IT law

Website terms and conditions have 4 basic functions: (i) helping website operators to comply with the law; (ii) reducing legal risk by disclaiming or limiting responsbilities and liabilities; (iii) establishing rules relating to the use of the website; and (iv) defining the contractual obligations owed by the user to the operator and vice versa. Although we have a wide range of terms and conditions designed for particular types of website, many websites do not fit neatly into any category. Consequently, these more generic templates are among our most popular documents.

Designed to help you to comply with UK and EU data protection law, these privacy policies are, in essence, shorter and simpler versions of our privacy and cookies policy templates. Although cookies are not referenced in the titles of these documents, cookies-related disclosures are included, albeit in summary form.

EU and UK law provide that, alongside information about the processing of personal data, website publishers must provide information to users about the cookies (or, more strictly, certain of the cookies) that the web application uses. This is the purpose of a cookies policy. Consent the use of cookies may also be required.

These are website copyright notices containing a Universal Copyright Convention-style notice, an assertion of ownership of copyright in website materials, a licence to use the website and straightforward acceptable use provisions. If you are using one of our website terms and conditions documents, you will not usually need a separate copyright notice.

These website disclaimers incorporate a copyright notice asserting ownership of the website copyright, a set of exclusions and limitations of liability (ie disclaimers) and certain statutory disclosures. They are designed for use on the simplest of websites in place of more detailed - and usually contractual - website terms and conditions.

Our anti-spam policy template come in free and paid versions, with a Docular credit included in the former but not the latter. The policies include a broad definition of "spam", warnings about spam filters, prohibitions on user spam and information about receipt of unwanted messages.

Linking policies are not a common sight on the internet nowadays - at least, outside the affiliate / partner marketing space - but some businesses and organisations do still wish to assert control over the ways in which others link to their websites.

Some types of legal publishing are more risky than others - but any website that publishes legal information brings some level of risk and it is usually sensible to include a disclaimer alongside legal information. This disclaimer is used, in slightly modified form, in our legal website terms and conditions template.

This document is a free-to-use software EULA or end user licence. Click-wrap and web-wrap licences can be created using this document, as well as more traditional shrink-wrap licences. The document governs the legal relationship between a licensor and its customers. Note: although this EULA can be used for B2C licences as well as B2B licences, it does not include a ...

These software support agreements cover the provision of a helpdesk or other contact mechanism, through which the customer (or the customer's users) can access help, advice and assistance in relation to the software in question, and report bugs and other issues with the software. All of the software support agreements incorporate a set of optional service level commitments relating helpdesk availability, response times and resolution times.

These software maintenance agreements are designed for use in circumstances where a software vendor will provide maintenance services with respect to its own software. Each agreement differentiates between minor updates and major software upgrades. A service level agreement attached as a schedule contains detailed provisions concerning when and how the software will be updated or upgraded.

Copyright protects software and to use software legally a person needs a licence. These software licence agreements require that the licensor deliver or make available the software to the licensee. The licence itself is flexible and may be limited in a number of different ways. The usual prohibitions on use (or misuse) of the software are included. In consideration for grant of a licence, the licensee must pay a one-off licence fee or ongoing licence fees to the licensor.

These are software-as-a-service (SaaS) agreements designed to regulate the legal relationship between a provider of hosted or cloud software on one hand and its business customers on the other hand. These SaaS agreements can be used where the parties are likely to be negotiating the specific provisions of the contract. If terms will be imposed by the services provider upon the customer, and the customer will have no opportunity to suggest alternative terms, then you should consider our SaaS terms and conditions (or, for highly commodified or consumer-oriented services, cloud services terms and conditions) instead.

These disclaimers can be included in and distributed with an ebook in order to help managed risks relating to that ebook.

These disclaimers can help a publisher to manage the copyright and liability issues arising out of the publication of newsletters.

Under these web design and development agreements, the developer has an obligation to create a website or web application on behalf of the customer, and either assigns or licenses the copyright in that website or web application to the customer. In consideration for the provision of the services and the assignment or licence, the customer must pay the agreed charges to the developer. In addition, the customer may be obligated to provide assistance to the developer and to provide text, images and other materials to the developer for use in the project.

These terms and conditions should be used in relation to general IT support services provided to businesses. They are not suitable for use in relation to contracts with consumers. All these templates include an optional data protection clause to help services providers who are acting as processors (rather than controllers) comply with their obligations under data protection law.

These terms of sale can be used in relation to the online sale of physical products. All of these terms of sale templates have the same basic structure. They define the order process through which products may be ordered; they describe how prices are specified and how payments must be made; they detail the delivery process for products orders; they set out information about warranties given by the seller and limitations of liability; and they establish the circumstances in which orders may be cancelled. The B2C versions of the terms of sale include a set of clauses detailing consumer rights under the distance selling rules.

Under these software development agreements, the developer agrees to create software on behalf of the customer and to transfer to the customer its intellectual property rights in that software. Rights in any third party programs or libraries incorporated into the software will be licensed to the customer, either directly from the vendor of the third party software or through the developer. Charges may be fixed or time based. A standard set of software warranties is included with all versions of the software development agreement.

Designed for use in relation to an ecommerce website, these delivery policies describe the delivery methods used as well as delivery timetables. They should be used alongside our terms and conditions of sale via website documents. They can be used for both B2B and B2C stores.

These policies should be used to document discretionary returns and refund offers in relation to website sales. They are not intended to regulate statutory returns, which are covered by our terms and conditions of sale via website documents. If you are not proposing to offer customers rights going beyond the statutory basics, you do not need any of these policies.

This model instructions for the cancellation of consumer contracts reflect the requirements of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. In particular, these instructions reflect the text of part A of Schedule 3 to those Regulations. This document is more suitable for contracts relating to goods than those relating to services, although it attempts to cover both categories. NB many of our ...

This document can be used by those selling goods or services online to create a cancellation form for consumers as required by the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013. The text of this document comes from Schedule 3, part B of those Regulations. Section 13(1) (b) of those Regulations states: "Before the consumer is bound by a distance contract, the trader .... ...

These are internal cyber security policies, intended to control the use of IT systems by employees of a company and company sub-contractors. See also our supply chain cyber security policies, through which contractual obligations relating to information security can be applied to suppliers. These policies were created and are maintained by Emma Osborn of OCSRC.

As video games add features and grow more complex, so the legal issues affecting them and their licence agreements grow more complex. These end user licence agreements (EULAS) have been especially created for video games. The longer versions of the EULA include ecommerce provisions alongside the core licence and usage rules.

These contracts regulate the provision of ongoing software development and support services, where those services are provided in whole or part on a time-and-materials basis.

Contractual documentation for the provision of cloud or hosted software-based services by means of an application programming interface (API) without individual human users.

Formal agreements to regulate the provision of search engine optimisation (SEO) services by an SEO professional or business, including both advisory and implementation services.

These licence documents are designed to cover the provision of software to a customer or prospective customer for the purposes of a trial or evaluation.

This is a template for a legal notice to be displayed in email communications. Although the enforceability of email disclaimers may be open to question, many businesses nonetheless incorporate a disclaimer in the footer of all email communications. However, there is no "standard" disclaimer, as different businesses face different compliance obligations and legal risks. This template may be used to create a document covering some ...

This acceptable use policy document is designed to regulate the use of a website or other online service. The bulk of the policy is concerned with prohibiting certain actions and certain types of content. The policy naturally covers unlawful actions and content, but may also cover actions and content that are undesirable but not unlawful. As regards unlawful content, this can be addressed in detail ...

Almost every commercial website collects some personal data and few websites entirely eschew the use of cookies and similar technologies. In order to comply with the GDPR and other UK and EU data protection laws, website publishers need to disclose to users information about the personal data that they collect; and in order to comply with electronic privacy laws, website publishers need to disclose to users information about the cookies that they use. These template privacy and cookies policies will help you to comply with these laws.

This document has been designed to govern and regulate the use of a website that publishes information for users. An optional provision relating to the publication of an RSS feed is included. These T&Cs do not include provisions covering user accounts or user content. If your website will include either, you should consider our standard or premium website T&Cs documents. Moreover, these T& ...

If you need to assign the copyright and other unregistered intellectual property rights in a website from one person (or company) to another person (or company) you should consider this document. Based on our standard copyright assignment, the subject matter of the transfer is designated using two key definitions: "Excluded IP" refers to the intellectual property rights that are reserved; and "Assignment IP" refers to ...

Using this assignment document, you can transfer the copyright in a computer program or piece of software from the existing owner to a new owner. In addition, the document can also be used to transfer other unregistered intellectual property rights subsisting in the computer program (for example, database rights) alongside the copyright. Although software itself is not usually protected by moral rights, other works incorporated ...

Each of these terms and conditions templates comes in two main parts. First, a statement of work, which can be used by the parties to the contract to specify the technical and commercial deal: what is being produced and what is being paid? Second, a set of legal terms and conditions that define the parties' core obligations and allocate responsibilities and liabilities as appropriate.

This document can be used in connection with blogs and blog-based websites, providing that the blog or website is free to use. Most blogs allow for the publication of user content, typically in the form of comments attached to blog posts. The publication of user content creates legal risks for the website operator. For instance, user content many infringe copyright or contain defamatory material. ...

This document has been created for business brochure websites, and is suitable for the websites of both small and large businesses. It includes all the standard provisions in our generic website T&Cs documents, which cover such matters as acceptable use, user content, disclaimers of liability and disclosures mandated by statute. In addition, a set of special provisions are included, which relate specifically to business ...

These terms and conditions can be used to regulate the relationship between a web store operator and users of that web store. They should be used in combination with terms and conditions governing the sale of products, and a website privacy policy. This document is an adapted version of our standard website terms and conditions document. It includes all the main provisions of that standard ...

Most schools now have a website, but many do not have adequate legal documentation. This template has been designed to make the creation of terms and conditions for a school website easy. The template includes provisions dealing with copyright in the website, acceptable use of the website and liability in relation to the use of the website. The template assumes that the website does not ...

A website can be a great asset for a membership-based club; and all club websites should incorporate appropriate terms and conditions of use. Club websites may serve a range of functions: promoting the club to potential members; encouraging and facilitating new membership applications; helping with club administration; and allowing club management to communicate with the membership. More sophisticated club websites will also allow members ...

These terms and conditions are designed to cover the use of a digital store - that is, the use of a website that sells downloadable digital products. To be clear, this document does not cover the sale and licensing of digital products, as to which see our range of download terms and conditions. This document is suitable for use in relation to digital stores selling a ...

This affiliate website terms and conditions template may be used by owners of websites that produce income by means of affiliate links. This document is concerned with the legal relationship between the affiliate and users of the website; it is not meant to regulate the legal relationship between the affiliate and third party merchants. The template allows for the creation of terms and conditions crafted ...

There is a great deal of legal information on the web. Much of this information is published on websites with a legal focus, whether those of law firms, barristers' chambers, NGOs, legal journals, legal support businesses or individual lawyers. The legal information comes in many forms: subject introductions, summaries of statutes, case reports, professional practice notes, academic analysis, and so on. One risk that almost ...

News websites come in many shapes and sizes, from generalist newspaper sites with millions of readers to specialist journals covering a very particular area or field. This terms and conditions template has been designed to deal with the specific legal issues that commonly affect such websites. The template includes special clauses covering: the representation of different viewpoints on a website, reader comments and RSS news ...

Template T&Cs that may be used to establish and regulate the legal relations between medical website publishers and their users, both casual and registered.

Event bookings taken online are subject to special regulations in the E.U. and the U.K.. These terms and conditions are designed to help event organisers to comply with those regulations and to reduce their risks in relation to the taking of bookings online.

These documents make a clear distinction between support services and maintenance services. Two separate service level agreements are provided as schedules, one for support and the other for maintenance. The support provisions cover the provision of a helpdesk, response and resolution times, and limits on support services. The maintenance provisions cover notification of updates and upgrades, the provision and/or application of updates and upgrades, an the consequences of failing to apply an update or upgrade. In addition, all the documents include a GDPR-friendly data processing clause.

This document is an end user licence agreement (EULA) for software. It sets out the rights and obligations of the licensor on the one hand, and of the customer or user on the other. The document may be adapted for use where the licence is being agreed upon purchase/opening (shrink-wrap), download (Web-wrap) or installation (click-wrap). The document may be used for ...

This email marketing agreement can be used in relation to three different kinds of email marketing service. First, where a service provider is actively managing a campaign for the customer. Second, where the service provider is making available a platform to allow the customer to conduct their own campaigns. Third, where both types of service are being provided. Different legal issues affect the different types ...