1.1. Definitions
The following definitions apply for the terms used in these Terms of Use:
Agreement: The agreement between IBFD and its client for the supply of the products and/or services, including but not limited to Licenses, orders and subscriptions.
Consumer: A natural person buying products and/or services from IBFD for personal and non-business use.
Content: All the content, including but not limited to data, text, files, graphs, charts, images, audio, video, displays and any other information in any medium or format, available on IBFD’s Websites.
Intellectual Property Rights: Patents, rights to inventions, copyright and related rights, trademarks, business names and domain names, rights in get-up, goodwill and the right to sue for passing off, rights in designs, database rights, rights to use, and protect the confidentiality of, confidential information (including know-how), and all other intellectual property rights, in each case whether registered or unregistered and including all applications and rights to apply for and be granted renewals or extensions of, and rights to claim priority from, such rights and all similar or equivalent rights or forms of protection which subsist or will subsist now or in the future in any part of the world.
License: A non-exclusive, non-transferable and non-sublicensable permission granted to the client and the client’s authorized users by IBFD to access, store and use its online or electronic products and/or services (including but not limited to online publications, e-books, pay-per-view documents, online courses), whether on a paid or free trial basis, pursuant to the Terms & Conditions, these Terms of Use and any other terms specified in the Agreement.
Terms & Conditions: IBFD’s General Terms and Conditions, which govern all Agreements between IBFD and its clients and is available on IBFD’s Websites.
User: Any visitor who accesses and uses IBFD’s Websites and Content.
Websites: The website www.ibfd.org as well as any subdomains of ibfd.org, which are owned and managed by IBFD.
1.2. Applicability
These Terms of Use apply to all uses of IBFD’s Websites and Content. IBFD may make changes to the Content and functionality provided on the Websites, or to these Terms of Use, or discontinue the Websites or (parts of) the Content, at any time and at its sole discretion.
By accessing or using the Websites or the Content, you accept all of IBFD’s terms and conditions, as outlined here and in IBFD’s Terms & Conditions. A User’s access to or use of the Websites or the Content may also be governed by a separate Agreement between IBFD and the User or the User’s employer or organization with which the User is associated. In the event of any inconsistency between the provisions of such Agreement and these Terms of Use, the provisions of the Agreement shall prevail.
In case of suspected misuse of IBFD’s Websites or Content, or suspected violations of these Terms of Use, IBFD has the right to limit, suspend or terminate the User’s access with immediate effect and without prior notice.
2.1. Access
IBFD will provide access to the Websites and the Content based on the licensed materials and for the specific IP address(es) and/or login credentials agreed upon in the Agreement. User names and passwords are personal and for the sole use of each named User and shall not be shared with, or passed on to, unauthorized persons.
2.2. Permitted use of the Content
2.2.1. General
You may use the Content that you have access to through your Agreement for professional purposes during the regular course of the business, academic or research activities of your employer or the organization you are associated with, in accordance with the stipulations in the Agreement.
You may print or download limited portions of the Content that you have access to through your Agreement for personal, non-commercial, informational or scholarly use and store a copy on a single device (e.g. a computer or mobile phone), provided that no changes are made to the Content and that no copyright, trademark or other proprietary notices are removed.
In case the User is a Consumer, the above activities may only be carried out for personal and non-commercial use.
2.2.2. Linking to the Websites and social media
You may provide and share links to IBFD’s Websites and to Content that is publicly available on IBFD’s Websites, and repost the Content on IBFD’s social media channels, without IBFD’s permission, provided that: (i) such activities are carried out in a lawful and fair manner; (ii) such activities do not damage IBFD’s reputation or in any way imply an association, endorsement or other type of affiliation between IBFD and any User or third-party website or social media account; and (iii) any of IBFD’s copyright, trademark or other proprietary notices present in the Content are not removed or obscured. In case IBFD notifies you of a suspected or alleged violation of these requirements, you will immediately stop sharing and remove any links made or posted.
Note that IBFD reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to disable, discontinue or cease making publicly available (parts of) the Websites or Content, which may cause such links to break.
2.3. Prohibited activities
2.3.1. General
The Websites and the Content, in whole or in part, may not be copied, displayed, distributed, modified, reproduced, published, shared, transmitted, sold, lent, licensed, translated or stored, including, but not limited to, co-branding, framing, hyperlinking and the creation of derivative works (including by means of Artificial Intelligence), except as expressly permitted under these Terms of Use or in the User’s Agreement. No part of the Websites, including but not limited to their code, Content and design, may be mirrored, impersonated or pirated in any way.
Streaming Content, including, but not limited to, courses, seminars and events, whether live or recorded, may not be copied, captured, reproduced, framed, recorded, hyperlinked, downloaded, uploaded to other websites or storage systems, transmitted to any unauthorized persons, or distributed, in part or in whole, in any way, without the express written permission of IBFD.
You may not engage in the systematic retrieval of Content in order to create or compile a collection, database or directory, or archive downloaded copies of the Content in any database, platform, system, application or other type of information repository, without the express written permission of IBFD.
You may not attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part of the Websites or the Content, or attempt to circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with any security-related features of the Websites or the Content, or features that prevent or restrict the use or copying of the Content. Except to the extent permitted under applicable law, you may not deconstruct, disassemble or reverse engineer the Websites or any part of the Content, or attempt to obtain the source code of the software components of the Websites or the Content, without the express written permission of IBFD.
You may not use, or permit any third party to use, the Websites or the Content (including downloaded or copied Content) in any manner that, in IBFD’s reasonable judgment, could result in the Websites or the Content being used in such a way that it: (i) becomes a substitute of the License granted by IBFD; (ii) unfairly competes with IBFD’s business or adversely affects IBFD’s ability to generate revenue with the Websites or the Content; (iii) adversely affects IBFD’s products and services provided through the Websites, including, but not limited to, the proper functioning of the Websites and the speed of delivery of the Content; or (iv) solicits the performance of any activity that is prohibited by law.
After termination of the Agreement, you may no longer use the Content, including any previously downloaded copies thereof, for commercial gain.
2.3.2. Artificial Intelligence, machine learning and Big Data activities
You may not upload (parts of) the Content into any third-party applications, software, bots or websites, including those using Artificial Intelligence technologies such as Large Language Models and generative AI, or use any Artificial Intelligence technologies on the Websites or the Content, without the express written permission of IBFD.
You may not use the Websites or the Content in combination with any Artificial Intelligence tools (for example, to train an algorithm, to perform a test, to process, analyze or generate output, or to develop an Artificial Intelligence tool). You may not use any means, manual or automated (for example, robots, spiders, scrapers, crawlers, algorithms or devices), to: (i) continuously and automatically search, scrape, extract, deep link or index any Content; (ii) harvest personal information for the purpose of sending unsolicited or unauthorized material, including advertising and promotional material; or (iii) cause disruption to the functioning of the Websites or the Content or to any other person’s use of the Websites or the Content.
2.3.3. Text and data mining
It is not permitted by any possible means, whether manual or automated (for example, using tools such as software applications, robots, spiders, scrapers or crawlers, or technologies such as Natural Language Processing, advanced analytical techniques or deep learning algorithms), to reproduce, multiply, extract, retrieve, download on a large scale, or otherwise process any of the text and/or data contained in IBFD’s Websites and Content for text and data mining purposes, without the express written permission of IBFD, unless the following conditions are met: (i) such activities are carried out solely for the purpose of scientific research, by a non-profit research institute or cultural heritage organization; (ii) such non-profit research institute or cultural heritage organization has lawful access to the Websites and to the Content on which these mining activities are performed, by means of an Agreement; (iii) any reproductions made for the purpose of text and/or data mining are stored with an appropriate level of security; and (iv) such activities are carried out within reasonable bounds and are relevant to the achievement of the research purpose.
3.1. Copyright and trademarks
Unless indicated otherwise, the Websites, Content and any products derived or compiled from the Content, including but not limited to text, logos, graphics, video, audio, applications, interfaces, coding, design, arrangement and “look and feel”, are owned solely by IBFD and protected under copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws and unfair competition laws.
Copyrighted material is marked with a copyright notice (“© IBFD”); however, the absence of such a notice does not indicate the absence of copyright. Official documents included in IBFD’s collections, such as legal decisions, treaties and legislation, are free of copyright. Documents prepared by IBFD itself, such as unofficial translations of treaty documents, are copyrighted by IBFD.
Whenever third-party copyrights are vested in publications included in IBFD’s collections, IBFD has been granted permission by the rightful copyright owners to include this copyrighted material on its Websites and in its Content. IBFD has cleared all Intellectual Property Rights to its best endeavours and with utmost accuracy. Should you have a legitimate reason to claim copyright to any part of the Content on its Websites, please contact us.
3.2. Digital Rights Management (DRM)
IBFD’s publications are protected by “Social DRM”. Each unique file contains both visible and invisible watermarks, which allow IBFD to monitor the number of times it is accessed or downloaded.
Official documents pertaining to legal decisions, treaties and legislation are not provided with Social DRM protection.
4.1. Disclaimer
The information on the Websites and in the Content is provided solely for informational purposes, and is not intended to render any accounting, advisory, auditing, consulting, legal, tax or other professional service or advice.
The Websites and Content have been carefully compiled by IBFD and its Content contributors, but no representation is made, or warranty given (either express or implied), as to the completeness or accuracy of the information it contains, non-infringement, merchantability and fitness for a particular purpose. IBFD disclaims any and all liability for the acts, omissions and conduct of any third party in reliance upon the information provided on IBFD’s Websites or in its Content, and of any consequences thereof.
The Websites and the Content may contain links to third-party websites. These websites are not under the control of IBFD, nor is IBFD responsible for the contents of any external site, or for any content on any downstream websites, or for the terms of use or privacy policies of such sites, or for any changes or updates to such sites. IBFD provides these links to you only as a convenience, and the inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement by IBFD of the site or its contents.
4.2. Limitation of liability
IBFD, its affiliates, agents or suppliers are not liable to any person for any direct, indirect, consequential or other damages (including, but not limited to, any lost profits, loss of information or other data) that arise from the use of, or inability to use, the Content on the Websites or on any linked website.
IBFD can be held liable for damages that are the result of an intentional act (opzet) or gross negligence (grove schuld) on the part of IBFD. In no event shall IBFD’s total liability exceed the price of the ordered product or the license fees paid in the preceding 12 (twelve) months.
These Terms of Use are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the Netherlands. Any dispute that cannot be reconciled by discussion between IBFD and the User shall be submitted to the exclusive jurisdiction of the District Court in Amsterdam, the Netherlands.
If you have any questions or remarks regarding these Terms of Use or any related subject, please contact us at legal@ibfd.org.