1.1 Definition of terms

In these terms “Occident” and “the Service” refers to the Occident Website and Occident.Dev Matrix Homeserver.

These Homeserver Terms do not apply to Matrix servers run by anyone else - Matrix is an open network like the Web and these Homeserver Terms only apply to the occident.dev Homeserver.

If your account is not hosted on the occident.dev homeserver but is involved in rooms federated with the occident.dev homeserver, these Homeserver Terms will govern any moderation actions taken in relation to those rooms.

1.2 Living Document

This is a living document. Your use of Occident indicates that you agree to abide by the most recent version of these terms. We will update and change these terms from time to time as necessary.

1.3 Breach of Terms

If you breach any of these Homeserver Terms, your authorization to access or use Occident may be automatically terminated. In the event of such a breach, we may also block, restrict, disable, suspend or terminate your access to all or part of Occident at any time in our sole discretion, without prior notice or liability to you.

2.1 Service Use

The Service is provided for lawful purposes only, and you agree not to use the Service in any way that violates local, national, or international law or regulation. This includes refraining from sending, knowingly receiving, uploading, downloading, using, or reusing any material that does not comply with these Homeserver Terms.

In order to use the Service, you must be 18 years of age or older and have a valid, verified email address linked to your account.

2.2 Account Security

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account information, including usernames and passwords, and for any and all activities that occur under your account. The ability for the Administrators to manage accounts is limited. Please contact an administrator if you have any concerns about your account. Be aware that we may not be able to assist you.

2.3 Modification of Service and Support

We may change or modify the Service from time to time. We will make a good-faith effort to provide notice of any modifications. Support is limited, as we are a very small team who have full-time jobs outside of managing Occident.

2.4 Account Non-Guarantee

Matrix accounts made with Occident.dev are not guaranteed. We reserve the right to ban, delete, or suspend any account at any time, especially for violations of these terms. We also make known that Occident is only available as long as funding exists for the server and maintenance, and if the server ever needs to be shut down for lack of funds, your account will no longer be functional.

3.1 IP Ownership of Messages and Files

We do not claim intellectual property rights over rooms, message content or files uploaded to the Service.

You acknowledge and agree that we have no liability of any kind should anyone you grant access to your messages or files modify, destroy, corrupt, copy or distribute them, or violate the Homeserver Terms or other limitations that you may impose on the use of your shared content.

We may pre-screen user messages or files to prevent spam and other abuse, and we may remove any messages or files (including entire rooms) from the homeserver that breach these Homeserver Terms. By posting or uploading your messages or files, you represent and warrant that you own or otherwise control all of the intellectual property rights and other rights to your user materials as described in these Homeserver Terms, including all the rights necessary for you to post or upload said messages or files. You hereby grant us the right to use such user materials for the purpose of providing the Service to you.

You are solely and entirely responsible for all of your messages and files that you post or otherwise submit via the Service. You shall assume all risks associated with the use of said content including any reliance on its accuracy, completeness or usefulness. Occident does not guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of your messages or files.

3.2 User Content

Occident does not accept liability for any user-uploaded content. When we become aware of any illegal content, we remove or disable access to it, and apply sanctions such as suspension or deactivation.

4.1 Non-Guarantee of Service Availability

Occident is managed by a very small team. We do not guarantee the availability of the service at any given time. You should use the service with the understanding that it may become temporarily or permanently unavailable at any time due to technical, financial, or legal constraints. We encourage users to back up any messages or contact information that they wish to keep in some offline format. This service is provided “as is”.

4.2 Non-Guarantee of Room Availability

Occident reserves the right to remove any room hosted on Occident.dev at any time for any reason. Users are advised to back up any content they wish to preserve, including messages and files, in an offline format.

5.1 Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold Occident and its officers, co-branders, other partners and employees harmless from and against any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising out of:

1. your user materials and any other content (e.g. computer viruses) that you may submit, post to or transmit through the Service, including (without limitation) a third party's use of such user materials or content (including without limitation relating to their reliance on the accuracy, completeness or usefulness of your user materials);
2. your access to or use of the Service (including any use by your employees, contractors or agents and all uses of your usernames and passwords, whether or not actually or expressly authorized by you, in connection with the Service);
3. your connection to the Service;
4. your violation of these Homeserver Terms;
5. your infringement of any third party's intellectual property rights when using any of the software made available on the Service;
6. your violation of any rights of any third party;
7. your access to or use of linked sites and your connections thereto; or
8. any dealings between you and any third parties advertising or promoting via the Service.

5.2 Limitation of Liability

In no event shall Occident, its officers, directors, employees, partners or suppliers be liable to you or any third party for (and in any case on any theory of liability, including breach of contract or warranty, negligence or other tortious action):

1. any special, punitive, incidental, indirect or consequential damages or losses of any kind (whether or not the Service has been advised of the possibility of such damages or losses), or
2. any damages or losses whatsoever resulting from loss of use, data or profits (whether direct or indirect), or
3. the statements or actions of any third party on or via the Service; or
4. any dealings with vendors or other third parties via the Service; or
5. any web site referenced or linked to from the Service; or
6. your access to or use of or inability to access or use any linked site.

In no event shall the Service, its officers, directors, employees, partners or suppliers be liable to you or any third party for any other claim arising out of or in connection with (and in any case on any theory of liability, including breach of contract or warranty, negligence or other tortious action):

1. any unauthorised access to or alteration of your transmissions, user materials or other data;
2. any information that is sent or received or not sent or received;
3. any failure to store or loss of data, files, materials or other content; or
4. any services available that are delayed or interrupted.

Some jurisdictions prohibit the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages. Accordingly, the limitations and exclusions set forth above may not apply to you. Notwithstanding the foregoing, Occident's total aggregate liability in contract, tort (including negligence or breach of statutory duty), misrepresentation, restitution or otherwise, arising in connection with the performance or contemplated performance of these Homeserver Terms shall be limited to the total amount of fees paid by you to the Service during the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the date on which the claim arose.

At any given time, Occident may solicit donations via Patreon, PayPal, or some other app. The primary purpose of these donations will be to offset server hosting costs and, to the extent funds are available, to compensate administrators and technicians for their time. Donations via these services may be incentivized with perks on Occident, such as access to special channels, but do not otherwise carry any express or implied benefit. Donations will be voluntary.

7.1 Use of the Service

You agree that you shall not:

• Use or attempt to gain unauthorized access to or use another's account, password, data, or computer systems or networks connected to the occident.dev homeserver, whether through malicious attacks, password mining or any other means.
• Access or attempt to access any material that you are not authorized to access.
• Submit or transmit any material that violates or infringes the rights of others including, without limitation, patent, trademark, trade secret, copyright, publicity, or other proprietary rights.
• Disrupt or interfere with the security of, or otherwise cause harm to, the occident.dev homeserver, systems resources, accounts, passwords, servers or networks connected to or accessible through the Service or any affiliated or linked sites.
• Use the Service to transmit unsolicited or bulk communications to anyone at all, be they users of the Service, federated Matrix homeservers, or connected on a bridged network.
• Post or otherwise submit any software, programs or files in a manner that is intended to cause harm to or disruption of another's equipment, software or other property, including any corrupted files, time bombs, Trojan horses, viruses and worms.
• Disrupt, interfere with or inhibit any other user from using and enjoying the Service.
• Access or use the Service in any manner that could damage, disable, overburden or impair any server we run or the network(s) connected to the Service.
• Violate any applicable laws or regulations related to the access to or use of the Service, or engage in any activity prohibited by the Homeserver Terms.
• Use the Service for any unlawful purposes or in support of illegal activities under US law. By using the Service, you agree to comply with all applicable laws governing your online conduct and content.
• Act in a way that is in violation of our Community Rules/Code of Conduct.
• Act in a way contrary to the directions of a Server Administrator or Server Moderator in a room that is hosted on occident.dev.

Materials and services provided by third parties are governed by separate agreements accompanying such materials and services. Occident offers no guarantees and assumes no responsibility or liability of any type with respect to the third-party services, including any liability resulting from incompatibility between a third-party service, the occident.dev service or another third-party service. You agree that you will not hold the Occident responsible or liable with respect to the third-party services.

7.2. Data Usage Policy

Your use of Occident's homeserver may be limited in scope for data-use reasons. We reserve the right to delete private or public rooms and spaces to save space on server hosting costs, especially if a given room is taking up a large amount of space. Do not use Occident as a storage location for large files or rely upon it as a backup for any of your user data. Occident recommends having an offline copy of any data - whether text, images, videos, or other files - as a backup to anything you have stored on Occident.

7.3 Illegal and Regulated Content

Content containing or promoting indecent images or depictions of children is illegal. There is no place for it on this Service and it is utterly prohibited. When we become aware of such content, we refer the details to the relevant authorities.

The following kinds of content are strictly prohibited on Occident:

• content related to or promoting terrorism
• child sexual exploitation and abuse (CSAM)
• image-based child sexual abuse material
• child sexual abuse material URLs
• grooming (especially of minors)
• hate (as defined by United States law)
• harassment
• stalking
• threats and abuse offences
• controlling or coercive behavior
• intimate image abuse/revenge pornography
• extreme pornography offences
• sexual exploitation of adults
• human trafficking
• unlawful immigration
• fraud and financial services offences
• proceeds of crime
• drugs and psychoactive substances
• encouraging or assisting suicide (or attempted suicide)
• foreign interference offences
• animal cruelty
• content which involves the sale or transfer of guns, knives, or other weapons

Any forms of illegal content are strictly prohibited in the Service. Distribution of illegal content will result in immediate account sanctions (including immediate suspension or termination). It is the responsibility of each user to report illegal content to a moderator or administrator promptly.

7.4 Community Conduct and Rules

Users are expected to abide by the Community Conduct and Rules provisions as promulgated by Administrators and Moderators in rooms that are located on occident.dev. Failure to do so may result in your account losing access to a specific room or space, your account being suspended, or your account being banned. These rules may prohibit content that is not prohibited under these Terms of Service, including content which is obnoxious, immoral, or otherwise objectionable to the Moderators and Administrators of Occident. You acknowledge that use of Occident does not entitle you to absolute freedom of speech. We may choose to prohibit content or behavior that is legal in addition to our Terms of Service which prohibit illegal content. These prohibitions will be for the purpose of curating and nurturing a productive space.

The Service may allow you to encrypt your communications end-to-end between devices. There may be restrictions and limitations on the import, possession, use, transfer and/or export of strong encryption technology under the laws of the country in which you intend to use the Service. It is your sole obligation and responsibility to check such restrictions and limitations before using the Service and to comply with them. We reserve the right to suspend the Service immediately and without notice if we determine, in our sole judgment, that the Service is being used in violation of local regulations governing the use of cryptographic technologies (even though we have no responsibility to make such determination).

The Service may include links that will take you to other sites outside of the Service. The linked sites are provided as a convenience and the inclusion of the links do not imply any endorsement by us of any linked site. We have no control of the linked sites and you therefore acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible for the content of any linked site, any link contained in a linked site or any changes or updates to a linked site. You further acknowledge and agree that we are not responsible for any form of transmission (e.g. webcasting) received from any linked site.

The matrix.org service is provided by Element under these Homeserver Terms “as is” without warranty of any kind, either express, implied, statutory or otherwise, including, but not limited to, the implied warranties of title, non-infringement, merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Without limiting the foregoing, Element makes no warranty that:

1. the Service will meet your requirements;
2. the Service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free;
3. the quality of the Service will meet your expectations; and
4. any errors or defects in the Service will be corrected.

You acknowledge and agree that:

1. The Service does not control, endorse, or accept responsibility for any materials or services offered by third parties (except where stated otherwise), including third-party vendors and third parties accessible through linked sites;
2. The Service makes no representations or warranties whatsoever about any such third parties, their materials or services;
3. any dealings you may have with such third parties are at your own risk; and
4. The Service shall not be liable or responsible for any materials or services offered by third parties.

Occident does not control or endorse the materials or message content found in any rooms or communities. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Service will have no liability related to user materials arising under intellectual property rights, libel, privacy, publicity, obscenity or other laws. The Service also disclaims all liability with respect to the misuse, loss, modification or unavailability of any user messages or files, except to the extent such issues arise directly from our failure to exercise reasonable skill and care in providing the Service.

The use of the Service is at your own discretion and risk and with your agreement that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your computer system, loss of data or other harm that results from such activities. The Service assumes no liability for any computer virus or other similar software code that is downloaded to your computer from the site or in connection with any services or materials. No advice or information, whether oral or written, obtained by you from the Service or via the Service or materials shall be subject to any warranty not expressly stated in these Homeserver Terms. The Service will not be liable for any loss that you may incur as a result of someone else using your password or account with respect to the Service or materials, either with or without your knowledge.

Some states or jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties or limitations on how long an implied warranty may last, so the above limitations may not apply to you. To the extent permissible, any implied warranties are limited to ninety days. Access to certain features - including paid Usage Plans - may be unavailable in some regions as a result of applicable laws and/or sanctions. We make no representations or warranties that the availability of the Service (or any part thereof) is available for use in all jurisdictions.

The Service does not and is not intended to support or carry emergency calls to any emergency services (e.g. 911 or 112 numbers). We are not liable for any claims, damages or loss which arise from this limitation.

These Homeserver Terms and any dispute (including non-contractual disputes) arising out of them or their subject matter shall be governed by the laws of the United States of America. Unless contrary to the law where you reside, these Homeserver Terms and all disputes (including non-contractual disputes) arising out of them or their subject matter are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of the United States of America and you expressly consent to the exercise of personal jurisdiction in the courts of the United States of America in connection with any such dispute. These Homeserver Terms shall not be governed by the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

The Service is licensed, not sold, to you by the Administrators for use strictly in accordance with these Homeserver Terms. Ownership of the Service shall at all times remain with the Administrators. Access to the Service is provided to you only to allow you to exercise your rights under these Homeserver Terms.

Any failure of the administrators to enforce a provision of these terms shall not constitute a waiver of that provision. The section titles used in these terms are purely for convenience and shall not have any legal or contractual effect.

These terms have been adapted from the terms for the Matrix.org homeserver.