Terms of Use

1. Operator and Users
These Terms and Conditions of Use shall apply to the operator of TUM Community, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) (“Operator”), and the registered users (“Users”). Only TUM members who have an account with TUM’s central Campus Management System are authorized to access TUM Community. Members include students, doctoral and Habilitation candidates, alumni, visiting scholars, visiting students and employees.
2. Subject-matter of the Agreement
TUM Community is a free communication platform offered by the Technical University of Munich (“Operator”) at www.community.tum.de. TUM Community offers registered Users the opportunity to network, exchange information, and communicate through messages, groups and chats. Only Users who accept these Terms and Conditions of Use may use TUM Community.
3. Rights and Obligations of Users
3.1 Passwords for the TUM account must be kept strictly confidential. If Users have reason to believe that other persons have access to their password, they are obliged to change it immediately. Passwords may be changed in the personal profile section of TUMonline.

3.2 Users are responsible for all their activities on TUM Community. Users must refrain from publishing content and comments that would infringe upon third party rights (including, but not limited to, copyright and related rights).

The publication, transmission or dissemination of illegal content and/or comments, in particular abusive, insulting, discriminatory or pornographic content, content glorifying violence or any other immoral content is strictly prohibited. This also applies to content that can be accessed through links placed by Users. In addition, it is not permitted to use offensive content or other material or other content that is presumed illegal, whose illegality, however, cannot be established with certainty.

Illegal activities, content and/or comments include, but are not limited to:

  • content offending human dignity;
  • extremist religious or political content, racist content or content inciting hatred or glorifying war;
  • content harmful to minors;
  • depictions of and incitement to violence against people, institutions and animals;
  • conspiracy to commit offenses and terrorist acts;
  • offensive or defamatory content, irrespective of whether it concerns other Users, TUM employees or other persons or institutions;
  • undue harassment of other Users, in particular by sending spam emails [see § 7 of the Gesetz gegen den unlauteren Wettbewerb – UWG (The Act against Unfair Competition)];
  • posting photos and/or videos without the consent of the photographer and the people shown in the photos and/or videos;
  • using proprietary content (such as content protected by copyright, trademark rights, patent rights or industrial design or utility model rights) without authorization, or advertising, offering and/or selling of protected goods or services without authorization;
  • using TUM Community for commercial purposes. Any advertising through sending unsolicited content (spam) including chain letters, gambling, charity appeals, etc. is not permitted.

3.3 Any activities intending to impair or destroy the functionality of TUM Community, in particular activities likely to influence the physical or logical structure of the portal, are inadmissible and may result in civil proceedings and criminal prosecution.

3.4 Without consent, TUM Community data and content may, neither manually nor automatically, be retrieved, stored, processed, changed, transmitted, commercially used or otherwise misused for purposes of data acquisition. Any technical attacks intended to change, misuse, delete or otherwise damage data, in whole or in part, of individual Users are not permitted.

4. Operator’s Duties, Rights and Obligations
4.1 Operator provides the technical applications for TUM Community to serve as a platform for Users to contact other TUM members. However, Users of TUM Community have no right to claim that contacts will actually be established.

4.2 While Operator endeavours to ensure failure-free operation of the platform, there will be no warranty. Functionality of the platform may be subject to system availability or maintenance work. Users will not be entitled to damages.

5. Termination of the Account
Users may have their accounts deleted in their profile by using the Settings tab. This deletion will not be revocable. Additional details are set out in the Privacy statement at www.community.tum.de/datenschutz.
6. Liability
6.1 Operator provides the functions and content of TUM Community with the greatest possible care. Operator shall not be liable for their correctness, accuracy or freedom from defects.

6.2 Operator shall not be liable for content published by Users. Users warrant that the content they publish (including comments, user-generated content, pictures, and photos) may be used without infringing upon third party rights. Users shall indemnify Operator from any claims, including claims for damages, brought against TUM by other Users or third parties for infringement of their rights by content published by Users on TUM Community, misuse committed by Users, or for non-compliance with the above-mentioned obligations.

Users shall bear any reasonable costs incurred by Operator as a result of an infringement of third-party rights, including reasonable costs of legal defence. These obligations will not apply if the infringement is not attributable to User.

6.3 Despite careful content control, Operator accepts no liability for content on external links. The provider of the linked content shall be solely responsible for that content.

6.4 Users will be liable for any damage caused to TUM in accordance with the statutory regulations. 6.2 shall remain unaffected.

6.5 In the event of a breach of material contractual obligations (i.e. obligations that are essential for the proper performance of the Agreement, and compliance with which can, as a rule, be relied upon by the other Party), Operator, its statutory agents and persons employed to perform obligations on behalf of Operator, shall be liable for damage caused by intent and any negligence; however, in the event of slight negligence, liability shall be limited to the contract-typical, foreseeable damage.

In all other cases, Operator, its statutory agents and persons employed to perform obligations on behalf of Operator, shall be liable to each other only for damage caused by intent or gross negligence. In the event of gross negligence liability shall be limited to the amount of the agreement.

Any liability for indirect and consequential damage shall be excluded in the event of gross negligence.

The limitation of liability and/or exemption from liability provided for hereinabove shall neither apply in the event of injury to life, body, or health nor in the event of claims under the German Product Liability Act.

7. Continuous Development, Amendment of Terms and Conditions
Contents and functions of TUM Community are continually developed and improved. Operator will have the right to make amendments to these contents and functions provided that they are reasonably acceptable to Users. In this case the Terms and Conditions of Use will be amended and updated accordingly. Registered Users will be informed of these amendments. The current version is available at

https://www.community.tum.de/nutzungsbedingungen

for inspection and printing.

8. Termination of TUM Community
Subject to prior notice, Operator will have the right to terminate TUM Community. Termination will result in deletion of User content and blocking of access to the platform.
9. Copyright/Rights of Use
Copyright to User-generated content will remain with User. User may delete his or her content at any time. However, upon posting User-generated content, User will grant Operator the right to make the User-generated content permanently available on TUM Community. Operator will have the right to move User-generated content or delete it from the platform.
10. Miscellaneous
10.1 There are no oral collateral agreements. Should any provisions of these Terms and Conditions of Use be invalid, this will not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. Any invalid provision shall be replaced by a valid provision that comes as close as possible to the intended purpose of the invalid provision, with retroactive effect.

10.2 These Terms and Conditions of Use shall be subject exclusively to the law of the Federal Republic of Germany without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Venue shall be Munich, Federal Republic of Germany.

10.3 Only the German version of these Terms and Conditions of Use will be legally binding.

 

Stand: 6. März 2017