Oyster Connect Community Terms of Use

These Terms of Use ("Terms") are the rules for engaging with the Oyster Connect Slack Community (the "Community").  We ask that you read these Terms of Use carefully before engaging with the Community or otherwise using the related Slack channels (the "Community Channels"). There is a lot to cover, so scroll to read more or click on the links to go straight to particular information that interests You.  
‍By accessing, browsing, or otherwise using the Community Channels, You acknowledge that You have read, understand, and agree to be bound by these Terms.  If you do not accept these Terms, You may not access, browse, or use the Community Channels.

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The Community Channels, including but not necessarily limited to #general, #job-opportunities, #oyster-alumni-intros, and #oyster-news, are operated by Oyster HR, Inc. (“Oyster,” "We," "Our"). Oyster is a technology-enabled service platform that allows companies to easily hire remote colleagues around the globe. We are a fully distributed, public benefit corporation, with our registered office at Brandywine Plaza,1521 Concord Pike Suite 201, Wilmington, DE 19803 USA. To contact us, please contact us at http://support.oysterhr.com/ or use the chat function on the www.OysterHR.com website.

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There are other terms that may apply to You and Your interactions with Oyster.  To make sure You understand all of Your rights and obligations, it's a good idea to review these as well.

• Our Website Terms of Use set out the terms and conditions of Your use of the oysterhr.com website and related websites.

• Our Website Privacy Notice explains Our collection and processing of Your Personally Identifiable Information (or its equivalent under applicable law) ("PII") relative to the oysterhr.com website and related websites.

• Our Oyster Connect Community Privacy Notice explains Our collection and processing of Your Personally Identifiable Information (or its equivalent under applicable law) ("PII") relative to the Community.

• No kids allowed.  If You are not at least 18 years of age and legally able to enter into a contract, come back when You are older.  We’ll still be here.

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Laws change, technology changes, Our product evolves, and Your feedback makes us better, but it also leads to more changes.  For all of these reasons, We may change these Terms.  Every time You wish to use the Community, please check these Terms to ensure You understand the Terms that apply at that time.  The effective date of the changes will always be at the top of the Terms. We may also change the Community itself.  We do not guarantee that the Community, or any content on it, will always be available or be uninterrupted. We may suspend, withdraw, or restrict the availability of all or any part of the Community at any time and for any reason without prior notice or liability. 

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To access the Community, You need a Slack account. Your use of Slack, your access to a Slack account, and any privacy and data protection-related agreements for your use of Slack are governed by the any terms, conditions, or other agreements between You and Slack Technologies, LLC, Slack Technologies Limited (Ireland), or Slack Technologies Limited (Japan). Nothing in these Terms supersedes or amends any of the terms between You and Slack.  

We reserve the right to disable any user account or password at any time, for any reason.

For verification purposes or in connection with the use of certain services, You may be asked to provide PII in a questionnaire, application, form, or similar document or service. This information will be protected pursuant to our Privacy Notices, as set forth above.

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We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in and to the Community and in and to all material published on it.  All such works are protected by intellectual property laws and treaties around the world. All such rights are reserved. You may print off materials on the Community for Your personal use, and You may draw the attention of others within Your organization to content posted on the Community.  But, you may NOT modify the paper or digital copies of any materials You have printed off or downloaded in any way; You may not use any illustrations, photographs, video, or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text; and You may not further reproduce or create derivative works in any such paper or digital copies. Our status (and that of any identified contributors) as the authors of content on the Community must always be acknowledged. You may not use any part of the content on the Community for commercial purposes without obtaining a license to do so from Us or Our licensors. The use or posting of any of the content on any other web site or in a networked computer environment for any purpose is expressly prohibited. If You print off, copy or download, upload, or repost any part of Our Community in breach of these Terms, Your right to use and access the Community will cease immediately, and You must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials You have made.

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Do not rely on information on the Community.  The content on the Community is provided for general information only and is not intended to amount to advice on which You should or can rely. You must obtain professional or specialist advice before taking, or refraining from taking, any action on the basis of the content on the Community.  We make no representations, warranties, or guarantees, whether express or implied, that the content on the Community is accurate, complete, or up-to-date.

We are not responsible for links to external websites.  Where the Community contains links to other sites and resources provided by third parties, these links are provided for Your information only. Such links should not be interpreted as approval by us of those linked websites or of any information You may obtain from them. We have no control over the contents of those sites or resources. You should take precautions when downloading files from all websites to protect Your computer from viruses and other destructive programs.  If you decide to access any external sites, You do so at Your own risk.

User-generated content, including any and all content created, posted, or otherwise provided by Community users, is not approved by us.  The Community may include information and materials uploaded by other Community users. Such information and these materials have not been verified or approved by Us. The views expressed by other users on the Community do not represent Our views or values. If you wish to complain about content uploaded by other Users, please contact us at http://support.oysterhr.com/.

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Our content standards are straightforward: be respectful and lawful.

Be Respectful.  You may not use the Community to transmit, retrieve, or store any communications or other content of a defamatory, discriminatory, harassing, or pornographic nature. No messages with derogatory or inflammatory remarks about an individual’s race, age, disability, religion, national origin, ethnicity, nation of citizenship, physical attributes, political affiliation, socio-economic status, or sexual preference may be transmitted.  Harassment of any kind is strictly prohibited.

Be Lawful.  Disparaging, abusive, profane, or offensive language and any illegal activities—including piracy, cracking, extortion, blackmail, copyright infringement and unauthorized access—are forbidden.

If you believe that any information or communications submitted to the Site violate these standards, please contact us immediately at http://support.oysterhr.com/.

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You retain all of your ownership rights in content that you submit to the Community ("Your Content"), but you are required to, and hereby do, grant Oyster a worldwide, royalty free, non-exclusive, fully sublicensable license to use, store, and copy Your Content, and to distribute and make it available to third parties.  You are solely responsible for securing and backing up Your Content; for the accuracy, quality, integrity, appropriateness, of Your Content; and for securing any and all intellectual property ownership right(s) in Your Content.  Therefore, You represent and warrant that You have all right, title, and interest necessary to submit Your Content to the Community.

You acknowledge and agree that Oyster, in accordance with Our Privacy Notice, has the right to aggregate data submitted to, collected by, or generated by Oyster through the Community or in connection with Our services in a non-identifiable format and to freely use the aggregated data for Our own business purposes, including to improve, support, or expand the Community, our websites, or Our services.  All aggregated data that we disclose to third parties will be in anonymous, de-identified form only and will not be specifically linked to You or to any individual.

Whenever You use a feature that allows You to upload content to the Community, or to make contact with other users of the Community, You must comply with the content standards above.  You agree that Your Content will comply with those standards, and We have the right to remove any of Your Content from the Community if, in Our opinion and at Our sole discretion, Your Content does not comply with those standards.  You also agree that You will be responsible for Your failure to comply with those standards.  

As set forth further below, You hereby agree to fully indemnify Oyster for and against (a) any claims by third parties that any of Your Content infringes on such third parties' rights in the same, or (b) any claims by third parties as a result of your failure to comply with the content standards above.  You further agree that Oyster has the right to disclose Your identity to any third party where such a third party claims that Your Content constitutes a violation of their intellectual property rights or of their right to privacy.   

Finally, we welcome feedback, comments, and suggestions for improvements (“Feedback”). You acknowledge and expressly agree that any contribution of Feedback by You does not and will not give or grant You any right, title, or interest in the Community, our websites, Our products and services, or in any such Feedback. All Feedback will become the sole and exclusive property of Oyster, and Oyster may use and disclose Feedback in any manner and for any purpose whatsoever without further notice or compensation to You and without retention by You of any proprietary rights or other right or claim. By submitting the Feedback to Oyster, You are assigning to Oyster any and all right, title, and interest to any patent, copyright, trade secret, trademark, show-how, know-how, moral rights, and any and all other intellectual property rights that You may have in and to any and all Feedback or any resulting work of authorship or invention.

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We want You to share Our mission and invite folks to join Our team.  However, this Community is exclusive to Oyster and Oyster Alumni. Please feel free to share information about the Community's existence, and always feel free to link to Our home page, provided You do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it (subject to our Website Terms of Use). But we ask that you not provide public links to the Community.

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Subject to the terms of our Agreement with Slack, the Community is owned and operated by Oyster HR, Inc.  All rights, title, and interest in and to the materials provided on the Community, including but not limited to information, documents, logos, graphics, sounds and images (the “Materials”) are owned either by Oyster or are licensed to Oyster by our respective third party authors, developers, or vendors. The trademarks, service marks, and logos of Oyster used and displayed on the Community are registered or unregistered trademarks or service marks of Oyster.  You are not permitted to use them without Our written approval.  Use of any trademarks as part of a link to or from any website is also prohibited without Oyster’s prior written consent.  Certain other elements of the Community are protected by trade dress, trademark, unfair competition, and other state and federal laws and, as with Our trademarks, may not be copied or imitated in whole or in part, by any means, including but not limited to, the use of framing or mirrors. None of the content on the Community may be retransmitted without express written consent from Oyster for each and every instance.  Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved by Oyster.

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”) provides recourse for copyright owners who believe that material appearing on the Internet infringes their rights under U.S. copyright law.  If you believe in good faith that material on the Community infringes Your copyright, You (or Your agent) may send us a notice requesting that the material be removed, or access to it blocked.  Notices and counter-notices must meet the then-current statutory requirements imposed by the DMCA (see http://copyright.gov for details).  Notices and counter-notices with respect to the Site should be sent to Oyster at Legal@OysterHR.com.

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Unfortunately, We cannot and do not guarantee that Our Community will be secure or free from bugs or viruses. You are responsible for configuring Your devices, information technology, programs, and platform to access Our Community. We strongly suggest that You use virus protection software.

You must not misuse Our Community by knowingly introducing viruses, trojans, worms, logic bombs, or other material that is malicious or technologically harmful. You must not attempt to gain unauthorized access to Our Community, the server on which Our Site is hosted, or any server, computer, or database connected to Our Community. You must not attack Our Community via any means, including but not limited to a denial-of-service attack or a distributed denial-of service attack. By breaching this provision, You would commit a criminal offense under any number of national and international laws and regulations. We will report any such breach to the relevant law enforcement authorities, and We will cooperate with those authorities by disclosing Your identity to them. In the event of such a breach, Your right to access the Community will cease immediately.

You likewise agree not to: (a) take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on the Community's infrastructure, (b) use any device, software, or routine to interfere or attempt to interfere with the proper working of the Community or any activity being conducted on the Community, (c) attempt to decipher, decompile, disassemble, or reverse engineer any of the software comprising or making up the community, (d) delete or alter any material posted on the Community by Oyster or any other person or entity, or (e) violate the terms of any agreement you have with Slack in any way.

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Sometimes, despite best efforts, things go wrong.  Whether You are a consumer or a business user, Oyster does not exclude or limit Our liability to You where it would be unlawful to do so.  With regard to the use of the community, please note that We only provide access to the Community for personal and private use. You agree not to use the Community for any commercial or business purposes, and We have no liability to You for any loss of profit, loss of business, business interruption, or loss of business opportunity.  If defective digital content that We have supplied damages a device or digital content belonging to You and this is caused by Our failure to use reasonable care and skill, we will either repair the damage or pay You reasonable compensation.  We will not, however, be liable for damage that You could have avoided by following Our advice or by acting in a commercially reasonable manner relative to your own systems or software, including but not limited to keeping your own software up to date and installing and maintaining antivirus software on your device(s).

If You breach these Terms through Your access to, use, or misuse of the community or any content on it, You agree to hold Oyster harmless, defend, and indemnify Oyster against any claims, action, or demands, including, without limitation, reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising or resulting from your breach.  Oyster will provide notice to You of any such claim, suit, or proceeding.  Oyster reserves the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter that is subject to indemnification under this section. In such case, You agree to cooperate with any reasonable requests to assist in Oyster’s defense of such matter.

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The Community is hosed through Slack in the United States.  We make no claims concerning whether the content on the Community may be downloaded, viewed, or be appropriate for use outside of the United States.  If You access the Community or its content from outside of the United States, You do so at Your own risk.  Whether inside or outside of the United States, You are solely responsible for ensuring compliance with the laws of Your specific jurisdiction.

The United States controls the export of products and information. You expressly agree to comply with such restrictions and not to export or re-export any of the community content to countries or persons prohibited under applicable export control laws. By downloading the Community content, You expressly agree that You are not in a country where such export is prohibited and are not a person or entity for which or to whom such export is prohibited. Further, You are solely responsible for compliance with the laws of Your specific jurisdiction regarding the import, export, or re-export of the Community content.  

The Community content is provided with “RESTRICTED RIGHTS.”  Use, duplication, or disclosure by the government is subject to the restrictions contained in 48 CFR 52.227-19 and 48 CFR 252.227-7013 et seq. or its successor.  Use of the Community or content on it by the government constitutes acknowledgment of Our proprietary rights in the Community and Community content.

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without respect to its conflict of laws provisions. You expressly agree to submit to the exclusive personal jurisdiction of the state and federal courts sitting in the City of Wilmington in the State of Delaware.   If any provision of these Terms are found to be invalid by any court having competent jurisdiction, the invalidity of such provision do not affect the validity of the remaining provisions of these Terms, which shall remain in full force and effect.   Failure of Oyster to act on or enforce any provision of this agreement will not be construed as a waiver of that provision or any other provision in these Terms.  No waiver is effective against Oyster unless made in writing, and no such waiver will be construed as a waiver in any other or subsequent instance. Except as expressly agreed by Oyster and You, these Terms constitute the entire agreement between You and Oyster with respect to the subject matter and supersede all previous or contemporaneous agreements, whether written or oral, between You and Oyster with respect to the subject matter. These Terms will inure to the benefit of Our successors, assigns, licensees, and sublicensees.

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THE COMMUNITY AND ALL MATERIALS, DOCUMENTS, FORMS, AND OTHER PRODUCTS AND SERVICES PROVIDED ON OR THROUGH YOUR USE OF THE COMMUNITY ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OYSTER EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

OYSTER MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT: (A) THE COMMUNITY OR THE MATERIALS WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; (B) THE COMMUNITY OR THE MATERIALS WILL BE AVAILABLE ON AN UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE BASIS; (C) THE RESULTS THAT MAY BE OBTAINED FROM THE USE OF THE COMMUNITY OR ANY MATERIALS OFFERED THROUGH THE COMMUNITY WILL BE ACCURATE OR RELIABLE; OR (D) THE QUALITY OF ANY PRODUCTS, SERVICES, INFORMATION, OR OTHER MATERIAL PURCHASED OR OBTAINED BY YOU THROUGH THE COMMUNITY OR IN RELIANCE ON THE MATERIALS WILL MEET YOUR EXPECTATIONS.

OBTAINING ANY MATERIALS THROUGH THE USE OF THE COMMUNITY IS DONE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND AT YOUR OWN RISK. OYSTER HAS NO RESPONSIBILITY FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY CONTENT, MATERIALS, INFORMATION, OR SOFTWARE.

Remember, by accessing, browsing or otherwise using the Community, You acknowledge that You have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms.  If You do not agree and do not accept the Terms, do not browse or interact in any way with the Community.

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