Updates to our Terms of Use

We are updating our Terms of Use. Please carefully review the updated Terms before proceeding to our website.

Wednesday, March 6, 2024 | Back issues
Courthouse News Service Courthouse News Service

Terms of Use

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are agreed to between Courthouse News Service (“CNS”, “we”, “us” and “our”) and you. These Terms apply to the CNS website located at www.courthousenews.com (the “Site”).

PLEASE READ THESE TERMS CAREFULLY. BY ACCESSING OR OTHERWISE USING THE SITE, YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE READ AND AGREE TO BE BOUND BY THESE TERMS. Any person or entity who interacts with the Site, whether through automated means, third-party means or otherwise, is considered a User. Unless you have entered into a separate written agreement with CNS regarding the Site, these Terms are the complete and exclusive agreement between you and CNS regarding your access to and use of the Site and supersede any oral or written proposal, quote, or other communication between you and CNS regarding your access to and use of the Site.

IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO THESE TERMS, OR DO NOT MEET THE QUALIFICATIONS INCLUDED IN THESE TERMS YOU MUST NOT ACCESS OR USE THE SITE.

  1. Definitions. Words and phrases used in these Terms have the definitions given in these Terms or, if not defined herein, have their plain English meaning as commonly interpreted in the United States.
  2. Term. These Terms are entered into as of the date you first access or use the Site (the “Effective Date”) and will continue until terminated as set forth herein.
  3. Modifications. We reserve the right, at any time, to modify the Site, as well as these Terms, whether by making those modifications available through the Site or by providing notice to you as specified in these Terms. Your continued use of the Site following the posting of any amendment will constitute your acceptance of that amendment.
  4. CNS’ Content and Intellectual Property Rights. Materials published on the Site and made available to the general public, including, for example, news articles, reports, editorials, text, photographs, images, and illustrations, as well as the selection and arrangement of this material (collectively, the “Public Content”), is owned by CNS and/or other persons or entities who may have licensed such content to CNS. In addition, Courthouse News Service is a registered trademark of CNS.

    The following use of Public Content found on the Site is expressly permitted:

    1. Blogs, articles, editorials, reports, or other similar written material: You may copy an individual blog entry, article, editorial, report, or other similar text, or a portion thereof, so long as you credit CNS together with the copied text. Wholesale copying of multiple blog entries, articles, editorials, reports or other similar text is not permitted.
    2. Links and RSS feeds: We invite you to link the Site, and to make use of CNS’ RSS feeds on your website, provided such link or feed does not state or imply any sponsorship of your website by CNS. We reserve the right to terminate any use of feeds on this or any other grounds that we deem appropriate.
    3. Other than as expressly allowed herein, you may not copy, sell, distribute, republish, display, perform, or create derivative works from the Public Content in a manner that would violate the Public Content owner’s copyright in the content, or violate their other intellectual property or proprietary rights in the content.
    4. The permitted uses described in this section are contingent on your compliance at all times with these Terms. No other use of Public Content is permitted without prior written permission of CNS, including in connection with: (1) training or developing a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) software or technology, or any systems or models that incorporate such software or technology; or (2) providing archived or cached data sets containing Public Content to another person or entity. Please contact us at [email protected] if you wish to use Public Content in any manner not permitted by these Terms, or if you have any questions about whether your contemplated use of the Content is permitted by these Terms.
  5. User Content. Discussion forums and other forums for user commentary may be offered through the Site. Such forums are provided to give users the opportunity to post appropriate and relevant information or commentary. You are not required to post anything on or through the Site. CNS does not claim any ownership rights in any data, text, photographs, video, or other material (“User Content”) that you display, publish, submit, email, or post on or through the Site, except as set forth below.

    By posting any User Content on or through the Site, you are (1) representing that you are either the owner of all intellectual property rights to such User Content or have the consent of the owner to post the User Content on or through the Site subject to these Terms; (2) granting to CNS a non-exclusive perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty free and fully sub-licensable license granting us permission to use, modify, delete from, add to, publicly perform, publicly display, reproduce, distribute, and create derivative works from such User Content; (3) acknowledging that the posted information may be viewed by other users of the Site; (4) waiving any claim that the User Content violates any of your legal rights, including but not limited to any rights of privacy and/or publicity; and (5) agreeing that you are solely responsible for such User Content and that you, and not CNS, are entirely responsible for the accuracy, completeness and ownership of all User Content.

    Any User Content must conform to the guidelines set forth in the section above entitled “User Conduct.” CNS reserves the right to remove User Content, and/or to terminate or restrict your posting of User Content through the Site for any reason, with or without notice.

  6. Monitoring, Editing, Removal and Disclosure of User Content. You agree that CNS has the right, but not the obligation, to monitor User Content posted by you at any time for any reason. Notwithstanding this right, CNS does not review all User Content and is not responsible for any User Content. Any User Content made available to the Site may be edited or removed by CNS, for any reason or no reason, with or without notice, and CNS reserves the right to terminate or restrict your posting of User Content.

    We may use and/or disclose User Content where it is necessary to enforce these Terms, or to otherwise enforce or protect CNS’ rights under applicable law, including, without limitation, CNS’ intellectual property rights. We may also use and/or disclose User Content when we have a reasonable and good-faith belief that such use or disclosure is necessary to comply with a current judicial proceeding, a court order, or legal process served on CNS or the Site.

  7. Unlawful or Prohibited Uses of the Site. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we will permit you to access and use the Site solely for lawful purposes and only in accordance with these Terms.

    The Site may only be used for lawful purposes in accordance with these Terms. As a condition of your use of the Site, you represent and warrant to us that you will not use the Site for any purpose that is unlawful or prohibited by these Terms. Whether on behalf of yourself or on behalf of any third party, you shall not without CNS’ prior written consent:

    1. Post any User Content that is false, misleading, threatening, abusive, harassing, tortious, defamatory, vulgar, obscene, deceptive, fraudulent, invasive of another’s privacy and/or right of publicity, hateful, or sexually explicit;
    2. Post User Content that is patently offensive and promotes racism, bigotry, hatred, or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual;
    3. Post any User Content that infringes any patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, or other proprietary rights of any party;
    4. Post any User Content that contains a computer virus or other similar malicious code, including but not limited to worms, spyware, and Trojan horses.
    5. Copy, modify, rent, lease, loan, sell, assign, distribute, reverse engineer, or otherwise use the technology and software underlying the Site;
    6. Interfere with or disrupt the Site or servers connected to the Site, or disobey any requirements, procedures, policies, or regulations related to any feature offered through the Site.
    7. Attempt to remove, modify or obscure any proprietary notices on the Site.
    8. Copy, sell, distribute, display, perform, or create derivative works from any content, portion or feature of the Site in a manner that would violate the copyright or other intellectual property or proprietary rights of the owners of the Content and/or the User Content.
    9. Impersonate any person or entity, misrepresent any affiliation with another person or entity, or otherwise misrepresent your identity for any purpose.
    10. Harvest, collect, or store information about the users of the Site or User Content posted by others through the Site or use such information for any purpose, including without limitation, for the purpose of transmitting or facilitating transmission of unsolicited bulk electronic mail or communications.
    11. Use any manual or automated software, devices, or other processes (including but not limited spiders, scripts, scrapers, crawlers, data mining tools or the like) designed to scrape the Public Content, data or information from the Site, or otherwise use, access, or collect the Public Content, data or information from the Site (except that we grant operators of public search engines revocable permission to use data mining tools to copy materials from the Site solely to the extent necessary for creating publicly available searchable indices of the materials, but not caches or archives of such materials).
    12. Use the Public Content to train or develop machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) software or technology, or use of the Public Content in connection with third party software, systems, models, or technologies that would reasonably be expected to use the Public Content for AI training purposes.
    13. Violate or encourage violation of any local, state, federal, or international law.
  8. Termination and Suspension. To the extent permitted and in accordance with applicable law, CNS may restrict your access to all or parts any of the Site at any time if you violate these Terms or for any reason, at our sole discretion, and with or without notice. You acknowledge and agree that CNS will not be liable to you or to any third party in the event that CNS exercises its right to terminate, change, suspend, or discontinue any aspect of the Site, or to terminate your access to the Site. Without limiting our right to terminate these Terms, we may also suspend your access to the Site, with or without notice to you, upon any actual, threatened, or suspected breach of these Terms or applicable law or upon any other conduct deemed by us to be inappropriate or detrimental to CNS, the Site, or any other User or third party.
  9. Links to Other Web Sites. The Site may contain links and interactive functionality interacting with the websites of third parties. We are not responsible for, and have no liability for, the functionality, actions, inactions, settings, privacy policies, terms, or content of any such third-party website. Before enabling any sharing functions of the Site to communicate with any such third-party website or otherwise visiting any such third-party website, we strongly recommend that you review and understand the terms and conditions, privacy policies, and settings of each such third party website. The links and interactive functionality for third-party websites through the Site do not constitute an endorsement by us of such third-party websites. Other websites may link to the Site with or without our authorization, and we may block any links to or from the Site in our sole discretion. YOUR USE OF THIRD-PARTY WEBSITES IS AT YOUR OWN RISK.
  10. Data Privacy. All information we collect on this Site is subject to CNS’ Privacy Policy. By using this Site, you consent to all actions taken by us with respect to your information in compliance with the Privacy Policy. Notwithstanding anything in the Privacy Policy, we will have the right to collect, extract, compile, synthesize, and analyze non-personally identifiable data or information resulting from your access to, and use of, the Site. To the extent any such non-personally identifiable data or information is collected or generated by us, the data and information will be solely owned by us and may be used by us for any lawful business purpose without a duty of accounting to you, provided that the data and information is used only in an aggregated form, without directly identifying you or any other entity or natural person as the source thereof.
  11. Representations and Warranties. You hereby represent and warrant to us that: (a) you have the legal right and authority to enter into these Terms; (b) these Terms form a binding legal obligation on your behalf; (c) you have the legal right and authority to perform your obligations under these Terms and to grant the rights and licenses described in these Terms; and (d) your access to, and use of, the Site and Your Content, will comply with all applicable laws, rules, regulations, and third-party rights and will not cause us to violate any applicable laws, rules, regulations, or third-party rights.
  12. Disclaimers. CNS reports on, among other things, civil litigation. Accordingly, many of its reports are based on court orders, judgments, and other documents filed with a court, as well as the allegations of parties or other persons connected with a court case. To a large extent, these are allegations only and may not be taken as settled fact. CNS does not guarantee the accuracy or reliability of any statement made in a court filing or other court document, or any allegation of a party or other persons connected with a court case, that may be displayed, uploaded, distributed, or reported on or through the Site.

    Similarly, CNS does not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, reliability, or usefulness of any User Content as may be found on the Site. You should not rely on any User Content made available through the Site. The views expressed in User Content do not necessarily reflect the views of CNS, and CNS does not endorse the information or views expressed in any User Content.

    As to all other content found on the Site, including Public Content, although CNS strives for accuracy, it does not warrant or guarantee the accuracy or completeness of any content found on the Site. Any reliance on the Public Content, or User Content found on the Site is at your own risk.

    CNS takes reasonable steps to ensure that the Site is free of viruses and other similar malicious code. However, it cannot guarantee that the Site will be free of malicious code. CNS uses reasonable security measures to protect the loss, misuse and alteration of the information under its control. However, there is no such thing as perfect security on the Internet, and CNS makes no guarantee that such loss, misuse and/or alteration will not occur.

    YOUR USE OF THE SITE IS AT YOUR SOLE RISK. THE SITE, INCLUDING ALL CONTENT MADE AVAILABLE ON OR ACCESSED THROUGH THE SITE, IS PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE” BASIS. CNS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, NON-INFRINGEMENT, MERCHANTABILITY OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. CNS MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT (1) THE SITE WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS; OR (2) THE SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, ERROR-FREE, OR FREE OF VIRUSES AND OTHER MALICIOUS CODE. ANY MATERIAL DOWNLOADED OR OTHERWISE OBTAINED THROUGH THE USE OF THE SITE IS DONE AT YOUR OWN RISK AND YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR PERSONAL DEVICE, INCLUDING THE LOSS OF DATA THAT RESULTS FROM THE DOWNLOAD OF ANY SUCH MATERIAL. IF YOU ARE DISSATISFIED WITH THE SITE, YOUR SOLE REMEDY IS TO DISCONTINUE USING THE SITE.

  13. LIMITATION ON LIABILITY. IN NO EVENT WILL WE OR OUR OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, OR AGENTS BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFIT, LOST REVENUE, LOSS OF DATA, OR OTHER DAMAGES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SITE, OR THE INABILITY TO USE, THE CONTENT, MATERIALS AND FUNCTIONS OF THE SITE, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. NOTWITHSTANDING ANYTHING TO THE CONTRARY CONTAINED HEREIN, OUR LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ANY CAUSE WHATSOEVER AND REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF THE ACTION, WILL NOT EXCEED $100.

    SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR LIMITATION OF OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES, SO THE ABOVE LIMITATIONS AND EXCLUSIONS MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. IN SUCH JURISDICTIONS, THE LIABILITY OF COURTHOUSE NEWS SHALL BE LIMITED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PROVIDED BY LAW.

  14. INDEMNITY. You hereby agree to indemnify, defend and hold harmless CNS, its affiliates and its and their officers, directors, employees, agents, contractors, licensors, and licensees and all of their successors and assigns (“ Indemnified Parties”), from and against any and all third party claims, suits, demands, liabilities, losses, judgments, settlements, fines, penalties, costs, fees or expenses, including reasonable attorney’s fees, incurred by the Indemnified Parties that arise in any manner from: 1) your access to, or use of, the Site; 2) Your Content; and 3) your breach of any representation, warranty, or other provision of these Terms. We will provide you with notice of any such indemnifiable claim or allegation, and we will have the right to participate in the defense of any such claim at our expense.
  15. COPYRIGHT COMPLAINTS. Just as CNS requires the users of the Site to respect its intellectual property rights, we respect the intellectual property rights of others to their own material. If you have a good faith belief that your material has been posted, transmitted, displayed, copied or distributed through the Site in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, please notify CNS’ designated Copyright Agent of that fact, whose contact information is as follows:

    Jimmy Shimabukur
    Courthouse News Service
    30 North Raymond Avenue, Suite 310
    Pasadena, CA 91103
    Fax: (626) 449-5790
    [email protected]

  16. Take Down Requests. To be an effective written notification of claimed infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512 (“DMCA”), your written notification must include substantially the following:
    1. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered by a single notification, a representative list of such works;
    2. 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 CNS to locate the material;
    3. Information reasonably sufficient to permit CNS to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an electronic mail address at which you may be contacted;
    4. A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, his or her agents, or the law;
    5. 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; and
    6. Your physical or electronic signature.

    Upon receipt of a proper notification of claimed copyright infringement, we will evaluate the notification to determine if removal of the material claimed to be infringing is warranted. We also reserve the right to remove or disable access to material alleged to be infringing without written notice. CNS will terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the account of any user of the Site who repeatedly posts, transmits, displays, copies, or distributes infringing material.

    In the event we remove or disable access to User Content that is claimed to be infringing, we may notify the person who provided such User Content that the material has been removed or access disabled If you receive such a notice, you may submit a counter-notification to our Copyright Agent pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(g). Pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3), to be an effective counter-notification under that subsection, your counter-notification must be in writing and must include substantially the following:

    1. Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was disabled;
    2. A statement penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled;
    3. Your name, address, and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of Federal District Court for the judicial district in which the address is located, or if your address is outside of the United States, for any judicial district in which Courthouse News may be found, and that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of infringement or an agent of such person; and
    4. Your physical or electronic signature.

    Upon receipt of a counter-notification, we may, at our election, replace or re-enable access to the User Content at issue.

  17. Jurisdiction and Choice of Law. The Site is created, operated, and controlled by CNS from its offices in within the State of California, in the United States of America. These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of California, without regard to conflict of laws provisions. Any dispute arising out of or relating to your use of the Site, and any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms, shall be brought in the Superior Court for the State of California in and for the County of Los Angeles, or in the United States District Court for the Central District of California. You hereby irrevocably consent and submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts for the purposes of litigating any such action.
  18. Additional Terms. These Terms constitute the entire agreement between CNS and you regarding your use of the Site. If for any reason a court of competent jurisdiction finds any provision of these Terms, or portion thereof, to be unenforceable, that provision shall be enforced to the maximum extent permissible so as to give effect to the intent of these Terms, and the remainder of these Terms shall continue in full force and effect. A printed version of this agreement shall be admissible in judicial or administrative proceedings. Neither these Terms nor any of your rights or obligations hereunder may be assigned or transferred by you (in whole or in part and including by sale, merger, consolidation, or other operation of law) without our prior written approval. Any assignment in violation of the foregoing will be null and void. We may freely assign these Terms. The words “include,” “includes” and “including” means “include,” “includes” or “including,” in each case, “without limitation.” The parties hereto are independent parties, not agents, employees or employers of the other or joint ventures, and neither acquires hereunder any right or ability to bind or enter into any obligation on behalf of the other.

Last Updated: November 13, 2023

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