Overview

These terms of service (Terms) set out the basis on which you may browse and use our website, available at https://www.rame.org.in and its subdomains and any services offered through it, including Author/Reviewer/Editor (Author/Reviewer/Editor) (collectively, the Site). Please also read our Privacy Policy, which contains important information regarding the ways in which we collect and use your personal information in connection with our business.

Your use of the Site will be governed by these Terms, which serve as a legal contract between us and you. By browsing or using the Site and/or any services, content or materials made available through the Site you are agreeing to be legally bound by the Terms.

You may access the Site as an unregistered user but will need to register with us for an account (Author/Reviewer/Editor Account) in order to submit, edit or review any articles intended for publication in one of our journals. Any submissions, edits, information or data (in any form) you make via your Author/Reviewer/Editor Account including without limitation uploading of any articles or edits to articles are described in these Terms as your Contribution. In addition to these Terms, you acknowledge and agree that you will comply with any Author Guidelines, Editorial Workflows, Publication Ethics or other policies applicable to the journal(s) you contribute to via your Author/Reviewer/Editor Account (Policies).

In these terms “Intellectual Property Rights” means any patents, registered and unregistered trade-marks and service marks, domain names, registered designs and design rights, copyright (including such rights in computer software and databases), database rights and moral rights (in each case for the full period thereof and extensions, revivals and renewals thereof), applications for the foregoing and the right to apply for any of the foregoing anywhere in the world, and all similar rights anywhere in the world including those subsisting in inventions, designs, drawings and computer programs.

We may revise the Terms at any time by amending this page. Your use of the Site will be subject to the most recent version of the Terms available on the Site. We recommend that you read through the Terms available on the Site regularly so that you can be sure that you are aware of any changes that may apply to you.

General availability of the Site

We do not guarantee that the Site, or any content on it, including Author/Reviewer/Editor, will always be available, uninterrupted, up to date, or otherwise free from errors, omissions, bugs or viruses.

Access to the Site is permitted on a temporary and as-is basis. We may suspend, withdraw, discontinue or change all or any part of the Site without notice. We will not be liable to you if for any reason our site is unavailable at any time or for any period.

You are responsible for regularly creating backup copies of your Contribution.

You are responsible for your access to the Site including:

ensuring that all persons who access the Site through your internet connection are aware of these Terms and other applicable terms and conditions, and that they comply with them;

ensuring that all persons who access the Site through your internet connection are aware of our Privacy Policy which sets out how we will collect and use their personal information; and

that your internet enabled device and telecommunications systems carry the appropriate anti-virus software necessary to minimise the risk of any harmful viruses infecting your internet enabled device.

General conduct

At all times when using or accessing the Site you represent, warrant and undertake that you will:

• not breach any applicable laws, statutes, rules, regulations, guidelines, directives and codes;
• not use the Site to seek or offer any goods or services;
• if you are an Author/Reviewer/Editor Account holder, respond promptly to communications from us or any other Author/Reviewer/Editor Account holder;
• not publish, post, upload, store, distribute or disseminate anything which solicits or harvests another user’s password or other account information;
• not reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble or otherwise attempt to obtain the Site’s source code;
• not misuse the Site by knowingly introducing viruses, Trojans, worms, logic bombs, third-party or external links or other malicious or harmful material;
• not attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Site, the server on which the Site is stored or any server, computer or database connected to the Site;
• not attack the Site via a denial of service attach or a distributed denial-of-service attack; and
• comply with the Policies and all reasonable instructions given by us from time to time.

A failure to comply with our conduct expectations set out in the “General Conduct” section, or any other part of these Terms, all of which we reserve the right to determine in our sole discretion, may result in the:

• suspension or termination of your Author/Reviewer/Editor Account;
• deletion of your Contribution; and/or
• suspension or termination of your right to use the Site.
Our rights and remedies set out in this section shall be without prejudice to any other rights or remedies which may be available to us.

Your Author/Reviewer/Editor account

You must ensure that the information you provide during your registration is complete, accurate and kept up to date. Your Author/Reviewer/Editor Account is personal to you.

We reserve the right to validate the account information supplied at any time.

Once registered, it is your responsibility to keep your password and any other security information confidential. We will be entitled to assume that any person that logs into or uses your Author/Reviewer/Editor Account is you. You must notify us immediately at help@RAME Publishers.com if you know or suspect that anyone other than you has had access to or knows your password.

Intellectual Property Rights and confidentiality

With the exception of articles published on our Site marked “Open Access” which may be used in accordance with the terms of the “Publication of contributions - articles” section below:

• all Intellectual Property Rights in the Site are owned, and will remain owned, by us or our licensors at all times. You may not copy or use any part of the Site other than as expressly permitted by the Terms; and
• you may print off one copy, and may download extracts, of any page(s) from the Site for your personal use and link to the Site as permitted under the “Linking to RAME Publishers” section below.

If you are an Author/Reviewer/Editor Account holder you may deal with any Contribution in accordance with these Terms, our Policies and our instructions to you.

You acknowledge and agree that articles (including all drafts, notes and preparatory material and/or other Contributions related to the article) prior to first publication are highly confidential (Confidential Information). You warrant and agree that you will (a) hold all Confidential Information at all times under conditions of secrecy and will take all reasonable steps to preserve its confidentiality; (b) use Confidential Information solely for the purpose of performing any services authorized by us and for no other purpose whatsoever; and (c) not disclose Confidential Information to any third party or use it for the benefit of any third party other than as permitted by us (which may only be given on obtaining undertakings similar to those in this paragraph from such parties).

Prior to publication of your Contribution on the licence terms set out in the “Publication of Contributions - Articles” section below, you grant, and you represent and warrant that you have the right to grant to us a non-exclusive, irrevocable, perpetual, transferable, sub-licensable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to publicly perform, copy, reproduce, display, make available, communicate to the public, modify, edit, manage, distribute, store and publish any and all of your Contribution in print and electronic form, including on Author/Reviewer/Editor in order to prepare an article for publication in our journal(s).

Publication of contributions - articles

You acknowledge and agree that, unless otherwise specified in the journal, if and once editorially accepted for publication, your Contribution shall be published by us under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) and any data relating to the article (including without limitation any reference lists) is distributed pursuant to the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/).

For the avoidance of doubt, you shall retain the non-exclusive right to publish or otherwise use your Contribution and shall be the “Licensor” of the “Licensed Material” for the purposes of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Licence and Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver.

If we consider that the copyright in your Contribution has been or is likely to be infringed, we shall be entitled (on giving notice where possible to you) to take such steps to deal with the matter as we may consider appropriate. You undertake not to do anything which may compromise or prejudice our conduct of such claim and we shall be entitled on giving notice to you to use your name and the name of any other co-author as a party to such proceedings and to control, settle or compromise such proceedings as we see fit. You shall (and shall procure that any other co-authors shall) co-operate with and give all reasonable assistance to us in the conduct of such claim. After deduction of our costs in connection with such claim, half of any profits or damages which may be received in respect of any infringement of the copyright shall be retained by us with the remainder shared equally between you and any co-authors.

We reserve the right to refuse to publish any article or other Contribution for any reason.

By submitting or making a Contribution (including without limitation all tables, abstracts, illustrations, data, diagrams and other materials accompanying the text of the Contribution) for the purposes of publication by us you represent and warrant that:
• you are the sole author of the Contribution, or, if not, you have been authorized by and have the full permission, licence and consent of all co-authors to submit the Contribution and any personal data associated with the Contribution;
• you are legally able and entitled to submit the Contribution and authorize us to publish the Contribution in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license and you are legally able and entitled to authorize us to publish any data relating to the Contribution in accordance with the terms of the Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication Waiver, as described earlier in this section;
• the Contribution is original, has not already been published in any other form or is not currently under consideration for publication by another journal;
• you have obtained all necessary permissions and licences for any third-party material, data or code contained in the Contribution (including without limitation all illustrations, charts, photographs, maps or other material) and the Contribution does not infringe any copyright, trade mark right or any other rights of any third party;
• you have disclosed to us in accordance with any Policies all potential conflicts of interest, including without limitation, personal or political interests, commercial associations or financial interests held by you and any co-authors;
• nothing in the Contribution has been obtained in contempt of court or any violation of the Official Secrets Act 1989 or Data Protection Law (comprising the General Data Protection Regulation 2016/679/EC, the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, the Telecommunications (Lawful Business Practice) (Interception of Communications) Regulations 2000 (SI 2000/2699), the Electronic Communications Data Protection Directive (2002/58/EC), the Privacy and Electronic Communications (EC Directive) Regulations 2003 (SI 2426/2003) and all applicable laws and regulations relating to the processing of personal data and privacy, including any data protection legislation from time to time in force in the UK including at such time that it enters into force, the Data Protection Bill) or other analogous foreign legislation;
• nothing in the Contribution contains any information that may violate the State Secrets Laws of the People’s Republic of China (PRC), including (a) any information that has a vital bearing on Chinese state security and national interests; (b) any information defined as a “State Secret” under the PRC law, or (c) any classified information belonging to governmental authorities of the People’s Republic of China, including government agencies, quasi-government agencies, public institutions, or state-owned enterprises (together the State Secret Laws). For the purposes of PRC law and these Terms “State Secrets” shall include, but not be limited to: (i) unpublished information concerning major policy decisions on Chinese State affairs; (ii) confidential information concerning national defence and the activities of the armed forces; (iii) confidential information concerning national diplomatic policies and activities; (iv) confidential information concerning national economic and social development; (v) matters concerning classified science and technology; and (vi) unpublished Chinese State security matters and non-public information about the on-going investigation of criminal offenses.
• the Contribution and all information supplied by you through your Author/Reviewer/Editor Account contains nothing that is unlawful, defamatory, legally privileged or which would, if published, constitute a breach of contract or of confidentiality or breach of privacy;
• no advice, recipe, formula or instruction in the Contribution will if followed or implemented by any person cause loss, damage or injury to them or any other person;
• any research conducted for the Contribution has been conducted in accordance with applicable laws, regulations and codes of practice;
• you have adhered to the Policies in your preparation and submission of the Contribution; and
• due care, diligence and all other requisite investigations were carried out in the preparation of the Contribution to ensure its accuracy and all statements contained in it purporting to be factual are true and correct.

Article Processing Charges

Publication of an article with us requires payment of a non-refundable article processing charge in accordance with our Article Processing Charges Policy listed for each journal in the “Journal Menu” (for example, https://www.rame.org.in/journals/aaa/apc/) (APC).

In the event an article is accepted for publication, the author originally submitting the article intended for publication (whether for himself/herself or on behalf of a group of authors or an institution) will be invoiced for the applicable APC. Payments of APCs must be made in the period stipulated on our invoice. Payments must be made in full via our third-party payment service provider and in accordance with such provider’s terms of service. Payment by any other means is permitted only in our sole discretion.

You acknowledge and agree that payment of an APC does not guarantee publication of an article.

Reporting

You acknowledge that, other than for the purposes of verifying Author/Reviewer/Editor Account registrations and article submissions in accordance with the Policies, we do not actively monitor Contributions and/or any of the other content that is made available on the Site.

If you believe that any part of the Site:

• infringes your Intellectual Property Rights or other proprietary rights;
• is defamatory to you; and/or
• is otherwise in breach of these Terms,
please notify us by writing to us at help@RAME Publishers.com.

Third-party links and resources

The Site may contain links to other sites and resources. These links are provided for your information only and we make no warranties or representations whatsoever about any third-party websites which you may access through the Site. We assume no responsibility for the content of sites linked to on the Site. We will not be liable for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of any such third-party sites.

Third-party websites are in no way approved, vetted, checked or endorsed by us and you agree that we shall not be responsible or in any way liable for the content, accuracy, compliance with relevant laws or accessibility or any information, data, advice or statements or for the quality of any products or services available on such sites. Links do not necessarily imply that we are or that the Site is affiliated to or associated with such third-party sites. If you decide to visit any other site, you do so at your own risk. In addition, use of any other site may be subject to your acceptance of additional terms and conditions which we suggest you read carefully before proceeding.

Linking to RAME Publishers

You may link to the Site provided you do so in a way that is fair and legal and does not damage our reputation or take advantage of it. However, you must not suggest any form of association, approval or endorsement on our part where none exists and you must not establish a link to the Site in any site that is not owned by you.

The Site must not be framed on any other site.

You may link to any part of the Site but we reserve the right to withdraw linking permission without notice.

Data protection

Please refer to our Privacy Policy, for details of how personally identifiable information is collected and processed by us or shared with others.

Our liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for anything that cannot be excluded or limited by law.

To the extent permitted by law, we exclude all conditions, warranties, representations or other terms which may apply to the Site or any content made available on it, whether express or implied.

Subject to the first paragraph of this section, you agree that we will not be liable for any loss or damage, (whether direct or indirect or arising under contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise) even if foreseeable, arising under or in connection with any:
• use of, availability of or inability to use the Site; or
• use of or reliance on any content displayed on the Site.

Without limiting the effect of the previous paragraph and bullet points, due to the inherent risks of using the Internet, we cannot be liable for any damage to, or viruses that may infect, your internet enabled device or any other property when you are using the Site. The uploading, posting, downloading or accessing of any content (including Contributions), material and/or other information made available by the Site is done at your own discretion and risk and with your agreement that you will be solely responsible for any damage to your device or loss of data that results from the downloading or acquisition of any such content, material and/or information.

You agree to indemnify us against any claims, liabilities, losses, damages, expenses, or legal proceedings arising out of:

• your use of the Site;
• your Contribution (including any articles);
• any breach or alleged breach of your representations or warranties in the “Publication of contributions - articles” section above; or
• your failure to comply with these Terms.

General

Any failure or delay by us to enforce any of our rights under these Terms will not be taken as or deemed to be a waiver of that or any other right unless we acknowledge and agree to such a waiver in writing.

These Terms are not intended to be for the benefit of, nor exercisable by, any person who is not a party to these Terms.

If a court deems any part of the terms set out in these Terms to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable, the remainder of the terms will remain unaffected.

These Terms set out the full extent of our obligations and liabilities concerning the Site and replace any previous agreements and understandings between us and you.

We may assign our rights under this agreement and transfer our obligations under this agreement in our sole discretion by providing notice to you via the email address that you provide to us or by notifying you on our site.

These Terms, their subject matter and formation (and any non-contractual disputes or claims arising out of or in connection with these Terms), are governed and construed in accordance with English law. You and we both agree that the courts of England and Wales will have exclusive jurisdiction.