Rules for Using and Sharing Solutions and Solution Materials

Effective Date: April 12, 2016

Websites enable you to contribute to the exchange, proliferation and dissemination of solutions that address our world’s social and environmental problems in ways described below.

Learn

You can browse, search for and download our Solutions and Solutions Materials and read and learn about the work already accomplished and in progress by organizations and practitioners from around the globe.

Collaborate

You can reach out to any of the Solutions Providers via our Websites to learn more, to collaborate, or to engage in any other educational, philanthropic, social or commercial endeavors.

Create

You can explore, experiment, and create new solutions for your own unique challenges by taking any one or more of the Solutions Materials and reproducing, incorporating and modifying them to fit your own context.

Share

You can filter, organize and introduce your own solutions to the world by following our solutioning process on our websites and uploading Building Blocks and Solutions that enable others to easily identify and understand the elements that may be adaptable as cornerstones for resolving their challenges. You can also upload the Solutions Materials and make them available for others to reproduce, adapt, and share.

When you engage in any of the above activities, it is important for you to understand and abide by these Rules for Using and Sharing Solutions and Solutions Materials (the “Rules”). It is also important for you to understand and comply with our EULA and all other terms and policies contained in our Sphaera Websites. For the purposes of these Rules, “we” or “us” means Sphaera, and from time to time, its licensees. All capitalized terms used in these Rules have the meanings given to them in the EULA.

How to Learn

When you browse, search for and download our Solutions, you do not need to grant or receive any license to do so. You may also reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share any Solutions. However, if you wish to use, reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share any Solutions Materials, you may only do so in accordance with the specific license granted by the Solutions Provider with respect to each material.

How to Collaborate

When you reach out to any of the Solutions Providers via our Websites, you agree to do so in strict compliance with our Terms of Use. You may initiate contact with any Solutions Provider, but it will be up to the Solutions Provider to accept or not accept your invitation for communication.

Rule #1 You agree to be respectful, courteous and professional, and you will cease your communications with the Solutions Provider when asked to do so

If you do not receive a response from a Solutions Provider, then you agree to cease your attempt to communicate. We reserve the right to disable your ability to initiate communication with any Solutions Provider at our sole discretion, if we deem it appropriate for any reason. The manner and terms under which you and any Solutions Provider collaborate will be up to you and such Solutions Provider. Any commercial or non-commercial agreements you may enter into with any Solutions Provider are agreements between you and the Solutions Provider only, and we will not under any circumstances be construed as a party to such agreements. We strongly encourage you to collaborate through our Websites and not share any of your personal information, except to the extent necessary to effectively collaborate. You are also required to keep strictly confidential any personal and other information you may learn about the Solutions Provider, and specifically, you must not disclose, publish, share or otherwise make any non-public information accessible to the public within or outside our Websites without his/her express permission. We make no representations or warranties about the truthfulness of the identity of the Solutions Providers, their background, expertise or the usefulness, validity, accuracy or completeness of any information you may learn from any Solutions Provider. Please refer to our Terms of Use to learn more about your own responsibility to conduct due diligence on any Solutions Provider. We disclaim responsibility for any and all liabilities that may result from your collaboration with any Solutions Provider.

How to Create

We encourage you to explore, experiment, and collaborate so that you can create new solutions for your own unique challenges. In doing so, you may need to access, reproduce and modify the existing Solutions and Solutions Materials. As indicated above, you may reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share any Solutions. However, if you wish to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share any Solutions Materials, you may do so only in accordance with the specific license granted by the Solutions Provider with respect to each material.

Rule #2 You agree to comply with others’ licensing terms when using their work.

If you wish to use any of the Solutions Materials, you must refer to the terms of the license indicated on the relevant Solutions Material. The licenses applicable to Solutions Materials are:

  1. Creative Commons Zero (“CC0”) (which means that the owner irrevocably waives his/her copyright and database rights in the work) and you can learn more about this license here; https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/
  2. One of six other versions of the Creative Commons License 4.0 International (“CC Public License”) which are noted below and explained in the link next to them:
  3. Private license as required by the Solutions Provider (“Private License”)
  4. No License

Rule #3 You will know and use the following simple licensing rules;

If a Shared Solution Material is subject to the license CC0, you may freely reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share such material.

If a Shared Solution Material is subject to one of the CC Public Licenses, then you may only use, reproduce, distribute, modify and share such material in compliance with the licensing requirements applicable to the particular CC Public License.

If a Shared Solution Material is subject to a Private License, then you may only reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share such materials in accordance with the specific terms contained in such Private License.

If a Shared Solution Material is not licensed, then you must contact the Solutions Provider to obtain the license you need for your use.

How to Share

If you are a practitioner or part of an organization that has witnessed the planet, our communities and human lives improve as a result of your work, we ask you to share, teach and collaborate. The solutions you share provide opportunities for others to find your work, learn, and use it to discover solutions for new sets of challenges, accelerating the pace of innovation and compounding the impact of your work.

When you share your work on our Websites, we ask you to understand and carefully consider the terms under which you publish your work. Where you choose to publish your work, the content you choose to publish, and the license you choose to apply to such work determine not only what others may or may not do with your work, but also what you may or may not do once a license is granted.

Rule #4 You will not publish any content you wish to protect unless you published them as a part of Solutions Materials.

All content published on Solutions become public information that may be used by other users and potentially other third-parties for any purpose. Any information, content or data that you wish to limit or restrict to certain persons or groups, or allow for only particular use, should only be published as Solutions Materials, which you may control as you wish. When you publish a Solution, your name will appear as the contributor, as well as the names of any other persons from whom you have received an explicit permission as explained below. We do not publish your contact information. However, if you choose to do so, it will become public information which all of the users and other potential third-parties may access. We ask you to use care and discretion when deciding which information to publish as Solutions.

Rule #5 You will not grant CC0 License to any Solutions Materials you wish to protect.

CC0 License grants to any User and any third-parties the right to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share the licensed material without any restriction. You may not revoke this license. If there is any information, content or data that you wish to limit or restrict to certain persons or groups, or allow for only particular use, such materials should be made subject to one of the licenses below.

Rule #6 You understand that CC Public Licenses are irrevocable. But you can designate whether you would allow derivative work, commercial use or require others to share alike.

CC Public Licenses allow you to designate whether you would allow others to make adaptations of your work, whether commercial use is permitted and whether a person who adapts your work must share such adapted work subject to the same restrictions that you designate. CC Public Licenses are irrevocable. This means that once a license with a set of rights is granted, you cannot later restrict such rights. The perceived benefit of the CC Public License is that a large group of people can readily find and understand the rights and limitations applicable to your license. Further, such terms are not made subject to negotiation or change. The uniformity and relative simplicity of these licenses may encourage a free flow of your work to a wide group of Users.

Rule #7 You understand that Private Licenses allow you to design and determine the license in any way you choose.

Private License allows you to design and determine the terms of the license in any legal way you choose and make it available to the users to accept. If a CC Public License is altered in any way, it becomes a private license. A potential user will need to understand and agree to your licensing terms prior to engaging in any protected use. In addition, this license can be negotiated and altered for different users.

Rule #8 You understand that No License allows you to restrict all rights, except as you may specifically agree on a case by case basis

If a Solution Material is subject to No License, then the potential user must contact you to request a license to reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, modify or share such material.

Rule #9 You agree that the information provided in these rules are for informational purposes only. We do not provide, and these Rules do not constitute, legal advice.

Rule #10. By becoming a user and publishing your User Content on Solutions, or uploading any Solutions Materials, you are agreeing to the following additional rules:

You grant us a license

You hereby grant to Sphaera, its licensees, to all Users of Sphaera Websites, and to the operators and administrators of Sphaera Websites, a worldwide, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, and sub-licensable license to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display and distribute all User Content and Solutions in any and all media or distribution methods. Specifically, you acknowledge and agree that your User Content may be shared, linked, embedded or otherwise made accessible to all Users of Sphaera Websites.

You agree not to infringe

You agree not to upload, publish, transmit, store, or otherwise make accessible on any Sphaera Website any Solutions Materials or other content that infringes on the intellectual property rights of any third-party. In particular, any unauthorized use of copyright protected material (including by way of reproduction, distribution, modification, adaptation, public display, public performance, preparation of derivative works, making available or otherwise communicating to the public via a Sphaera Website) may constitute an infringement of third-party rights and is strictly prohibited. Any such infringements may result in termination of your access to our websites and may also result in civil litigation or criminal prosecution by or on behalf of the relevant rights holder. You hereby represent and warrant that you own or have sufficient rights to all your User Content and Solutions Materials that you upload, publish, transmit, store or otherwise make accessible on any of the Sphaera Websites, and that you have the sufficient right, power and authority to grant the licenses that apply to each Solutions Material.

We may choose not to publish your Solutions or Solutions Materials

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to not publish any or all of the content constituting Solutions or any of the Solutions Materials, so long as we believe in our reasonable judgment that such actions are necessary to improve the quality, clarity, relevance, accuracy or usefulness of our websites, or for any other legitimate reason. You agree that we do not have any obligation to publish or store any of your User Content. If you have any User Content or Solutions Materials that you wish to protect against permanent loss, it is your responsibility to keep back-up files.

We may modify or delete any Content on Solutions

We reserve the right to edit, modify, remove or delete any User Content from any Sphaera Website, so long as we believe in our reasonable judgment that such actions are necessary to improve the quality, clarity, relevance, accuracy or usefulness of our websites, or for any other legitimate reason. You agree that we are not in any way liable for the modification, removal or deletion of any User Content, and it is your responsibility to keep back-up files of any User Content or Solutions Materials to protect against permanent loss.

We may remove or delete any Solutions Materials

The use of any Solutions Materials by Sphaera, its licensees or any other third party is governed by the licenses applicable to such materials. Nonetheless, we may at our sole discretion, remove or delete any Solutions Materials if we deem appropriate to improve the quality, clarity, relevance, accuracy or usefulness of our websites, or for any other legitimate reason. You agree that we are not in any way liable for the removal or deletion of any of the Solutions Materials. It is your responsibility to keep back-up files of any Solutions Materials to protect against permanent loss.