Disclaimers

SMI is providing information and services on this site as a benefit and service in furtherance of SMI's non-profit and tax-exempt status. SMI makes no representations about the suitability of this information and these services for any purpose.

SMI does not exert editorial control over the materials that are posted by third parties onto the site or materials that are e-mailed by third parties to any other persons. SMI is not responsible for any material posted by any third party. SMI specifically disclaims any and all liability for any claims or damages which may result from any postings by third parties.

Copyright

Copyright 2007 Spring Manufacturers Institute (SMI).

All materials posted on this site are subject to copyrights owned by SMI. SMI hereby provides limited permission for the user of this site to reproduce, retransmit or reprint for such user's own personal use (and for such personal use only) part or all of any documentation on this site as long as the copyright notice and permission notice contained in such document or portion thereof is included in such reproduction, retransmission or reprinting. All other reproduction, retransmission or reprinting of all or any part of any document found on this site is expressly prohibited, unless SMI has expressly granted its prior written consent to so reproduce, retransmit, or reprint the material. All other rights reserved.

Trademark

The names, trademarks, service marks and logos of SMI appearing on this site may not be used in any advertising or publicity, or otherwise to indicate SMI's sponsorship of or affiliation with any product or service, without SMI's written permission.

SMI Site Rules

In order to keep this site attractive and useful to all users, we have a few rules we must ask you to follow:

• Respect other visitors to this site. Feel free to express yourself, but do not do anything to injure or harm others. Users are expected to exercise both common sense and courtesy in the messages they transmit from this site. Defamatory, obscene, and other offensive communications are not acceptable forms of communication over this site and could lead to legal liability to those engaging in such improper communication.
• Do not use this site for anything that might be illegal. This site may not be used to encourage anything to do with illegal drugs, gambling, pornography, prostitution, child pornography, robbery, spreading computer viruses, cracking into private computer forums, software infringement, trafficking in credit card codes, or other crimes.
• Do not use this site to defame or disparage a member of SMI or any other person.
• Do not use this site to communicate with competitors about prices, terms of service, or otherwise communicate in a way that may violate the anti-trust laws. Communications in any discussion groups or teleconferencing area constitute an ongoing "meeting" of participants; such meetings may involve competitors; the same rules against illegal agreements in restraint of trade which apply at members' meetings apply to communications on this site. In fact, since this site's communications may be downloaded without the knowledge of the sender(s), users should be both fully informed about the rules of anti-trust law regarding communication and agreements among competitors, and act on this site in strict conformity with those rules.
• This site may not be used to violate any rules of membership in SMI or the by-laws of SMI.
• SMI reserves the right to modify or change the rules as it determines from time-to-time, in the best interests of SMI.
• Respect the security of this site. Do not try to gain access to areas private to ourselves, or to other visitors. Some visitors try to crack this site's security just to show it can be done. Don't try to demonstrate this on this site.

Limitation of Liability and Indemnity

The great danger for us, and for all the operators of Web sites, is that we might be held accountable for the wrongful actions of our visitors. If one visitor libels another visitor, the injured visitor might blame us, even though the first visitor was really at fault. If a visitor uploads a program with a computer virus, and other visitors’ computers are damaged, we might be blamed even though the virus was left on board by a visitor. If a visitor transfers illegal credit card information to another visitor through private electronic mail, we might be blamed even though we did nothing more than unknowingly carry the message from one visitor to another.

We did not start this site to take the blame for others' actions, and we cannot afford to operate it if we must take that blame. Accordingly, all visitors must accept responsibility for their own acts, and to accept that an act by another visitor that damages them must not be blamed on us, but on the other visitor. Therefore, as a condition of participation in site, participants must agree as follows:

You agree that SMI will not be responsible to you for any indirect, consequential, special or punitive damages or losses you may incur in connection with visiting this site or any of the data or other materials transmitted through or residing on this site, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damage or loss. In addition, you agree to defend and indemnify SMI and hold SMI harmless from and against any and all claims, proceedings damages, injuries, liabilities losses, costs and expenses (including reasonable attorneys fees) relating to any acts or omissions by you or materials or information transmitted by you in connection with our forum leading wholly or partially to claims against SMI or this site by other callers or third parties.