Terms of Service

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS OF USE CAREFULLY. BY ACCESSING OR USING THE SITE, YOU AGREE TO ABIDE BY AND BE BOUND BY THE TERMS DESCRIBED HEREIN AND BY ALL TERMS, POLICIES AND GUIDELINES INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE, AS WELL AS ANY ADDITIONAL TERMS AND RESTRICTIONS PRESENTED IN RELATION TO SPECIFIC CONTENT OR A SPECIFIC PRODUCT, SERVICE OR FEATURE (COLLECTIVELY, THE “SITE TERMS”). IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THESE TERMS, DO NOT USE THE SITE.

The Marginal Revolution University (“MRU”) website (“Site”) is run and operated by the Mercatus Center (“Mercatus”) (MRU and Mercatus shall collectively be referred to as “MRU,” “we,” “our” or “us”). MRU is committed to protecting your privacy. Please refer to the privacy policy below for information on how the Site collects, uses and discloses personal information.

Restrictions

For reasons of law, anyone under the age of 13 is prohibited from any use or access of the site. The content on the Site takes many forms and no third party content should be construed as moderated or approved or reviewed or endorsed by MRU. MRU is not liable in any way for content placed on the forums. The Site may contain links to third party websites or content that are not owned or controlled by MRU. MRU has no control over, and assumes no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third party websites. In addition, MRU will not and cannot censor or edit the content of any third-party site. By using the Site, you expressly relieve MRU from any and all liability arising from your use of any third-party website or content thereon. Accordingly, we encourage you to be aware when you link to third-party content and websites and to read the terms and conditions and privacy policies of such other websites.

Although MRU does not typically screen or monitor content posted by users to the Site, we reserve the right to remove any content.

All users agree to abide by all applicable laws. The laws of the State of Virginia will apply, excluding its conflicts of law provisions, and you recognize the courts of and located in Fairfax County as the relevant venue for disputes. Users agree not to use this Site for advocacy activities relating to political elections.

You may post comments, suggestions, questions, or other content to the Site so long as the content is not illegal, obscene, pornographic, threatening, defamatory, infringing of intellectual property rights or contain software viruses or commercial solicitations. MRU reserves the right (but have no obligation) to monitor, review, remove, or edit such content. MRU also reserves the right to take action to seek to prevent further use of the Site by individuals who violate this Terms of Use. MRU may take these actions without prior notification to you or any third party. MRU does not regularly review posted comments and makes no representations or warrantees concerning its suitability or veracity. If you read comments, you do so at your own risk.

If you do post comments on or otherwise send content to MRU, you grant us and our affiliates a nonexclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, and fully sub-licensable right to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, and display such content throughout the world in any media. You represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the rights to the content that you post that the content is accurate; that use of the content you supply does not violate this policy; and that you will indemnify MRU or its affiliates for all claims resulting from content you supply, including reasonable attorney fees. MRU takes no responsibility and assumes no liability for any content posted by you or any third party. You also represent and warrant that the content you have provided is legal in the United States and suitable for the general audience of the site. Copyrighted material, including, without limitation, software, graphics, text, photographs, sound, video and musical recordings, may not be placed on the Site without the express permission of the owner of the copyright in the material, or other legal entitlement to use the material.

You are solely responsible for all comments, suggestions, questions, or other content that you post on MRU, and MRU is not responsible for any visitor-generated posts. MRU does not endorse any opinion contained in any visitor-generated posts.

All spam and advertising is prohibited. “High-volume” means of accessing the Site, including but not limited to bots and spiders, are prohibited.

MRU shall not be held liable for any problems resulting from the violation of your terms of use.

The original content and material and information we have placed on or made available through the Site (“Original Material(s)”), including, but not limited to, code, images, text, layouts, arrangements, displays, illustrations, audio and video clips, HTML files and other content are the property of MRU (or those who have licensed to it) and are protected by copyright, patent and/or other intellectual property rights as specified by United States and foreign laws. Some of the third party material seen in the Original Materials are used pursuant to the fair use doctrine as stipulated in Section 107 of the Copyright Act and MRU grants no rights and makes no warranties with regard to such third party material. A separate licensing agreement applies to content and information posted by our users.

In consideration for your agreement to the terms and conditions contained here, MRU grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Site. All content posted by MRU either on the Site or through third party pages that host the materials has a CC BY-ND 4.0 license (“CC BY ND”) unless otherwise marked. You agree abide by the terms of the applicable license and are solely responsible for your reuse of material found on or made available through the Site (“Material(s)”), including providing proper attribution and obtaining the necessary clearances and licenses to use such Material. You should review the terms of the applicable license and/or disclaimers on the Material before you use the Material so you know what you can and cannot do. You may not otherwise copy, reproduce, retransmit, distribute, publish, commercially exploit or otherwise transfer any material, nor may you modify or create derivative works from the material, without our express permission.

MRU is not a law firm, does not provide legal advice and is not a substitute for a law firm. Sending us an email, accessing the Site and/or using any of the Material does not constitute legal advice or create an attorney-client relationship.

Any acknowledgement of credit you receive from us shall not be construed or presented as equivalent to academic credit at George Mason University or any other accredited educational institution, and it shall be treated as a purely personal acknowledgement. We shall not be liable for any misrepresentation you may make with regard to these matters.

You are not allowed to sell or commercially exploit any aspect of the Site without express permission of MRU.

We may ban or block anyone from the Site, with or without cause, at the sole discretion of MRU. We may alter material or the schedule at any time at our sole discretion.

The Site offers no warranties or guarantees and the material is presented “as is,” with no further guarantees. We also are not responsible for the practices of any Site we may link to.

Copyright Policy

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”) covers some questions of relevance, including what a notice of possible copyright violation must consist of.

1) DMCA TAKEDOWN NOTICES: Given the volume of Materials and nature of the Site, MRU cannot review each submission to ensure compliance with United States and global copyright laws. It is the policy of MRU to respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement in compliance with the DMCA. In particular, if you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof and believe that any Material infringes upon your copyrights, you may submit a notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) by providing our Copyright Agent with the following information in writing (see 17 U.S.C 512(c)(3) for further detail):

1. A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed;
2. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works at a single online site are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works at that site;
3. Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity and that is to be removed or access to which is to be disabled and information reasonably sufficient to permit MRU to locate the material;
4. Information reasonably sufficient to permit the MRU to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail;
5. A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
6. A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

b) The United States Copyright Office provides basic information, online, at https://www.copyright.gov/title17/92chap1.html#107, which can assist one in determining whether an exception or defense, such as fair use, may apply to the use of your copyrighted work.

c) MRU’s designated Copyright Agent to receive notifications of claimed infringement is: Marginal Revolution University, 3434 Washington Blvd., 4th Floor, Arlington, VA 22201. For clarity, only DMCA notices should go to the Copyright Agent; any other feedback, comments, requests for technical support, and other communications should be directed to MRU customer service through [email protected].

d) You acknowledge that if you fail to comply with all of the takedown notice requirements of this Section, your DMCA notice may not be valid. Upon proper service of a takedown notification as contemplated hereunder and in accordance with the DMCA. PLEASE NOTE THAT, IF YOU KNOWINGLY MISREPRESENT THAT ONLINE CONTENT IS INFRINGING, YOU MAY BE SUBJECT TO CIVIL PENALTIES. THESE PENALTIES MAY INCLUDE MONETARY DAMAGES, COURT COSTS, AND ATTORNEYS FEES INCURRED BY MERCATUS, BY ANY COPYRIGHT OWNER, OR BY ANY COPYRIGHT OWNER’S LICENSEE THAT IS INJURED BY A RESULT OF OUR RELYING UPON YOUR MISREPRESENTATION.

2) COUNTER-NOTIFICATION: RESTORATION OF MATERIAL. MRU will immediately remove any infringing content. If you have received a notice of material being takedown because of a copyright infringement claim, you may provide us with a counter-notification in an effort to have the material in question restored to the site. Said notification must be given in writing to our DMCA Agent and must contain substantially the following elements pursuant to 17 USC Section 512(g)(3):

1. Your physical or electronic signature;
2. Your name, address, and phone number;
3. Identification of the material and its location before it was removed;
4. A statement under penalty of perjury that the material was removed by mistake or misidentification;
5. Your consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court in the district where you live (if you are in the U.S.), or your consent to the jurisdiction of a federal court in the district where your service provider is located (if you are not in the U.S.); and
6. Your consent to accept service of process from the party who submitted the takedown notice.

3) MRU will terminate your access to the Site if you are determined to be a repeat violator of these Terms of Use. MRU also reserves the right to decide whether Material is appropriate and complies with these Terms of Use. MRU may remove such Material and/or terminate your access for material in violation of these Terms of Use at any time, without prior notice and at its sole discretion.

You agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless MRU from all claims, liabilities, expenses, and damages, including legal fees, which may result from your use of the Site, your abuse of the Terms of Use, or any violation of any law or third party rights, related to use of the Site.

Privacy Policy

Please reference the Mercatus Center’s privacy policy, located here: https://www.mercatus.org/mercatus-center-george-mason-university-privacy-policy
If you have any privacy-related questions or unresolved problems, you may contact us via [email protected].

Right of Modification

We reserve the right to change or modify these Terms of Use at our sole discretion at any time. Using the Site implies consent to these modifications, which shall be effective as of the time of announcement. We will take reasonable care to publicize any material modification to these terms of use.

Entire Agreement

These Terms of Use constitute the entire agreement between the parties relating to the subject matter herein. If any part of these Terms of Use is held to be unlawful, void, or unenforceable, that part will be deemed severable and shall not affect the validity and enforceability of the remaining provisions. Any failure by MRU to enforce strict performance of any of these Terms of Use will not be construed as a waiver of any right or remedy of MRU in respect of any existing or subsequent breach of these Terms of Use. You must not assign, transfer or otherwise deal with all or part of your rights or obligations under the Terms of Use without MRU’s written consent.

Effective as of December 14, 2018.

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