using your web browser, for example.

(4) The details surrounding the registration process and the use of other services – in particular those accessed against payment – are described at the appropriate place on the internet pages of our platform. We are entitled to carry out updates and extensions to the range of services on our platform of our own volition at any time.

(5) We are entitled to have our services rendered by third parties.

(6) As long as the use of our platform is free of charge for you and you do not have an account (e.g. straightforward visits without registration), you are not entitled to make a claim against us regarding the maintenance of the service. We reserve the right to discontinue the free offer pursuant to paragraph 1 at any time without prior notice, and without the need for a termination according to Section 12.

Section 4: Registration as a participant, conclusion of the contract regarding the use of the platform, storage of the contents of the contract

(1) The use of the restricted area of our platform (e.g. for a free account with limited access to the learning contents or for a paid account) requires a long-term registration. The possible costs and scope of services of the account are based on our overview of prices, which you can view here. To register, you are required to start by selecting the tariff you would like and entering the required data in the registration form in the open area of our website. After you enter your personal data, with the respective (in the case of a paid account) selection of the payment method, you check the accuracy of your information on the following overview page, confirm the present General Terms of Use and data protection provision and subsequently confirm using the respective button

  1. “Subscribe” in the case of a paid account

or

  1. “Register now” in the case of a free account,

in the final step of the ordering process, you submit a binding offer to conclude a contract concerning your registration on our platform.

The conclusion of a contract and a contractual commitment regarding the individual services is concluded, however, when we expressly accept your proposed order with a confirmation of the order or by conclusive action, in particular, by providing access to the restricted area. You are bound to your offer for a period of 7 working days.

(2) If your data was transmitted successfully in the course of your registration, you will receive an immediate confirmation by email. This confirmation email does not yet represent a binding acceptance of your offer to register on our part. The confirmation email only constitutes a declaration of acceptance if this is expressly declared on our part. The contract concerning the use of the platform comes into effect when you click on the confirmation link contained in the confirmation email to verify your data, and we grant you access to the restricted area of our platform.

(3) We will store the contents of the contract for the duration of its performance of the contract (in this respect, the legal basis is Art. 6 (1), sent. 1, (b)) GDPR), and secondly, for the fulfilment of our statutory obligations, particularly in terms of tax law (legal basis Art. 6 (1), sent. 1, (c)) GDPR).

(4) Only those users with full legal capacity and users with limited legal capacity who act with the consent of their legal representatives are entitled to register. The minimum age of the users is always 16 years under all circumstances.

We reserve the right to reject the registration without providing reasons, even if all the requirements for acceptance as a participant are fulfilled.

Section 5: Right of revocation for consumers (Section 13, BGB)

Insofar as you register with us as a consumer for a paid account (Section 13, BGB), the following applies to your benefit:

Revocation instruction

Right of revocation

You have the right to revoke this contract within fourteen days without giving any reasons. The period of revocation is fourteen days starting from the day of the conclusion of the contract.

To exercise your right of revocation, you are required to notify us (Melanie Neuhäuser and Shayne Thomas Melli & Shayne GbR, Jenaer Straße 71, 91058 Erlangen, Federal Republic of Germany, email: [email protected] , telephone: +49 (0) 176 856 75054) of your decision to revoke this contract with a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent in the post, fax or email). You can use the sample revocation form enclosed, although this is not mandatory.

To comply with the revocation period, it is sufficient to send the notification of your exercising of the right of revocation before the end of the revocation period.

Consequences of revocation

If you revoke this contract, we shall refund you all the payments we have received from you, including delivery charges (other than any additional charges arising from your choice of a different method of delivery to the cheapest standard delivery offered by us), immediately and no later than fourteen days, starting from the date upon which we receive notice of your revocation of this contract. We will use the same method of payment for this refund that you used for the original transaction, unless we expressly agreed otherwise with you, and in no event will you be charged for this refund. We may decline to issue the refund until we have received the goods from you or until you have provided proof that you have returned the goods, whichever is earlier.

Even if we have begun to implement the contract, in the case of a contract for the delivery of digital contents that are not stored on a physical data carrier, the right of revocation shall expire after you:

1. have expressly agreed that we shall begin with the implementation of the contract before the expiry of the revocation period

and

2. have confirmed your knowledge that you shall lose your right of revocation with the beginning of the implementation of the contract.

Section 6: Revocation form

Sample revocation form

(If you want to revoke the contract, please fill out this form and send it back).

– To Melanie Neuhäuser and Shayne Thomas Melli & Shayne GbR, Jenaer Straße 71, 91058 Erlangen, Federal Republic of Germany, email: [email protected]:

– I/we (*) hereby revoke the contract concluded by me/us (*) for the purchase of the following goods (*)/the provision of the following service (*)

– Ordered on (*)/received on (*)

– Name of the consumer

– Address of the consumer

– Signature of the consumer (only in the case of communication on paper)

– Date

(*) Delete as applicable.

Section 7: Your secondary obligations as a user

(1) To ensure the proper course of use, you are subject to the following procedural obligations, the non-compliance with which may lead to disadvantages for you – in particular to termination and the assertion of claims for damages on our part or on the part of third parties.

(2) As a user, you are obliged:

  • to provide complete and truthful information for necessary registrations and other queries which are required to achieve the purpose of the contract (e.g. your payment data),
  • in the event of a subsequent change to the queried data, to correct it immediately in the administrative function of our platform which is provided for this purpose,
  • to ensure that your user name and the associated password are not made available to third parties,
  • to prevent any use of our platform under your user account by third parties,
  • to refrain from using automatic password pre-set functions for your password,
  • to notify us immediately on [email protected] in the case of the misuse of the password and/or account or if there are indications of imminent misuse,
  • to only use the information presented in the restricted area for a specific purpose, i.e. for the purpose of learning and further developing your photographic skills.

(3) Should you infringe one of the secondary obligations in paragraph 2, we are entitled to temporarily block and/or erase the affected content with immediate effect and/or to exclude you as a user temporarily or permanently from the offer and/or to terminate it without notice.

(4) The contents contained within the platform are subject to copyright. You are not therefore permitted to use such contents in individual cases beyond the use granted by us or the respective rights holder in the learning contributions for the purpose of the further development of your own photographic skills, i.e. in particular, not to reproduce, make publicly accessible and/or to distribute such contents, whether in original or edited form (Section 23, UrhG [German Copyright Act]).

(5) If you infringe the above obligations, you are required to compensate us for any resulting damage or to indemnify us against claims by third parties, unless you are not responsible for the infringement of such obligations.

Section 8: Copyrights and other protective rights regarding user-generated content within our platform

(1) If you enter content into our platform via your account in which you are entitled to copyrights or other industrial property rights as a user, for the duration of our service provision, we are entitled to those cases of exploitation which correspond to the purpose of the individual services within the scope of the platform.

(2) The data contained in the internet offering of HIST is subject to copyright. The user is not permitted to use such contents beyond the use that we allow in the individual case, i.e., in particular, not to reproduce, make publicly accessible and/or to distribute such contents, whether in original or edited form (Section 23, UrhG). This also applies in particular to our rights as database producers according to Section 87c et seq., UrhG. The repeated and systematic duplication, distribution or public reproduction of the contents of our website is counter to a normal evaluation of our database and impairs our legitimate interests.

Section 9: Confidentiality and data protection

Your data will be exclusively stored and processed by us for the purposes resulting from the registration and in compliance with the relevant legal provisions regarding data protection (also see our Privacy Policy).

Section 10: Liability clause

(1) Notwithstanding Section 536a BGB, we shall only be liable for damages in the event of the conclusion of contracts of a rental nature, even if a defect already existed upon conclusion of the contract, if we are responsible for the defect. Moreover, we shall only pay damages or compensation for futile expenses, regardless of the legal basis (e.g. arising from legal and similar obligations, breach of duty or tort), to the following extent:

a) Any liability on our part in the case of intent or under guarantee remains unlimited.

b) In the case of gross negligence, we are liable

aa) to entrepreneurs (Section 14, BGB), legal entities or special funds under public law for the amount of the typical damage foreseeable at the time of the conclusion of the contract, unless it constitutes an infringement of such an essential obligation, the fulfilment of which makes the proper implementation of the purpose of the contract possible in the first place, and on the fulfilment of which the participant may therefore rely (known as a material obligation), and

bb) we shall be liable towards consumers for gross negligence without limitation.

c) If we infringe a cardinal obligation through simple negligence, we shall only be liable for the amount of the damage typically foreseeable by us upon the conclusion of the contract.

d) If we are in default with our performance, however, we shall also be liable for coincidence, unless the damage could also have occurred in the event of a timely performance.

e) Apart from the above – unless regulated otherwise above – a liability on our part for simple or minor carelessness is excluded.

(2) We reserve the right to raise the objection of contributory negligence. You have the obligation to back up your data according to the current state of the art.

(3) Insofar as our liability is excluded or limited, this also applies to the personal liability of our shareholders, employees, representatives and vicarious agents.

(4) The above paragraphs of Section 10 (liability clause) shall not apply in the event of injury to life, body or health and in the event of claims under the German Product Liability Act.

Section 11 Erasure of the account by the participant

You can erase your account at any time without giving reasons. This has no influence on your payment obligations arising from a possibly existing minimum and/or remaining contractual period of a paid account, however.

Section 12: Duration of contract and termination

(1) The contract for the free use (HIST Free Member) of our platform is concluded for an indefinite period. It may be terminated by either party at any time with notice to the end of the calendar month. The right of the participant according to the above Section 11 remains unaffected.

(2) If you have booked a paid account, its termination before the expiry of the contractually agreed minimum term is excluded. If the paid account is not terminated by either party with a notice period of two weeks to the end of the contractually agreed minimum term, it shall be extended for the otherwise identical conditions to the end of the agreed minimum term or – in the event of an interim extension – to the end of the then valid contractual term by the period of the originally-agreed minimum term.

(3) Notwithstanding paragraph 2 – and without the requirement for termination on your part – if you book a free or reduced-price test account (Early Bird Account), at the end of its contractual period, your test account will be automatically converted into a free account ( HIST Free Member ) as long as you do not book a paid account for the following period when it comes to an end.

(4) Notices of termination are to be declared in text form.

Section 13: Changes to our General Terms of Use

(1) We are entitled to change the contents of these General Terms of Use.

(2) In this case, we will notify the participant of the proposed amendment in text form (e.g. by email), stating the reason and the specific scope. The changes are considered to have been approved by the participant if the participant does not object to them at least in text form. We will specifically draw the participant’s attention to this consequence in the letter of notification. The objection must be received by us within six weeks of the receipt of the notification of the change. If the participant exercises his or her right of objection, the request for change is considered to have been rejected. The contract will then be continued without the proposed changes, but can be terminated by both parties at any time without notice in the case of a free account and by both parties at the end of the contract period in the case of a paid account.

Section 14: Reference to the European Online Dispute Resolution Platform for Consumers and information in terms of Section 36 VSBG (German Act on Alternative Dispute Resolution in Consumer Matters)

(1) According to the EU Regulation No. 524/2013 on the Online Dispute Resolution in Consumer Matters, consumers are provided with the possibility to settle disputes with entrepreneurs in connection with online purchase contracts or online service contracts on an out-of-court basis through an online platform (OS Platform). This platform was set up by the EU Commission and made accessible via the following link:

https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/main/

(2) We are neither willing nor obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board (see Section 36, VSBG).

Section 15: Choice of law, place of performance and legal venue

(1) The law of the Federal Republic of Germany shall apply, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. As regards consumers (Section 13, BGB) who place orders from another member state of the European Union or another state which is party to the Agreement on the European Economic Area, this choice of law shall only apply insofar as the protection granted by the mandatory provisions of the law of the state of the consumer’s habitual residence is not withdrawn (known as the “favourability principle”).

(2) The place of performance and jurisdiction for all disputes arising from and in connection with this contract shall be 91058 Erlangen, Federal Republic of Germany, for contracts with merchants, legal entities under public law or special funds under public law.

Validity: October 2020

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