Legal Mumbo Jumbo / Disclaimer
Hey, many thanks for detouring to this page. It probably wasn’t on the top of your “To Do” list, but our lawyers made us include it and use a button on our home page to get you here.
Confession: at first, the Polyphonic.org Team thought the lawyers wouldn’t add much. But, after we read their page, we concluded that they knew what they were talking about, and it’s important. However, to make it digestible, we took the legalese and translated it into readable English. So do us both a favor and read the stuff on this page. It could prevent you from hearing from somebody’s lawyers.
Here’s the scoop:
With the help of its various editors, the Eastman School of Music (ESM) maintains this Polyphonic.orgsm Website so that people like you can use it for information useful to Polyphonic.org members and visitors, like education and entertainment. Go ahead and browse around all you like. You can even download stuff from the Site — but only for your non-commercial, personal use. If you do, though, don’t fool around with the copyright, trademark, and other notices that might be on any stuff. They’re there for good reason. And please don’t even think about distributing, changing, transmitting, re-posting, or doing anything else uncool with any of the stuff, including the text, images, audio, and video clips, for public or commercial purposes unless we’ve given you written permission. And, quite frankly, it’s not likely we will. The other thing to note is that if you visit the Polyphonic.org Website, you’re also legally obligated to (read: stuck with) the terms listed below and any other law or regulation that applies to this Site, the Internet, the Eastman School of Music, or the University of Rochester. You shouldn’t access or browse the Site if you have any problem with any of this, because once you start, there’s no turning back — you are bound by (read: stuck with) the terms. OK, ready for our Top Ten Rules for visiting and using the Site:
Just assume that everything on the Site is copyrighted unless we tell you it’s not. So, unless we say you can, you can’t use the stuff on this page or anywhere else on the Polyphonic.org Website without our written permission.
While we try to include accurate information and other stuff on the Site, we’re not promising you it’s accurate. In fact, we’re not promising you anything except that we think its material you might like or find useful. So if you use anything on the Site, you’re using it at your own risk. If you find anything that you think is inaccurate or not right, we’d be glad to talk to you about it, and you can email us at info@polyphonic.org or call us at 585.274.1113, but please note: we can’t assume any liability or responsibility for errors or omissions on the Polyphonic.org Website.
We and anybody else who helped us create, produce, or deliver any material on the Polyphonic.org Website are not liable for anything bad that might happen to you when you use it. In particular, the lawyers want you to know that our disclaimer includes “direct, incidental, consequential, indirect, or punitive damages arising out of your access to, or use of, the site. Without limiting the foregoing, everything on the site is provided to you ‘AS IS’ WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY LINK, EITHER EXPRESSED OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. Please note some places may not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you. Check your local laws for any restrictions or limitations regarding the exclusion of implied warranties.” Ugh! What a mouthful from the mouthpieces. We put all of that in quotes because we couldn’t figure out any other way to say it that the lawyers would accept. But here’s the bottom line — we’re not responsible if you’re browsing around and the Site damages you or your computer, e.g., infects it with a virus or other bad code. We sure hope that doesn’t happen, but we aren’t responsible if it does.
If you don’t want the world to know something, don’t post it anywhere on the Website or anyplace else. That’s because anything you disclose on the Site belongs to the University of Rochester (University) and the ESM if they want. That’s right – it’s ours. So we can do anything we want with the information and other material you post here, whether from your Web page or someone else’s. We can reproduce it, delete it, disclose it, transmit it, publish it, broadcast it, and post it someplace else. We can even send it to your mother (as soon as we find her address). Not only that, we can even use any ideas, concepts, know-how, or techniques you post any way we want to, assuming we can find a way and choose to do so.
Pictures of people, places, or things shown on the Polyphonic.org Website are either ESM’s, the University’s, or someone else’s property and used with their permission. No matter what, it’s definitely not your property. Neither you nor any of your friends can copy and distribute it unless we expressly say you can on this Site. And guess what — it’s not likely that we will say yes. So be careful. Unauthorized use may violate all sorts of obnoxious laws. Be smart; keep all downloaded information and other material to yourself.
There may also be a lot of trademarks, logos and service marks on the site, including ones such as Polyphonic.orgsm, the Eastman School of Music, University of Rochester, and those of various orchestras that other people own. You do not have any kind of license or right to use them. If you interfere with our or someone else’s ownership or use of their marks, the lawyers will probably go ballistic and may even become unpleasant. We’d advise avoiding that.
You’ll probably notice we’ve linked the Polyphonic.org Website to lots of others. That means we’re trying to be helpful. It doesn’t mean we’ve looked at all those sites, much less checked them out periodically to see what’s going on. So don’t blame us if some site you link to is bad or has stuff on it that offends you or your pets. Go ahead and link, but remember: you do it at your risk.
That brings us to what you do on this Website. While the University or the Polyphonic.org Team may occasionally review information and other material posted or linked to the Polyphonic.org Website, the ESM, the University, and the Team do not take any responsibility (and they assume no liability) for the content of those locations or for any mistakes, defamation, libel, slander, omissions, falsehoods, obscenity, pornography or profanity you might encounter when you visit such places on the Polyphonic.org Website. And please don’t post or transmit anything unlawful, threatening, libelous, defamatory, obscene, lewd, lascivious, filthy, indecent, scandalous, inflammatory, pornographic, nasty, mean or profane or any material that law-enforcement types may consider a criminal offense, get someone in court on a civil lawsuit, or for that matter violate any law — anywhere, anytime. When you boil it all down though, this rule isn’t that tough. Just think about what you’re posting and consider that what you might not find offensive could be very disturbing to someone else. So be considerate and treat people as if they’re all guests at a party. Just the way you’d like to be treated. We don’t think that’s too much to ask. And while the ESM, the University, and the Team respect privacy and academic freedom, they have no choice but to fully cooperate with any law-enforcement authorities or any court that asks who might have posted unauthorized or unwelcome information or other material on the Polyphonic.org Website or interfered with its operation.
We may change this page and anything else on the Polyphonic.org Website at any time; we don’t even need a reason. If we make any change, then you’re bound by (read: stuck with) those changes too, whenever you visit. Any new rule or change will be posted, but it’ll be effective immediately unless the posting says otherwise.
If this all sounds kind of mean and undiplomatic, we don’t mean to be. You should have seen what the lawyers gave to us in the first place. We had to remind them that human torture and sacrifice had been outlawed in the United States. We couldn’t tell if they looked disappointed.