Terms of Service

Your continued use of Shorelines.com constitutes acceptance of these Terms of Service, which may be modified by us from time to time. The current version of this document will always be available on Shorelines.com, and it is your responsibility to review it on a regular basis. By continuing to use this site, you agree to be bound by any future changes published on Shorelines.com.

While much of this website is open to the public, certain services, including participation in the online interactive community, require registration. Participation in this online community is a privilege and not a right. If you violate these Terms of Service or otherwise disrupt Shorelines.com or make a nuisance of yourself, we may cancel your account, prohibit you from opening alternate accounts and deny you access to affected portions of the website.

The contents of Shorelines.com are automatically copyrighted by Morris Publishing Group, LLC, as of the date of publication and in many cases by original content creators. For so long as your account remains active and in good standing, you are granted a nontransferable license to use, for personal, noncommercial use, content on Shorelines.com. You are not entitled to redistribute or republish content from Shorelines.com, or from any content provider herein, without the express, written permission of Morris Publishing Group, LLC or the original copyright holder.

Associated Press (AP) news, photos, graphics, video, audio and other multimedia material accessed through this service shall not be directly or indirectly reproduced, published, broadcast, sold, transferred, licensed, distributed in any manner or medium, used to prepare derivative works, or displayed publicly in any manner or medium now known or later developed. AP news material may not be stored in whole or in part in a computer except for personal and non-commercial use. AP will not be held liable for any delays, inaccuracies, errors or omissions in the AP Service or in any AP Material including without limitation any third party content and any of the advertisements in the AP Service or in the transmission or delivery of all or any part thereof or for any damages whatsoever.

You expressly agree that Morris Publishing Group, LLC shall bear no liability for delays, inaccuracies, errors and omissions or defamation for any content provided by any third party, including news services and Shorelines.com members, or for material on third-party sites to which Shorelines.com may be linked.

Becoming a member

To access some services and to contribute to the community conversation on Shorelines.com, you must first create an account and become a member. While membership grants certain privileges, it also carries with it many responsibilities.

You must provide and maintain accurate personal information in your account record. You may not impersonate anyone in either the private or public portions of your user profile. You may post information using only your own account, and you are responsible for anything posted under your identity, including defamatory material, illegal activity, and infringement of other people’s intellectual property rights. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and the secrecy of your password. You may not share your password with any third party.

Our use of your personally-identifying information is covered by the Privacy Policy. While Shorelines.com allows you to post content under a pseudonym or “screen name,” you are in no way anonymous.

While some parts of Shorelines.com are open to all, membership is available only to persons aged 13 years and over. Under no circumstances may persons under the age of 13 register for an account, and Shorelines.com explicitly does not solicit or accept personally identifying information from persons under the age of 13.

Posting content

When you contribute content to Shorelines.com, you may post only content that you created, that you own, or for which you otherwise possess express permission or licensing rights. By uploading or otherwise posting any content, you represent and warrant: (i) you own or otherwise have all necessary rights, including but not limited to copyrights, to the content you provide and the rights to use it in this medium as provided in this Terms of Service; (ii) all information you provide is true, accurate, current and complete, and does not violate these Terms of Service; and, (iii) the content will not defame, cause injury to, or harass, any person or entity.

You retain your ownership rights to material you post; however, by posting or uploading content such as text, images, audio and video works, you grant Shorelines.com, Morris Publishing Group, LLC, its related companies and licensees a world-wide, royalty-free, perpetual license to reproduce your content on Shorelines.com and in any other media now known or later developed, and to use your publicly disclosed identity and related information for online and offline purposes, including commercial uses.

Shorelines.com may remove content at any time for any reason or no reason and is in no way responsible for storage or continued availability of content. Shorelines.com is not required, and will not endeavor, to pre-screen or review content that is posted by users. Shorelines.com, however, reserves the right to do so in the future at its sole discretion. In cases where you post content as private or semi-private, including private messaging, Shorelines.com will not be responsible for ensuring the security of that private content and may divulge that content to government or private investigators at its sole discretion.

Notice of Copyright Infringement
If you are an owner of intellectual property who believes your intellectual property has been improperly posted or distributed via Shorelines.com, please notify us by sending a notice by U.S. Mail to TJ Weyer, Online Director, Florida Times-Union, P.O. Box 1949, Jacksonville, FL 32231. You should only send a written notice if you believe that your work has been used or copied in a manner that infringes your intellectual property rights and such infringement has occurred on Shorelines.com.

Trademarks
Content on Shorelines.com includes logotypes, trademarks and service marks (collectively “Marks”) owned by Shorelines.com, its parent company or affiliated, and Marks owned by other information providers and third parties. No Marks may be used in any manner unless approved in advance, in writing by Shorelines.com.

Conduct and Use

You agree not to post, email, or otherwise make available content:
0. that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, pornographic, libelous, or invasive of another's privacy, or harms minors in any way;
0. that harasses, degrades, intimidates or is hateful toward an individual or group of individuals on the basis of religion, gender, sexual orientation, race, ethnicity, age, or disability;
0. that purports to be from any person or entity, or falsely states or otherwise misrepresents your affiliation with a person or entity;
0. that includes personal or identifying information about another person without that person's explicit consent.
0. that is false, deceptive, misleading, deceitful, mis-informative, or constitutes "bait and switch";
0. that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights of any party, or content that you do not have a right to make available under any law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships.
0. that constitutes or contains "affiliate marketing," "link referral code," "junk mail," "spam," "chain letters," or "pyramid schemes.”
0. that constitutes or contains any form of advertising or solicitation if (1) posted in areas which are not designated for such purposes; or (2) emailed to Shorelines.com users who have requested not to be contacted about other services, products or commercial interests.
0. that advertises any illegal services or the sale of any items the sale of which is prohibited or restricted by applicable law;
0. that contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment;
0. that disrupts the normal flow of dialogue with an excessive number of messages (flooding attack) to the Service, or that otherwise negatively affects other users' ability to use the Service; or
0. that employs misleading email addresses, or forged headers or otherwise manipulated identifiers in order to disguise the origin of content transmitted through the Service.
Additionally, you agree not to:
0. contact anyone who has asked not to be contacted;
0. "stalk" or otherwise harass anyone;
0. collect personal data about other users for commercial or unlawful purposes;
0. use automated means, including scripts, spiders, robots, crawlers, data mining tools, or the like to download data from or upload data to Shorelines.com;
0. post irrelevant content, repeatedly post the same or similar content or otherwise impose an unreasonable or disproportionately large load on our infrastructure;
0. attempt to gain unauthorized access to Shorelines.com computer systems or any other user's computer systems, or engage in any activity that disrupts, diminishes the quality of, interferes with the performance of, or impairs the functionality of, Shorelines.com.

Termination of Account
Your account on Shorelines.com may be terminated at any time, with or without notice, for any violation of the foregoing terms, or any other legitimate, good-faith reason not enumerated above, in the sole discretion of Florida Times-Union. In the event your account is terminated, you agree that your sole recourse is to request reinstatement of your account and membership privileges by contacting Shorelines.com via: webmaster@Shorelines.com. You may not open alternate accounts.

Privacy

The Privacy Policy explains how we gather and use information from users, and is incorporated here by reference.

No Warranties
Shorelines.com AND ALL MATERIALS, INFORMATION AND SERVICES AVAILABLE THROUGH IT, ARE PROVIDED TO YOU “AS IS,” “WITH ALL FAULTS,” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” WE, OUR AFFILIATES, AGENTS AND LICENSORS CANNOT AND DO NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, CURRENTNESS, NONINFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE OF THE MATERIALS, INFORMATION AND SERVICES AVAILABLE THROUGH THE WEBSITE, NOR DO WE GUARANTEE THAT THE MATERIALS, INFORMATION OR SERVICES WILL BE ERROR-FREE, OR CONTINUOUSLY AVAILABLE, OR FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS.

Limitations on Our Liability
UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES SHALL Shorelines.com, OR OUR AFFILIATES, AGENTS OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANYONE ELSE FOR ANY DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF USE OF Shorelines.com OR ANY SERVICE AVAILABLE THROUGH THIS WEBSITE, INCLUDING, WITHOUT LIMITATION, LIABILITY FOR CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, INDIRECT, OR SIMILAR DAMAGES, EVEN IF WE ARE ADVISED BEFOREHAND OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. (BECAUSE SOME STATES DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OR LIMITATION OF CERTAIN CATEGORIES OF DAMAGES, THE ABOVE LIMITATION MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. IN SUCH STATES, OUR LIABILITY AND THE LIABILITY OF OUR AFFILIATES, AGENTS AND LICENSORS IS LIMITED TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY SUCH STATE LAW.) YOU AGREE THAT OUR LIABILITY AND THE LIABILITY OF OUR AFFILIATES, AGENTS AND LICENSORS, IF ANY, ARISING OUT OF ANY KIND OF LEGAL CLAIM IN ANY WAY CONNECTED TO THE SERVICE SHALL NOT EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR THE USE OF THE SERVICE.

International Users
Shorelines.com is controlled, operated and administered by its parent company from its offices within the United States. Shorelines.com makes no representation that materials or Content available through Shorelines.com are appropriate or available for use outside the United States and access to them from territories where their contents are illegal is prohibited. You may not use Shorelines.com or export the Content in violation of U.S. Export laws and regulations. If you access Shorelines.com from a location outside the United States, you are responsible for compliance with all local laws of your jurisdiction that may apply.

Any rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.
© 2006 Shorelines.com

This version of the Terms of Service is dated September 13, 2006