Terms & conditions

TERMS AND CONDITIONS

Access to and use of any part or page of www.brittrust.co.uk, www.bpi.co.uk, www.brits.co.uk, www.classicbrits.co.uk, www.mercuryprize.com (each a "Website") and, together, the ("Websites") both within the UK and internationally is provided by BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Limited ("BPI") on the following terms:

1. By using a Website, you agree to be bound by these terms, which shall take effect immediately on your first use of that Website. If you do not agree to be bound by all of the following terms please do not access, use and/or contribute to a Website.

2. BPI may change these terms from time to time and so you should check these terms regularly. Your continued use of a Website will be deemed acceptance of the updated or amended terms. If you do not agree to the changes, you should cease using the Websites. If there is any conflict between these terms and specific local terms appearing elsewhere on the Websites (including house rules) then the latter shall prevail.

Use of the Websites

3. You agree to use the Websites only for lawful purposes and in a way that does not infringe the rights of BPI or restrict or inhibit anyone else's rights, use or enjoyment of the Websites. Prohibited behaviour includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any person, transmitting obscene or offensive content or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue within the Websites.

Intellectual Property

4. All copyright, trade marks, design rights, patents and other intellectual property rights (registered and unregistered) in and on the Websites and all content (including all applications) located on the Websites shall remain vested in BPI or its licensors (which includes other users). You may not copy, reproduce, republish, disassemble, decompile, reverse engineer, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use Website content in any way except for your own personal, non-commercial use. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any Website content except for your own personal, non-commercial use. Any other use of Website content requires the prior written permission of BPI.

5. The names, images and logos identifying BPI or third parties and their products and services are subject to copyright, design rights and trade marks of BPI and/or third parties. Nothing contained in these terms shall be construed as conferring any licence or right to use any trade mark, design right or copyright of BPI or any other third party.

Contributions to BPI

6. By sharing any contribution (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) with BPI you agree to grant to BPI, free of charge, permission to use the material in any way it wants (including modifying and adapting it for operational and editorial reasons) for BPI services in any media worldwide (including on BPI's Websites accessed by international users). In certain circumstances, BPI may also share your contribution with trusted third parties.

7. Copyright in your contribution will remain with you and this permission is not exclusive, so you can continue to use the material in any way including allowing others to use it.

8. In order that BPI can use your contribution, you confirm that your contribution is your own original work, is not defamatory and does not infringe any UK laws, that you have the right to give BPI permission to use it for the purposes specified above, and that you have the consent of anyone who is identifiable in your contribution.

9. We normally show your name with your contribution, unless you request otherwise, but for operational reasons this is not always possible. BPI may need to contact you for administrative or verification purposes in relation to your contribution, or in relation to particular projects. For full details of when and how we may contact you please see BPI's Privacy Policy and any local terms where applicable.

10. Please do not endanger yourself or others, take any unnecessary risks or break any laws when creating content you may share with BPI.

11. If you do not want to grant BPI the permission set out above on these terms, please do not submit or share your contribution to or with the Websites.

12. If you have any questions about contributing content to BPI, please Contact Us.

Website communities and other member pages

13. In order to participate in and contribute to selected Website communities and/or other member pages, you may be required to register with a Website. Any personal information supplied to the Websites as part of this registration process and/or any other interaction with the Websites will be collected, stored and used in accordance with BPI's Privacy Policy.

14. You agree to use Website communities (including message boards) in accordance with the following Community Rules as well as the rest of these terms and conditions. These apply across all Website community sites and services. You should, however, read the local house rules of the particular site or service you're using, as there may be some local variations to these Community Rules.

(i) About your posts:

Contributions must be civil and tasteful.
No disruptive, offensive or abusive behaviour: contributions must be constructive and polite, not mean-spirited or contributed with the intention of causing trouble.

No unlawful or objectionable content: unlawful, harassing, defamatory, abusive, threatening, harmful, obscene, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or otherwise objectionable material is not acceptable.

Be patient: users of all ages and abilities may be taking part in the relevant Website community.

No spamming or off-topic material: we don't allow the submission of the same or very similar contributions many times. Please don't re-submit your contribution to more than one discussion, or contribute off-topic material in subject-specific areas.

No advertising or promoting.

No spoilers: material which contains information about the BRIT Trust, BPI, the BRIT Awards, the Classic BRIT Awards or other matters which haven't been made available in the UK may be deleted.

Contributions containing languages other than English may be removed unless allowed in the relevant local house rules.

No impersonation.

No inappropriate (e.g. vulgar, offensive etc) user names. URLs (web site addresses) can only be posted if allowed under any relevant local house rules.

Deliberate misuse of the complaints facility is not permitted. If you persist in doing this, action may be taken against your account.

(ii) Your BPI Account:

If you use multiple logins for the purpose of disrupting a community or annoying other users you may have action taken against all of your accounts.

All accounts must be registered with a valid personal email address that you access regularly so that moderation emails can be sent to you. Accounts registered with someone else's email address, or with temporary email addresses may be closed without notice. We may require users to re-validate their account if we believe they have been using an invalid email address.

BPI reserves the right to close accounts if any user is seen to be using proxy IPs (Internet Protocol addresses) in order to attempt to hide the use of multiple BPI accounts, or if a non UK user pretends to be a UK user, or disrupts any of our services in any way.

(iii) Safety:

We advise that you never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example: telephone number, postal address, home address or email address or any other details that would allow you to be personally identified) in any BPI community.

(iv) Legal requirements:

You may not submit or share any defamatory or illegal material of any nature in Website communities. This includes text, graphics, video, programs or audio.

Contributing material to a Website community with the intention of committing or promoting an illegal act is strictly prohibited. You agree to submit to or share with Website communities only contributions which are your own original work. You must not violate, plagiarise, or infringe the rights of BPI or third parties including copyright, trade mark, trade secrets, privacy, publicity, personal or proprietary rights.

(v) If you're under 16:

Please get a parent's or guardian's permission before taking part in any Website community. Never reveal any personal information about yourself or anyone else (for example, school, telephone number, home address or email address).

(vi) If you breach these Community Rules:

If you fail to abide by these Community Rules (and/or any variations in relevant local house rules) or any other term or condition of use when taking part in a Website community, you will be sent an email which informs you why your contribution has been refused or edited. This email will also include a warning that continuing to break the rules may result in action being taken against your account or accounts.

This action may include any content posted by you being checked before allowed to go on the site or a temporary or permanent suspension of your ability to participate in any or all Website community areas.

If you submit or share offensive or inappropriate content to or with any Website communities or anywhere else on the Websites or otherwise engage in any disruptive behaviour on the Websites, and BPI considers such behaviour to be serious and/or repeated, BPI may use whatever information that is available to it about you to stop any further such infringements. This may include informing relevant third parties such as your employer, school or email provider about the infringement(s). BPI reserves the right to delete any contribution, or take action against any BPI account, at any time, for any reason

Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

15. The majority of content posted in Website communities is created by members of the public. The views expressed are theirs and unless specifically stated are not those of BPI. Neither BPI nor its group companies are responsible for any content posted by members of the public on the Websites or for the availability or content of any third party sites that are accessible through the Websites. Any links to third party websites from the Websites do not amount to any endorsement of that site by BPI or its group companies and any use of that site by you is at your own risk.

16. Website content, including the information, names, images, pictures, logos and icons regarding or relating to BPI, its products and services (or to third party products and services), is provided "AS IS" and on an "AS AVAILABLE" basis. To the extent permitted by law, BPI excludes all representations and warranties (whether express or implied by law), including the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy. BPI does not guarantee the timeliness, completeness or performance of the website or any of the content. While we try to ensure that all content provided by BPI is correct at the time of publication no responsibility is accepted by or on behalf of BPI for any errors, omissions or inaccurate content on the website.

17. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes BPI's liability for death or personal injury caused by its proven negligence. Subject to the previous sentence, BPI and/or shall not be liable for any of the following losses or damage (whether such damage or losses were foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise):
(a) loss of data;
(b) loss of revenue or anticipated profits;
(c) loss of business;
(d) loss of opportunity;
(e) loss of goodwill or injury to reputation;
(f) losses suffered by third parties; or
(g) any indirect, consequential, special or exemplary damages arising from the use of the Websites regardless of the form of action.

18. BPI does not warrant that functions available on the Websites will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that the Websites or the server that makes them available are free of viruses or bugs. You acknowledge that it is your responsibility to implement sufficient procedures and virus checks (including anti-virus and other security checks) to satisfy your particular requirements for the accuracy of data input and output.

General

19. If any of these terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction in which that term is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from these terms and the remaining terms shall survive and continue to be binding and enforceable.

20. The failure or delay of BPI to exercise or enforce any right in these terms does not waive BPI's right to enforce that right.

21. These terms shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales which shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any disputes. Website Terms & Conditions of Supply

Who we are
BPI (British Recorded Music Industry) Limited
27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX
Company Registration Number: 01132389
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7803 1300

British Record Industry Trust
27 Old Gloucester Street, London, WC1N 3AX
Company Registration Number: 02372740
Registered Charity Number: 1000413
Tel: +44 (0) 20 7803 1300