Terms of use

Please read carefully before continuing to use the platform. Thank you.

These terms of use (“Terms”) constitute a legal agreement between the end user authorised to use the Platform (“End-user” or “you”) and Writing Machine Limited, a company incorporated and registered in England and Wales with company number 07569246 whose registered office is at 2, Ranelagh Road, Winchester SO23 9TA, Hampshire, trading as Writing Machine (“us” or “we”) governing your use of the e-learning platform accessible at www.writingmachine.com or our third-party hosting platform at https://writingmachine.talentlms.com and your access to any content supplied with or services available through the platform (“Platform”).

General

These Terms apply to the Platform and any updates or supplements to the Platform, save to the extent provided in any separate licence agreement between us and you or any third party customer of ours who has purchased your Licence to access the Platform on your behalf (“Licence Agreement”).

By accessing or continuing to use the Platform you agree to these Terms, including the Privacy Policy defined in Clause 3.2 and limitations on liability in Clause 8. If you do not agree to these Terms then we do not agree to license to you or permit your use of the Platform and you must cease continuing to use it. You should print a copy of these Terms for future reference.

Any words following use of the term including, or any similar phrase shall be construed as illustrative and shall not limit the generality of the related general words.

Licence

In consideration of you agreeing to abide by these Terms, we grant you a non-transferable, non-exclusive licence to use the Platform and subject to receipt of the Licence Fee under the Licence Agreement and the Customer’s compliance with its terms for the Licence Period specified in the Licence Agreement solely for your personal purposes on the terms set out herein. We reserve all other rights.

Except as expressly set out in these Terms or as permitted by any local law, you agree:

not to copy the Platform or any content accessible through it;
not to rent, lease, sub-license or loan the Platform;
not to make alterations to, or modifications of, merge, adapt or translate the whole or any part of the Platform, or permit the Platform or any part of it to be combined with, or become incorporated in, any content or other programs;
not to disassemble, decompile, reverse-engineer or create derivative works based on the whole or any part of the Platform or attempt to do any such thing except to the extent that (by virtue of section 296A of the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988) such actions cannot be prohibited because they are essential for the purpose of achieving inter-operability of the Platform with a software program, and provided that the information obtained by you during such activities:
1. is used only for the purpose of achieving inter-operability of the Platform with a software program;
2. is not unnecessarily disclosed or communicated without our prior written consent to any third party; and
3. is not used to create any content that is substantially similar to that available in the Platform;
to keep your username and password for accessing the Platform secure and not share them with any person other than the Administrator (as defined below); and
not to provide or otherwise make available the Platform in whole or in part (including object and source code) in any form to any person;

together the “Licence Restrictions”.

Privacy, confidentiality and use of data

Where you are required to provide any of your information in the course of your use of the Platform you agree to provide accurate and complete information to us and we will take all reasonable steps to ensure that any such information you provide to us is kept confidential.

By sending us any such user information you are granting to us your consent to use that information in accordance with the Privacy Policy which is accessible at www.writingmachine.com/privacy-policy as amended from time to time (“Privacy Policy”) and to pass that information to (a) the authorised representative of any third party who purchased your Licence to use the Platform on your behalf (“Administrator”) and any third party providers we contract with for the purpose of facilitating and improving our provision of the Platform. This information will be so processed for the duration of the Licence and for a period of up to 12 months from the date of the termination or expiry of the Licence.

You acknowledge and agree that internet transmissions are never completely private or secure and you understand that any message or information you send using the Platform may be read or intercepted by others, even if there is a special notice that a particular transmission is encrypted. Accordingly, you are discouraged from sending any confidential information through the Platform which is not essential to your use of the Platform and we are not responsible for any harm caused to you or any other third party as a result of a breach of confidentiality in relation to your use of the Platform.

If you are an Administrator and are given access to any end-user information in connection with your use of the Platform then you will comply with the provisions of this clause 3 which apply to us as if they apply to you.

We use Stripe to process payments. By agreeing to these Terms you confirm that you have read Stripe’s Privacy Policy (https://stripe.com/gb/privacy) and that you give permission to Stripe to use your information.

Acceptable use restrictions

You shall not:

use the Platform in any unlawful manner, for any unlawful purpose, or in any manner inconsistent with these Terms;
act fraudulently or maliciously, for example, by hacking into or inserting malicious codes, including viruses, or harmful data, into the Platform or any operating system or infrastructure on which they are hosted;
reproduce, alter, modify, republish, copy, transmit or distribute for commercial use, for the creation of derivative works, or for public display in any form or by any means, except as otherwise permitted by these Terms;
infringe our intellectual property rights or those of any third party in relation to your use of the Platform, including the submission or copying of any material (to the extent that such use is not licensed by these Terms);
transmit any material that is defamatory, offensive or otherwise objectionable in relation to your use of the Platform;
use the Platform in a way that could damage, disable, overburden, impair or compromise our systems or security or interfere with other users or in a manner which limits any other user or Administrator from enjoying the benefit of the Platform;
collect or harvest any information or data from any the Platform or our systems or attempt to decipher any transmissions to or from the servers running any the Platform;
transmit any third-party content that contains any virus, Trojan horse or other computer code, file or programme harmful to the functionality of any computer hardware, software or infrastructure or that contains any worm, trap door, or back door that would allow unauthorised access to the Platform;
use any robot, spider, rover, scraper or any other datamining technology or automatic or manual process to monitor, cache, frame, mask, extract data from, copy or distribute the Platform, or any portion thereof;
use any programme, tool, application, protocol or device to perform automated entry of data into the Platform, including automation of HTTP SUBMIT into any HTML form on the Platform or to copy, scrape or remove any data, information or other material from the Platform for any purpose, whether or not any of the Platform, data, information or other material taken is used, redistributed, transmitted, publicly displayed, altered, reformatted or discarded;
overburden or impose a disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
use the Platform in connection with or for the benefit of any commercial enterprise or competing business, including any e-learning or training services;
remove, alter or obscure any copyright or trademark notice, name, mark, logo, URL, the Platform or Third-party Content, including company names, contact information, marks, logos or URLs, or frame the Platform;
In additional to the foregoing, you acknowledge that only Administrators may access password protected and Administrator-only areas of the Platform (“Administrator Only Areas”). Administrators are not permitted to share passwords with non-Administrators or otherwise permit or facilitate non-Administrators access to Administrator Only Areas.

together “Acceptable Use Restrictions”.

Intellectual property rights

You acknowledge that:

all intellectual property rights in the Platform anywhere in the world, including all right, title and interest in the look and feel, information, text, graphics, images, sound and video materials, logos, designs, software, trademarks, service marks, trade dress, trade names, the URL and the compilation, coordination, selection and arrangement of any of these elements (“Content”) remains our property or the property of our licensors;
use of the Platform is licensed (not sold) to you; and
you have no rights in, or to, the Platform or its content other than the right to use each of them in accordance with these Terms.

Terms relating to the platform

The Platform requires internet access from any web browser.

We may update the Platform from time to time to maintain or improve its functioning or content. We will endeavour to minimise any suspension or interruption to the availability of the Platform for such updates.

You accept responsibility in accordance with these Terms for the use of the Platform on any hardware device or internet connection through which the Platform is accessed, whether or not it is owned by you.

Limited warranty

Any warranties offered in relation to the performance of the Platform shall be as set out in the Licence Agreement and shall not apply if:

the defect or fault in the Platform results from you having altered or modified the Platform or if you have used the Platform in breach of these Terms; or
the defect or fault in the Platform is not caused by us.

You expressly acknowledge and agree that use of the Platform is at your sole risk and that the entire risk as to satisfactory quality, performance, accuracy and effort is with you. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Platform and any Services performed or provided by the Platform are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, and we hereby disclaim all warranties and conditions with respect to the Platform to the extent permitted by law including any implied warranty and/or conditions of satisfactory quality or fitness for a particular purpose. We do not warrant against interference with your enjoyment of the Platform or that the functions contained in the Platform will meet your requirements or that the operation of the Platform will be uninterrupted or error-free. No oral or written information or advice given by us or any authorised representative shall create a warranty. Should the Platform or Services prove defective, you assume the entire cost of all necessary servicing, repair or correction. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or limitations on applicable statutory rights of a consumer, so that above exclusion and limitations may not apply to you.

Limitation of liability

You acknowledge that the Platform has not been developed to meet your individual requirements, and that it is therefore your responsibility to ensure that the facilities and functions of the Platform meet your requirements.
We only supply the Platform for your own individual use. You agree not to use the Platform for any commercial, business or resale purposes.
In no event will we, our officers, employees, contractors, subcontractors, suppliers, agents, subsidiaries, successors or assigns be liable for any indirect, economic, punitive, exemplary, special or consequential damages, loss of goodwill or loss of profits arising out of, or in connection with, the use of, or reliance upon, the Platform including any liability arising out of breach of contract, negligence or any other statutory, contract and/or tort liability, even if we have been expressly advised of the possibility of such damages. The term “damages” includes, without limitation, solicitor fees, any lost profits, business interruption and loss of programmes or other data on an information processing system.
Our maximum aggregate liability under or in connection with these Terms whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, shall in all circumstances be limited to the aggregate value of any licence fees paid or payable to us in relation to your Licence to use the Platform.
Nothing in these Terms shall limit or exclude our liability for:
1. death or personal injury resulting from our negligence;
2. fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; and
3. any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold us, our agents, officers, employees, successors and assigns harmless from and against any claims, demands and liability, including reasonable legal fees relating to any third party claims arising out of your use of the Platform other than in accordance with these Terms.

Termination

Your Licence will automatically terminate upon expiry of the Licence Period referred to in the Licence Agreement unless otherwise agreed in writing by us and you.

We may terminate your Licence to use the Platform (and our contract with you) immediately by written notice to you at our discretion if:

you commit a material or persistent breach of these Terms; or
in the event of a termination of the Licence Agreement.

On termination for any reason:

all rights granted to you under these Terms shall cease;
you must immediately cease all activities authorised by these Terms, including your use of any of the Platform; and
we may cease providing you with access to the Platform.

Communication between us

If you wish to contact us in writing, or if any condition in these Terms requires you to give us notice in writing, you can send this to us by email to hello@writingmachine.com, or by prepaid post to the contact details stated at the start of these Terms. We will confirm receipt of this by contacting you.

If we have to contact you or give you notice in writing, we will do so by email to the address you provide to us upon activating your Licence.

Events outside our control

We will not be liable or responsible for any failure to perform, or delay in performance of, any of our obligations under these Terms that is caused by any act or event beyond our reasonable control, including failure of public or private telecommunications networks (“Event Outside Our Control”).

If an Event Outside Our Control takes place that affects the performance of our obligations under these Terms:

our obligations under these Terms will be suspended and the time for performance of our obligations will be extended for the duration of the Event Outside Our Control; and
we will use our reasonable endeavours to find a solution by which our obligations under these Terms may be performed despite the Event Outside Our Control.

Other important terms

We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to revise these Terms at any time by sending you an email with details of the change or by notifying you of the change when you next use the Platform. You are responsible for regularly reviewing these Terms and any alterations to the same. By using the Platform you agree to become bound by any revisions made to these Terms or to the Platform themselves from time to time.

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms to another organisation, but this will not affect your rights or our obligations under these Terms. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms to any other person unless we agree to such transfer in writing.

If we fail to insist that you perform any of your obligations under these Terms, or if we do not enforce our rights against you, or if we delay in doing so, that will not mean that we have waived our rights against you and will not mean that you do not have to comply with those obligations. If we do waive a default by you, we will only do so in writing, and that will not mean that we will automatically waive any later default by you.

Each of the conditions of these Terms operates separately. If any court or competent authority decides that any of them are unlawful or unenforceable, the remaining conditions will remain in full force and effect.

Please note that these Terms, their subject matter and the formation of our agreement with you, are governed by English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have non-exclusive jurisdiction to deal with any disputes relating to these Terms or their subject matter or formation.

Customer support

Any queries or issues relating to the availability of the platform or other customer support matters should be directed to us by email to hello@writingmachine.com.

These terms have been entered into on the date that you clicked to confirm your acceptance of them or accessed the Platform.