Terms of Use

Materials Cloud Terms of Use v1.2, August 2018

1. Scope

These Terms of Use are a legally binding agreement among EPFL and you and shall apply to your use of the Materials Cloud services.

2. Definitions

  1. “Materials Cloud” means a web platform aiming at disseminating scientific research results in an open science framework, mainly in the field of physics, chemistry and materials science, as well as cloud services to compute materials properties.
  2. “EPFL” means Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, a Swiss public university, which is operating the Services in its quality as the Leading House of the MARVEL NCCR.
  3. “Terms of Use” mean the provisions contained in the present document and any documents referenced in the present document as well as other operating rules and policies that Materials Cloud may publish from time to time on Materials Cloud Website.
  4. The “Services” means the applications, software and services provided by EPFL through Materials Cloud.
  5. The “Website” means Materials Cloud's website located on materialscloud.org web pages, and all content and Services provided by Materials Cloud at or through the Website.
  6. “The User” means the individual person, company, or organization that has visited or is using the Website or Services; that accesses or uses any part of the account; or that directs the use of the account in the performance of its functions.
  7. “You” or “your” refer to the User.
  8. “Content” means content featured or displayed through the Website, including without limitation text, data, articles, images, photographs, graphics, software, applications, designs, features, and other materials that are available on the Website or otherwise available through the Services. “Content” also includes Services. “User-Uploaded Content” is Content, written or otherwise, created and/or uploaded by Users (including in any private repositories). “Your Content” is Content that you own.
  9. Third Party's Content means any content, including any data, code, parameters, workflow, methods, research results, you did not obtain or create yourself and/or of which you are not the owner or not the sole owner.

3. Accounts

3.1 Signup Process

In order to be able to use the Services, you need to request and be granted an account. To that effect you must provide Materials Cloud with the following information:

  1. if You are an individual acting for yourself (i.e. not acting as an officer, manager, director etc of a company or other entity):
    • Your name and first name
    • Address of your domicile
    • Your email address
  2. if You act on behalf of a university, company or other entity:
    • Your name and first name
    • Your position in the company or entity
    • The name of the company or entity
    • The address of the seat of the company or entity

If you do act on behalf of a university, company or other entity, you hereby confirm that you have the right to act on behalf of such entity. Upon approval of your account request by Materials Cloud, you will need to accept this Agreement . Your account will be then activated. You hereby warrant that the information you give is true and accurate. Each account is a single user account. Therefore, if more than one user at a company or other entity wish to use the Services, then each user shall have an account.

3.2 Your Personal Data

EPFL will use your personal data provided to Materials Cloud only for the purpose of operating the Website and the Services; you hereby agree to such processing. The EPFL shall process and handle said personal data in compliance with the applicable laws and regulations and in accordance with Materials Cloud Privacy Policy.

3.3 User Responsibility for Account Security

You are responsible for keeping your account secure. In particular you shall not disclose to others your account identification and password and shall protect that information from access by others.

For the avoidance of doubt, EPFL shall in no case be liable for any loss or damage arising from your failure to comply with your security obligations.

You will promptly notify EPFL through Materials Cloud Website if you become aware of any unauthorized access to Materials Cloud Services through your account, including any unauthorized use of your password or account.

3.4 User's other Responsibilities and Liability

3.4.1 Legal Compliance

You are personally responsible for ensuring that your use of the Services does not violate these Terms of Use or any applicable laws and regulations (e.g. criminal laws, data protection laws) or infringes on third parties' rights (including copyrights, database rights, trademark rights, patent rights, license rights and personal rights).

In particular, you will not upload, post, host, or transmit any content that:

  • is unlawful or promotes unlawful activities;
  • violates any personal data protection and/or privacy laws;
  • is defamatory, or fraudulent;
  • is discriminatory or abusive toward any individual or group;
  • infringes on any proprietary right of any party (including copyrights, database rights, trademark rights, patent rights, license rights, and personal rights);
  • violate any agreement you have with third parties (including confidentiality agreements).

You shall abide to the EPFL Directive on the Use of EPFL electronic infrastructure and the ETH Zurich Acceptable Use Policy for Telematics Resources (BOT).

3.4.2 Due Care

You shall use the Services with all due care.

In particular, you shall not:

  • use Materials Cloud's servers for any form of excessive automated bulk activity (for example, spamming), or relay any other form of unsolicited advertising or solicitation through our servers, such as get-rich-quick schemes;
  • attempt to disrupt or tamper with Materials Cloud's servers in ways that could harm the Website or Service, to place undue burden on Materials Cloud's servers through automated means, or to access the Services in ways that exceed your authorization, or by uploading content containing malware;
  • impersonate any person or entity, including any of EPFL employees or representatives, including through false association with Materials Cloud, or by fraudulently misrepresenting your identity or site's purpose.
3.4.3 No Abuse of the Services

You shall not reproduce, copy, sell, resell or exploit any portion of the Services or the Website without EPFL’s express written permission.

3.4.4 No Scraping

Scraping refers to extracting data from a website via an automated process, such as a bot or webcrawler. It does not refer to the collection of information through Materials Cloud's API. Please see Section 7 for Materials Cloud API Terms. You may scrape the website for the following reasons:

  • Researchers may scrape public, non-personal information from Materials Cloud for research purposes, only if any publications resulting from that research are open access.
  • Archivists may scrape Materials Cloud for public data for archival purposes.

You may not scrape Materials Cloud for spamming purposes, including for the purposes of selling Materials Cloud users' personal information, such as to recruiters, headhunters, and job boards.

3.4.5 Excessive Bandwidth Use

If Materials Cloud determine your bandwidth usage to be significantly excessive in relation to other Materials Cloud users, we reserve the right to suspend your account until you can reduce your bandwidth consumption.

3.4.6 Spamming and Inappropriate Use of Materials Cloud

Advertising Content, like all Content, must not violate the law or these Terms of Use, for example through excessive bulk activity such as spamming. EPFL reserves the right to remove any advertisements that, in EPFL sole discretion, violate the Terms of Use or the law.

3.4.7 Liability

You and/or the company or entity on behalf of which you use your account shall be liable to EPFL, the other Users and any others for any damages or claims arising from your unlawful use of the Services or the Website and for any violation of these Terms of Use. You shall indemnify and hold EPFL, its partners and any sub-contractor harmless against any claims and damages arising from your unlawful use of the Services or the Website or any violation of these Terms of Use.

4. User-Uploaded Content

4.1 User's Responsibility and EPFL's Right to Remove

You may create and/or upload Content while using the Services. You are solely responsible for the content of, and for any harm resulting from, any User-Uploaded Content (including any Third Party's Content) that you post, upload, link to or otherwise make available via the Services, regardless of the form of that content. EPFL is not responsible for any public display or misuse of your User-Uploaded Content.

EPFL does not pre-screen User-Uploaded Content, but EPFL has the right (though not the obligation) to refuse or remove any User-Uploaded Content that EPFL determines, in its sole discretion, to violate the Terms of Use or any law.

You agree that EPFL may remove any User-Uploaded Content that EPFL in its sole discretion determines to be inappropriate.

4.2 Ownership of Content, Right to Post, and License Grants

You retain ownership of and responsibility for Content you create or own and up-load on Materials Cloud.

Because you retain ownership of and responsibility for Your Content, EPFL needs you to grant EPFL, and the other Materials Cloud Users, certain legal permissions, listed in Sections 4.4 to 4.7. These license grants apply to Your Content. You understand that you will not receive any payment for any of the rights granted in Sections 4.4 to 4.7. The licenses you grant hereunder are perpetual. If you upload Content that already comes with a license granting EPFL the permissions EPFL needs to run the Services, no additional license is required.

Since the goal of Materials Cloud is to disseminate scientific research results in an open science framework, you may not request the removal of your Content (save for Content uploaded in your Private Area) unless you can show a legitimate reason for such removal.

4.3 Third Party's Content

Before up-loading any Third Party's Content, you must make sure that you have the right to up-load them on Materials Cloud, which is an open environment. So, you hereby warrants that you are either the sole owner of the Content you up-load or, if this is not the case, that you did obtain all authorizations from the lawful owner(s) of such content to up-load it and grant the licenses listed in Sections 4.4 to 4.7.

You shall indemnify and hold EPFL, its partners and any sub-contractor harmless against any claims and damages arising from your up-loading of any Third Party's Content.

4.4 License Grant to EPFL

EPFL needs the legal right to do things like host Your Content and any Third Party's Content you up-load, namely publish them and share them. You hereby grant EPFL, its service providers or sub-contractors and EPFL legal successors the right to use, store, parse, and display Your Content and any Third Party's Content you up-load, and make incidental copies thereof as necessary to render the Website and provide the Services. This includes the right to do things like copy such contents to the Materials Cloud database and make backups; show them to you and other users; use such contents to provide the Services; parse them into a search index or otherwise analyze them on our servers; share them with other users; and perform them, in case Your Content or any Third Party's Content you up-load is something like audio and/or video recordings.

4.5 License Grant to Other Users

Any of Your Content or any Third Party's Content you up-load on Materials Cloud, including issues, comments, and contributions to other Users' repositories, may be viewed by others, save for Content uploaded in the “Private Repository” as defined in Section 4.8.

Save for Content you upload in the “Private Repository” as defined in Section 4.8., you grant each User of Materials Cloud a nonexclusive, worldwide and perpetual license to use, display, and perform Your Content and any Third Party's Content you up-load on Materials Cloud through the Materials Cloud Services and to reproduce said contents solely on Materials Cloud as permitted through Materials Cloud's functionality. You may grant further rights if you adopt a license, for example open source license for software or Creative Commons for other copyrighted works.

It is reminded that if you are uploading any Third Party Content, you are responsible for ensuring that the content you upload is licensed under terms that grant these permissions to other Materials Cloud Users.

4.6 Contributions Under Repository License

Whenever you make a contribution to any Materials Cloud repository containing notice of a license, you license your contribution under the same terms, and you shall make sure that you have the right to license your contribution under those terms. If you have a separate agreement to license your contributions under different terms, such as a contributor license agreement, that agreement will supersede.

4.7 Moral Rights

To the extent Your Content benefits from copyright protection, you retain all moral rights to Your Content that you upload, publish, or submit to any part of the Services, including the rights of integrity and attribution unless otherwise provided in any license you attached to Your Content in accordance with Section 4.5 or in any license attached to another User's Content (see Section 4.6). However, you waive these rights and agree not to assert them against EPFL, to enable EPFL to reasonably exercise the rights granted in Section 4, but not otherwise.

To the extent this Section is not enforceable by applicable local law, you grant EPFL the rights EPFL needs to use Your Content without attribution and to make reasonable adaptations of Your Content as necessary to render the Website and provide the Services.

4.8 Private Areas

Some accounts, such as Jupyter accounts, may have private areas, which allow the User to control access to Content.

EPFL will use reasonable efforts to protect the contents of private areas from unauthorized use, access, or disclosure. However, EPFL extends no warranties as to any unauthorized use, access or disclosure of such content by third parties.

EPFL employees, or employees of EPFL sub-contracting entity operating the supercomputing infrastructure used for some of the Services, may only access the content of your private areas in the following situations:

  • with your consent, for support reasons. If EPFL (or the abovementioned sub-contracting entity) accesses a private repository for support reasons, we will only do so with the User's consent and knowledge; or
  • when access is required for security reasons
  • when accessing it for backup or service maintenance reasons.

If EPFL has reason to believe the contents of a private area are in violation of the law or of these Terms of Use, EPFL has the right to access, review, and remove them. Additionally, EPFL may be compelled by law to disclose the contents of your private repositories.

5. Intellectual Property Notice

5.1. EPFL's Rights to Content

EPFL and EPFL's partners, licensors, vendors, agents, and/or content providers retain ownership of all intellectual property rights of any kind related to the Website and Services. EPFL reserves all rights that are not expressly granted to you under this Agreement or by law. The look and feel of the Website and Services is copyright of Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland (for the account of the MARVEL NCCR) or its respective licensors, vendors, agents and/or content providers. You may not duplicate, copy, or reuse any portion of the HTML/CSS, Javascript, or visual design elements or concepts without express written permission from EPFL.

5.2. EPFL Trademarks and Logos

If you'd like to use EPFL's trademarks, logos or names, including “Materials Cloud” name and logos, you must first obtain the written permission of EPFL.

5.3. License to this Agreement

This Agreement is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution license. You may use it under the terms of the Creative Commons license.

6. Infringement of your Copyrights

If you are a copyright owner and you believe that content on Materials Cloud violates your rights, please contact by emailing info@materialscloud.org. There may be legal consequences for sending a false or frivolous takedown notice. Before sending a takedown request, you must consider legal uses such as fair use and licensed uses.

We will terminate the accounts of repeat infringers of this Section.

As stated in Sections 4.1 and 4.8 EPFL reserves the right to remove any of your Uploaded Content that EPFL determines to infringe upon other User's copyrights (or third party's copyrights).

7. API Terms

7.1. Limitation of Liability for API Use

You understand and agree that Materials Cloud is not liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential or exemplary damages, including but not limited to damages for loss of profits, goodwill, use, data or other intangible losses (even if Materials Cloud has been advised of the possibility of such damages), resulting from your use of the API or third-party products that access data via the API.

7.2. No Abuse or Overuse of the API

Abuse or excessively frequent requests to Materials Cloud via the API may result in the temporary or permanent suspension of your account's access to the API. Materials Cloud, in our sole discretion, will determine abuse or excessive usage of the API. We will make a reasonable attempt to warn you via email prior to suspension.

You may not share API tokens to exceed Materials Cloud's rate limitations.

You may not use the API to download data or Content from Materials Cloud for spamming purposes, including for the purposes of selling Materials Cloud users' personal information, such as to recruiters, headhunters, and job boards.

All use of the Materials Cloud API is subject to these Terms of Services and the Materials Cloud Privacy Policy. Materials Cloud may offer subscription-based access to its API for those Users who require high-throughput access or access that would result in resale of Materials Cloud's Services.

7.3. Materials Cloud May Terminate Your Use of the API

We reserve the right at any time to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, your access to the API or any part of it with or without notice.

8. Cancellation and Termination

8.1. Account Cancellation

You can cancel your account at any time by contacting the Materials Cloud at info@materialscloud.org.

8.2. Upon Cancellation

EPFL will retain and use your information as necessary to comply with its legal obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce agreements, but barring legal requirements, EPFL will delete your full profile and the Content in your Private Area if any, within 90 days of cancellation or termination; however, though some information may remain in backups. This information cannot be recovered once your account is cancelled. Since the aim of Materials Cloud is to disseminate scientific research results in an open science framework, your Uploaded Content on public pages of Materials Cloud will not be removed upon cancellation of your account (unless otherwise set forth in these Terms of Use).

8.3. EPFL Termination Rights

EPFL has the right to suspend or terminate your access to all or any part of the Website or Services at any time. You hereby waive any claim, demands and damages against EPFL (and the MARVEL members) and its service providers in case of such a termination.

8.4. Survival

All provisions of this Agreement which by their nature should survive termination will survive termination, including, without limitation, ownership provisions, warranty disclaimers, indemnity, and limitations of liability.

9. Communications with Materials Cloud

9.1. Electronic Communication Required

For contractual purposes, you (1) consent to receive communications from EPFL in an electronic form via the email address you have submitted or via the Services; and (2) agree that the Terms of Use and any agreements, notices, disclosures, and other communications that EPFL provides in connection with Materials Cloud to you electronically satisfy any legal requirement that those communications would satisfy if they were on paper. This section does not affect any non-waivable rights by law.

9.2. Legal Notice to Materials Cloud

Legal notice to EPFL must be in writing and served to: Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Centre Est, Station 1, 1015 Lausanne, Switzerland or to info@materialscloud.org.

9.3. No Phone Support

EPFL only offers for Materials Cloud support via email, in-Services communications, and electronic messages. There is no telephone support.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

Materials Cloud and its subcontractors provide the Website and the Services “as is” and “as available,” without warranty of any kind. Without limiting this, EPFL expressly disclaims all warranties, whether express, implied or statutory, regarding the Website and the Services including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, security, accuracy and non-infringement.

Materials Cloud and its subcontractor do not warrant that the Services will meet your requirements; that the Services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free; that the information provided through the Services is accurate, reliable or correct; that any defects or errors will be corrected; that the Services will be available at any particular time or location; or that the Services is free of viruses or other harmful components. You assume full responsibility and risk of loss resulting from your downloading, uploading and/or use of files, information, content or other material obtained from the Services.

11. Limitation of Liability

You understand and agree that EPFL (and its subcontractors) will not be liable to you or any third party for any loss of profits, use, goodwill, or data, or for any incidental, indirect, special, consequential or exemplary damages, however arising, that result from

  • the use, disclosure, or display of your User-Uploaded Content;
  • your use or inability to use the Services;
  • any modification, price change, suspension or discontinuance of the Services;
  • the Services generally or the software or systems that make the Services available;
  • unauthorized access to or alterations of your transmissions or data;
  • statements or conduct of any third party on the Services;
  • any other user interactions that you input or receive through your use of the Services; or
  • any other matter relating to the Services.

EPFL and its subcontractors liability is limited whether or not we have been informed of the possibility of such damages, and even if a remedy set forth in these Terms of Use is found to have failed of its essential purpose. Should EPFL liability limitations not be enforceable under imperative law, then the maximum liability of EPFL in connection with the Services or the use of the Website shall be limited to the smaller of the amount paid by the User over the last six months or five hundred Swiss francs.

12. Release and Indemnification

If you have a dispute with one or more Users, you agree to release Materials Cloud (and its subcontractors) from any and all claims, demands and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

You agree to indemnify and hold EPFL, its partners and any sub-contractor, harmless from and against any and all claims, liabilities, and expenses, including attorneys' fees, arising out of your use of the Website and the Services, including but not limited to your violation of the Terms of Use.

13. Changes to These Terms of Use

EPFL reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to amend these Terms of Use at any time and will update them in the event of any such amendments. We will notify the Users of material changes to these Terms of Use, such as price changes, at least 30 days prior to the change taking effect by posting a notice on Materials Cloud Website and you will have the right to cancel your account within 30 days from such notice. For any modification, your continued use of the Website constitutes agreement to our revisions of these Terms of Use.

14. Changes to the Website

We reserve the right at any time and from time to time to modify the Website (or any part of it) with or without notice.

15. Miscellaneous

15.1. Governing Law — Place of Jurisdiction

These Terms of Use between you and EPFL, any access to or use of the Website or the Services, and any claims raised in connection with the Terms of Use or the Website or the Services, are governed by Swiss law, without regard to conflict of law provisions. You agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the cantonal court of the Canton Vaud located in Lausanne, Switzerland.

15.2. Non-Assignability

EPFL may assign or delegate these Terms of Use and/or the Materials Cloud Privacy Policy in whole or in part, to any person or entity at any time with or without your consent, including the license grants in Section 4. You may not assign or delegate any rights or obligations under these Terms of Use without EPFL prior written consent, and any unauthorized assignment and delegation by you is void.

15.3. Severability, No Waiver, and Survival

If any part of these Terms of Use is held invalid or unenforceable, that portion will be construed to reflect the parties' original intent. The remaining portions will remain in full force and effect. Any failure on the part of Materials Cloud to enforce any provision of these Terms of Use will not be considered a waiver of our right to enforce such provision. EPFL rights under this Agreement will survive any termination of these Terms of Use.

15.4. Nature of Agreement; Amendments; Complete Agreement

The Terms of Use constitute a bilateral agreement between you and EPFL for your use of the Website and/or the Services. These Terms of Use may only be modified by a written amendment signed by an authorized representative of EPFL, or by the posting by EPFL of a revised version in accordance with Section 13.

These Terms of Use, together with the Materials Cloud Privacy Policy, represent the complete and exclusive statement of the agreement between you and EPFL on the subject matter herein. Such agreement supersedes any proposal or prior agreement oral or written, and any other communications between you and EPFL or Materials Cloud relating to the subject matter of these terms including any confidentiality or nondisclosure agreements.

15.5. Copyright notice

This work “Materials Cloud Terms of Use” is a derivative work of “GitHub Terms of Service” by GitHub Inc. used under the Creative Common Attribution License. This work is licensed under Creative Common Attribution License by Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne.