General Terms of Use

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Pearltrees Education

 

1.     LEGAL INFORMATION

 

These Terms and Conditions (the “T&Cs”) are proposed by BROCELIAND (“Pearltrees”), a French Joint Stock Company with a share capital of 743 031,80  euros registered in Paris, France under no. 504 599 267 with a registered address at 131 Boulevard Sébastopol, 75002 Paris, France.

 

Pearltrees can be contacted at the following e-mail address: contact@pearltrees.com.

 

Pearltrees owns and publishes the http://www.pearltrees.com Platform (the “Platform”).

 

The Platform is hosted by by OVH SAS, domiciled at 2 rue Kellermann 59100 Roubaix, France.

 

The publishing manager (“directeur de publication”) of the Platform is Mr. Patrick Lamothe.

 

2.     DEFINITIONS – INTERPRETATION

 

Throughout these T&Cs, the following terms, when depicted with a capital first letter, whether in the singular or in the plural form, shall have the meanings that are set out below:

 

“Collections”:	Shall mean the collections of digital content created and published by the Users in the Account by aggregating various content (video, images, web pages or texts) available online from the Platform itself or from third party sites, or uploaded by the Users to their Account.
“School”:	Shall mean the legal entity allowing its Users to benefit from the Service and have access to the Platform.
“Account”:	Shall mean the part of the Platform that is accessible to the Users, managed by the School and hosted by Pearltrees.
“Intellectual Property Rights”:	Shall mean all proprietary rights and interests of any kind, whether owned or held under license, that exist on the date of these T&Cs or that arise from same, including over any original work, invention, improvement, production know-how, technology, production secret, trademark, patent.
“Publisher Manuals”       “Identifiers”:	Shall mean certain digital works from third-party publishers that the User may access via their Account on the Platform, depending on the Service subscribed to with Pearltrees.   Shall mean the personal identifier and the password linked to the User’s Account. The Identifiers may be chosen directly by the Users or may be provided to the Users by the School.
“Parties”:	Shall mean Pearltrees, the School and the Users of the Service.
“User”:	Shall mean any person, including a minor, who accesses and uses the Platform and/or the Account.
“Service”:		Shall mean the service provided by Pearltrees enabling the School to create an educational and collaborative working space on the Platform.

3.     PURPOSE

 

The present T&C’s shall have for purpose the provision of contractual terms under which Pearltrees provides access to the School and the Users to the Service “Pearltrees Education”.

 

4.     APPLICABILITY OF THE T&Cs

 

In order to access the Platform and the Account, Users must be acquainted with, understand and accept these T&Cs.

 

The School represents and warrants that its Users shall comply with the provisions of these T&Cs.

 

Acceptances of these T&Cs by Users implies that they have the full legal capacity or that these T&Cs have been accepted on their behalf by a guardian or tutor if they do not have legal capacity or are minors. In this respect, the School acknowledges that its internal regulations and other applicable rules are such as to authorize these Users to use the Service in compliance with the present T&Cs.

 

Pearltrees shall be entitled to modify these T&Cs at any point in time, in order to adapt them to the changes in its Platform and/or its Service, but also in order to take into consideration any changes in the laws or regulations.

 

Should any of the Parties fail to avail themselves of a given provision of these T&Cs at any point in time, this shall not be interpreted as being tantamount to a waiver of their right to avail themselves subsequently of any provision of these T&Cs.

 

Should any provisions of the T&Cs turn out to be inapplicable for any reason whatsoever, such as due to an applicable statute or regulation, the Parties shall remain bound by the other provisions of the T&Cs and shall endeavour to remedy the inapplicable clauses in the spirit that prevailed upon formation of the contract between them.

 

5.     CREATION OF AN ACCOUNT

 

Access to the Service is subject to the acquisition of a paid licence by the School allowing Users to create an Account on the Platform.

 

Upon submitting a request for the opening of an Account, Users must fill in a registration form and must choose a set of Identifiers. Users may also interface with an account already created with the School, such as via a digital workspace (ENT), in order to be able to connect to the Account on the Platform.

 

The Users specifically undertake not to create fake identities to deceive third parties and not to steal the identity of another person. The Users undertake to immediately update the data that they shall have disclosed initially, in case of a change in their circumstances.

 

It is the responsibility of the Users who are registered to keep their Identifiers confidential. Pearltrees hereby disclaims liability for any loss or damage arising from the demonstrated negligence of any Users in protecting their connection Identifiers and/or the personal data linked to their accounts.

 

The Users shall moreover be responsible for any use of their Identifiers, for instance if they pre-record their Identifiers on their computer, smartphone or any other type of terminal, to enable automatic connection to the Account.

 

Any access to the Platform and to the Account, any use of the Service or in general any data transmission performed using a User’s Identifiers, shall be deemed to have been performed by that User. The Users must ensure that they disconnect effectively from the Account at the end of each session, particularly when accessing the Service from a public computer.

 

6.     THE USERS’ OBLIGATIONS

 

The Users undertake to comply with the terms of these T&Cs and to use the Service in accordance with their provisions.

 

The School represents and warrants that its Users shall comply with the provisions of these T&Cs when they use the Services.

 

6.1.   General use of the Service

 

As part of their use of the Service, Users must not:

 

-        Open more than one User account or open an account usurping the identity of a third party,

 

-        Use the Service to disseminate inappropriate content (content that is illegal, defamatory, insulting, racist, pornographic or runs counter to human dignity, or any other content that may cause its School to incur civil or criminal liability),

 

-        Use the Service for fraudulent or illegal purposes.

 

6.2.   Rules applicable to the content aggregated within the Collections

 

Users may freely choose to aggregate any content into any Collection that is published in the Account.

 

Users must however check the content that they choose to make available and must not publish a Collection that aggregates content:

-       That can be construed as an apology for crimes against humanity or war crimes;

-       That violates the respect and dignity of human beings, the protection of children and teenagers, e.g. violent, pornographic or paedophile messages;

-       That runs counter to the public interest or to public morals;

-       That is threatening, insulting, constitutes harassment, is defamatory or harmful;

-       That constitutes an infringement of intellectual property rights, an act of unfair competition or a parasitic trade practice;

-       That causes or incites discrimination, hatred or violence on account of people’s origin, gender, state of health, political or union affiliation;

-       That violates people’s privacy;

-       That encourages people to commit crimes, misdemeanours or acts of terrorism;

-       That violates the secrecy of private correspondence;

-       That provides access to computer viruses or any other code or program designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any software application, computer or telecommunication tool, this list not being exhaustive;

-       That enables a third party to directly or indirectly procure pirated software, software applications used to commit acts of piracy and intrusions into computer and telecommunication systems, and in general any software or other tool that can be used to infringe the rights of others and the security of people and property.

 

The Users acknowledge and agree that they shall be fully and solely responsible for the content and the consequences of its aggregation and dissemination as part of their Collections. The Users hereby declare that they hold all the requisite elements (rights, licenses, consents and/or permits) to enable them to disclose their content. Conversely, the Users undertake not to publish any content comprising elements that they are not legally authorised to hold.

 

The Users may be held liable for any content that infringes the rights of other persons or the applicable laws, including the rules governing the rights over a person’s image and the intellectual property rights over any shared content.

 

7.     TERMINATION AND SUPENSION

 

If, for any given reason, Pearltrees considers that a User is not complying with these T&Cs, including the obligations that are listed above, Pearltrees may at any point in time, and at its entire discretion, eliminate or suspend the User’s account and take all requisite legal measures against that User, bearing in mind that no decision shall be taken without first informing the School and the User, giving them a reasonable period of notice to remedy the violation, save in case of gross misconduct by the User.

 

Pearltrees shall be entitled to retain evidence of the violations that are witnessed by archiving them with a third party service provider for as long as is necessary to resolve the dispute.

 

Users (except the students of the School) may close their accounts from their profile at any point in time. All the data linked to their accounts shall then be eliminated unless the User request the portability of its data.

 

8.     LIABILITY

 

Pearltrees shall be liable to the School and the Users for the proper performance of the obligations arising from these T&Cs.

 

Pearltrees shall not be liable for any failure to perform these T&Cs that may be blamed on the School, a User, a third party to this contract, or any event that is beyond its control and that cannot be reasonably foreseen.

 

In its capacity as a mere hosting service provider, Pearltrees hereby disclaims liability for any information, messages and publications disclosed by the Users in the Account and for the Collections published by the Users, such as on account of the content aggregated within these Collections.

 

Pearltrees shall do everything in its power to guarantee uninterrupted access to the Platform and to the Account and continuous provision of the Service but may not under any circumstance bear liability if, due to any unavailability linked to maintenance operations or to a failure of the Internet network or any other reason beyond its control or force majeure, a User cannot temporarily access the Platform and/or the Account.

 

Similarly, although Pearltrees does everything possible to ensure the security of the information and data stored on its Platform, it cannot guarantee the lack of any risk of intrusions, data piracy or contamination by computer viruses pursuant to using the Platform. It is therefore up to the Users to take all the necessary precautions for ensuring the security of their data and the protection of their computer systems against contamination by viruses or other forms of attacks that may occur upon the use of the Platform.

 

9.     REPORTING ILLEGAL CONTENT

 

9.1.   Content that is not authorised by the School

 

The information that is provided to the Users and the Collections published in the Account are intended for purely educative and informative purposes.

 

To this end, Pearltrees has set up within the Service a blacklist of results intended to filter the search for content via the search engine accessible from the Account, in particular violent content and explicit sexual content.

 

Should any content that is supposed to be excluded appear in the list of the results that are proposed to the Users, the User and/or the School may report that content by sending an e-mail to education@pearltrees.com.

 

Pearltrees undertakes to promptly de-reference any content that is reported if it would seem that this alert is justified by the nature of the content.

 

9.2.   Illegal content

 

In its capacity as a hosting service provider, Pearltrees must withdraw or disable access to any illegal content notified.

 

If the Users identify the presence of illegal content while browsing the Platform, they may contact Pearltrees by sending a notification to the email address legal@pearltrees.com or by using the contact form available for this purpose on the Platform.

 

Pearltrees commits to promptly remove the reported content, provided that the content is indeed illegal and the notification contains the following elements:

 

-        A sufficiently substantiated explanation of the reasons why the User alleges the information in question to be illegal content;

 

-        A clear indication of the exact electronic location of that information (URL address of the Collection) ;

 

-        The name and email address of the User submitting the notice, to the extent permitted by applicable laws;

 

-        A statement confirming the bona fide belief of the User submitting the notice that the information and allegations contained therein are accurate and complete.

 

 

 

10.  INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY

 

10.1.      Intellectual property rights over the Platform and the Account

 

Pearltrees shall retain exclusive ownership of all the elements comprising the Platform that are protected by Intellectual Property Rights (including all computer code, design elements, functionalities, photographs, logos and any content that is made available to the Users directly by Pearltrees).

 

Any extraction, reproduction, showing, adaptation, modification, translation, transformation, broadcasting, integration into other elements, de-compilation, commercial use of all or part of the elements of the Platform and/or of the Account, as well as of the data and databases that may be gathered and processed by the Platform and/or the Account, shall be strictly prohibited.

 

Subject to compliance with these T&Cs, Pearltrees also grants the Users a right to access and to use the Platform and the Account and the elements reproduced for their personal, non-commercial use and for purposes in keeping with the normal purpose of the Service, for duration of its subscription to the Service.

 

The “Pearltrees” name and trademark, the logos, the drawings and models, stylised letters, figurative trademarks, and all the signs shown on the Platform are and shall remain the exclusive property of Pearltrees. The Users may not use the company names, trademarks and distinctive signs belonging to Pearltrees save with its prior, express consent.

 

10.2.      Intellectual property rights over the content of the Collections

 

Given that Pearltrees does not check the content that is aggregated and shared in the Collections, the Users shall be fully responsible for the Collections that are published in the Account.

 

The Users hereby undertake to ensure that any third party content that is aggregated in the Collections that they publish in the Account shall not infringe the rights of any third parties, such as their intellectual property rights, and that they shall be entitled to reproduce them and/or to disseminate them to members of the public over the Internet, unless this content is royalty-free.

 

The Users therefore guarantee Pearltrees against any challenges, claims of ownership and legal or extrajudicial actions concerning the abovementioned content and undertake to compensate Pearltrees in full for any costs and losses that it may incur as a result.

 

When they publish a Collection in the Account, the Users grant Pearltrees a free, non-exclusive right of use, enabling Pearltrees to provide them with an organization and customization service for shareable and collaborative content. This right allows Pearltrees to use, reproduce, adapt, and modify (primarily for collaboration capabilities, user-friendliness, and technical compatibility with the Pearltrees platform) this Collection and its content, in whole or in part, on any medium (tangible or intangible), whether known or unknown to date, worldwide, for the legal duration of the protection of the relevant Intellectual Property Rights. This right is granted for editorial purposes or research and development, including any maintenance or technical and functional improvement of the platform, as well as any implementation of automated text and data analysis in digital form to extract information, notably patterns, trends, and correlations.

 

 

 

 

 

 

10.3.      Intellectual property rights over content of Publisher Manuals

 

Users are reminded that any reproduction in paper format (printing, photocopying) of the content from Publisher Manuals accessible via the Platform within a School requires obtaining authorization from the CFC (Centre Français d'exploitation du droit de Copie), in accordance with the law (Articles L. 122-10 et seq. of the French Intellectual Property Code), by signing a license with the CFC.

 

Content from licensed Publisher Manuals may be shared with anyone who holds a license for the same content. Outside of this situation, these resources may only be shared (e.g., classroom video projection, uploading to the Institution's internal network, emailing to students) in the form of excerpts and strictly within the scope of the Institution where the concerned User teaches, provided that authorization is obtained from the CFC, either in the form of a license directly concluded between the School and the CFC, or through the agreement signed between the CFC and the Minister of National Education if the School is under the supervision of this minster.

 

Regarding specimens, which are Publisher Manuals or excerpts of Publisher Manuals made available on the Platform for free and for a limited period, these contents may only be shared (e.g., classroom video projection, uploading to the Institution's internal network, emailing to students) in the form of excerpts and strictly within the scope of the School where the concerned User teaches, provided that authorization is obtained from the CFC, either in the form of a license directly concluded between the Institution and the CFC, or through the agreement signed between the CFC and the Minister of National Education if the  School  is under the supervision of this minister.

 

Pearltrees opposes all text and data mining operations as defined in Article L. 122-5-3 of the French Intellectual Property Code. This opposition applies to all content from Publisher Manuals accessible through the Platform. Any text and data mining operations on Publisher Manual content, including via automated data collection tools, constitute acts of infringement unless a specific agreement is formally obtained from the concerned publisher. Article R. 122-28 of the French Intellectual Property Code specifies that the opposition mentioned in Section III of Article L. 122-5-3 can be expressed by any means, including through the use of the terms and conditions of a website or service. The absence of metadata associated with such content does not affect the exercise of the opposition right expressed in these Terms of Use.

 

11.  DATA PROTECTION

 

The Users are hereby informed that Pearltrees process their personal data on behalf of the School.

 

In its capacity as data controller, as per the meaning of this term in the applicable data protection rules and regulations, the School shall also be liable for the processing of the Users’ personal data. Pearltrees acts as the data processor of the School within the meaning of data protection laws.

 

The processing of personal data and the management of cookies by Pearltrees are more extensively described in its privacy policy. Pearltrees’ privacy policy however cannot replace the information that must be provided to the Users by the School in its capacity of data controller about its own data protection policy.

 

In accordance with France’s data protection law of 6 January 1978, as subsequently modified, Users have a right to object to, to access, rectify, port and request the erasure of their personal data, as well as a right to oppose its processing on legitimate grounds, by contacting the School of the Account or Pearltrees:

 

-       by sending a letter by post to Pearltrees, 131 boulevard de Sébastopol, 75002 Paris, France,

-       or by sending an e-mail to privacy@pearltrees.com.

 

12.  THIRD PARTY SITES

 

The Platform and the Account may comprise hypertext links pointing to third party sites. The links pointing to these third party sites do not imply any approval of these third party sites by Pearltrees. Pearltrees has no control over the information, products and/or services proposed by third parties on the abovementioned sites, and hereby disclaims any liability in this respect.

 

Pearltrees moreover hereby disclaims liability for any hypertext links that the Users may choose to aggregate into the Collections that they publish in the Account, whether these links are simple or embedded links. In this respect, Users must perform the requisite checks in order to ensure that their hypertext links do not point to Platforms or content that are illegal or that violate the rights of third parties.

 

Pearltrees finally disclaims liability for any gathering and transmission of personal data, insertions of cookies or any other process intended for the same purposes, by these third party sites.

 

13.  applicable law and settlement of disputes

 

These T&Cs are governed by French law.

 

The rules of conflict of laws shall not apply and French law alone shall apply to the relationship between the Parties, without any reservations, unless the applicable public interest provisions of the country of residence of a User require the application of other rules, and these provisions cannot be set aside by contract.

 

Should the Parties fail to reach an amicable settlement, their dispute shall be brought before the courts of Paris, France, which shall have non-exclusive jurisdiction. This clause may not however prevent the Users, acting in their capacity as consumers, from vindicating their rights before any court that has territorial jurisdiction under the civil procedure rules that are applicable or before the courts of the place where they resided at the time of the signature of this contract.