Tuts+ Terms & User Agreement

1. Welcome

  1. Hi, we’re Envato. Welcome to Tuts+, Envato’s free network of educational online and mobile sites. This is our user agreement that we make with you when you use Tuts+.
  2. When we talk about Tuts+, or use the word ‘sites’, we’re referring to each of our Tuts+ sites and mobile apps (but not our Tuts+ Premium subscription service which has its own terms). When we mention Envato it’s because that’s who we are and because we own and run the sites.
  3. There are some rules for using Tuts+ (we call these the ‘terms of use’, or ‘terms’). By using the sites you’re making a legal agreement to stick to our terms. We want you to learn, not to be lectured, so we have tried to keep these short and sweet.
  4. Because these terms tell you how you can use Tuts+ please take a moment to read and understand them.
  5. If you can’t, or don’t want to, accept these terms, then you won’t be able to use Tuts+. By using the sites, you are agreeing to these terms.

    Our Tuts+ sites currently include:

    Our list of Tuts+ sites might change or expand as we continue to grow but you’ll know from the Tuts+ name that a site is part of the Tuts+ network and covered by these terms.
  6. Occasionally we might update our terms and we’ll post information about that on our sites. When we let you know that our terms have changed, please read them to see how they affect you, as they will apply from the time they are changed.

2. Our content

  1. When we say ‘content’, we’re talking about all the content we’ve put on our sites that we own – this includes tutorials, courses, tips, quizzes, screencasts and sample files (we’ll talk about material that you or other users might post later on). We also own all the rights in the sites’ content including their design, compilation and look and feel.
  2. Of course, there’s also material or assets owned by others on the sites. We usually use material or assets owned by others on the basis of one of the following grounds. We might have obtained a specific license to use an asset – for example the owner of a photograph or author of an eBook might give us a license to use the work on our sites. We might use something like source code or a photograph under a creative commons or open source license. We might also be able to use an asset, or part of an asset, under the exceptions to copyright such as fair use. If it is reasonable to do so, we’ll usually say who the asset belongs to when it’s been included in part of our content.

    What you can do

  3. We want you to enjoy our sites and learn from them. We give you permission to use the sites in exchange for accepting our terms and complying with them.
    If you want to get legal, this is called a revocable, non-exclusive license.
  4. You can use what you learn for personal and commercial purposes.
  5. You can freely use the effects and techniques demonstrated in the content (that is, the knowledge you gain) for any commercial or personal purpose without saying where you learned it (attribution).
  6. You may use, modify and manipulate assets like source files but only for your own personal educational purposes.

    What you can’t do

  7. You agree that you won’t redistribute, frame, repurpose or copy any of our content and you won’t use the content for any purpose that we have not expressly stated.
  8. Sometimes we’ve been allowed to use an asset owned by someone else, to illustrate an example or to use for demonstration purposes. Usually this is on the basis that we – and you – won’t use it in any other way apart from in the tutorial and for personal education. The only rights that you have to these assets is within the context of the tutorial. As a result, you’re not allowed to extract assets from articles and tutorials (like photos, audio samples or other assets in source files).
  9. The trademarks and logos displayed on the sites belong to Envato or to others, and you must not use these without the approval of the owner.

    Source Code

  10. We prefer authors to use source code that is open source licensed. Sometimes this won’t be the case and you won’t be permitted to exploit or redistribute the files under the terms of the particular license conditions. Please check the source code file for licensing information before using the code. This is especially the case for commercial use of source code – check whether it’s permitted under the terms of the source code license.

3. Your content

  1. We’d like you to participate in the Tuts+ dialogue. We’re a community! Often you’ll have the opportunity to comment or post on our sites.
  2. You retain ownership of any intellectual property in your own content but by posting it on our sites you’re giving us permission (a license) to use it on our sites. This permission includes allowing us to publish it (or not), to move it to a more appropriate forum, to store or delete it.

    Be reasonable when posting

  3. We find that our Tuts+ community is made of great people who know what is and is not acceptable online. We do have a liberal comments policy and do allow harsh criticism of the sites and their content so that we can keep improving our offering to you.
  4. But just to keep it clear, you agree that you won’t post anything that:
    • affects other users’ use or enjoyment of the sites;
    • is false, misleading, fraudulent, unlawful, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, vulgar, or offensive;
    • infringes others’ rights, including privacy or intellectual property rights;
    • discloses personal information about others, particularly sensitive information;
    • contains a virus, spyware, or other harmful component;
    • contains commercial solicitation or ‘spam’.
  5. We retain the right to take down any user content for any reason at all without notice and without providing a reason. We’re not liable for any content posted by others on our sites.

4. IP including copyright

  1. Our businesses, and those of our authors, are based on intellectual property (IP) including copyright. We need to protect our IP so we can keep giving you access to awesome free tutorials. We also respect the IP rights of others, particularly those who have been nice enough to let us use any of their material or digital assets on our sites.
  2. Your use of content is restricted to the permission that we give to you that are set out in these terms.
  3. Please get in touch with us via our support team if you think your rights have been infringed by any content or other materials on our sites.

5. Helping to keep our tutorials free

  1. We don’t charge you to access our content on Tuts+, but we do use some common strategies to help us pay our authors to create such great educational resources – these might include affiliate programs, sponsored posts, advertising and so on.
  2. While it will usually be easy to identify what is an advertisement or a sponsored post, sometimes other commercial relationships might not be so obvious. We want to be entirely upfront that some of these relationships, such as affiliate programs, might mean that we receive a commission if a purchase is made from a site we link to.
  3. It is up to you to make sure that any products and services you find using our sites meet your needs. We don’t formally endorse any third party products or services when we link to them. We don’t have control over anyone else’s website, business, representations or the quality of their products or services, so we can’t be liable to you for anything provided by others. But of course, we only recommend something if we think it is worthy. If you disagree with a recommendation, or have a different point of view, let us know.

6. Privacy

  1. Our information collection and use of any personal information about you is set out in our privacy policy. We can only use personal information that you disclose in relation to your use of the sites for certain purposes explained in our privacy policy.
  2. We won’t sell your details to marketing companies and we won’t pass on your details unless we have to satisfy a law, regulation or government request.
  3. Bear in mind that any information that you post on our sites will become public information and can be collected and used by other parties (we don’t have control over that).

7. Things you can’t do

In using the sites you agree that you will not:

  1. use a false email address, impersonate others, or misrepresent your affiliation with others;
  2. attempt to gain unauthorised access to computer systems or materials through Tuts+;
  3. engage in automatic gathering of information from or through Tuts+ (such as “spidering”, “screen scraping”, “database scraping” or harvesting of e-mail addresses);
  4. attempt to interrupt or alter Tuts+ operation in any way (for example through sending mass unsolicited messages, “flooding” servers, or introducing a virus, time bomb, trojan horse, worm, cancelbot or other computer routine );
  5. use Tuts+ or any of its content in a way that violates applicable law, that violates the intellectual property or other rights of us or others, or that is fraudulent, obscene, offensive, misleading or defamatory.

8. Legal speak

  1. We control and operate Tuts+ from our offices in Australia. The laws of Victoria, Australia govern these terms, and you and Envato submit to the jurisdiction of the courts there.
  2. Envato is not liable to you for any loss, claim, injury or damage of any kind that is in any way related to your use of Tuts+. To the maximum extent permitted at law, we make no warranty of any kind about the information or other content provided on the sites.