Terms and Conditions
allmediascotland.com is mainly a mix of media news and media releases, the former produced and published exclusively by allmediascotland.com ltd (and hereafter referred to as ‘our own content).
Media releases are published by third parties – such as charities and PR agencies seeking to make contact with the media – who use allmediascotland.com as a vehicle to promote their own content.
In addition, the site contains media directory entries, polls, job adverts, opinion articles and features.
These Terms and Conditions pertain to allmediascotland.com (hereafter known as ‘the site’), which is wholly owned by allmediascotland.com ltd (hereafter known as ‘we’).
By using the site, you signify your acceptance of these Terms and Conditions.
Our own content
allmediascotland.com is editorially independent and positive, committed to producing accurate, fair and informative content that celebrates the Scottish media industries, while recognising the vital role of constructive criticism.
The site is also about community: a place for media practitioners, and those interested in the media, to share their thoughts, experience and wisdom.
We will seek to employ the highest professional and ethical standards during the production of our own content, including with regard to copyright and defamation legislation as it applies in Scotland.
We will not seek to pass off, as our own, material that has been produced by others, including media releases or stories by fellow journalists. Therefore, whenever possible, credit will be given where credit is due.
In pursuit of our own accurate content, during which we will endeavour to ‘fact check’, we will seek to identify material that we understand to be true but may not be.
We will seek to make, in our own content, a clear distinction between fact and opinion.
We will seek to correct, as speedily as possible, any inaccuracies in our own content, if necessary with new editorial to ensure readers are made as fully aware as possible that a correction has been made. Readers are encouraged to alert the site to inform it of possible inaccuracy.
We are not in the business of gratuitously seeking to jeopardise people’s jobs or ‘kicking a person when they are down’.
Readers react to our own content entirely at their own risk; we cannot be held responsible or liable for any consequences emanating from any of our own content being incomplete or inaccurate, either at the time of publication or having become so in the future.
Our own content will seek to avoid material that might be considered offensive, defamatory, libellous, fraudulent or misleading, or might lead to any discrimination or hatred on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status or sexual orientation.
We will protect the identity of our sources and will seek to resist threats or any other inducements to influence, distort or suppress information we may have.
We may periodically contact you – including with invitations to take part in online surveys – seeking your views of our own content, with the aim of improving our service to readers.
The copyright of our own content belongs to allmediascotland.com ltd. Anyone wishing to use our own content must first receive permission from allmediascotland.com ltd, as the copyright holder, before it can be reproduced anywhere else, in full or in part.
Third party material
allmediascotland.com ltd reserves the right to decline – without notification or penalty – all third party material submitted to the site for publication. We reserve also the right – and again without notification or penalty – to edit such material we choose to accept and publish on the site, including to correct spelling errors, to avoid possible defamation or to remove criticism or assumptions of other parties not afforded a right of reply.
In particular, we reserve the right to decline third party material we consider to be offensive, defamatory, libellous, fraudulent or misleading. Plus material we believe might lead to any discrimination or hatred on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status or sexual orientation.
Publication of third party material – including media releases – on the site by allmediascotland.com follows moderation. This is primarily to avoid the publication of spelling or grammatical errors, plus material that might be considered defamatory, offensive or libellous. It is not, and nor can it ever be, a pledge to check ‘facts’.
We therefore cannot vouch for the accuracy of third party material that is approved for publication and cannot be held responsible for the consequences of such third party material being incomplete or inaccurate, either at the time of publication or having become so in the future.
For clarity, our media release service is for the purposes of self-promotion – leaving it to readers to detect any temptation to exaggerate. Releases that criticise third parties or make comment or assumptions about other people’s policies and practices – implying the provision of a right to reply, which is not possible – face being denied approval for publication. We are not in the business of allowing party political point-scoring.
And should it be considered necessary to refer in a media release to the likes of third party reports, regulations, etc, (including claims of being the first, No.1, etc) then – as a reassurance of their existence to the reader, and to save readers having to search for the material themselves – then such references should be accompanied by links to the relevant information.
With particular regard to the media release forwarding service that we offer, we reserve the right to limit or deny the forwarding of media releases to all, some or individual media outlets and journalists.
We do not necessarily endorse the views contained in any of the columns we have commissioned.
We will not approve, for publication, comments that are personally abusive.
Third party material submitted to the site for possible publication is done entirely at the user’s own risk, including following the publication of any contact details and also as a result of any incompleteness or inaccuracy in the material they have had published, on their behalf.
Third party material submitted to the site for possible publication is done in the full knowledge that the site is merely a conduit, that the material has been submitted in the form of a temporary license (including infinitely) and that the person having submitted the material retains all responsibility for any legal and other consequences of the material appearing on the site.
Users of the site can only submit material for publication if they are fully authorised to do, including from the holders of any copyrighted content, such as photography and trademarks. Any legal or other consequences of unauthorised material being published on the site wholly resides with the person who submitted it for publication.
The copyright of all third party material – including job adverts, columns, media directory entries and media releases – does not belong to allmediascotland.com ltd but to the person who submitted it for publication or their authorised associates.
Readers wishing to use third party material must first receive permission from the copyright holder(s) before they can reproduce any of it, in full or in part.
Your privacy, links to other websites and cookies
As stated above, users of the site submit material for possible publication entirely at their own risk, including following the publication of any contact details.
We will not share contact or other details of users who have chosen not to make their details public on the site, except in the following circumstances: 1. Requested by law enforcement agencies, 2. to protect the rights or property of allmediascotland.com ltd or, 3. to protect the personal safety of site users or the public.
Information such your IP address, browser type, domain names, access times and referring web site addresses may be used by allmediascotland.com ltd to assist in the continued operation of the service, to possibly improve the quality of the service, and to provide general statistics regarding use of the site.
By signing up to the eNewsletter, you grant allmediascotland.com ltd the right to use your job title (but not your name) and your subscription to the eNewsletter in possible promotional material.
Your email address resides in an eNewsletter subscribers list, held in the ‘back end’ of the site, access to which is password-protected.
Links to third party websites from our own content and that of third parties are provided solely for your convenience and if you leave the site via such a link, you access these websites at your own risk. We assume no responsibility for the content of other websites to which our content, or that provided by third parties, might have links.
We encourage you to review the privacy statements of websites you choose to link to from our site so that you can understand how those sites collect, use and share your information.
A cookie is a text file that is placed on your hard disk by a web page server. It cannot be used to run programmes or deliver viruses to your computer. Cookies are uniquely assigned to you and can only be read by a web server in the domain that issued the cookie to you. One of the primary purposes of cookies is to provide a convenience feature to save you time. For example, if you sign up with the site and keep your cookies ‘enabled’, then you will be saved having to sign in on subsequent visits to the site. You have the ability to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but, if you would rather, you can usually modify your browser setting – usually via ‘preferences’ – to decline cookies. If you choose to decline cookies, you may not be able to fully experience all the interactive features of allmediascotland.com.
We secure your personal information on computer servers held in a controlled, secure environment that are protected from unauthorised access, use or disclosure and are also frequently ‘backed up’.
We are registered with the Information Commissioner’s Office and have sought to be ‘GDPR-compliant’, including by undertaking a comprehensive data audit, to reveal what data we hold and how we might use it and how we absolutely are determined to protect it.
Data about yourself
The data you provide allmediascotland.com comprises your username or first and last names and email address, provided voluntarily, to receive the site’s eNewsletter (which you can unsubscribe from) or to purchase one of the site’s services. While you might pay for a service by credit card, because it is done via a third party provider – WorldPay – the site does not hold details of your credit card.
Nor do we have access to password, created by members on becoming an user.
Your undertaking to allmediascotland.com ltd
By using the site, you confirm the following, at the risk of incurring all legal and other consequences from any non-compliance:
You are fully authorised to submit the material you are seeking to have published on the site, including from all relevant copyright holders, including of photography and trademarks.
You have sought as far as possible to ensure that all the material you are seeking to have published on the site is accurate and as complete as possible.
You recognise that, while allmediascotland.com ltd moderates material submitted for possible publication on the site, its scope is limited to correcting spelling and grammatical errors and expunging content that might be considered defamatory, offensive or libellous. Therefore, you shall indemnify and hold harmless allmediascotland.com ltd from and against any and all claims, losses, damages, liabilities, costs and expenses, including legal fees, as a result of material that you have sought to have appear on the site and which has been approved, following moderation, for publication on the site.
You will not seek to post content, or link to any external material, that may result in any hatred or discrimination on the grounds of a person’s age, gender, race, colour, creed, legal status, disability, marital status or sexual orientation. Similarly, you will not seek to post content, or link to any external material, that may be defamatory, obscene, libellous, fraudulent or misleading.
Furthermore…
You confirm that allmediascotland.com ltd reserves the right to refuse publication of subscription-based material, such as media releases, from organisations or individuals it does not recognise to be a subscription holder.
You confirm that allmediascotland.com ltd reserves the right to decline or edit – without notification or penalty – any content you seek to have published on the site.
You confirm that you understand that your posting of a media release on site comes with no guarantee that any journalist or media outlet will wish to use it. Similarly, you also confirm that your posting of an entry in the media directory comes with no guarantee that it will lead to any purchase of your services or products. And that, also, your posting of a job advert comes with no guarantee that it will lead to applications for the job or applications from candidates you would consider qualified for the job.
You confirm that allmediascotland.com ltd will be usually, but not always, available to moderate material submitted to it for inclusion on the site between the hours of 0930 and 1630, Monday-to-Friday.
You accept that allmediascotland.com ltd might be guilty, on occasion, of human error, and will seek to rectify any error as speedily as possible, insodoing incurring no financial or other penalty.
You confirm that, should you find anything potentially offensive or inaccurate on the site, you will endeavour to alert allmediascotland.com ltd to it.
You confirm that you react to the content on the site entirely at your own risk, including adverts, media directory entries, media news, media releases and job adverts.
You confirm that allmediascotland.com ltd reserves the right – without consultation, explanation or penalty – to restrict you access to the site’s facilities, in whole or in part, including by deleting you as a user from its database.
You also agree that Scots Law shall apply to these Terms and Conditions, notwithstanding the jurisdiction in which you are based, and you further agree that the courts of Scotland shall have exclusive jurisdiction in respect of any dispute arising from or in connection with these Terms and Conditions. Any rights not expressly granted in these Terms and Conditions are reserved.
Refund policy
allmediascotland.com ltd operates a 30-day refund policy to those who have taken out a media directory entry, a multi-credits jobs posting subscription or a multi-credits media release posting subscription. Anyone who has taken out any of these contracts with the site has up to 30 days from the date of their purchase to request to terminate the contract and receive a full refund, on production of an invoice.
With regards to the site’s one-off products – single job posting or single media release posting – we again operate a 30-day full refund policy, but only if the posting credit is not used.
Future possible changes to our Terms and Conditions
We anticipate there may be occasions when we update our Terms and Conditions, to reflect any evolution of the site and its services. We therefore recommend you periodically return to check them for any changes.
Termination of service
We have the right to terminate an individual’s use of allmediascotland.com (whole or in part) without notice or explanation and cannot be held responsible or liable for any consequences that may emanate from such action. This includes – for journalists – terminating access to the Embargo Box (especially if having been found guilty of breaching embargoes) and – for media release subscribers – limiting or terminating the use of the site’s ‘casting service’ that allows for the forwarding of media releases to other media outlets, but which might be considered ‘spamming’ if done to excess.
We also have the right to close allmediascotland.com without notice and without any obligation to compensate users for loss of service.
