Terms of Use | Brownstoner

PLEASE READ THE FOLLOWING TERMS OF USE CAREFULLY. These Terms of Use (this “Agreement”) govern the use of the Brownstoner website at https://www.brownstoner.com (the “Site”). The Site is operated and maintained by Brownstoner LLC. (“Brownstoner”, “we”, “us” or “our”). This Agreement incorporates by reference the terms of our Privacy Policy, which may be found at https://www.brownstoner.com/privacy-policy/.

Your use of the Site constitutes your agreement to the terms of this Agreement (including, without limitation, the terms of our Privacy Policy, as well as to all applicable laws. Brownstoner offers access to and the use of the Site only to those persons who accept all of the terms and conditions in this Agreement. If you do not accept all of these terms and conditions, you may not use the Site.
Brownstoner reserves the right, in its sole discretion and for any or no reason, to modify this Agreement from time to time by posting a revised version, together with the date of such posting at the bottom of the page. All such changes will be effective immediately upon posting, and each time you use the Site, you agree anew to the terms of this Agreement. Therefore, please review this Agreement regularly. If at any time all of the terms of this Agreement are not acceptable to you, please do not use the Site.

Be Careful; Use At Your Own Risk

You agree that you will use the Site at your own risk. We developed, operate and provide access to the Site for the benefit of people who are interested in Brooklyn real estate, renovation and community news. We cannot and do not guarantee that every member of our community is honorable, honest or all (or who) they claim to be, and we do not vet user posts or advertising for accuracy or compliance with law. In every transaction arising from your use of this Site, please use common sense. We take no responsibility for policing the Site to keep users safe from each other; however, we will respond promptly to complaints of bullying, harassment, ad hominem attacks, defamation, misleading or false information and the like on the Site. (Send comments and complaints to brownstoner@brownstoner.com.) Lastly, we cannot be sure that our users are who they say they are, and neither can you. Again, please use common sense and proceed with caution if you answer an ad you have seen on the Site or arrange to meet in person a fellow user or users you do not know.

Purpose

The site’s purpose is to report and comment on Brooklyn real estate and the many tangential topics that affect it, including (but not limited to) home renovation, historic preservation and the evolving nature of the borough’s streets and infrastructure.

The Site is not intended to:

give you a forum to promote shady business deals or pyramid schemes or to otherwise trick our members, under false pretenses, into parting with their cash or property; or
permit anonymous access to a bullhorn to shout lies or spread rumors about anyone. If you have a legitimate grievance with a person or company that does business in Brooklyn, you may voice your opinion on our Forum but you may not defame anyone or engage in the online equivalent of a street brawl. Please keep your contributions to the Site clean, honest and fair.

Eligibility

Use of the Site is void where prohibited. The Site is intended solely for persons who are 18 years of age or older. Any registration by, use of or access to the Site by anyone under 18 years old is unauthorized, unlicensed and in violation of this Agreement. By visiting the Site, you agree to all of the terms and conditions of this Agreement.

Registration

You will not have access to the full functionality of the Site until you have registered to become a Site user (a “User”). The information you provide will be subject to our Privacy Policy https://www.brownstoner.com/privacy-policy/. Individuals [and groups] may register, but each may do so only once. When you register, you must give your real name and contact information. This rule is designed to maintain the safety of the members of our community. If we discover that you have provided false information with the intent to mislead us or any of our members, your account will be immediately terminated.

Forum; User Content

You may upload text and images to certain portions of the site, by contributing comments on the Home Page, posting questions and comments on the Answers section or placing a Classified ad or listing (collectively, “User Content”). You agree that the User Content you upload (or authorize others to upload on your behalf) to the Site will not be illegal, obscene, threatening, defamatory, invasive of privacy, infringing of intellectual property rights, or otherwise injurious or objectionable to third parties, and will not consist of or contain software viruses, political campaigning, commercial solicitation (except with respect to your paid advertising on the Site), chain letters, mass mailings, or any form of “spam”. In your social and business transactions with us and other Users, you may not impersonate any person or entity, or otherwise mislead as to the origin of yourself or any User Content you may post. We do not systematically review User Content for conformity with this Agreement, but we reserve the right (but do not have any obligation) to review and remove or edit any User Content at our sole discretion.

You may not directly delete your User Content from the Site. However, we may take down your Forum posts upon request. That said, we recommend caution before you post. Please do not post Content that is not in compliance with this Agreement or that might embarrass you or otherwise expose you or others to unwanted attention. Please note that we will retain copies of Content that we have removed from the Site among other data backed up during regular maintenance of the Site.

The Forum; Classifieds; Community Standards

The Site is here for our Users. Because we want to encourage lively discussion and healthy debate, we allow Users to comment and post questions on our Forum [Forum]. People with expertise (professionals or amateurs) are encouraged to respond to general reader questions or to specific negative reviews, but may not post advertisements or otherwise use the Forum as a promotional tool. Forum may not be used for real estate listings or notices of events.

If you wish to promote products or services that would be of interest to our community, please use our Classifieds section.

As noted above, you agree to take responsibility for all of the information, opinions and other Content contained in any questions or comments that you post. Brownstoner will not be responsible for any information or opinions posted by Users.

In order to maintain an environment conducive to constructive discussion and debate, as well as to the safety of our Users, please adhere to the following community guidelines while on the Site:

Please do not:

bully, intimidate or harass any User;
post Content that is hateful, threatening or pornographic; unlawful, misleading, malicious, defamatory or discriminatory; or that incites violence;
post Content as true that you know or believe to be false;
pretend to be someone else;
upload viruses, worms or other malicious code, or otherwise attempt to disable, overburden, or impair the proper working of the Site.

License; Rights

By uploading User Content to the Site, you grant to Brownstoner and its sublicensees, assigns and successors a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and sublicensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world on and in connection with the Site via the Internet and/or other media now known or hereafter developed. This is the permission you give to us and to the companies that help us design and operate the Site, as well as to any company that may buy the Site or that we may become in the future, to use your User Content as part of the Site, whether the Site is accessible through the Internet or through another medium that is not yet established or may not yet exist. You have not granted us the right, for example, to publish your posts in a book. We cannot do this without obtaining your permission in each instance.

You agree to permit Users to copy and use your User Content for their own personal, noncommercial use.

Lastly, by uploading User Content, you agree that the following statements are and will remain true while the User Content is on the Site:

you own or license rights in and to your User Content sufficient to permit you to legally post or upload it to the Site and to license to Brownstoner the rights granted under this Agreement; and
neither your User Content nor our use of it as provided in this Agreement breaches or will breach any of the terms of this Agreement, violates or will violate any applicable law or will cause injury to any person or entity.

Ownership and License of Intellectual Property

All words, images, graphics, code and software, photographs, audio and video clips, scripts, links, interactive features and other material used on or incorporated into the Site (collectively, the “Content”), and the arrangement or integration of all such Content, is the protected property of Brownstoner, is licensed to Brownstoner by third parties (including by you), or is used pursuant to applicable copyright law. It is best to assume that all material on or accessible through the Site is protected by copyright, trademark or other intellectual property law. Please do not use Content except as expressly permitted in this Agreement or by separate agreement with the Content owner.

Brownstoner owns all right, title and interest (including worldwide copyright) in and to the Site and any compilation, collective work or other derivative work created by Brownstoner using or incorporating User Content. We grant you a limited license to access the Site and to copy Content for your own personal, noncommercial use. (For example, you may copy the information from one or more real estate listings for your personal use, but you may not redistribute this information or these listings on your own or someone else’s website.) You agree to comply with any copyright or trademark notices and other restrictions contained in any Content available on or accessed through the Site. Other than as expressly set forth in this Agreement or without our prior written approval, you may not, directly or indirectly:

copy, download, modify, publish, transmit, transfer or sell, reproduce, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit any of the Content, in whole or in part; or
use any of the trademarks, trade names or logos that appear on the Site; or
make commercial or other unauthorized use by publication, re-transmission, distribution, performance, caching, or otherwise, of material obtained through the Site, including, without limitation, the Content; or
delete or alter any Content; or
post, upload, transmit or submit any unsolicited advertising, promotional materials, junk mail, spam, chain letters, or other solicitations; or
disrupt, overwhelm, attack, modify, reverse engineer or interfere with the Site or its associated software, hardware and/or servers in any way; or
use automated means, such as scrapers, bots or spiders, to collect Content; or
run or advertise for lotteries, sweepstakes, giveaways or contests; or
impede or interfere with others’ use of the Site.

Third Party Content and Websites; Products and Services; No Endorsement

Brownstoner respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask that Users do the same. The Site may contain references and links to websites that are owned and operated by our advertisers and other third parties. We have no control over, do not endorse and do not make any representations or warranties with respect to any third party sites you may learn about or access via the Site or to any content you may find or access there. Material available on or through third party sites may be protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws of the United States and other countries. The terms of use of those websites, and not the terms of use set forth in this Agreement, govern your use of that material.

If we incorporate information from third party sources into the Site, we will make all reasonable efforts to follow fair use conventions, including giving credit to the source of the information and providing links, when available, to the third party source from which the information was gathered.

The Site may provide links to, and may feature, mention, describe or advertise, certain products and services that may be of interest to you. However, unless we expressly state otherwise, we do not recommend, certify or endorse these or any other products or services in any way, and we are not responsible for the contents of, or any products or services offered on, any third party sites. If you have questions about any product or service you learn about on our Site, please go to the source – namely, the vendor or manufacturer – for additional information.

Affiliate Links

The Site contains affiliate links from Amazon and other companies. By purchasing through these links Brownstoner may earn a small commission, however you pay the same price for the item (it does not increase).

Amazon Affiliate Disclaimer

Brownstoner is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to amazon.com.

Notice for Claims of Intellectual Property Violations and Agent for Notice

If you believe in good faith that any material on our Site infringes your copyright, you (or your agent) may send us a notice requesting that we remove or block access to the infringing material. Your notice to us must include the following information:

an electronic or physical signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
identification of the copyrighted work or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed upon;
a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Site, with sufficient detail that we may find it on the Site;
your address, telephone number, and email address;
a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright or intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law;
information, if possible, sufficient to permit Brownstoner to notify the owner/ administrator of the allegedly infringing content; and
a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner’s behalf.

If you believe in good faith that someone has wrongfully filed a notice of copyright infringement against you, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) permits you to send us a counter-notice. Notices and counter-notices must meet the then current statutory requirements imposed by the DMCA (see www.loc.gov/copyright). Notices and counter-notices should be sent to our Copyright Agent:

By mail:

Brownstoner LLC.
One Metrotech Center North, 3rd Floor
Brooklyn, NY 11201
Attn: Copyright Agent

By email:

brownstoner@brownstoner.com

Please note that, due to security concerns, attachments cannot be accepted. Accordingly, any notification of infringement submitted electronically with an attachment will not be received or processed.

Privacy

Your use of our site is subject to our Privacy Policy, which may be found at https://www.brownstoner.com/privacy-policy/. By using the Site, you agree that you have read our Privacy Policy, that it is reasonable and acceptable to you, and that you agree to its terms.

RSS Feed

We provide Content through an RSS feed. Please be aware that Content, however we may transmit it or you may receive it, is subject to this Agreement. Without limiting the foregoing, Content is provided solely for your personal use. You may not sell, lease, sub-license redistribute, re-purpose or otherwise use our RSS feed for any commercial purpose, with or without compensation, without our express written consent in each instance. By using our RSS feed, you acknowledge that you understand and agree to be bound by this Agreement.

Email List

We have created an e-mail list of Users who will receive information from us from time to time, such as announcements of any new features, products or services on or available through the Site or our affiliates. You will have the opportunity to opt out of this service both when you register to become a User and each time you receive email sent to the members of our e-mail list. We will not submit your personal information to direct marketers and will use your information only as described in this Agreement and in the Privacy Policy.

Disclaimer of Warranties; Limitation of Liability

THE SITE AND ALL INFORMATION, CONTENT, MATERIALS, PRODUCTS (INCLUDING SOFTWARE) AND SERVICES INCLUDED ON OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE TO YOU IN CONNECTION WITH THE SITE ARE PROVIDED BY US ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. WE MAKE NO REPRESENTATIONS OR WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, AS TO THE OPERATION OF THE SITE, OR THE INFORMATION, CONTENT, MATERIALS, PRODUCTS (INCLUDING SOFTWARE) OR SERVICES INCLUDED ON OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE TO YOU THROUGH THE SITE. YOU EXPRESSLY AGREE THAT YOUR USE OF THE SITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK.

TO THE FULL EXTENT PERMISSIBLE BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. IN ADDITION, WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE, INFORMATION, CONTENT, MATERIALS, PRODUCTS (INCLUDING SOFTWARE) OR SERVICES INCLUDED ON OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE TO YOU VIA THE SITE, OUR SERVERS, OR E-MAIL SENT FROM US IS FREE OF VIRUSES OR OTHER HARMFUL COMPONENTS. WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DAMAGES OF ANY KIND ARISING FROM THE USE OF THE SITE OR FROM ANY INFORMATION, CONTENT, MATERIALS, PRODUCTS (INCLUDING SOFTWARE) OR SERVICES INCLUDED ON OR OTHERWISE MADE AVAILABLE TO YOU THROUGH THE SITE, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE, AND CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. YOU HEREBY RELEASE Brownstoner, OUR DIRECTORS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES AND AGENTS (THE “RELEASED PARTIES”) FROM ANY AND ALL CLAIMS AND DAMAGES, WHETHER KNOWN OR UNKNOWN, ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED TO YOUR OR ANYONE ELSE’S USE OF THE SITE OR ANY ACT OR OMISSION OF ANY RELEASED PARTY. IF YOU ARE A CALIFORNIA RESIDENT, YOU HEREBY WAIVE CALIFORNIA CIVIL CODE §1542, WHICH STATES AS FOLLOWS: “A GENERAL RELEASE DOES NOT EXTEND TO CLAIMS WHICH THE CREDITOR DOES NOT KNOW OR SUSPECT TO EXIST IN HIS FAVOR AT THE TIME OF EXECUTING THE RELEASE, WHICH IF KNOWN BY HIM MUST HAVE MATERIALLY AFFECTED HIS SETTLEMENT WITH THE DEBTOR.”

Indemnification

You will indemnify, hold harmless and, at Brownstoner’s option, defend Brownstoner and its parent and affiliates and each of their respective officers, employees, agents, licensees, successors, and assigns from and against any claim, cause of action or demand, including without limitation reasonable legal and accounting fees, by any third party as a result of your breach of any term of this Agreement, your violation of any law or the rights of a third party, or your use of the Site.

No Unlawful or Prohibited Use

As a condition of your use of the Site, you warrant that you will not use the Site for any purpose that is prohibited by any applicable law or regulation or by these Terms of Use, as they may be amended from time to time.

Termination

We reserve the right, in our sole discretion, to restrict, suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Site at any time, for any or no reason, without prior notice or liability. If your access has been terminated, do not attempt to rejoin the community using a false name or contact information. We may change, suspend or discontinue all or any aspect of the Site at any time, including the availability of any feature, database, or content, without prior notice or liability.

Applicable Law; Disputes

By visiting the Site, you agree that the laws of the State of New York, without regard to the principles of conflict of laws, will govern the terms of this Agreement and any dispute that may arise between you and Brownstoner. Any such dispute may be heard only in the federal and state courts in the County of Kings, State of New York, and you hereby submit to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of such courts.

Headings

The section headings in this Agreement are for convenience only and shall not affect in any way the interpretation or understanding of this Agreement or any of the terms and conditions herein.

Severability

If any term or provision of this Agreement is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining portions will continue to be valid and will be performed, construed, and enforced to the fullest extent permitted by law, and the invalid or unenforceable term will be deemed amended and limited in accordance with the intent of the parties, as determined from the face of the Agreement, to the extent necessary to permit the maximum enforceability or validation of the term or provision.

No Waiver

No waiver (in whole or in part, express or implied) of any right or remedy provided for in this Agreement shall be understood to waive any other right or remedy. No delay or failure by Brownstoner to exercise any right or remedy shall operate as a waiver thereof.

Modification of these Terms of Use

Brownstoner reserves the right to change the terms, conditions, and notices under which the Site is offered and you agree to accept and be bound by those terms, conditions, and notices that are in effect at the time of your use of the Site.

If you have questions about this Agreement, wish to report any violations of these Terms of Use, or wish to obtain permission to use Content other than as expressly permitted in this Agreement, please contact us at brownstoner@brownstoner.com .

Last updated as of April 20, 2016

NEIGHBORHOODS