Terms of Service

Thanks for using Tota Scriptura Bible Community. Our mission is to deepen people’s understanding of the Bible by using a collaborative study approach.

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) apply to your access to and use of the Tota Scriptura Bible Community mobile application and any related services (collectively, the “Services”) provided by DGMD Software Solutions UG (haftungsbeschränkt) (DGMD or “we”). By clicking your consent (e.g. “Agree”) or by using our Services, you agree to these Terms and to the Rules of Conduct set out below.

The Rules of Conduct in this document outline your responsibilities when using our Services. Together with these Terms they form the whole agreement between us.

These Services are provided by DGMD Software Solutions UG (haftungsbeschränkt), Luko-Dorfstr. 41, 06869 Coswig (Anhalt), Germany.

If you have any questions, complaints or claims about these Terms or our Services, please contact us at contact@dgmd-software.de.

Your Account and Responsibilities

You are responsible for your use of the Services and any content you provide, including compliance with applicable laws. Content on the Services may be protected by others’ intellectual property rights. Please don’t copy, upload, download, or share content unless you have the right to do so.

Your use of the Services must comply with our Rules.

You may need to register for an account to access some or all of our Services. Help us keep your account protected. Safeguard your password to the account, and keep your account information current. We recommend that you do not share your password with others.

If you’re accepting these Terms and using the Services on behalf of someone else (such as another person or entity), you represent that you’re authorized to do so, and in that case the words “you” or “your” in these Terms include that other person or entity.

To use our Services, you must be at least 18 years old, wherever you live. We do not knowingly allow accounts for children under that age, and we will remove an account if we learn it belongs to one.

If you use the Services to access, collect, or use personal information about other Tota Scriptura Bible Community users (“Personal Information”), you agree to do so in compliance with applicable laws. You further agree not to sell any Personal Information, where the term “sell” has the meaning given to it under applicable laws.

For Personal Information you provide to us, you represent and warrant that you have lawfully collected the Personal Information and that you or a third party has provided all required notices and collected all required consents before collecting the Personal Information. You further represent and warrant that DGMD use of such Personal Information in accordance with the purposes for which you provided us the Personal Information will not violate, misappropriate or infringe any rights of another (including intellectual property rights or privacy rights) and will not cause us to violate any applicable laws.

User Content on the Services

There is no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users on Tota Scriptura Bible Community. Content that breaks these Terms or the Rules of Conduct is removed, and the accounts that post it are suspended or permanently removed. Reports of objectionable content are reviewed and acted on within 24 hours.

DGMD may review your conduct and content for compliance with these Terms and our Rules, and reserves the right to remove any violating content.

Messages and topic titles are checked automatically before they become visible to other people, using a third-party service. Content that appears to break the Rules is withheld and reviewed. If your content is withheld you can appeal — see Appeals below. Where we remove content or restrict an account, we will tell you why.

You can block any other user at any time. Blocking hides that person’s messages and topics from you. It is separate from reporting: blocking is your own choice and is not reviewed by us, while a report asks us to act.

DGMD reserves the right to delete or disable content alleged to be infringing the intellectual property rights of others, and to terminate accounts of repeat infringers. We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement if they comply with the law; please send such notices to contact@dgmd-software.de.

You retain your rights to any content you submit, post or display on or through the Services.

Rights and Ownership

Unless otherwise agreed in writing, by submitting, posting, or displaying content on or through the Services, you grant DGMD a nonexclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, fully paid, and sublicensable license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly perform and display your content and any name, username or likeness provided in connection with your content in all media formats and distribution methods now known or later developed on the Services.

DGMD needs this license because you own your content and DGMD therefore can’t display it across its various surfaces (i.e., mobile, web) without your permission.

This type of license also is needed to distribute your content across our Services. For example, you post a comment or article on Tota Scriptura Bible Community. It is reproduced across the parts of the app where that conversation appears, such as a topic and its verse. A modification might be that we show a snippet of your work (and not the full post) in a preview, with attribution to you. A derivative work might be a collection of quotations from discussions, again with full attribution. This license applies to our Services only, and does not grant us any permissions outside of our Services.

So long as you comply with these Terms, DGMD gives you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-assignable and revocable license to access and use our Services. If you obtained the app from the Apple App Store, that license is to use it on any Apple-branded products that you own or control, and as permitted by the Usage Rules set out in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions. If you obtained it from Google Play, that license is to use it on any Android device that you own or control, as permitted by the Google Play Terms of Service. This license does not allow you to use the Services on a device you do not own or control, or to distribute or make them available over a network where they could be used by more than one device at a time.

The Services are protected by copyright, trademark, and other german and foreign laws. These Terms don’t grant you any right, title or interest in the Services, other users’ content on the Services, or DGMD trademarks, logos or other brand features.

Separate and apart from the content you submit, post or display on our Services, we welcome feedback, including any comments, ideas and suggestions you have about our Services. We may use this feedback for any purpose, in our sole discretion, without any obligation to you. We may treat feedback as nonconfidential.

We may stop providing the Services or any of its features within our sole discretion. We also retain the right to create limits on use and storage and may remove or limit content distribution on the Services.

Termination

You’re free to stop using our Services at any time. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Services with or without notice.

Transfer and Processing Data

In order for us to provide our Services, you agree that we may process, transfer and store information about you in Germany and other countries, where you may not have the same rights and protections as you do under local law.

Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, you will indemnify, defend and hold harmless DGMD, and our officers, directors, agents, partners and employees (individually and collectively, the DGMD Parties”) from and against any losses, liabilities, claims, demands, damages, expenses or costs (“Claims”) arising out of or related to your violation, misappropriation or infringement of any rights of another (including intellectual property rights or privacy rights) or your violation of the law. You agree to promptly notify DGMD Parties of any third-party Claims, cooperate with DGMD Parties in defending such Claims and pay all fees, costs and expenses associated with defending such Claims (including attorneys’ fees). You also agree that the DGMD Parties will have control of the defense or settlement, at DGMD sole option, of any third-party Claims.

Disclaimers — Service is “As Is”

Tota Scriptura Bible Community aims to give you great Services but there are some things we cannot guarantee. Your use of our Services is at your sole risk. You understand that our Services and any content posted or shared by users on the Services are provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. In addition, DGMD doesn’t represent or warrant that our Services are accurate, complete, reliable, current or error-free. No advice or information obtained from Tota Scriptura Bible Community or through the Services will create any warranty or representation not expressly made in this paragraph. Tota Scriptura Bible Community may provide information about third-party products, services, activities or events, or we may allow third parties to make their content and information available on or through our Services (collectively, “Third-Party Content”). We do not control or endorse, and we make no representations or warranties regarding, any Third-Party Content. You access and use Third-Party Content at your own risk. Some locations don’t allow the disclaimers in this paragraph and so they might not apply to you. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, we alone are responsible for any warranty that cannot be disclaimed. If the Services fail to conform to such a warranty and you obtained the app from the Apple App Store, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund any purchase price you paid for it; to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Apple has no other warranty obligation of any kind regarding the Services. If you obtained the app from Google Play, any refund is governed by the Google Play Terms of Service. Any other claim, loss, liability, damage, cost or expense arising from a failure to conform to a warranty is our responsibility, and not the store's.

Bible translations displayed on Tota Scriptura Bible Community are to the best of our knowledge in public domain, which means that no license is required, or a corresponding license has been aquired. In the case when we are informed that a bible translation displayed on Tota Scriptura Bible Community requires a license and one has not been yet aquired we will take immediate actions by removing the bible translation and/or aquire the required license.

Limitation of Liability

We don’t exclude or limit our liability to you where it would be illegal to do so; this includes any liability for the gross negligence, fraud or intentional misconduct of DGMD or the other DGMD Parties in providing the Services. In countries where the following types of exclusions aren’t allowed, we’re responsible to you only for losses and damages that are a reasonably foreseeable result of our failure to use reasonable care and skill or our breach of our contract with you. This paragraph doesn’t affect consumer rights that can’t be waived or limited by any contract or agreement.

In countries where exclusions or limitations of liability are allowed, DGMD and DGMD Parties won’t be liable for:

(a) Any indirect, consequential, exemplary, incidental, punitive, or special damages, or any loss of use, data or profits, under any legal theory, even if DGMD or the other DGMD Parties have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

(b) Other than for the types of liability we can’t limit by law (as described in this section), we limit the total liability of DGMD and the other DGMD Parties for any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or our Services, regardless of the form of the action, to the greater of $50.00 USD or the amount paid by you to use our Services.

Resolving Disputes

We want to address your concerns without needing a formal legal case. Before filing a claim against DGMD, you agree to contact us and attempt to resolve the claim informally by sending a written notice of your claim by email at contact@dgmd-software.de or by certified mail addressed to DGMD, Dorfstr. 41, 06869 Coswig (Anhalt) OT Luko, Sachsen-Anhalt, Germany. The notice must (a) include your name, residence address, email address, and telephone number; (b) describe the nature and basis of the claim; and (c) set forth the specific relief sought. Our notice to you will be sent to the email address associated with your online account and will contain the information described above. If we can’t resolve matters within thirty (30) days after any notice is sent, either party may initiate a formal proceeding.

If we cannot resolve the matter informally, either of us may bring the dispute before the courts. Nothing in these Terms takes away any right you have to bring proceedings in the courts of the country where you live, or to rely on the consumer-protection law of that country.

Governing Law and Disputes

If you live in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom or Switzerland: these Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). Nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protection of the mandatory consumer-protection law of the country where you live, or of your right to bring proceedings in the courts of that country.

If you live anywhere else, including the United States: these Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the CISG, and you and DGMD submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Berlin, Germany, to the extent your local law permits. Where your local law gives you non-waivable rights or a non-waivable venue, those prevail.

Copyright Infringement (DMCA)

If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated agent at contact@dgmd-software.de including: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed; (c) identification and location of the material you claim is infringing; (d) your contact details; (e) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and (f) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act for them.

If your content was removed in response to such a notice and you believe that was a mistake, you may send a counter-notice to the same address containing your signature, identification of the removed material and its former location, a statement under penalty of perjury of your good-faith belief that the removal was mistaken, your contact details, and your consent to the jurisdiction of the courts described in Governing Law and Disputes.

We terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

App Store and Play Store

These Terms are between you and DGMD only — not with Apple Inc. or Google LLC, and neither Apple nor Google is responsible for the Services or their content. Apple and Google have no obligation to furnish any maintenance or support for the Services, and are not responsible for addressing any claim by you or a third party relating to the Services, including product-liability claims, claims that the Services fail to conform to legal or regulatory requirements, claims under consumer protection law, and claims of intellectual-property infringement.

If a third party claims that the Services, or your possession and use of them, infringe that third party’s intellectual property rights, we — and not Apple or Google — are solely responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of that claim.

You agree to comply with any applicable third-party terms when using the Services — for example the terms of your mobile network operator, and the App Store or Google Play terms under which you obtained the app.

You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a United States government embargo or designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not listed on any United States government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

Apple, and Apple’s subsidiaries, are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and, upon your acceptance, may enforce these Terms against you. This applies to the app as obtained from the Apple App Store; the Google Play version is governed by the Google Play Terms of Service between you and Google.

Language

These Terms are drafted in English. Any translation is provided for convenience; where versions conflict, the English version prevails to the extent your local law allows.

Amendments

We may make changes to these Terms from time to time. If we make changes, we’ll provide you with notice of them by sending an email to the email address associated with your account, offering an in-product notification, or updating the date at the top of these Terms. Unless we say otherwise in our notice, the amended Terms will be effective immediately, and your continued use of our Services after we provide such notice will confirm your acceptance of the changes. If you don’t agree to the amended Terms, you must stop using our Services.

Severability

If any provision or part of a provision of these Terms is unlawful, void or unenforceable, that provision or part of the provision is deemed severable from these Terms and does not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining provisions.

Miscellaneous

DGMD's failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not operate as a waiver of such right or provision. These Terms reflect the entire agreement between the parties relating to the subject matter hereof and supersede all prior agreements, statements and understandings of the parties. The section titles in these Terms are for convenience only and have no legal or contractual effect. Use of the word “including” will be interpreted to mean “including without limitation.” Except for Apple and its subsidiaries, whose rights are set out in the App Store and Play Store section above, these Terms are intended solely for the benefit of the parties and are not intended to confer third-party beneficiary rights upon any other person or entity. You agree that communications and transactions between us may be conducted electronically.

Rules of Conduct

Tota Scriptura Bible Community exists to share ideas and perspectives on bible text.

We welcome thoughtful and civil discussion from a broad spectrum of viewpoints. Nevertheless, to maintain a safe and welcoming environment for a wide range of people to engage in meaningful conversations, we prohibit certain conduct.

Each participant in our community is responsible for maintaining these standards.

In deciding whether someone has violated the rules, we will take into account things like newsworthiness, the context and nature of the posted information, the likelihood and severity of actual or potential harms, and applicable laws.

Violations of our rules may result in consequences such as account restrictions, limited distribution of your posts, and suspension of your account. We may limit the distribution of controversial or extreme content.

Threats of violence and incitement

We do not allow content or actions that threaten, encourage, or incite violence against anyone, directly or indirectly.

Hate speech

We do not allow content that promotes violence or hatred against people based on characteristics like race, ethnicity, national origin, caste, religion, sex, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious illness or age.

We do not allow posts or accounts that glorify, celebrate, downplay, or trivialize violence, suffering, abuse, or deaths of individuals or groups. This includes the use of scientific or pseudoscientific claims to pathologize, dehumanize, or disempower others. We do not allow calls for intolerance, exclusion, or segregation based on protected characteristics, nor do we allow the glorification of groups which do any of the above.

We do not allow hateful text, images, symbols, or other content in your username, profile, or bio.

Discussing belief. Disagreement about doctrine, interpretation and morality is the point of this app, and stating a sincerely held belief — including one that others find difficult — is not hate speech. What is not allowed is attacking, dehumanising, or calling for harm against people because of who they are. The test we apply is whether the target is an idea or a person.

DGMD does not endorse any denomination, tradition or interpretation. We host the discussion; we do not take sides in it.

Harassment

Tota Scriptura Bible Community exists to share and discuss Bible text. We don’t tolerate harassment, which includes:

Bullying, threatening, or shaming someone, or posting things likely to encourage others to do so

Privacy and Reputation

We do not allow the following:

Posting copies of private communications between private individuals without the explicit consent of all parties to the communication

Doxing, which includes not only private or obscure personal information but also the aggregation of publicly available information to target, shame, blackmail, harass, intimidate, threaten, or endanger

Posting intimate or explicit images taken or posted without the subject’s express consent

Content that violates others’ privacy, including sensitive or confidential information such as credit card numbers, social security numbers, non-public phone numbers, physical addresses, email addresses, or other non-public information

Restricted categories

We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in the following restricted categories of activity:

Facilitation of gambling or betting

Facilitation of buying or selling social media interactions, including off-platform

Facilitation of illegal sexual services

Facilitation of copyright violation

Related conduct

We do not allow posts or accounts that engage in on-platform, off-platform, or cross-platform campaigns of targeting, harassment, hate speech, violence, or disinformation. We may consider off-platform actions in assessing a Tota Scriptura Bible Community account, and restrict access or availability to that account.

Duplicate Content

We do not allow posting duplicate content, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts, in any form.

Spam

We do not allow spam on Tota Scriptura Bible Community. All spam will be immediately removed from Tota Scriptura Bible Community, without notification. While it is hard to define this content with precision or completeness, here are some representative behaviors we look for that are characteristic of spam:

Posting content primarily to drive traffic to, or increase the search rankings of, an external site, product, or service

Scraping and reposting content from other sources for the primary purpose of generating revenue or other personal gains

Posting duplicate content, whether from a single account or across multiple accounts

Stories where the content is clipped with the sole purpose of linking to the rest of the article on a different website

Performing a disproportionately large number of interactions, particularly by automated means. This includes bulk, indiscriminate interactions, such as following of other accounts (follow spam) clapping, highlighting, or leaving notes

Repeatedly using responses or other interactions as a method of promotion

Participating in bounty campaigns or brigades to artificially inflate rankings for posts, accounts, businesses, or products

Use or re-use content templates with slight modifications across multiple posts and accounts

For each of these behaviors, when we talk about “content,” we mean not only posts but also any other feature that allows you to add your own text or media. When we talk about “interactions,” we mean any feature that allows one user to interact with another, or with a post.

Paid, automatic, bulk, or non-genuine interactions

Tota Scriptura Bible Community depends on various user behaviors — like follows and agree or disagree — to determine what content to feature and make the site work well for everyone. So, we don’t allow artificial behaviors that skew this system and as a result degrade or distort other users’ experiences. This includes:

Buying, selling, or trading in accounts or account interactions — including follows, agrees, disagrees, responses or other traffic

Using services, apps, or arrangements that offer you more follows, agrees, or other interactions on your Tota Scriptura Bible Community account or content

Registering accounts, posting content, or interacting with users or content automatically, systematically, or programmatically

Copyright and trademark infringement

Respect the copyrights and trademarks of others. Unless you’re authorized to use someone else’s copyrighted work or trademark (either expressly or by legal exceptions and limitations like fair use), don’t do it. We respond to notices of alleged infringement as described in the Copyright Infringement (DMCA) section above.

Deceptive conduct

We do not allow deceptive conduct on Tota Scriptura Bible Community. This includes:

Posting content or impersonating a person or organization in a way likely to deceive people.

Presenting altered Bible text as the genuine text.

Using Tota Scriptura Bible Community for phishing or fraud. Don’t use tags, links, titles, or other metadata in a misleading way. Don’t link to or embed malicious or harmful code or software in your posts

Don’t use deception to generate revenue or traffic

If you have received compensation, free goods/services or anything of value in connection with the topic of a post, you must make this clear

Ads, Promotions, and Marketing

Third-party advertising and sponsorships are not allowed. You may not advertise or promote third-party products, services, or brands through Tota Scriptura Bible Community posts or profiles. This includes images that indicate brand sponsorship in a post or profile.

Images functioning as third-party ads are not allowed. Inline images or embeds that link out and function as banner ads for third-party brands are not allowed.

Affiliate links, such as link out to Amazon with your code, or any other link out where you will receive a commission or other value, are not allowed in posts.

Multi-level marketing content is not allowed.

Embedded Content

In ongoing compliance with the European GDPR, we are restricting the behavior of certain embedded content:

Embeds that directly collect data through form fields are not allowed. This includes embeds that facilitate the submission of email addresses and other personally identifying information through forms and the submission of credit card information. If you want to collect information from your readers, you will need to link out from your post on Tota Scriptura Bible Community to a form hosted elsewhere that makes it clear to a user that they are no longer in the Tota Scriptura Bible Community network

Graphic content, minors protection

We do not allow pornographic images or videos.

We do not allow erotic writing and non-graphic erotic images.

We do not allow gratuitously graphic or disturbing media, even if it’s not pornographic.

We do not allow content promoting the sexual or violent exploitation of minors, including the sexualization of fictional minors.

We do not allow activities that encourage, promote or glorify acts of self-harm, such as cutting, eating disorders like anorexia or bulimia, and suicide. If you encounter users contemplating or threatening self-harm, please report it to us via the form or email address linked below.

How to report a violation

If you find a post or account on Tota Scriptura Bible Community that violates these rules, please flag it. You can send us an email to contact@dgmd-software.de.

If you break the rules, we strive to be fair, but we reserve the right to suspend accounts or remove content, without notice, for any reason, particularly to protect our services, infrastructure, users, or community. If you attempt to evade suspension by creating new accounts or posts, we will suspend your new accounts and posts.

Notice

Upon investigating or disabling content associated with your account, we will notify you, unless we believe your account is automated or operating in bad faith, or that notifying you is likely to cause, maintain or exacerbate harm to someone.

Appeals

If you believe your content or account has been restricted or disabled in error, or believe there is relevant context we were not aware of in reaching our determination, you can write to us at contact@dgmd-software.de. We will consider all good faith efforts to appeal.

Government Takedown Requests

If Tota Scriptura Bible Community receives a request from a government actor to restrict access to content associated with your account, we will notify you unless we are prohibited by law or believe doing so may endanger others. Where applicable, we will work to limit legally-ordered content restrictions to jurisdictions where we have a good faith belief that we are legally required to restrict the content.

We may enforce, or not enforce, these policies at our sole discretion. These policies don’t create a duty or contractual obligation for us to act.