Conditions of Use for Digital Products, Online Services and Apps

Stand: 28.06.2022

PONS Langenscheidt GmbH,
Stöckachstraße 11, 70190 Stuttgart,
Telefon: 0711-89462111
E-Mail: kundenservice@pons.de

A. General Information

1. Scope of the terms of use
The following conditions of use for digital products and online services (Conditions of Use) apply—complementing the General Terms and Conditions (T&C)—to the remunerated or non-remunerated use of the digital online or offline products and online services of PONS Langenscheidt GmbH with the brands PONS, Langenscheidt and Klett (hereinafter also referred to as “PONS Langenscheidt” / , “provider” / “we” / “us”) by the customer (hereinafter also referred to as “user”). In the following, all digital online or offline products and online services are also referred to as “services”. In particular, our services consist of the following offerings: Learning portals with online exercises and tests, language learning applications, language games and other learning aids, vocabulary trainers, online dictionaries, machine translation of texts, downloads (e.g., exercise sheets), software, mobile apps, audios and videos.

If there are contradictions between regulations in these conditions of use and the T&C, the regulations of these conditions of use prevail.

2. Agreement to the terms of use
The terms of use are accepted (1) on the installation of the digital product in the case of products distributed on data carriers, (2) in the case of a purchased download or order for an online service - depending on the design of the respective product - by the ordering process, by access to the product or by confirmation of the displayed licence agreement when use of a digital product commences or (3) in the case of apps by the installation of the app. If you do not agree to the following terms and conditions, please refrain from installing, electronically ordering or accessing the product, or from confirming the licence agreement when commencing use of the product. In this case you will not be entitled to use the product.

3. Changes of Conditions of Use
3.1 PONS Langenscheidt reserves the right to change these terms of use with effect for the future at any time without giving reasons. If there is a permanent contractual relationship between publisher and customer, the following legal regulations shall apply.

3.2 In this case PONS Langenscheidt will send the customer the changed conditions of use by post or by e-mail or by updating in the services. The changes to the conditions of use are deemed accepted by the customer if the customer does not object to the changes in writing or by e-mail within one month of receiving the change notification. The customer’s silence in terms of the changed conditions of use is therefore equated to their express consent to the changes. In its change notification, PONS Langenscheidt GmbH indicates the significance of the 1-month period.

3.3 Objections to the changes of the conditions of use must be directed to:

• by letter: PONS Langenscheidt GmbH, Stöckachstraße 11, D-70190 Stuttgart oder
• by E-Mail: kundenservice@pons.de

3.4 If the customer exercises the right of objection, the changes to the terms of use shall be deemed rejected and the contractual relationship shall be continued on the basis of the original terms of use. PONS Langenscheidt is entitled to terminate the contractual relationship for good cause.

4. Revocation
Please note the exclusion of revocation after removal of the seal of a data carrier (Clause 5.4.2 of the T&C and the premature expiry of the right of revocation for non-physical digital products and online services (Clause 5.3 of the T&C).

B. General Conditions of Use for digital Services

1. Object of the contract
PONS Langenscheidt provides the user with its services for use in accordance with this contract

2. Rights and Obligations of the customer
2.1 The customer is entitled to use the services for the respective specified use for private purposes. The PONS website and the free services offered by PONS Langenscheidt are available to everyone. The use of the online shop is only available to users who have reached the age of 18; an exception is made for users who have reached the age of 14 and use the online shop with the consent of their legal guardians. Offered exercises, tests, language learning applications and other learning aids must not be abused, in particular not for purposes other than exercises or tests.

2.2. If the customer has created an account according to Clause 3 of our T&C, they may retrieve and print the results of the performed exercises, tests and other learning aids.

2.3 The user undertakes to be diligent, considerate and respectful when creating their user contributions. While communicating with third parties (e.g., in chats and discussion boards) through the access granted by the provider, the user is obligated to show consideration of cultural, religious and personal issues of third parties and of applicable laws or regulatory and/or judicial directives.
2.4 The user is responsible for their own published user contributions, their content and for other content of their communication. The user is to refrain from user contributions or statements breaching applicable law (in particular, provisions of the criminal law, data protection law, copyright law, trademark law or the personality right of third parties or regulatory and/or judicial directives), from abusive or offensive statements and from advertising statements.

2.5 The user guarantees to be the owner of all the required rights to the content in their published user contributions; and that the use of their user contributions breaches no third-party rights.

2.6 User activities aimed at making the provider’s website or the content and services offered by it dysfunctional or at least impeding its use are forbidden and result in criminal or civil proceedings. In particular, measures impacting the physical or logical structure of one or more provider services or parts thereof are prohibited.

2.7 If the user violates the above obligations, they may be liable for damages. In this case, the provider is entitled to revoke the user’s usage permission for online products and online services. The provider exempts PONS Langenscheidt from any potential claims made by third parties against PONS Langenscheidt because of a breach of third party rights caused or allegedly caused by the user’s published user contributions, their content or other content of their communication. The user is also obligated to compensate PONS Langenscheidt all the damage suffered by PONS Langenscheidt from the user’s published user contributions, their content or other content of their communication, in particular a claim by third parties. This also includes the costs associated with adequate legal defence for PONS Langenscheidt.

3. Copyright; Granting of Use Rights
3.1 Copyrights, property rights and other rights of third parties to which the provider grants access, remain with the rights holder to the fullest extent and are duly protected. Therefore, it is inadmissible to use by any means the content and data (in particular texts, images, graphics, sound, video and animation files) on the provider’s website or to implement such content and data on third party websites. Any abuse results in criminal proceedings.

3.2 The user is permitted to create, and in particular download or print, exclusively for private non commercial purposes individual duplications of the content available on the website.

3.3 The customer is not entitled to remove markings of industrial property rights (such as copyright notices, serial numbers, watermarks and other product information) in the retrieved content.

3.4 The customer is not entitled to make purchased content, such as vocabulary lessons or subscribed offline dictionaries, individually or in part or in conjunction with other content, available to third parties or to the public.

3.5 PONS Langenscheidt makes every effort to ensure that the content of the website is up to date and free of errors. Nonetheless, PONS Langenscheidt cannot guarantee or guarantee that the content is up to date or free of errors. PONS Langenscheidt is not liable for any loss or damage that may be incurred by a user as a result of relying on the contents of the website.

3.6 PONS Langenscheidt reserves the right to change the content and structure of the websites and the services offered via them at any time. This also includes discontinuing certain offers and services. In principle, the previous use does not give rise to any claims for the user.

3.7 User contributions and posts are protected by copyright. The user grants the provider the non-exclusive right in perpetuity worldwide to use published user contributions and posts in any form and to any extent. The granting of rights also includes all the known and unknown types of use, in particular the following rights: the right to make user contributions and posts available on demand at times and locations of their choosing—including via mobile devices—(online right) and to duplicate and disseminate them in physical electronic (on data carriers such as CD-ROMs/DVDs) or non-physical electronic form (e.g., e-book, app) (offline right), to make them publicly available and the right to use them in connection with advertisements and promotions for products or services of the provider or third parties. Furthermore, it includes the right to merge user contributions and posts with works, parts of works or other material of (also) interactively useable electronic works and then to duplicate and disseminate them as physical or non-physical versions and to make them publicly accessible. The granting of rights also includes the right to transfer to third parties (in particular to subsidiaries or affiliates of the provider) the granted usage rights to user contributions and posts. The provider and their successors in interest are also entitled to prosecute third party copyright breaches of user contributions on their own behalf.

3.8 The provider reserves the right to modify, delete or not publish user contributions at any time. The provider is not required to state a reason for this or to issue a separate notification. This is the case in particular if the user contributions fail to meet the objectives of offering lexicographical knowledge or breach provisions of these general conditions of use or of the law.

3.9 The interaction options provided by the provider on their website may cause the published user contributions to constantly change in form and content. With their registration, the user allows the editing of their published user contributions by the editorial staff or by other users and the merging with other content.

3.10 Beyond the usage rights granted in these conditions of use, the user is not entitled to other rights to the content used. Further rights are to be obtained from the provider in writing.

4. Uptime
4.1 In general, our services are available all the time. However the provider assumes no guarantee or liability for this permanent uptime since technical requirements or difficulties outside of the provider’s sphere of influence may result in access or transmission delays or downtimes. Interruptions in the quality of online access and of the data communication online due to higher force or events for which the provider is not responsible and which make their services considerably more difficult or impossible do not constitute a basis for claims for damages due to non-availability.

4.2 The provider points out that it is not possible to develop computer programs in a way that makes them infallible. The provider also assumes no guarantee that the service and the computer programs used for the service meet special customer requirements.

4.3 Access to distribution platforms: PONS Langenscheidt does not guarantee the constant and uninterrupted availability of the digital products on the distribution platforms (Clause 4.8 of the T&C).

C. Specific Conditions of Use for the “PONS ONLINE DICTIONARY” and the PONS vocabulary trainer

1. The “PONS Online Dictionary” enables machine translation of texts alongside the translation of individual words. The texts entered by the user for translation and their machine-generated translation are temporarily stored by PONS Langenscheidt to improve product quality. The provisions of these Terms of Use (in particular Clause 2 and Clause 3) shall apply to the texts entered by the user for translation. PONS Langenscheidt is also not liable for personal data such as names or addresses deliberately or erroneously provided by the customer in the texts for translation.
   
   
2. The customer can modify existing content (in particular dictionary articles and vocabulary lessons) or create new content, suggest new entries and share content with other customers. Full use of the PONS online dictionary and the PONS vocabulary trainer requires registration as a customer according to Clause 3 of our T&C. The customer also has the option of giving themselves a user name of their choice. This name is used for identifying the customer’s contributions and is visible to all visitors of our website.
   
   
3. The customer is also entitled to publish articles of “PONS Online Dictionary” on their own private, non-commercially used homepage. The customer must add to the published content a reference (URL) and a date as well as a hyperlink to the PONS source website (the hyperlink must be designed as a clickable link if the duplication medium supports that function). The number of permitted duplications is generally limited to ten articles. The use of these articles is limited to two years. Each creation of a new, updated article copy (which is recommended, in particular after every modification of the article content on the source website) restarts the 2-year period. However, images and other multimedia elements are expressly explicitly from this permission

D. Special terms of use for the free Langenscheidt KWB online dictionary

1. Redeem an access code: Buyers of a print product of the Langenscheidt brand, e.g. a printed Langenscheidt dictionary, will receive an access code to the KWB depending on the product with the print product. After successful registration and entry of the access code in the designated field on the website, the buyer will then be given access to the dictionary corresponding to the access code provided and kept ready in the KWB. This access is personally limited to the buyer as a named user subscription for a maximum period of 5 years from the date of publication of the book on the website and is not automatically extended. Codes redeemed on or after 01.08.2021 are valid for the use of the online dictionary for a period of 3 years from the date of redemption. An ordinary termination is excluded in this respect.
   
   
2. A user who wishes to redeem an access code for the use of the KWB must register once on the website with his user data and a self-chosen password at KWB.
   
   
3. The customer is entitled to publish articles from the KWB on his own private, non-commercially used homepage. The published contents shall be provided with a source reference (URL) and a date as well as a hyperlink to the respective original website of the KWB (the hyperlink shall be designed as a clickable link if the reproduction medium supports this function). The number of permitted duplications is generally limited to 10 articles. This use of the articles is limited to two years. With the creation of a new, updated article copy (which is particularly desirable after every change to the article contents on the original website), the period starts again. However, images and other multimedia elements are expressly excluded from this permission.

E. Special terms of use for these "PONS Apps for the Book":

1. General
1.1 These special terms of use apply between PONS Langenscheidt and the user in relation to the use of the individual apps for the PONS dictionaries (referred to below as the "PONS App for the Book") provided by PONS Langenscheidt GmbH ("PONS Langenscheidt") on the Internet-based digital distribution platforms for application software (iTunes® and Google Play®).

1.2 When they purchase the corresponding printed work PONS Langenscheidt provides its customers with the right to use the app described in the printed work free of charge. For this purpose customers receive a code with which they can register on a one-off basis for installation of the app either on an iOS or on an Android device, and free use of the app. The prerequisite for this is that customers have previously downloaded the app to their digital device from the respective distribution platform.

PONS Langenscheidt assumes no liability for the choice of the distribution platform or for the constant and uninterrupted availability of the distribution platforms (Clause 4.8 of the T&C).

2. Granting of rights of use
2.1 On purchase of the access code for the use of the app customers receive a non-exclusive, limited in time to the useful life indicated in the book, non-transferable and non-sub-licensable right to use the software to the extent granted in these terms and conditions.

2.2 The contractual use includes the installation as well as the loading, displaying and running of the installed software. Customers are only entitled to copy, edit or decompile the software if this is legally permissible and only if the necessary information is not made accessible at the customer's request by the software manufacturer or by PONS Langenscheidt.

2.3 Customers do not have the right to transfer the software made available to them to third parties. In particular, they are not permitted to sell, lend, rent or otherwise sub-license the software or to publicly reproduce or make available the software. If a customer violates any of the above provisions, all rights of use granted within the scope of this contract will immediately become invalid and automatically revert to PONS Langenscheidt. In this case, the customer must immediately and completely cease the use of the software and delete all copies of the software installed on his or her systems.

2.4 Customers are obliged to take appropriate measures to protect the software against access by unauthorised third parties.

2.5 PONS Langenscheidt warrants that the use of the software or app in accordance with the contract does not conflict with any rights of third parties.

2.6 The rights of use granted by PONS Langenscheidt to the user are limited in time to the period in which PONS Langenscheidt offers and maintains the apps on the Internet distribution platforms. Customers do not have the right to publicly reproduce any content of the apps or make it publicly accessible, either individually or in connection with other content.

F. Special terms of use for " Schule Wörterbuch App" (App zum Buch):

1. Buyers of certain printed product of the Langenscheidt or PONS brand, e.g. a printed Langenscheidt or PONS school dictionary, will receive an access code to the Schule Wörterbuch App depending on the product with the print product. After successful registration and entry of the access code in the designated field on the website, the buyer will then be given access to the dictionary corresponding to the access code provided and kept ready in the Schule Wörterbuch App.
   
   
2. This access is personally limited to the buyer as a named user subscription for a maximum period of 24 months from the date of activation of the access code on the website and is not automatically extended; ordinary termination is excluded in this respect. Access code activation is possible for at least 36 months from the date of publication of the printed book.
   
   
3. The prerequisite for the use of the app is that customers have previously downloaded the app to their digital device from the respective distribution platform (iOS, Android).
   
   
4. Underage persons can only use the app with the consent of their legal guardians.
   
   
5. A user who wishes to redeem an access code for the use of the Schule Wörterbuch App must register once on the website with his email address and a self-chosen password as a customer according to Clause 3 of our T&C.

G. Liability

1. The following applies to the liability for provided information offerings: If you suffer loss or damage because you have trusted information obtained from using the respective service, we assume liability only if the damage was caused by intent or gross negligence of the legal representatives or vicarious agents or, in case of minor negligence, if an obligation was breached, the observance of which you are particularly entitled to trust (material contractual obligation). We do not provide a guarantee for the completeness, correctness or current status of content. All the content is provided without any assurance or guarantee, neither express nor implied, of any kind.
2. We assume no direct or indirect liability for any loss of data or damage to data caused by the use of or the inability to use a computer program or by opening a website. It is therefore the customer’s responsibility to regularly back up the uploaded and/or saved content.
3. Content related to health or diet content does not substitute the advice or treatment by an identified expert such as a nutritionist, therapist, physician or other health professional. The provider excludes any liability for damage or injuries directly or indirectly resulting from the application of recommendations, practices, exercises, therapies or treatment methods displayed on the website. In case of health issues, we expressly discourage self-medication based on the content of the website without any medical consultation.
4. We assume liability for external content only if we are aware of any unlawful content and links to external websites with unlawful PONS Langenscheidt content and have culpably failed to remove it. We assume no responsibility of any kind for content and external links expressly marked as user contributions. The content provisioned by the user for access and/or transmitted and/or disseminated by them is external content to us and as such does not represent our opinion in any case.