Terms of Use

LAST UPDATED: 06 July, 2016; first version

LEGAL DISCLAIMERS:

  • The Terms of Use outlines the terms and conditions of using Nihonden.
  • Read this document carefully before using the http://nihonden.com website (and other parts stemming from this domain).
  • This is a legal document between the administrators of Nihonden (“us,” “we,” or “our”) and the visitors, readers, and the audience in general of this website (“users” hereafter).
  • Any inconvenience arising from partially or fully ignoring the Terms of Use (“Terms” hereafter) is not our responsibility.
  • These Terms might have changed since your last visit. Check Last Updated at the beginning.
  • By using Nihonden (“website” hereafter) you show your acceptance to the Terms. If you don’t accept any portion of these Terms, you might not use this website.
  • These Terms apply to everyone accessing or using the website.

Hello there!

So I thought of making our legal documents quite human. I know not a lot of people read such stuff, and others won’t go through all of it. So here’s a crunch for the average user of Nihonden:

  • Nihonden is a service that dispenses written “content” including articles, reviews, reports, news, etc. and if you’re just an average reader – you won’t have any trouble.
  • You’re free to share our content by using the URL of that page, or to download and/or print a certain portion of our content for your personal, noncommercial use.
  • We use cookies and collect statistical private data (read our Cookies Policy).
  • We reserve the right to take down any part of website or the website itself any time.
  • We cannot be held responsible for any damage arising from the use of or the inability to use this website.
  • We don’t endorse the third-party websites, brands, or publications that we quote, mention, or link to.
  • All content is copyrighted thanks to DMCA and stiff legal action could be taken if you use the content from this website without attribution or for commercial purposes. See our Creative Commons license and DMCA online content policy for more (OCILLA from DMCA, to be precise).

Now, you think you won’t have any problems on this website. Cool, we expect most people to sail smooth while using our website. But still, we need to have a full Terms of Use. And you’re recommended to read it.

Content

“Content” is all information available on the website ranging from the articles, reports, reviews, text, to headlines, subheadings, and even image captions.

  • The content on this website is published as a service to the public.
  • The content that makes up Nihonden should not be considered to be 100% factual, obviously. It should not be considered to be completely error-free.
  • No decisions should be taken that can cost money or consume time based on the information presented through the content without seeking professional advice from someone belonging to the area or field of expertise most closely resembling the nature of the decision to be taken.
  • Certain parts of content can be considered advertising or sponsorship. For example, suppose I write about Pokémon figurines and a merchant selling exactly those wants their name to be put up. After checking their quality and relevance, we might put their name within the content. Also see the “Affiliation to Product-Selling Websites” and the “Advertising” sections.
  • Nihonden may alter, suspend, or discontinue the website, parts of website, or specific content on the website, for any reason without notice or cost.
  • The content or the website might become unavailable due to maintenance reasons, fault in computer equipment, or any other reason.

Copyright information

Our content is originally written by our members with much dedication, time, and the paramount skill of incapacitating their personal obligations like studies, work, and on top of everything else – laziness. Therefore, we would be taking legal action, and a good deal of that, if any force tries to steal our work in an inappropriate way.

  • All content that is online is automatically protected by international intellectual property laws and DMCA.
  • The DMCA, or Digital Millennium Copyright Act, can be used any time to take down online content that has been copied.
  • Our content is also licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International license. What this means is that you can create and share adaptations of the content as long as you share with the same or a compatible license. Also, commercial uses of content at Nihonden is not allowed.
DMCA-intro-takedowns

© Digital Millennium Copyright Act Services Ltd. Taken from DMCA Protection & Takedown Services website.

So what does this all mean?

  • You cannot copy any portion of the content and distribute or reproduce it under your name online or offline. That’s just rude.
  • You can totally share our content through posting a link to the original piece.
  • You can distribute the content in written or printed medium as long as it has a bold impression that it was taken from Nihonden and as long as it also mentions the name of the concerned author(s) in case of an article, review, report, news, etc. – anything that has an author name(s) on the website.

Basically, if you plagiarize content, that is, if you copy our content and paste it over your own or somebody else’s blog or website – we’ll file a complaint to Google (we actively monitor online plagiarism using tools like Plagiarisma, Plagscan, and the Small SEO Tools’ checker) and thanks to the Panda update (Google takes this stuff really seriously, read the definitive guide if you produce thin content), once we give proof (drafts, revision entries, timestamped screenshots, anything) – Google will make sure the concerned blog or website is penalized and punished to the degree it seems fit, including but not limited to a total removal of the website from Google search indexing and heavily down-prioritizing the concerned entry in search rankings.

And let me reiterate. This is serious. So, ask for permission and utilize bold, fearless, in-your-face attribution when reproducing parts of content from Nihonden.

Links to other websites

The website includes a lot of links to other websites, research papers, archives, and other sources. These other websites and sources are “third-parties.”

  • The third-party websites or sources are not owned or controlled by Nihonden.
  • The specific piece of information in the linked source that we considered relevant to be shared for a more satisfying experience on Nihonden might have been changed, revised, updated, or removed altogether. You might notify us of any such links and we’ll try to remove them.
  • We are not responsible for the content on the third-party sources, naturally. It can cause damage, harm, loss of profit, etc. and we cannot be held responsible for any such situation.
  • We don’t endorse any third-party source. So if you make purchases, use their services, access their content – interact with a source in any possible way – be sure to read their Terms and Privacy Policy, as they are not dictated by ours.

Affiliation to product-selling websites

Nihonden is an affiliate of multiple product-selling or ecommerce websites.

We do not write sponsored content and never will. We consider it a good practice to link to any product that might be relevant for the user of Nihonden for satisfying their own interest.

  • We’re primarily affiliated to Amazon and JList. There are other affiliations too.
  • We are paid a commission for most purchases made at those websites through following a link from our website.
  • For any inconvenience arising from the product-selling website, kindly address the website in question.
  • The moment you arrive at any third-party website from our website – product-selling or not – you are dictated by their Terms and other legal policies.
  • Show extra care when entering product-selling websites from our domain. They are not endorsed by us. If any problem arises regarding a transaction of funds, it has to be solved according to their Terms and rules.
  • We cannot be held responsible for shipping errors, non-repayment of funds, damage to ordered property, or any other situation that might arise on an ecommerce website. It has to be resolved with the website in question.

Advertising

We employ advertising to keep renew our hosting, domains, etc. and pay the many authors who contribute to the content at Nihonden. We also need to hire web developers to get rid of problems we can’t.

The relevance of the ads to the topics of our discussion is not under our control. However, Google AdSense is known to be quite contextual so there won’t be any disturbance in your natural flow of content consumption on the website.

If you interact with the ads displayed, it’s on your own will and risk. Although we have no reasons whatsoever to not trust Google’s ads but still, if some sort of damage, loss of profit, or problem arises by visiting a link through an ad, we cannot be held responsible for that.

In any such unlikely case, you should file a complaint with Google so that action could be taken against the advertiser in question.

Once you visit another webpage or portal through clicking on one of our ads, the same condition of visiting a third-party source or a product-selling affiliate website arises where we no more have control over the content. It’s your responsibility to:

  • Be cautious,
  • Read their Terms,
  • Make any transactions or decisions after getting proper advice, and
  • Not claim your possible loss or even profit to be linked to Nihonden.

Subscription and collected email addresses

Nihonden has a subscription feature where you can use your email address to receive a timely update of articles. It works like a newsletter.

  • Email addresses collected through the subscription field or form are not used for any other purpose.
  • Subscribing to Nihonden’s newsletter doesn’t establish any kind of client relationship with Nihonden. It is also not a sign-up or a way to gain membership privileges. You can sign up as an author through the Join page.
  • The email addresses collected are never made available to any third-party. Even our own members don’t know your emails. However, if required by law or if ordered by governmental authorities we will be obliged to take action including the release of our stored email addresses.
  • The collected email addresses, however, are used to mail a couple additional things besides the newsletter:
    • Change in our Terms of Use will be notified.
    • Change in our subscription regulations will be notified.
    • Optionally, you can opt-in to receive website updates and other news.
  • Read our Privacy Policy and Cookies Policy for the whole information regarding how we deal with personal information including email addresses and how we utilize cookies.

Responding to online requests

Nihonden has certain features where readers can send us online requests, like using forms to submit information, or our own campaigns where we offer to provide certain information to interested individuals.

  • We hold the sole right to discontinue such offers or reject an application for seeking such offers or requests.
  • Responding to contact requests is not guaranteed. Use the Facebook page for a second try at reaching us.

Modification to the terms

We reserve the right to change, update, or revise the Terms of Use of Nihonden with our sole discretion. We will try to provide a notice prior to any new terms taking effect. What constitutes a change for such notice to be delivered will be determined at our sole discretion. We will use email addresses from our newsletter subscription list to send this notice, and might also put up the notice on the website front page.

Contact us

If you have any questions regarding our terms, please contact us using the form at the Contact Us page. If the subject says “Regarding your Terms of Use,” you can be assured of a prompt and timely response.

Thank you for bearing!