Full legal details provided below.
Welcome to SpicyNodes.org. This Terms of Use Agreement sets forth the “rules of the road” regarding the various terms and conditions that you agree to in exchange for access to our tools and services.
We ask you to carefully read through this Agreement and to consult with your attorney if you are confused about any of the elements; however, we have endeavored to make this Agreement both fair and easy to understand.
There are two parties to this Agreement. The first one is you, so we’ll refer to you as “You” throughout this Agreement. We, the Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement, a not-for-profit duly incorporated in the State of Maryland, are the other party and will be referred to as “We/Us” throughout this Agreement. We received our Federal 501(c)(3) non-profit designation in 2002. We encourage you to contribute to our non-profit endeavors through our website, at http://www.idea.org/.
We own and operate SpicyNodes.org and we are responsible for the content contained on the site, including each tool or service that we provide to the public. As such, SpicyNodes.org is a part of our not-for-profit corporation and exists to benefit the general public.
If you are going to use any of the tools, functions, or services that we provide, we do ask you to abide by each and every term and condition contained in this Agreement. If you do not agree with each and every term and condition contained in this Agreement, you are not allowed to use any tool, service, or function that we provide and you cannot have a SpicyNodes.org membership.
If you decide to register as a member of our site, or use any of our tools, services, or functions, then you are agreeing by those actions to be bound the terms and conditions of this Agreement.
Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement
616-C Great Falls Road
Rockville, MD 20850
We have some general rules that are common among all websites, as follows:
You may not:
- Violate the law of any jurisdiction while using any tool, service, or function that we provide or while visiting our website.
- Harass or cyberstalk any of our users or members.
- Conduct any activity that is harmful or detrimental to our site as solely determined by us.
- Post any information or content that is obscene, defamatory, hateful, or intolerant in nature or in violation of the laws of any jurisdiction.
- Upload any material that is harmful to our user’s computers or objectionable to our community as a whole.
Should any downtime occur that is our own fault, during any calendar month of service, we shall refund the fee paid by you for that calendar month. To request a refund, please email us at MemberSupport@spicynodes.org and inform us of when the outage occurred and the length of the outage (if you know), and provide us with your name, email address, physical address, and telephone number. We will review your request and, upon verification of the downtime, we shall refund your fee by applying the same to the next month’s service. In the event that you purchased one year’s worth of service, we shall extend your contract for a period of 30 days at no cost to you.
While it is not required that users or members be adults, we do require that the use of our site by minors is approved by their parents or guardians or if the minor is directly supervised by a responsible adult such as a teacher or educator. Any use of our website, or its various tools and services, by a minor is an express indication to us that the minor’s parent, guardian, or teacher/educator has approved of such usage and agrees to be bound by this Agreement. Our philosophy is that SpicyNodes.org provides tools and a learning environment completely compatible with the standards of the education milieu. However, we do recommend that all Internet usage by minors be evaluated and monitored by a responsible caregiver.
We may post rules, guidelines, or policies in the future that are not presently contained within this Agreement. Upon the posting of such materials, they immediately become incorporated by reference into this Agreement as if fully set forth herein and you must follow such rules, guidelines, or policies. It often is necessary to add new rules, guidelines, or policies after a site has launched, as behaviors by segments of our user community may require us to post new rules, guidelines, or policies.
Any user may terminate his or her use or membership at this site at any time. We may terminate any member at anytime for any reason that we see fit.
We have published a privacy policy. The privacy policy is hereby incorporated by reference into this Agreement as if fully set forth herein.
All memberships that we provide on a free basis are freely transferable by each “free” member. Paid memberships are not transferable unless the membership is owned by a business entity that has been sold, merged, or otherwise acquired by a third party or entity.
We reserve the right to transfer all memberships upon the sale, merger, or other acquisition of all or part of our business or assets, including our memberships, in whole or in part, to the acquiring person or entity.
We provide tools that allow our users to create “nodes,” which may represent simple or complex hierarchical or networked topics and subject matters. The visual representations of nodes are deemed “Nodemaps.” All Nodemaps are published via the Internet and are thusly made available to the general public for their viewing and usage. We encourage that all authors of Nodemaps allow free and unfettered usage of their Nodemaps.
We provide three levels of memberships. Full membership details are available for your review on our website.
We currently provide a free, basic membership. We cannot promise that we will provide a free, basic membership forever, and it is possible that in the future you may be informed by us that we are going to terminate all free accounts. However, we have no present plan to discontinue free accounts. But, please bear in mind that we may decide to cease providing free accounts in the future, or if we sell our business to someone in the future, the buyer of our business may discontinue the free accounts. However, you will be notified in advance by either us or the buyer that your free account is going to be terminated.
All services, tools, and functions provided to any type of account may be modified or removed at anytime with no prior notice.
Any and all of our services, tools, and functions may become temporarily or permanently disabled or unavailable at any time, due to technical issues or other issues outside of our control. We may discontinue the entire website itself at any time in the future where, in our sole discretion, it becomes necessary to do so.
Advertisements may be added to our free accounts in the future. All content provided by you pursuant to a free, basic membership, is published to the world under the Creative Commons License.
All Nodemaps authored by our users “default” to our published, online gallery. Once published in our gallery, other users may find it, rank it, tag it, and so forth. We do provide users a tool by which they can request that their Nodemap not be published in the gallery, subject to potential technical limitations as explained elsewhere in this Agreement.
We issue no warranty whatsoever and do not make any representations or warranties regarding the availability, suitability, reliability, merchantability, non-infringement, capability, usefulness, or fitness for any general or particular purpose of the site, or the tools, products, or services herein supplied or sold or regarding the characteristics of services provided by or through the site, or regarding the timeliness, accuracy, or usefulness of information obtained from or through the site. The site and all content contained, distributed, sold, or published via the site is provided to you "As Is, Where Is,” without any warranty of any kind, express or implied.
We may accidentally erase, or otherwise lose information, content, or data that you provide to us, although we will endeavor to keep your information, content, or data safe and secure. All users may export their data in order to create a backup of that data for the purposes of safekeeping. We may also accidentally divulge information, content, or data that belongs to you to a third party. We will endeavor not to lose or divulge such materials, but if we do, you agree to hold us harmless from any claims regarding such occurrences.
We provide our authors with online editors, which gives each editor the ability to upload or import content. However, the editors may contain “bugs” or programming errata and/or our own database systems may fail. Hence, you agree to hold us harmless from any loss or damages if such should occur.
We provide an option for authors to NOT make their Nodemaps public, but in the event that our systems fail, are compromised, or that we simply err, you agree to hold us harmless from any loss, claim, or damage regarding such.
You also agree that we are not responsible for downtime, latency, or any other technical problems that may take place regarding the publication of your Nodemaps or any other tool, function, or service that we provide to you.
All content provided by us within or via this site is protected by various U.S. and international copyright laws, patent laws, trademark regulations and laws, and various intellectual property laws and international treaties and agreements. No intellectual property of any nature that we own may be copied, published, or broadcast in any way without our written permission. The content of this site may not be “framed” or “mirrored.” All trademarks presented on or via this site are owned by their respective owners and may not be used by you in any way. Some content published via our site may be owned by third parties and may be subject to various intellectual property laws, and as such, use of the same may be restricted.
You may not use any automated scripts or “robots” to access, copy, or manipulate any content provided on this site. You may not engage in denial of service attacks upon the servers that publish this Site. You may not engage in any content that uses more than .01% of the hardware and software infrastructure of this site.
We may provide links to third party sites; however, we are not responsible for the content of such sites or their terms of use or privacy policies. Please carefully review the terms of service and privacy policies of all such sites prior to usage. You assume the risk of any usage of such third party sites.
SpicyNodes.org is a publishing platform: you will always own the copyright to the content that you publish via SpicyNodes.org, however, you do grant us a permanent, royalty free license to publish your content via SpicyNodes.org unless you have paid for a membership that provides for the restriction of our use of your content. All “letters to the editor,” “suggestions/ideas,” and any correspondence that you send us (collectively referred to as ldquo;submissions”) are our sole property. We may publish all submissions in any manner that we deem to be appropriate, including in all forms of media and publication. You are solely responsible for the content of all submissions, including any violation of any law(s) contained within such submissions, copyright, privacy, fraud, and other laws and regulations. You agree to hold us harmless and defend us and indemnify us from any civil actions filed or threatened to be filed by any third party or entity who determines that your submission(s) supports a legal cause of action.
We are not responsible for any damages arising from your use of this site, or any tools, functions or services that this site provides to you, whether the cause of action be based on tort, breach of contract, or any other legal theory, including punitive, actual, indirect, incidental, or consequential damages of any nature or due to any cause of any nature. You agree to hold us harmless from any loss or harm of any nature due to your usage of this site or any tool, product, or service that we provide to you, whether directly or indirectly.
We are not responsible for any content provided to you by our site members or Nodemap authors who publish their Nodemaps or other materials via our site. We do not screen content provided by our site members or authors or any third parties or entities and you agree that we do not have any duty to do so prior to such being published on our site. We are not liable for any content that may be obscene, indecent, misleading, fraudulent, racist, intolerant, harmful, or otherwise objectionable where such content has been displayed due to the actions of one or more of our users or any third party or entity. We are not responsible for any content provided to our site by members or authors or third parties that may infringe on intellectual property rights, rights of privacy or publicity, or any rights of any nature in any jurisdiction. You agree to hold us harmless regarding any claims arising from your exposure, or the exposure of your family members, loved ones, or computers, to objectionable content and agree to waive any possible liability that we may have regarding content provided to us via members or third parties that violates any intellectual property rights or any other civil law.
You understand and agree that use of the Internet means that you are subject to the risk of receiving or viewing harmful, offensive content and files. We do not promise that we will review and edit all content for safety, quality, accuracy, or decency that you encounter via our site.
In accordance with the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, you may send copyright infringement complaints to SpicyNode.org at the following email address:
You may also mail a letter to use in lieu of sending an email, to the following address:
Copyright Infringement Allegation
Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement
616-C Great Falls Road
Rockville, MD 20850
- 1. a physical or electronic signature;
- 2. identification of the infringed work;
- 3. identification of the infringed material;
- 4. contact information for the complainant, e.g. address, telephone number, electronic mail address;
- 5. a statement that the complaining party has a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner or the law; and
- 6. a statement that the information contained in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that the complaining party is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
This Agreement, including all disclaimers, will be governed by and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of Maryland, excluding that body of laws known as choice of law or conflict of laws. Subject to the provisions of this section all disputes, controversies, or claims arising out of or relating to this Agreement will be resolved through mandatory binding arbitration conducted in Washington, D.C., or any location closer to our offices within the State of Maryland, before J.A.M.S./ENDISPUTE or its successor ("JAMS") pursuant to the United States Arbitration Act, 9 U.S.C. Section 1, et seq. (the "Act"); and this Agreement. The arbitration will be conducted in accordance with the provisions of JAMS’s Streamlined Arbitration Rules and Procedures in effect at the time of filing of the demand for arbitration (the "JAMS Rules"), subject to the provisions of this section. The terms set forth in this Agreement will control in the event of any inconsistency between such terms and the JAMS Rules. The parties will cooperate with JAMS and with each other in promptly selecting a single arbitrator from JAMS’s panel of neutrals. If the parties fail to so select an arbitrator within thirty (30) days following the date of either party’s notice of demand to conduct arbitration, then JAMS will appoint an arbitrator in accordance with the JAMS Rules. The award of the arbitrator will be in writing and will set forth findings of fact and conclusions of law. Judgment on the arbitrator’s award will be final and binding upon the parties and may be entered in any court having jurisdiction thereof. If for any reason JAMS or its successor is no longer in business, then the arbitration shall be conducted in accordance with the commercial arbitration rules of the American Arbitration Association. The arbitrator’s fees will be shared equally by the parties and each party will bear its own costs and attorneys’ fees. All papers, documents, or evidence, whether written or oral, filed with or presented in connection with the arbitration proceeding will be deemed by the parties and by the arbitrator to be confidential information of both parties. The arbitrator chosen in accordance with these provisions will not have the power to alter, amend, or otherwise affect the terms of these arbitration provisions or the provisions of this Agreement. Notwithstanding the foregoing, nothing in this section shall prevent either party from applying for and obtaining from a court a temporary restraining order and/or other injunctive relief. Any and all disputes regarding the content presented on this site must be resolved through arbitration as set forth in this section.
We make no representation that the usage of this site, or the content provided herein, will not violate the laws of your local jurisdiction. You are responsible for the laws of your jurisdiction, especially if you are accessing this site from outside the United States of America (USA).
This site may contain typographical errors or mistakes, and we disclaim any responsibility for such errors and you agree to hold us harmless from any legal responsibility for such errors.
Notices to you may be issued via electronic mail or by surface mail, at our sole selection.
Neither party shall be liable for any delay or failure in performance due to Force Majeure, which shall mean acts of God, earthquake, labor disputes, changes in law, regulation or government policy, riots, war, fire, flood, insurrection, sabotage, embargo, epidemics, acts or omissions of vendors or suppliers, transportation difficulties, unavailability of interruption or delay in telecommunications or third party services (including DNS propagation), failure of third party software or hardware, or inability to obtain raw materials, supplies, or power used in or equipment needed. We are not responsible for server downtime under any circumstances.
You agree that you have been suitably noticed of any trademark, trade dress, service mark, copyright, patent or any other intellectual property rights or property rights of any nature and any violation by you of any such property rights is fairly deemed to be “willful” in nature.
All product names, marks, logos, symbols, and company names are the property of their respective owners and subject to the protection of State, Federal and International laws and regulations.
Please contact us by email: MemberSupport@spicynodes.org
Or by surface mail: Institute for Dynamic Educational Advancement 616-c Great Falls Road Rockville, MD 20850
