Terms and Conditions for the access to and use of the DNA-News Hub, also including for test purposes

A. General

The online platform "https:///www.democracy-news.org/" (hereinafter the “Platform”) and the associated electronic DNA newsletter (the Platform and the DNA-newsletter hereinafter collectively referred to as the "DNA-News Hub") are offered by the Democracy News Alliance (DNA). Cooperation partners of the DNA are

dpa Deutsche Presse-Agentur GmbH (hereinafter "dpa"), Mittelweg 38, 20148 Hamburg, Germany
Agence France-Presse, 11-13-15 place de la Bourse, 75002 Paris, France
Agenzia Nazionale Stampa Associata, Via della Dataria, 94, 00187 Roma (RM), Italy
The Canadian Press, 60 Adelaide St. E., Suite 1200, Toronto, ON, M5C 3E4, Canada
PA Media, The Point, 37 N Wharf Rd, Paddington, London W2 1AF, United Kingdom

These terms and conditions (“T&C”) govern the contractual relationship and terms of use regarding the access to and use of the DNA-News Hub and apply to the contractual relationship between the user respectively customer and the relevant DNA-cooperation partner with whom the Customer has concluded an agreement on the purchase of services from the DNA-News Hub (“DNA Agreement”), or on the trial use (the contracting DNA cooperation partner is hereinafter referred to as the “Provider”).
“User” of the Platform is any natural person who register to use the Platform as a customer or employee of a customer. “Customer” and thus a contractual partner of the Provider is the respective entity (see Sections A.4 below) for which the User works and on whose behalf and on whose order the Platform is used.
The DNA-News Hub offering is exclusively an offering for entrepreneurs and is expressly aimed at commercial providers and not at consumers or private individuals. The term "entrepreneur" means any natural or legal person or a private company with legal capacity who, when concluding a legal transaction, acts in the exercise of their commercial or independent professional activity, whereby a private company with legal capacity is a partnership that has the ability to acquire rights and enter into liabilities. Entrepreneurs shall also include associations, government agencies, and other non-governmental organizations.
These T&C also apply if services and deliveries are provided via the Platform without any apparent use of or explicit reference to these T&C. Furthermore, these T&C must be accepted by each User upon registration (see Section B.3) and, by confirming these T&C during registration process, the User also declares that it is authorized to make the corresponding declarations on behalf of the Customer.
DNA reserves the right to amend these General Terms and Conditions at any time. The current version of the General Terms and Conditions is available at any time at [URL AGB]. The provider shall inform the customer of any significant changes in good time in advance, and the customer may object to the change within 30 days of notification. In the event of an objection, the provider may, at its discretion, continue the contract under the previously valid provisions of the General Terms and Conditions or terminate the user agreement with the customer with a notice period of 4 weeks.
Amendments or subsidiary agreements require the prior written confirmation of the Provider to be valid and shall only apply to the respective individual business transaction.
Any conflicting terms and conditions of the Customer that deviate from these T&C will not be accepted and shall not become part of the agreement, even if these have not been expressly rejected by the Provider. This shall apply in particular, without limitation, if the Customer uses any supplier or billing portal and subsequently requires confirmation to its own purchasing or other contractual provisions or addenda in connection with any registration of the Provider (or of any contracting party set out in Section C.2) to such portal as may be required by Customer.

B. Registration and access

The full access to the Platform and the retrieval of content is entirely in the responsibility of the User and requires the previous login of the User via the Internet using a dpa-ID (a Single-Sign-On-Service, provided by dpa).
Registration for a dpa-ID can be made at https://account.dpa-id.de/. For the dpa-ID separate terms of use apply, which remain unaffected by these T&C and/or other contractual agreements on the use of the Platform and/or content. When registering for the dpa-ID, all form fields must be completed fully and truthfully. The registration process can only be completed if the terms of use applicable for the use of the dpa-ID are accepted during the registration process.

The respective User must be authorized to provide the contact details and, in particular, to use the email address provided as a username. Any third parties’ data must not be provided or used unless the respective user is expressly authorized to do so and can prove this authorization upon request. Once all form fields have been completed and submitted, an automatically generated email will be sent to the email address provided, requesting the recipient to confirm its registration for the dpa-ID (so-called double opt-in procedure). Submitting the completed registration form is deemed to constitute an offer to conclude an agreement on the use of the SSO service "dpa-ID." dpa accepts this offer by sending a confirmation email or by issuing and activating the dpa-ID. dpa is entitled to reject the registration of an interested party and thus the issuance of a dpa-ID without giving reasons, or to terminate a registration already done.

Registration for the dpa-ID as such and the associated assignment of the login data does not entitle the user to access the DNA-News Hub, but will require conclusion of a DNA Agreement (see Section A.2). Further, only after successful registration for the dpa ID and the User’s acceptance of these T&C the Customer or User can be granted access to the login-required area of the Platform and the content available there. The same applies to the activation of the User for the DNA newsletter.
Upon activation of access to the DNA-News Hub the User receives, subject to these T&C, limited access rights via the internet to the Platform and is activated for the distribution of the DNA newsletter. In the case of any test access, the Provider reserves the right to refuse or terminate such access at any time without giving reasons. Otherwise, the access right expires automatically as soon as the underlying contract (see A.2) or the test period ends.
Upon termination of access to the Platform, the User will also be de-activated from receiving the DNA newsletter. Notwithstanding, the User has the option of unsubscribing from the DNA newsletter at any time via the unsubscribe link contained in each newsletter. Unsubscribing from the DNA newsletter in this way does not result in termination of access to the platform or of the DNA Agreement.
The dpa-ID access data (email address as username and password) are personal and intended for personal use only. The Customer or User undertakes to keep the access data secret and not to pass them on to or otherwise make them available for use by any third party. In the event of any misuse or reasonable suspicion of misuse of the dpa-ID, the Provider is entitled to block access immediately, either temporarily or permanently, without prior notice.
In the event of misuse, the Customer or user shall be liable for all database queries and other transactions that may be subject to payment and that are carried out via the dpa-ID or the DNA-News Hub, insofar as the misuse is due to the Customer’s or User’s fault. In addition, see the terms for registering for the dpa-ID.
Any and all activities aimed at making the services of the DNA-News Hub inoperable or hindering their use are prohibited. This also applies, without limitation, to automated querying, reading or mirroring of databases, platforms and of other offerings, e.g. by using tools such as web crawlers or wrappers.
The User can generally access the Platform 24 hours a day, every day of the year. However, it may be temporarily unavailable or not fully functional due to necessary system and maintenance times or circumstances beyond Provider's control. Provider therefore does not guarantee the constant usability of the DNA-News Hub.
The content of the Platform is updated on an ongoing basis. However, the Provider (nor the DNA cooperation partners or content providers of the DNA-News Hub) is not obliged to carry out updates at a specific frequency or to a specific extent. Furthermore, the Provider (including DNA cooperation partners) reserves the right to change, delete and/or supplement the existing content at any time.
The Provider hereby informs the User and Customer in accordance with applicable data protections laws, that the Provider and its subcontractors collect and store Customer and User data and log files in digital form and process them for the purposes of performance of the contractual relationship with the User. Details of searches and logins in databases and platforms will be treated confidentially. In addition, reference is made to the data protection information at [URL].
If the User or Customer provides the Provider with personal data for the purpose of setting up User access to the databases and platforms, they are responsible for ensuring that the data is transmitted in accordance with applicable data protection regulations and furthermore warrants that the data has been collected lawfully, in particular that they have obtained any necessary consent from the data subjects for the transfer and use by the Provider and can provide evidence of this upon request.
The Provider is responsible for the reliability and availability of the transmission channels and the correct transmission of DNA content only to the extent that the transmission channels are within the technical infrastructure of the DNA-News Hub.

C. Rights of use

The rights and licenses to the DNA content granted under the DNA-Agreement only include limited, non-transferable copyright usage rights to the DNA content. The copyright and/or any ancillary rights to the services of the DNA-News Hub and its contents, as well as to the compilation, remain with the DNA cooperation partners or with the respective third-party sources, insofar as these have been used and identified in the context of the service compilation or research.
In the DNA-News Hub, the registered User can view and research DNA news content, in particular articles and associated image material from the DNA cooperation partners, and, where applicable, other suppliers.
Unless otherwise agreed in the DNA Agreement (see Section A.2), the use of the DNA-News Hub and the information and DNA content contained therein is otherwise only permitted for the personal information of the registered User of the Customer. The DNA newsletter is intended solely for the internal information of the User about content currently available on the DNA-News Hub; distribution or forwarding is only permitted within the Customer's organization or company.
Insofar as the DNA Agreement includes the license and grants rights for limited access, presentation, or other sharing of content from the DNA-News Hub within Customer’s organization, it is hereby acknowledged and agreed that source references, copyright notices, and/or other notices may not be removed and must be included accordingly.
Any use of the content of the DNA-News Hub services for any other purposes or beyond the agreed scope of use is expressly prohibited, particularly, without limitation, to make the content publicly available in whole or in part, to reproduce, edit, or adapt it, to feed it into electronic systems (e.g., company networks or databases), or to forward or otherwise transfer it to unauthorized third parties. Unauthorized use also includes cases where the User or Costumer uses content of the DNA-News Hub for the purpose of text and data mining, automated content indexing, developing, training, or enriching AI systems or comparable technologies, or offers or transfers such content to third parties for such use.
Insofar as the customer is contractually permitted to make content of the DNA-News Hub publicly available (if expressly agreed), he must, in accordance with the technical possibilities, affix a reservation of rights (opt-out) information in accordance with Art. 4 of the DSM Act (Directive EU 2019/790) in an appropriate manner, which in the case of the DNA Content being made publicly available online shall particularly be made in a machine-readable form on its relevant website or other publication media (e.g., in robots.txt), such reservation expressly excluding any use of the DNA content for text and data mining.
The agreed use is subject to full payment of any agreed fees.

D. Fees, Costs

The User or Customer shall bear any costs incurred by their own internet and/or email providers.
Any Fees agreed in the DNA Agreement will only apply to the permitted scope of use pursuant to Section C.3, in accordance with any special rights of use if set out in the DNA Agreement. Any further or more extensive use shall require a separate agreement and may be subject to additional fees.

E. Warranty/Liability

Unless otherwise specified in the DNA Agreement, the following applies to warranty and liability:

All DNA content will be researched with the utmost care, but the Provider and any other DNA cooperation partner or content provider of the DNA disclaims any warranty, whether express or implied, regarding the completeness, accuracy, timeliness, reliability or fitness for a particular purpose of the DNA Services or DNA content. Likewise, there is no warranty that the DNA-News Hub will always be available.
The Provider’s liability shall be limited to the maximum extent permitted by applicable laws. The Provider is not liable for content provided by third parties, except where the Provider has been notified of unlawful content and has culpably failed to remove it promptly upon becoming aware.
Particularly, without limiting the foregoing, the Provider’s liability for any damages, regardless of the reason, in particular due to non-performance, delay, breach of a duty, tort, transmission errors, interruptions and incompleteness of services, is limited or excluded as follows, insofar as such liability depends on fault:

The Provider shall not be liable in the event of normal (non-gross) negligent acts or omissions of its organs, legal representatives, employees, and other vicarious agents, unless this involves a breach of essential contractual obligations. Further, the Provider’s liability for (i) gross negligence by its vicarious agents, insofar as these are not executive employees, and (ii) for breach of material contractual obligations without gross negligence, is limited to compensation of the typically foreseeable damages, but to a maximum amount of € 5,000 per incident giving rise to such liabilty.

The above exclusions and limitations of liability shall not apply in the event of culpably caused injury to life, limb, or health, or insofar as strict liability exists under applicable the product liability laws.
The Provider shall not be liable for errors or disruptions in service operation and delivery difficulties due to industrial action or in cases of force majeure.
The User and/or Customer shall actively cooperate in mitigating damages.
The above provisions do not constitute any commitment or liability on the part of any other DNA cooperation partners (who are not Provider) or other suppliers.

F. Breaches of contract/account suspension

In the event of at least reasonable suspicion of a breach of these T&C, the DNA Agreement, the Provider may block access to the DNA-News Hub and prohibit the use of retrieved DNA content, and – where the breach is capable of remedy - if the breach is not remedied despite warning letter giving reasonable period for remedy. In the case of free trial access, no prior warning is required. The Provider hereby expressly reserves the right to assert further claims and rights it may have due to such breach.
If any third party makes any claims against the Provider, a DNA cooperation partner and/or content supplier due to any non-contractual use of the DNA-News Hub or the DNA content by the User, the Customer shall indemnify the Provider, the DNA cooperation partners and/or suppliers against all claims in this regard, including the costs of reasonable legal defense. The right to claim damages for non-contractual use is expressly reserved.
In the event that the User or Customer is in default with its payment obligations, the Provider may suspend or may have suspended the Customer Users’ access to the Platform and from distribution of the DNA newsletter and/or may terminate the DNA Agreement without notice. In such a case, the Customer shall pay damages (including, without limitation, lost profits) equal to the amount of the agreed remuneration that would have been to be paid until the time of regular termination of the agreement. whereby any separate access or transmission fees (if any) will be deducted as expenses saved by the Provider. The User or Customer reserves the right to prove that in individual cases less damages or no damages at all have been incurred by the Provider.

G. Miscellaneous

The Provider is free to use the services of third parties to fulfil its contractual obligations.
The Provider shall have the right at any time, even without the consent of the User or Customer, to assign its rights and obligations under the contract, in whole or in part, to its affiliated companies or to any other DNA cooperation partner.
Should one or several of the provisions of these T&C be or become invalid, this will not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. The invalid provision shall be replaced by a provision that comes closest to the intended purpose; the same shall apply in the event of contractual gaps.
There are no verbal side agreements. All changes and/or additions must be made in writing to be valid. This also applies to any deviation from this formal requirement.
The Provider reserves the right to use electronic mail addresses received from the Customer or User in connection with the contract, for the purpose of advertising its own similar goods or services, provided that the User or Customer does not object to such use. Objections may be raised at any time.
The place of performance and jurisdiction for all claims arising from and in connection with these T&C and contracts based thereon with merchants, legal entities under public law or special funds under public law, or with persons who do not have a domestic seat, is at the courts with jurisdiction at the Provider’s place of business. The Provider may choose to sue the Customer at the court having jurisdiction at the place of business of the Customer, at its discretion.
For all legal relationships between the Provider and the User or Customer, the laws of the registered seat of the Provider (see Section A.1) shall apply in addition, but excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG).