Updated: June 27, 2007---- QUICK TOPIC LINKS • TERMS OF SERVICE • STANDARDS • RESTRICTIONS • ADDITIONALLY • PARTICIPATION: BY COMPANIES, VARS, OUTSIDE COMMUNITIES, ETC. • COPYRIGHTS • PRIVACY POLICY • LEGAL STATEMENT Please be aware that we reserve the right to amend and/or modify our policies at any time. If such modification is made, we will post these changes for review. TERMS OF SERVICE Standards The guiding principle of discourse within Creative COW is maintaining a high signal-to-noise ratio: focusing discussion on solving specific problems related to software, hardware, and other issues surrounding professional media production -- and minimizing anything else. Our obligations to both individuals and companies participating in Creative COW include the vigorous protection of your products, services, brands and reputations. Accordingly, our primary task as the owners and management of Creative COW is providing an atmosphere conducive to generating: Peer-to-peer support for all professional production issues. A safe environment for students and other inexperienced individuals to enter discussions, whether presenting questions or answers. Civil disagreements and reasonable criticism toward any products and services (including those offered by Creative COW advertisers, sponsors and partners), and other dissenting opinions between individuals. Restrictions In order to protect the interests of Creative COW members, visitors, advertisers and its community as a whole, the following activities/actions are expressly forbidden. Their occurrence will flag such posts for hand review, and subject them to likely removal. Violation will always flag a post for manual review. Discriminatory language regarding, but not limited to, race, national origin, ethnicity, religion, gender, sexual orientation, age, mental or physical disability, military status or political viewpoint. URLs pointing to sites for warez and other software piracy, pornography, or encourage discrimination as defined above. Profanity. Other language deemed crude according to commonly accepted decency standards.  Abusive, derogatory, language, or any language designed to intimidate or harass. Nonsense words, including single words not intended to foster polite discourse related to professional production. Words such as "Thanks" are obviously and explicitly exempted from this restriction. Political speech deemed disruptive to professional-level discourse. These include discussions of candidates, campaigns, and issues such as gun control, abortion, capital punishment, political parties, and the political positions of individuals or companies. These topics are best served in sites dedicated to these topics, and there are many online to choose from. Ongoing arguments, insults, and other behavior toward individuals or companies that we deem to be inciting or encouraging personal attacks typically known as "flame wars." TinyURLs. While a valuable tool in many circumstances, we do not have the resources to individually verify the propriety of their target destinations. "Off-topic" posts, whether started as new threads or added to ongoing threads. A number of forums, including "The COWmedy Club Lounge" and "Platform Wars," are specifically provided for otherwise off-topic posting within these parameters Job solicitations and offerings are limited to the "Jobs Offered, Wanted" forum. Additionally: False identities used for the purpose of violating these terms are subject to public disclosure of true identities, at the discretion of site management. Impersonation of other members is never permitted. In order to ensure that new COW members understand and are willing to abide by these Terms, their posts will be individually moderated, and, if meeting the standards described here, made public as quickly as possible. Once a pattern of posting in keeping with these standards has been established, moderation is removed so that newer members can begin posting directly to the boards. Posts from accounts, of any duration, failing to meet these standards are subject to editing, moving, or removal. The ownership and management of Creative COW reserve the right to reinstate moderation of any accounts associated with those violations, or to close them altogether. Participation in Creative COW forums by other companies, websites, and online communities Creative COW welcomes the participation of any and all companies providing products and services to the professional production industry, without regard to their status as advertisers, sponsors, or participation in other partnerships. This welcome extends to all industry websites and online communities but in order for this welcome to work, there needs to be the understanding that a principle of at least an intent of reciprocity must be met. We actively solicit material that you create for your own purposes to be reposted at Creative COW, including tutorials, articles and reviews, whether presented in static or dynamic form. We strongly believe that our dramatically higher traffic and wider variety of promotional tools will result in far greater exposure for your information, and your company, website or online community. We reserve the right to decline any such submission for any reason. We reserve the right to edit any accepted material, offering the opportunity for your review and approval before posting at Creative COW. Any accepted material posted at Creative COW remains the sole property of the originating copyright holder. Creative COW explicitly makes no claims of ownership, exclusivity, or reprint rights except where specific agreements have been entered into. After acceptance, we will remove any material provided to us whenever requested by its owner, with no reason or explanation requested or required. We ask for a 30 day notice to facilitate their removal from our system. We will publicize all the material we accept in the same manner we use for publicizing material created directly by Creative COW and its members, including featuring in our newsletter and inclusion in our library. We will also explicitly identify the source of this material, and provide links back to the originating website as well as any other included links that meet the standards described in these Terms. All companies, websites, and online communities are subject to the restrictions in these Terms, with these additional expectations Companies may not attempt to explicitly solicit customers or potential customers from other companies.  In order for COW members to evaluate potential conflicts of interest, we require that all representatives of companies, websites, and other online communities to clearly identify themselves in any posts made. This also allows COW members and visitors to evaluate the safety and validity of external links. We expect that the participation of representatives of companies, websites and online communities will extend well beyond the presentation of only their own products and services. We also expect them to use their expertise to provide the same kinds of non-commercial, supportive professional discourse that we expect from individual COW members. Rather than always providing links to external websites, we appreciate the courtesy and the option of hosting the intended material at Creative COW, following the guidelines above. We will expedite posting it to provide timely access to its information. Where hosting this material at Creative COW is not possible or declined in favor of allowing an outside link, we require a reciprocal link pointing back to Creative COW. This principle of value-for-value exchange allows the COW to continue to grow and lend its vitality to future and other endeavors. As with posts from individuals, posts from corporate, website, or online community employees or representatives failing to meet these standards are subject to editing, moving, or removal. The ownership and management of Creative COW reserve the right to reinstate moderation of any accounts associated with violating these Terms, or to close them altogether. Copyrights and Ownership We vigorously protect all copyrights and copyright holders. The Creative COW expressly forbids posting copyrighted information anywhere in The Creative COW, unless permission has been expressly secured from the copyright holder. Any post made in The Creative COW is fully public, without restriction. Posters are free to publish the same information anywhere else they choose to. At the same time, The Creative COW reserves the right to include any public post in advertising, publicity, or other commercial or non-commercial material, without compensation to the author. All such reuse will be employed in keeping with the Terms here and their implied principles, and will never be used in a way that undermines the author's reputation. Any tutorials, reviews or other articles for which The Creative COW has paid will be its exclusive property. Unpaid tutorials, reviews or other articles will remain in The Creative COW library until the author requests its removal in writing, including via email, and will be removed within 30 days of receipt of request.Impersonation of other members is never permitted. Privacy Statement The Creative COW is deeply committed to protecting the privacy of its members and visitors. With the specific exceptions noted above, Creative COW members are free to provide or not provide any information about themselves in both posts and their public member profile. Email addresses will never be publicly disclosed except when false identities or impersonations are used for the purpose of violating these Terms. The Creative COW sets cookies for the sole purpose of preserving member choices, automatic log-in including name and email addresses, the preferred interface for reading posts, and member-selected display range (for example, showing only posts new that day, or new in the past month). We do NOT use cookies to track page views, duration at a page, or movement throughout the site in any manner. We do not use cookies to track sites previously visited. They do not contained any information of any sort that is visible to us or reported back to us at any time. The Creative COW does not sell its membership list or share it with any outside parties. If this should ever occur, then in accordance with all applicable Federal and State of California laws under which we operate, we will make it easy and immediate to remove yourself from any mailings resulting from this. We solicit sponsors to help support our many free services by sending out their advertising message from our site. We do not sell your names and we have not given the sponsor access to your information. The sponsored newsletter comes from our server, not their server. In accordance with all applicable Federal and State of California laws under which we operate, we make it easy and immediate to remove yourself from any such mailings. You may be requested or required to fill out a form in a road-show or conference/expo in which Creative COW is participating. This form is often not administered by or a function of Creative COW, but by a third party. Please be aware that we do not control these companies and their email policies. Our Legal Statement All information in Creative COW is offered without guarantee as to its accuracy and applicability in all circumstances. Please consult an attorney, business advisor, accountant or other professional to discuss your individual circumstances. Use of the information here is not intended to replace professional counsel. Use of this information is at your own risk and neither CreativeCOW.net, its officers, directors, leaders or members assume liability for its use. Any disputes, including with our characterization of posts or accounts violating these standards, or a desire to have membership in Creative COW reinstated after we have made these judgements, is welcome for discussion by contacting tim@creativecow.net. The decisions made by Creative COW and its management are otherwise at our discretion. Best regards, Tim Wilson CreativeCow.net ©2007 by CreativeCOW.net, all rights are reserved.