Shared Network Drive and Listserv Access Agreement

The American Society for Bioethics and Humanities (“ASBH”) seeks to promote the exchange of ideas and foster multi-disciplinary, inter-disciplinary, and inter-professional scholarship, research, teaching, policy development, professional development, and collegiality among people engaged in all endeavors related to clinical and academic bioethics and the health-related humanities. Among other things, under prescribed circumstances, ASBH allows members of affinity groups to upload, download, and review information housed on a shared network drive (the “Drive”) and allows members of affinity groups to share questions, messages, flyers, and other posts to a shared mailing list (the “List”). Specifically, ASBH requires those members wishing to have initial and continuing access to the Drive and the List to accept and adhere to the terms of the following Access Agreement.

Rules

ASBH has allowed the Drive and/or the List to be available to interested members for the purpose of providing a forum for the exchange of information relating to the study of issues that arise in clinical and academic bioethics and health-related humanities. Any posted information must be related to the purposes of the Drive and/or the List.
Members must comply at all times with state and federal laws regarding the release of potentially identifiable patient information, including, without limitation, the Standards for Privacy of Individually Identifiable Health Information (“Privacy Rule”) and the Security Standards for the Protection of Electronic Protected Health Information (“Security Rule”) established by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to implement the requirements of the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996 (“HIPAA”), all as applicable and as amended by Subtitle D of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health (“HITECH”) Act (Title XIII of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009) and as clarified by any and all amendments, regulations, and guidance thereto. Information posted on the Drive and/or the List will not be treated as confidential and, therefore, should not identify any patient by name or other identifying features, characteristics or any other individually identifiable Patient Health Information, as defined under the Privacy Rule. In fact, since any information posted on the Drive and/or the List may be downloaded, reproduced, and disseminated without the knowledge of the sender(s), members should use extreme care when posting or sending such information.
Communications among members using the Drive and/or the List are not to be relied on as professional opinions or advice, and such communications are not intended to constitute practice guidelines or to supplant an individual’s judgment with respect to particular patients or clinical situations. Postings are provided for informational purposes only to facilitate discussion on a given topic.
Members have an obligation to disclose any and all actual, potential, or apparent conflicts of interest as they arise in a manner consistent with the terms of the ASBH Conflict of Interest Policy.
Intellectual property rights, including copyright, must be respected at all times. Among other things, scholarly material should be appropriately referenced when used. Members may not post or distribute files, articles or other information subject to trademark, copyright, or other proprietary rights, except with the express consent of the owner of the rights.
Except as expressly granted authority on some other basis, no member has authority to speak on behalf of ASBH or to make any statement that implies, directly or indirectly, that their opinions are those of ASBH.
Members should exercise both common sense and courtesy in the messages they transmit on the Drive and/or the List and may not use the Drive and/or the List to transmit defamatory, obscene, and otherwise offensive communications, including, without limitation, any discriminatory statements regarding gender, race, religion, nationality, or sexual orientation. In addition, members may not use the Drive and/or the List to post any information that may invade the privacy rights of others (e.g., by including addresses, telephone numbers, or other personal information about third persons without their consent).
Anonymous postings are neither necessary for purposes of the Drive and/or the List nor consistent with the professional level of dialogue expected. Therefore, each member’s name (which must be provided) will be posted with any and all posts. No member may falsely portray himself/herself as anyone else.
Members are prohibited from using the Drive and/or the List to communicate with competitors about prices or terms of service, to exchange practice management or any other proprietary information with anyone involved in the management of a professional practice, or otherwise communicate in a manner that may violate federal or state antitrust laws. The same rules against illegal agreements in restraint of trade that apply at members' meetings apply to communications on the Drive and/or the List.
Due to ASBH’s status as a tax-exempt organization and the legal limitations on its activities, postings may not contain comments or materials supporting or opposing any candidates for political office or otherwise relating to political activity or activity inconsistent with ASBH’s purposes.
Members are prohibited from posting commercial messages advertising or selling goods or services.
Members must respect the security of the Drive and/or the List and may not attempt to gain access to areas private to ASBH or other members. A member may not upload, post or transmit any material containing software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt or limit the functionality of the ASBH’s Web site, computer software or hardware, or telecommunications equipment. Members may not attempt to decompile, reverse engineer, modify or hack the Web site or underlying software to defeat or overcome any encryption or digital rights management technology implemented by the ASBH, or to harm, disable, overburden, misuse or interfere with any other party’s use of the Drive, the List, or the ASBH Web site, servers, networks or systems.
Members may not provide their passwords to any third party without the express prior written consent of ASBH.
Members are prohibited from using the Drive and/or the List for illegal purposes or in any manner that violates the ASBH bylaws or any other policies, procedures, rules or regulations of ASBH.
ASBH will deny access to the Drive and/or the List to any member who does not abide by these terms.

Privacy Policy

Information that members provide to ASBH or that ASBH collects about members through their access to and use of the Drive is subject to ASBH’s Privacy Policy, the terms of which are incorporated by reference into this Access Agreement.

Disclaimer and Legal Notice

The views expressed on the Drive and/or the List are those of the individual users. They do not and should not be construed as representing the views of ASBH. ASBH makes no warranty, guarantee, or representation as to the accuracy or sufficiency of the information posted on the Drive and/or the List, whether posted by ASBH or any third party, and ASBH assumes no responsibility or liability regarding the use or misuse of such information for any purpose. ASBH disclaims any responsibility to maintain copies of any information posted on the Drive and/or the List or to assure that such information is deleted. Unless specifically stated otherwise, ASBH does not endorse, approve, recommend, or certify any information, product, process, service or organization presented or mentioned on the Drive and/or the List, and information from the Drive and/or the List should not be referenced in any way to imply such approval or endorsement. NEVERTHELESS, ASBH RETAINS THE RIGHT TO MONITOR POSTED INFORMATION AND REMOVE MESSAGES OR MATERIALS THAT IT BELIEVES DO NOT COMPLY WITH THIS ACCESS AGREEMENT OR ARE NOT IN THE BEST INTERESTS OF ASBH.

EACH MEMBER HAVING ACCESS TO THE DRIVE AND/OR THE LIST WILL INDEMNIFY AND HOLD ASBH HARMLESS FROM AND AGAINST ANY AND ALL LIABILITY, CLAIMS, DAMAGES, LOSSES, COSTS AND EXPENSES (INCLUDING REASONABLE ATTORNEYS’ FEES) RELATING TO THEIR ACTS OR OMISSIONS OR TO MATERIALS OR INFORMATION THEY TRANSMIT IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OF THE DRIVE AND/OR THE LIST.

DMCA Notice & Takedown Procedures

ASBH abides by the federal Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) by responding to notices of alleged infringement that comply with the DMCA and other applicable laws. As part of its response, ASBH may remove or disable access to material on the Drive and/or the List that is claimed to be infringing, in which case it will make a good-faith attempt to contact the person who submitted the affected material so that they may make a counter notification, also in accordance with the DMCA.

By posting material to the Drive and/or the List, the posting party represents and warrants that they own the copyright with respect to such material or have received permission from the copyright owner. In addition, the posting party grants the American Society for Bioethics and Humanities and members using the Drive and/or the List the nonexclusive, unrestricted, royalty-free right and license to display, copy, publish, distribute, transmit, print, and use such information or other material. Anyone who believes material posted on this site infringes on their copyrighted work should refer to the Procedures for Requesting Removal of Infringing Material.

Choice of Law

This Agreement will be governed in all respects by the laws of the State of Illinois irrespective of its choice of laws rules. In addition, members consent to be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts of Cook County, Illinois in the event of any dispute between the parties, and members and ASBH hereby consent to the personal jurisdiction of such courts over them.

Amendment

ASBH reserves the right to modify the rules of this Access Agreement as it determines from time-to-time in the best interests of ASBH, provided all members are notified prior to any such change.

Procedures for Requesting the Removal of Infringing Material

The owner of a copyrighted work (or the agent for the owner) who believes that material posted on an ASBH Drive infringes on the copyrighted work may request that the allegedly infringing material be removed from the site by notifying the ASBH Drive’s designated agent for such purposes. The notice of alleged copyright infringement must:

identify in sufficient detail the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed;
provide the electronic or physical signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on the owner’s behalf;
include a statement by the copyright owner or authorized agent that he or she has a good faith belief that the disputed use is unauthorized;
include a statement that the information contained in the request is accurate and an attestation, under penalty of perjury, that the requesting party is the copyright owner or authorized agent; and
include the copyright owner or authorized agent’s name, mailing address, telephone number and email address.

A notice of alleged copyright infringement may be submitted to the ASBH Drive’s designated copyright agent by mail or email as set forth below:

Mary Beth Benner
Executive Director
ASBH
8735 W. Higgins Rd., Suite 300
Chicago, IL 60631
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
847.375.4745

Please note that anyone who submits a false notice and materially misrepresents that content on the site is infringing may be liable for damages, including court costs and attorneys’ fees. Upon receiving a proper notice, ASBH will remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing material and promptly notify the alleged infringer of the owner’s claim. ASBH also will advise the alleged infringer of the statutory counter-notification procedure described below by which the alleged infringer may respond to the claim and request that their material be restored.

Anyone who believes their own copyrighted material has been removed by ASBH from the site as a result of mistake or misidentification may submit a written counter-notice to the ASBH Drive’s designated copyright agent. To be effective, a counter-notice must:

identify the material that has been removed or disabled and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or disabled;
include a statement consenting to the jurisdiction of the Federal District Court in which the submitting party’s address is located, or if the address is outside the United States, for any judicial district in which the service provider may be found;
include a statement that the submitting party will accept service of process from the party that filed the notice of alleged copyright infringement or the party’s agent;
provide the submitting party’s name, address and telephone number;
include a statement under penalty of perjury that the submitting party has a good faith belief that the material in question was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or disabled; and
include the submitting party’s physical or electronic signature.

A counter-notice may be submitted to the ASBH Drive’s designated copyright agent by mail or email as set forth below:

Mary Beth Benner
Executive Director
ASBH
8735 W. Higgins Rd., Suite 300
Chicago, IL 60631
This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
847.375.4745

Please note that the above is not a substitute for legal advice and one should obtain legal advice to better understand their rights and obligations under the DMCA and applicable laws.