Terms & Conditions - Membership
§ 1 Introduction
(1) The Service Design Network (hereinafter referred to as “SDN”) welcomes all service design professionals and also those interested in service design, including students, academics, corporations or engaged shareholders, to become members of the network (hereinafter referred to as “(Paid) Member/Members”).
(2) These “Terms & Conditions - Membership” apply exclusively for the use of the SDN website as a paying member. The use of restricted areas of SDN’s website is only permitted in case the Paid Member accepts these conditions.
(3) For use of the website as a free community follower, the “Terms & Conditions – Community Follower” applies.
(4) For all contracts and orders regarding the purchase of the Touchpoint Journal and/or Books & Reports, “Terms & Conditions - E-Shop” apply. The customer will find these terms via references made directly in the offer.
(5) For all contracts and orders regarding the purchase of tickets for the Service Design Global Conference (SDGC), the “Terms & Conditions - Service Design Global Conference” apply. The customer will find these terms via references made directly in the offer.
(6) For all contracts regarding SDN Trainer Accreditation, the “Terms & Conditions - Trainer Accreditation” apply. The customer will find these terms through references made directly in the offer.
(7) We may change these terms and conditions at any time without notice by updating this page. If you continue to access or use this website we will consider that you have accepted any updates/changes.
(8) For any questions, you may reach us via email info@service-design-network.org or by mail to:
Service Design Network Office
Mülheimer Freiheit 56
51063 Cologne
Germany
§ 2 Registration
(1) You will be considered a paying member once your registration form has been completed and applicable fees paid. You can register via our website by filling out the online form and clicking the “Submit” button. By doing so, you will have to agree to these Terms & Conditions – Membership.
(2) Our system will send your log-in details via email once your payment has cleared. You are now an official "paid" member of the SDN. If you do not receive your login details, please make sure to check your spam folder in case the message has been marked as spam.
(3) By sending this email to you, we conclude the membership-contract.
(4) We reserve the right to conclude this contract with any potential member which means that you cannot claim membership.
(5) The Paid Member is not permitted to share membership access details to a third person and is responsible for keeping the data confidential and preventing unauthorized use by third parties.
§ 3 Marketing communications
By becoming a Paid Member, you agree to the Service Design Network storing and processing your contact information in accordance with our Privacy Policy.
The SDN follows GDPR regulations concerning all marketing related activities. Newsletters, email correspondence and all other online communication require your agreement to receive.
You can opt-out of our marketing communications at any time by clicking on the unsubscribe link in the footer of any email you receive from us, or by contacting us at media@service-design-network.org.
We will not share your information with any third party, with the exception of our newsletter provider (if you have opted in to receive), MailChimp. We use MailChimp as our marketing automation platform. By subscribing to a newsletter, you acknowledge that the information you provide will be transferred to MailChimp for processing in accordance with their Privacy Policy and Terms. Through MailChimp, we also gather statistics around email opening and clicks using industry-standard technologies to help us monitor and improve our newsletter's performance.
§ 4 Service Design Network Membership
There are three types of paid memberships: student members, professional members and corporate/academic members.
- Student Members - Students applying for student membership must be enrolled in an academic program, approved by an appropriate accrediting institution and as defined by the Academy’s Commission on Education. SDN reserves the right to cancel a membership not matching with the student guidelines. In this instance, all paid fees will be reimbursed
- Professional Members - Professional members are practitioners working on service design projects with a commercial, public, or non-profit sector
- Corporate/Academic Members - Corporate/Academic members are organisations which provide service design education, qualification or consultancy
§ 5 Price Components and Methods of Payment
(1) Please see our membership page here for a breakdown on our fee structure for students, professionals and organisations. We accept all major credit cards for payment. You also have the option to request payment via invoice and can be paid via bank transfer or Paypal. Note all details concerning this latter payment option are outlined on the invoice
(2) Memberships are active for a 12 months period starting from the date of registration/payment.
(3) The membership fee must be paid in full before you can access services. After your registration is received, you will be sent a confirmation of payment for the membership fee.
§ 6 Membership Obligations
(1) As a Paid Member you agree not to transmit any illegal or unlawful contents in text or in picture. You are particularly obliged not to publish any contribution
- that would constitute a crime or administrative offence,
- that infringes copyrights, trademark rights or competition regulations,
- that infringes the Legal Services Act (Rechtsdienstleistungsgesetz),
- that has offending, racist, discriminating or pornographic content,
- that contains advertisements.
(2) A breach of the obligations stated above entitles SDN to delete or modify the respective contributions and to block the Paid Member access. The membership can be frozen for an appropriate period of time. SDN remains entitled to claim for further damage caused by violation of this duty.
(3) SDN has the right to delete contributions of a Paid Member that may contain a statutory violation.
(4) SDN has the right to be indemnified by the Paid Member against third party claims due to a statutory violation by the Member. The Paid Member is obligated to support SDN in defending the claim of respective demands and bear the costs for an adequate legal defense.
(5) Comments and other contributions that are published have to be factually and respectful to other Members. In case of offences SDN is entitled to delete the contributions and block the Paid Member access. When it comes to a severe case SDN is entitled to freeze the membership for an appropriate period of time.
(6) In case the membership is frozen the Paid Member cannot enforce a right derived from the membership.
§ 7 Limitation of Liability
(1) To the maximum extent permitted by law, we accept no responsibility for any loss, which may arise from reliance on information contained in this website or other sites, which may be linked to our site from time to time.
(2) The SDN assumes no liability or responsibility for the accuracy, completeness, reliability, up-to-dateness and usefulness of the provided content of the respective Paid Members. Please note that statements of fact and opinion are made on the responsibility of the authors alone and do not represent the views of the SDN.
(3) Claims for damages are excluded unless otherwise agreed below. This exclusion of liability also applies for legal representatives and vicarious agents of the SDN.
(4) The liability for the following matters are not limited or excluded: The liability arising from the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz), liability for assuming a guarantee, liability in case of violation of essential contractual obligations (cardinal obligations), liability for injury to life, body and health and liability for gross negligence and willful misconduct. The same applies to liability for negligence of the vicarious agent or the legal representative. In the above matters, liability is unlimited. This applies for direct damages as well as for indirect damages.
§ 8 Transfer of Usage Rights
The copyright remains with the Paid Member. Paid Members grant SDN the right to make their contributions permanently accessible to the public. The SDN has the right to move or connect discussion topics or contributions to other contents. By posting any contribution the Member transfers a non-exclusive temporally and spatially unlimited usage right to the SDN within the scope of their object of their company.
§ 9 Termination of Membership
(1) Upon registration, you can choose between two options of terminating the membership.
(1.1.) You can choose to become a Paid Member for only one year, by deactivating the “Automatic renewal of membership" option during registration or by disabling the “automatic renewal" in your member dashboard prior to the last day of your SDN membership. This means the membership will terminate automatically at the end of the year in case you do not extend the membership explicitly for another. You will automatically become a Community Follower.
(1.2.) The other option is an ongoing membership that continues automatically. If you do not deactivate the “Automatic renewal of membership" option during registration or disable the “automatic renewal" in your member dashboard prior to the last day of your SDN membership, your membership will continue on, uninterrupted. In case you choose this option, we will send you a reminder email letting you know that your membership will automatically renew unless you take action via your member dashboard.
(2) In case of good cause, in particular in the event of violation of membership obligations stated in § 5 of these Terms and Conditions - Membership, the SDN is entitled to promptly close access to the Member und terminate the membership without setting a period of notice.
(3) As a result of the termination, the SDN is entitled but not obligated to delete the contributions of the Paid Member on the site. Moreover, SDN will close the member access to member benefits.
(4) After termination, the member is still able to login and use the website as a free Community Member. In this case, the “Terms & Conditions – Community Membership” will apply.
(5) After expiry of deadlines, as per tax-related and commercial regulations, your personal data will be deleted unless you have expressly consented to its further use.
§ 10 Final Provisions
(1) The language of the contract shall be English.
(2) The laws of the Federal Republic of Germany apply exclusively.
(3) This choice of law only applies to consumer only to the extent that the protection granted by the mandatory provisions of the law of the country of the consumer’s usual residence is not deprived.
(4) The sole place of fulfilment for delivery, performance and payment is Cologne if the Paid Member is an entrepreneur in the sense of § 14 German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch).
(5) In case the Paid Member is a merchant, the exclusive (and international) court of jurisdiction for all disputes resulting directly or indirectly from the contractual relationship is Cologne. In the case of cross-border contracts, this also applies for non-merchants. SDN reserves the right to call on any other internationally responsible court. This also applies to you – not being a consumer – not having your place of general jurisdiction in Germany or the EU or in case that your residence or habitual abode is unknown by the time a lawsuit is filed.
(6) If any provision in these terms and conditions shall be held to be illegal, invalid or unenforceable, in whole or in part, then such provision or part of it shall, to the extent that it is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, be deemed not to form part of these terms and conditions and the legality, validity and enforceability of the remainder of these terms and conditions shall not be affected.
(7) With the beginning of 2016, the European Commission provides you a European Online Dispute Resolution platform. Our Email address is info@service-design-network.org.