Terms of use

Welcome to LivingLutheran.com. Please read these Terms of Use carefully before using, or submitting content in any form or medium for publication on LivingLutheran.com. By continuing to use this site or by submitting content for publication on LivingLutheran.com, you have entered into an agreement with the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America ® (ELCA) and have agreed to be bound by the terms set out below. If you violate any of the Terms your permission to contribute to this site automatically terminates. LivingLutheran.com is owned and operated by the ELCA.

Unless explicitly stated otherwise, any new features or functionality (including, without limitation, video and related projects) that augment or enhance LivingLutheran.com shall be subject to these Terms of Use.

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS CAREFULLY.

1. Definitions

As used in these Terms of Use:

• “Site” means the website — livinglutheran.com, www.elca.org/livinglutheran, livinglutheran.org and livinglutheran.net

• “We,” “Our,” “Us” and “ELCA” refer to the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America.®

2. Changes to these Terms

WE MAY AMEND THESE TERMS AT ANY TIME WITHOUT PRIOR NOTICE BY POSTING THE AMENDED TERMS ON LIVINGLUTHERAN.COM. USE OF THE SITE FOLLOWING ANY SUCH CHANGE CONSTITUTES YOUR AGREEMENT TO FOLLOW AND BE BOUND BY THE TERMS AS CHANGED. For this reason, you should review these Terms whenever you use the Site. If you do not agree to be bound by changes to the Terms of Use, you should not use the Site after the changes in question are published. These Terms were last revised on August 10, 2010.

3. Suspension of our Site or Termination of Your Use

We reserve the right to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, our Site (or any part thereof) with or without notice. You agree that LivingLutheran.com shall not be liable to you or any third party for any such modification, suspension or discontinuance of our Site. In addition, we reserve the right to terminate your access to our Site for any reason, and to take any other actions LivingLutheran.com, in its sole discretion, believes not to be in the interest of the ELCA and/or our users as a whole.

4. Use of ELCA Content and Intellectual Property Protection

4.1

Material on LivingLutheran.com, including but not limited to text, software, code, graphics, images, data, audio and video (collectively, the “Materials”), is owned by the ELCA or third-party licensors. The ELCA and/or third-party licensors retain all proprietary rights to the Materials, including all intellectual property rights associated therewith (e.g., copyrights, patents, trademarks, trade secrets and know-how — see www.elca.org/trademark for specific trademark information on the brandmark). Unless otherwise indicated on LivingLutheran.com, except for downloading one copy of the Materials for your personal, noncommercial use and/or printing copies of the Materials for such use, you may not sell, modify, reproduce, display, publicly perform, prepare derivative works based upon, distribute or otherwise use the Materials in any way without first obtaining the written permission of the ELCA. Requests for permission for uses not authorized by these Terms may be sent to:

Editorial Specialist / Communication Services
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
8765 West Higgins Road
Chicago, IL 60631

Or emailed to livinglutheran@elca.org.

4.2

You must retain all copyright, trademark and other proprietary notices contained in the original Materials on any copy you make of the Materials. You may not frame or utilize framing techniques to enclose all or any portion of the Site. You may not use any meta tags or any other similar hidden text utilizing the ELCA’s name or trademarks.

4.3

If you violate any of this Section 4, your permission to use the Materials and the Site automatically terminates.

5. User Postings

5.1

As a user of the Site, you are responsible for your own communications and are responsible for the consequences of any of your postings in the public areas of LivingLutheran.com. By submitting any material for posting to LivingLutheran.com, you automatically grant (or, if you are not the owner, you warrant that the owner of such material has expressly granted) the ELCA a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, nonexclusive and fully sub licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display and otherwise use such material (in whole or in part) worldwide and/or to incorporate it in other work in any form, media or technology now known or later developed.

5.2

We do not represent or guarantee the accuracy, completeness or reliability of any material posted on LivingLutheran.com nor do we endorse any opinions expressed on the Site. You may rely on material posted on the Site only at your own risk. We are not obligated to screen or monitor materials posted on this Site and you may not assume that posted materials are reviewed.

5.3

We may for any reason edit, refuse to post or remove without notice any materials posted by users. However, we have no obligation to edit, refuse to post or remove any material, including material that you may find objectionable or offensive or that violates these Terms of Use. If you become aware of any material that violates these Terms, you may e-mail such information to us at livinglutheran@elca.org. However, we do not guarantee that any action will be taken as a result of your contact. We reserve the right to expel any user and to prevent further access to the Site for any reason, including violation of these Terms or applicable law, or for no reason at all. However, we have no obligation to expel any user or to prevent further access to the Site.

6. Use Policies

You may not do any of the following while using the Site:

• interfere with or disrupt networks connected to the Site or violate the regulations, policies or procedures of such networks; attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Site, computer systems or networks connected to the Site, through password mining or any other means;

• interfere with another user’s use and enjoyment of the Site; upload any message, information, data, text, software, graphic files or other materials (“Content”) that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, libelous, that may be invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, homophobic, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable;

• upload Content that contains a virus, corrupted file, or other harmful component; impersonate any person or entity, including, but not limited to, ELCA personnel, or falsely state or otherwise misrepresent any affiliation with any person or entity, or upload any Content under a fictitious name; upload any Content that you do not have a right to upload under law or under contractual or fiduciary relationships (including but not limited to nondisclosure agreements);

• upload any information or grant permission to view information to any person in a manner that exceeds your contractual or other legal authority; upload any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, spam, chain letters, pyramid schemes, contests, surveys, or any other form of solicitation (commercial or non-commercial); intentionally or unintentionally violate, encourage or assist another to violate any law or regulation in connection with your use or another’s use of the Site; or upload any Content that violates or infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or any right, of whatever nature, of anyone.

7. Linking to LivingLutheran.com

You may provide a link on your site to LivingLutheran.com subject to the following requirements:

• You may not frame or alter the appearance or visual presentation of LivingLutheran.com.

• You may not state or imply that we endorse, sponsor or otherwise approve your Web site or any other sites, unless it is true and accurate. Links to LivingLutheran.com may not be used in a way that implies or suggests that we approve or endorse you, your Web site or your goods and services, unless it is true and accurate.

• Links may be text-based using the words: LivingLutheran.com or graphic-based using the ELCA Emblem (the “Licensed Marks”), subject to the terms and conditions for use of the ELCA brandmark.

• You may not use the Licensed Marks on any site that disparages us or any of our affiliates, or presents false information about us or any of our affiliates. You may not use the Licensed Marks as a predominant feature of your site. At a minimum, this means that the Licensed Marks must appear smaller than your Web page title and any of your marks or logos, they may not be displayed more prominently than other marks or logos on your page, and they should not appear at the top of the page, but rather at the bottom, along the sides or in some location less prominent than the top.

• You may not use the Licensed Marks in any manner that would adversely affect the name, reputation or goodwill of the ELCA, or use the Licensed Marks on any site that contains any content that is unlawful, harmful, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortuous, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, or libelous, that may be invasive of another’s privacy, hateful, racially, ethnically or otherwise objectionable.

• You may not use the Licensed Marks on any site that violates or infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or any right, of whatever nature, of anyone, or that violates or encourages or assists another to violate any law or regulation.

• We will have no responsibility or liability for any content appearing on your Web site. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the ELCA and its affiliates and their officers, directors, employees and agents, from and against any and all third-party claims, liability, actions, demands, costs or expenses (including, but not limited to, reasonable legal and accounting fees) arising from or relating to your Web site. We reserve the right to defend any such claim, and you agree to provide us with such reasonable cooperation as we may request.

• By linking, you acknowledge and agree that, other than as specifically set forth in these Terms of Use, all rights to the Licensed Marks and other ELCA marks and logos belong to the ELCA. In addition, you acknowledge the validity of the ELCA’s ownership in the Licensed Marks and other ELCA marks and logos and will not contest such ownership or the validity of any registrations of the ELCA relating to such marks and logos. You agree that use of the Licensed Marks shall inure to the benefit of the ELCA. If you happen to obtain any rights or goodwill in the Licensed Marks, you agree that all such rights and goodwill will automatically vest in the ELCA and you will take all actions necessary to effect such vesting.

You are prohibited from using the ELCA marks or logos or any names, marks or other materials in a manner that is likely to cause confusion with, dilute or damage the reputation or image of the ELCA.

• We reserve the right at any time and in our sole discretion to request that you remove all links or any particular link to LivingLutheran.com from your site.

Subject to these Terms and your compliance with the above requirements, the ELCA agrees to grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, royalty-free license to use the Licensed Marks solely for the purpose of establishing any link that is permitted hereunder. Except for the limited license to use the Licensed Marks set forth in this section, you may not use any of the ELCA’s trademarks or service marks or logos for any other reason without the express written permission of the ELCA. The ELCA may, at any time, in its sole discretion and without cause, terminate the license granted herein to use the Licensed Marks and your right to link to any pages on the Site. Upon our request, you agree to immediately remove all links to the Site and to cease using the Licensed Marks. Without limiting the foregoing, if you violate any of Section 6 and 7, your license to use the Licensed Marks and your right to link to any pages on the Site automatically terminates. Thereafter, any future links to the Site will require the express written permission of the ELCA.

8. Links to Third-Party Sites

LivingLutheran.com contains links to third-party Web sites. These links are provided solely for your convenience. They are not an endorsement by us of the contents of such third-party Web sites. We are not responsible for the content or practices of linked third-party sites. We do not make any representations or warranties about the content or accuracy of materials on such third-party Web sites or the practices of such sites. If you decide to access linked third-party Web sites, you do so at your own risk. You are encouraged to review the terms of use, privacy policy and other policies of any linked site, as the policies of the linked site may differ from those of this Site.

9. Submissions

You grant us certain rights when you submit content or when you link to our content or in any way use or copy our content.

9.1

Our Site (including all text, photographs, graphics, video and audio content contained on LivingLutheran.com) is protected by copyright as a collective work or compilation under the copyright laws of the United States and other countries, and we (subject to the rights of our licensors and licensees under applicable agreements, understandings and arrangements) have all rights therein. All individual articles, blogs, videos, content and other elements comprising our Site are also copyrighted works, and we (subject to the rights of our licensors and licensees, under applicable agreements, understandings and arrangements) have all rights therein. You must abide by all additional copyright notices or restrictions contained on our Site.

9.2

By posting or submitting content on or to LivingLutheran.com (regardless of the form or medium with respect to such content, whether text, videos, photographs, audio or otherwise), you are giving us, and our affiliates, agents and third-party contractors the right to display or publish such content on our Site and its affiliated publications (either in the form submitted or in the form of a derivative or adapted work), to store such content, and to distribute such content and use such content for promotional and marketing purposes. Without limiting the generality for the foregoing, with respect to any video submissions made by you to us, you understand and agree that (unless you and we agree otherwise in writing) we may, or may not permit users to, based solely on functionality provided and enabled by our Site, compile, re-edit, adapt or modify your video submission, or create derivative works therefrom, either on a stand-alone basis or in combination with other video submissions, and (unless you and we agree otherwise) you shall have not rights with respect thereto and we or our licensees shall be free to display and publish the same (as so compiled, re-edited, adapted, modified or derived) for any period.

9.3

You are solely responsible for your own submissions and the consequences of posting or publishing them. In connection with each of your submissions, you affirm, represent, and/or warrant that: a) you own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, and permissions to use and authorization to use all patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright or other proprietary rights in and to any and all such submissions to enable inclusion and use of such submissions in the manner contemplated by us and these Terms of Use; and b) you have the written consent, release, and/or permission of each and every identifiable individual person to enable inclusion and use of such submissions in the manner contemplated by us and these Terms of Use.

In furtherance of the foregoing, you agree that you will not: a) submit material that is copyrighted, protected by trade secret or otherwise subject to third party proprietary rights, including privacy and publicity rights, unless you are the owner of such rights or have permission from their rightful owner to post the material and to grant us all of the rights granted herein; b) publish falsehoods or misrepresentations that could damage us or any third party; c) submit material that is unlawful, obscene, defamatory, libelous, threatening, pornographic, harassing, hateful, racially or ethnically offensive, or encourages conduct that would be considered a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, violate any law, or is otherwise inappropriate; or d) post advertisements of solicitations of business. We reserve the right to remove or not publish submissions without prior notice. You understand that when you submit content in any form to LivingLutheran.com we may authorize such content to be distributed or syndicated to or published on other ELCA-branded environments.

10. Claims of Copyright Infringement

You have rights if you believe your copyright is being infringed. If you are a copyright owner or agent thereof and believe that any of our content infringes upon your copyright, please submit notice, pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512(C)) to our Copyright Agent with the following information: a) an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright; b) a description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed; c) the URL of the location(s) containing the material that you claim is infringing; d) your address, telephone number and e-mail addresses; e) a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and f) a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your Notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the copyright owner’s behalf.

Our Copyright Agent can be reached as follows:

Editorial Specialist / Communication Services
Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
8765 West Higgins Road
Chicago, IL 60631

While you may email to livinglutheran@elca.org this does not constitute an official notification.

Please note that attachments cannot be accepted at the e-mail address for security reasons. Accordingly, any notification of infringement submitted electronically with an attachment will not be received or processed.

11. Indemnification

You represent that you have full rights to submit materials to us for our use according to these Terms. You agree to defend, indemnify and hold harmless the ELCA and its affiliates and their officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any and all third-party claims, liability, actions, demands, costs or expenses (including, but not limited to, reasonable legal and accounting fees) arising from or relating to your use of LivingLutheran.com or the Materials, material that you post to LivingLutheran.com or otherwise provide to the ELCA, or your breach or violation of these Terms. The ELCA reserves the right to defend any such claim, and you agree to provide the ELCA with such reasonable cooperation as it may request.

12. Disclaimer of Warranties

12.1.

THE SITE, THE MATERIALS AND THE LICENSED MARKS ARE PROVIDED ON AN AS-IS, AS-AVAILABLE BASIS WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE ELCA, ITS AFFILIATES AND ITS SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE.

12.2.

You understand and agree that: a) we are not responsible for the timeliness, misdelivery, deletion or failure to store any information uploaded (or attempted to be uploaded) by you or any other user; b) we make no warranty as to the accuracy or completeness of the information and services provided or obtained through LivingLutheran.com or the results of your use of the Site; c) it is your responsibility to evaluate the accuracy, completeness and usefulness of all information obtained or provided through LivingLutheran.com; d) we may, in our sole discretion, modify, add or discontinue any aspect, content or feature of the Site; and e) the information on the Site may contain typographical errors or inaccuracies and may not be complete or current and, therefore, we reserve the right to correct any errors, inaccuracies or omissions and to change or update information at any time without prior notice.

12.3

You understand and agree that use of LivingLutheran.com and the Materials is at your sole risk, that any materials downloaded or otherwise obtained through the use of the Site is at your own discretion and risk and that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system or loss of data that results from the download of such materials. We make no warranty or representation as to the security of any information you transmit to us.


Information on the Site does not constitute legal, accounting or professional advice to anyone.

13. Limitation of Liability

IN NO EVENT SHALL THE ELCA, ITS AFFILIATES OR ITS SUPPLIERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, OR ANY DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, USE, DATA, GOODWILL OR OTHER INTANGIBLES) ARISING FROM OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH THESE TERMS, THE USE OF (OR THE INABILITY TO USE) THE LIVINGLUTHERAN.COM SITE OR THE MATERIALS, THE LICENSED MARKS, OR ANY INFORMATION, GOODS OR SERVICES OBTAINED ON OR FROM THE SITE, WHETHER BASED ON WARRANTY, CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, NEGLIGENCE), OR ANY OTHER LEGAL THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT THE ELCA IS ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

14. Privacy Notice

Be sure to check our Privacy Policy to understand our practices. The Privacy Policy is subject to these Terms of Use and is incorporated by reference herein.

15. Miscellaneous

15.1.

The LivingLutheran.com Site is based in the United States. Access to the Materials may not be legal by certain individuals or in certain countries. If you access the Site from outside the United States, you do so at your own risk and are responsible for compliance with the laws of your jurisdiction.

15.2.

These Terms of Use will be governed by the internal laws of the State of Illinois, without regard to its choice of law provisions. You agree that any action arising out of or relating to these Terms may be brought only in a court of competent jurisdiction in Cook County, Illinois, and you hereby consent to the jurisdiction, venue and convenience of such courts.

15.3

Headings in these Terms of Use are for convenience only and shall not be used to interpret or construe its provisions.

15.4

If any provision of these Terms of Use is found to be invalid, void or unenforceable by any court having competent jurisdiction, the remainder of these Terms of Use shall remain in full force and effect.

15.5

Any waiver of any provision of these Terms of Use will be effective only if it is in writing and signed by the ELCA. No waiver of any term of these Terms of Use shall be deemed a further or continuing waiver of such term or any other term.

15.6

Notices to the ELCA, other than as provided herein, should be sent to: Evangelical Lutheran Church in America
Attn: General Counsel
8765 West Higgins Road
Chicago, IL 60631