Terms of Use

Welcome to CM!

By using this website (the “Site”) and services (together with the Site, the “Services”) offered by The Citizens Media® – CM – (incorporated as ISOS Media Ltd), you’re agreeing to these legally binding rules (the “Terms”). You’re also agreeing to our Business Rules, Privacy Policy and agreeing to follow any other rules on the Site.

We may change these terms from time to time. If we do, we’ll let you know about any material changes, either by notifying you on the Site or by sending you an email. If you keep using CM after a change, that means you accept the new terms.

Creating an Account

You can browse CM without registering for an account. But to use most of CM’s functions, you’ll need to register, choose a username, and set a password. When you do that, the information you give us has to be accurate and complete. Don’t impersonate anyone else or choose names that are offensive or that violate anyone’s rights. If you don’t follow these rules, we may cancel your account.

You’re responsible for all the activity on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you find out that someone used your account without your permission, you should report it to support@the-cm.com.

To sign up for an account you need to be at least 13 years old. To submit a Funding Opportunity, you need to be at least 18 years old, or supported under contract by an Community Coordinator. If necessary, we may ask you for proof of age.

Glossary of Terms

Active Business

Community based business getting funds through the-cm.com. To receive funds through CM, businesses must employ locals, practice sustainable use of resources and produce products needed within their community.

Funding Opportunity

Funding Opportunities invite businesses to ask for funds to produce an amount of product/s over an approximate period of time. Once a business has been approved it can submit as many Funding Opportunities as it wants.

Funding Goal

The amount of funds a business seeks to raise in each Funding Opportunity.

Impact Indicator

Impact Indicators represent how much businesses have “paid forward” from funds they received. This is achieved by accepting CM™ Coins for products they make. The more they exchange in CM™ Coins the higher their Impact Indicator.

Active Funders

People giving funds to Active Businesses.

Active Sponsors

Corporate and philanthropic sponsors whose money helps fund business facilitation and platform development needs.

Business Leader

Person who adopted, or created the vision, for a specific business in collaboration with the members of the community where the business is located. Business Leaders maintain accountability of its members and tasks.

Business Administrator/s

Uploads and maintains principle content on the-cm.com: About, Gallery, Funding Opportunities and Members.

Citizen Journalists (CJs)

Locals earning CM™ Coins by creating online content that attracts business funds.

Community Coordinators

Nonprofits and cooperatives who are responsible for receiving and managing distribution of business funds, and overall accountability of the businesses they support.

Things You Must Not Do

Content posted on CM must be accurate, compliant with copyright laws, and must not include any misleading, indecent or dishonest content.

1. Don’t break the law. Don’t take any action that infringes or violates other people’s rights, violates the law, or breaches any contract or legal duty you have toward anyone.
2. Don’t lie to people. Don’t post information you know is false, misleading, or inaccurate. Don’t do anything deceptive or fraudulent.
3. Don’t offer prohibited items. Don’t offer any perks that are illegal, violate any of CM’s policies, rules, or guidelines, or violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance, or regulation.
4. Don’t victimize anyone. Don’t do anything threatening, abusive, harassing, defamatory, libelous, tortious, obscene, profane, or invasive of another person’s privacy.
5. Don’t spam. Don’t distribute unsolicited or unauthorized advertising or promotional material, or any junk mail, spam, or chain letters. Don’t run mail lists, listservs, or any kind of auto-responder or spam on or through the Site.
6. Don’t harm anyone’s computer. Don’t distribute software viruses, or anything else (code, films, programs) designed to interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or equipment on the Site (whether it belongs to CM or another party).
7. Don’t try to interfere with the proper workings of the Services.
8. Don’t bypass any measures we’ve put in place to secure the Services.
9. Don’t try to damage or get unauthorized access to any system, data, password, or other information, whether it belongs to CM or another party.
10. Don’t take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or on our third-party providers. (We reserve the right to determine what’s reasonable.)
11. Don’t use any kind of software or device (whether it’s manual or automated) to “crawl” or “spider” any part of the Site.
12. Don’t take apart or reverse engineer any aspect of CM in an effort to access things like source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms.

How Businesses Work

CM provides a platform for communities to raise funds for building local economies. It works by inviting contributions to community based businesses to make products that are needed by those who live there. Businesses exchange products using a currency called CM™ Coins. The circulation of CM™ Coins encourages supported businesses to pass on value received, so increasing impact of funds. The net effect is to build a demand and supply chain that avoids corruption, inspires collaboration, works with the environment and builds trust.

How Funds Are Managed

Once a business’s Funding Opportunity Goal has been reached, funds are sent directly to the business's Community Coordinator. Depending on their location, this process may take up to ten (10) business days.

Community Coordinators distribute business funds through Business Facilitators. Money is distributed in accordance with the Funding Opportunity budget described.

Stuff We Don’t Do and Aren’t Responsible For

We don’t oversee businesses’ performance, and we don’t mediate disputes between users.

CM isn’t liable for any damages or losses related to your use of the Services. We don’t become involved in disputes between users, or between users and any third party relating to the use of the Services. We don’t oversee the performance or punctuality of businesses, and we don’t endorse any content users submit to the Site. When you use the Services, you release CM from claims, damages, and demands of every kind — known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed — arising out of or in any way related to such disputes and the Services. All content you access through the Services is at your own risk. You’re solely responsible for any resulting damage or loss to any party.

Other Websites

If you follow a link to another website, what happens there is between you and them — not us.

CM may contain links to other websites. (For instance, business pages, user profiles, and comments may link to other sites.) When you access third-party websites, you do so at your own risk. We don’t control or endorse those sites.

CM partners with other companies (such as Stripe) for payment processing. When you back or create a business, you’re also agreeing to the payment processor’s terms of service.

Your Intellectual Property

We don’t own the stuff you post on CM. But when you post it, you’re giving us permission to use or copy it however we need in order to run the site, or show people what’s happening on it. (We generally just use this to promote businesses, to showcase our community on the website). You’re responsible for the content you post, and you’re vouching to us that it’s all okay to use.

CM doesn’t own the content you submit to us (your “Content”). But we do need certain licenses from you in order to perform our Services. When you submit a business or Funding Opportunity for review, or post any content you agree to these terms:

1. We can use the content you’ve submitted. You grant to us, and others acting on our behalf, the worldwide, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable right to use content you share for promotional purposes and to provide data for analysis of investment opportunities that could help business communities to succeed.
2. When we use the content, we can make changes, like editing or translating it. You grant us the right to edit, modify, reformat, excerpt, delete, or translate any of your Content.
3. You won’t submit stuff you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission). Your Content will not contain third-party copyrighted material, or material that is subject to other third-party proprietary rights, unless you have permission from the rightful owner of the material, or you are otherwise legally entitled to post the material (and to grant CM all the license rights outlined here).
4. Any royalties or licensing on your Content are your responsibility. You will pay all royalties and other amounts owed to any person or entity based on your Content, or on CM’s hosting of that Content.
5. You promise that if we use your Content, we’re not violating anyone’s rights or copyrights. If CM or its users exploit or make use of your submission in the ways contemplated in this agreement, you promise that this will not infringe or violate the rights of any third party, including (without limitation) any privacy rights, publicity rights, copyrights, contract rights, or any other intellectual property or proprietary rights.
6. You’re responsible for the stuff you post. All information submitted to the Site, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person from whom that content originated.
7. We’re not responsible for mistakes in your content. CM will not be liable for any errors or omissions in any content.

CM’s Intellectual Property

CM’s Services are legally protected in various ways, including copyrights and trademarks, and other rights and laws. You agree to respect all copyright and other legal notices, information, and restrictions contained in any content accessed through the Site. You also agree not to change, translate, or otherwise create derivative works of the Service.

If you want to use, reproduce, modify, distribute, or store any content on CM that does not belong to you, you need prior written permission from CM or the relevant copyright holder.

Deleting Your Account

You can terminate your account at any time through your account settings. We may retain certain information as required by law or as necessary for our legitimate business purposes. All provisions of this agreement survive termination of an account, including our rights regarding any content you’ve already submitted to the Site. (For instance, if you’ve launched a business, deleting your account will not automatically remove the business from the Site.) You can contact us at support@the-cm.com for additional information or to request business page deletion (this is not available in all circumstances).

Our Rights

CM reserves these rights:

• We can make changes to the CM Site and Services without notice or liability.
• We have the right to decide who’s eligible to use CM. We can cancel accounts or decline to offer our Services. (Especially if you’re abusing them.) We can change our eligibility criteria at any time. If these things are prohibited by law where you live, then we revoke your right to use CM in that jurisdiction.
• We have the right to cancel any pledge to any business, at any time and for any reason.
• We have the right to reject, cancel, interrupt, remove, or suspend any business at any time and for any reason.

CM is not liable for any damages as a result of any of these actions, and it is our policy not to comment on the reasons for any such action.

Warranty Disclaimer

You use our Services solely at your own risk. They are provided to you “as is” and “as available” and without warranty of any kind, express or implied.

CM SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIMS ANY AND ALL WARRANTIES AND CONDITIONS OF MERCHANTABILITY, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND ANY WARRANTIES IMPLIED BY ANY COURSE OF DEALING, COURSE OF PERFORMANCE, OR USAGE OF TRADE. NO ADVICE OR INFORMATION (ORAL OR WRITTEN) OBTAINED BY YOU FROM CM SHALL CREATE ANY WARRANTY.

Indemnification

If you do something on CM that winds up getting us sued, you have to help defend us.

If you do something that gets us sued, or break any of the promises you make in this agreement, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from all liabilities, claims, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees and other legal costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of CM. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to this indemnification clause, in which case you agree that you’ll cooperate and help us in asserting any defenses.

Limitation of Liability

If something bad happens as a result of your using CM, we’re not liable.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will CM its directors, employees, partners, suppliers, or content providers be liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, consequential, special, or exemplary damages of any kind, including but not limited to damages (i) resulting from your access to, use of, or inability to access or use the Services; (ii) for any lost profits, data loss, or cost of procurement or substitute goods or services; or (iii) for any conduct of content of any third party on the Site.

The Rest

These Terms and the other material referenced in them are the entire agreement between you and CM with respect to the Services. They supersede all other communications and proposals (whether oral, written, or electronic) between you and CM with respect to the Services and govern our future relationship. If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid under the law, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the Terms otherwise will remain in full force and effect and enforceable. The failure of either you or CM to exercise any right provided for in these Terms in any way won’t be deemed a waiver of any other rights.

These Terms are personal to you. You can’t assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get CM’s prior written consent. CM has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms without your consent. CM will provide you notice via email, written notice, or by conspicuously posting the notice on our Site.