The license is granted by the Producer (Converia GmbH, Kaufstr. 2-4, 99423 Weimar, Germany) as Licensor.
The protected part of the software, which is used by the conference organizer and their subordinates in order to administer and manage their conference data.
This agreement refers to conferences as events of one or more consecutive days. This term does apply for all events complying with this definition, regardless of whether they do call themselves “conference”. Hence seminars, symposia, conventions, congresses and other events might also be referred to as “conference” within this contract.
Content, which shall be presented at a conference and which was completely submitted via the submission module in the Converia® frontend until the Confirmation page has been reached, or created in the backend. All abstracts, manuscripts (full papers) and presentation files or records belonging to each other are considered as one (1) contribution and not several contributions.
A Software-as-a-Service license, which grants the right to use Converia® for a single conference on a shared instance.
The public part of the software, which can be freely accessed by the public, participants, content contributors and reviewers.
This agreement refers to Participants as persons having made a registration (according to this contract’s definition).
This agreement refers to a registration as a single person’s legally binding commitment to attend a conference, tracked in the software. A registration can either be reached by using Converia®’s frontend registration module until the page “Confirmation” is reached, on which an invoice and or booking confirmation will be issued or in the by creating a complete record with status “booked” in the “Bookings” module.
A software product provided by the vendor, which facilitates holding conferences online.
This agreement clarifies all rights and obligations which the end user (Customer) obtains by purchasing a license of the Converia® Software.
The provisions of this contract apply in full to the software product Converia® (including Virtual Venue; hereinafter referred to as “software”) without any time restrictions.
This agreement grants the license for the usage of the software for a single conference within a defined period of time as determined during the conclusion of this agreement, without any territorial restrictions. The software is licensed on the Producer’s web servers and can be immediately used by the Customer for this single conference.
The license will automatically lose its binding nature if terminated in accordance with its provisions.
This agreement is governed by German law.
The Licensor guarantees that the system is available 99% of each year. An act of god (“force majeure”) such as war, riots, natural disasters, etc., which makes the provision of the services agreed on in this contract severely difficult for the Licensor, entitles the Licensor to fulfill the obligations at a later time. Strikes, lockouts and similar circumstances, provided they are serious and unpredictable are also regarded as “force majeure”. The provision of the software on the internet server ends with the expiration of the agreed period. The Customer does not have any entitlement or claim for additional webspace, or other common web hosting services (access to web hosting administration panel, separate data upload via , set up email addresses, databases, etc.).
The Licensor grants access to the backend of the software optimized for the current version of the internet browser Firefox and to the frontend with the current versions of the internet browsers Internet Explorer, Opera, Microsoft Edge, Safari, Firefox and Google Chrome.
The Licensor points out that at the current state of the art it is not possible to create software that works without failure in all applications and combinations, particularly with different hardware and software components.
The Licensor warrants for the duration of the conference period that the provided software is essentially free from manufacturing defects and works substantially in accordance with the software manual. The warranty is limited to those terms.
The Customer has to check the licensed software immediately on receipt or first use for any defects and impairment of function. A defective delivery in total or in parts has to be reported in written form immediately after discovery. Any defects must be documented descriptively with the appropriate error messages.
Defects are to be reported immediately after their discovery.
If the Customer is a businessman and he fails to report the defect to the Licensor in due form and time, then the software is approved in respect of this defect.
According to this warranty the customer has to accept the update of their instance to a new software version when appropriate.
The Customer has to support the Licensor with the removal of a potential defect. The cancellation of the contract due to a minor defect is excluded. If the customer claims warranty against the Licensor and it appears that either there is no defect or the alleged defect does not obligate the Licensor for warranty, the Customer has to compensate the costs if he claimed the warranty through gross negligence or with intent.
The Customer has the right to choose redhibitory action or abatement only if a software bug proves to have a significant and substantial impact on the software and the bug cannot be solved by other features of the software. Each additional warranty, in particular that the software is suitable for the purposes of the customer as well as for any directly or indirectly caused damages (e.g. loss of profits, business interruption) associated with the restoration of lost data, is explicitly excluded, except that the Licensor or its employees can be proven gross negligence or intent.
Unless otherwise specified in this agreement and subject to the following paragraph below, recognition of compensation and reimbursement claims against the Licensor is excluded, no matter the legal grounds. This also applies for compensation claims under tort law (e.g. BGB § 823). If liability is excluded or limited, this also applies to the personal liability of the Licensor’s employees, representatives and agents.
The limitation of liability as described above does not apply:
The Licensor is not liable for loss of data, unless this was caused by gross negligence or intent and the damage was not avoidable by appropriate data-storage. There is also no liability given for the fact that the software is suitable for the purpose of the Customer and that it works together with already existing hardware and / or software.
The Licensor is not responsible for content that is provided by the Customer. In particular, the Licensor is not obligated to review the content for possible violations of the law. If any third-party claims liability against the Licensor due to possible violations of the law resulting from the content of the conference management system provided by the Customer, the Customer is bound to exempt the Licensor from any third-party liability and to indemnify the Licensor for any costs arising from the potential violation of the law.
Data collected by the Customer and stored within Converia® is the exclusive property of the Customer.
The Licensor will not share any of this information with third parties, except for their technical solution providers which support the hereby agreed operation of Converia®. The Licensor guarantees that strict data protection regulations have been established with such partners and such partners personal details where absolutely necessary.
The Customer ensures that they maintain current data protection standards according to European Data protection laws, notably the EU General Data Protection Regulation (EUDATAP). The Customer exempts the Licensor from any claims their users address to them.
The Customer will in particular ensure that the personal data of Participants, with regard to a conference, and other similar persons will be processed according to law, provided, however, that such data including the name, address, professional or academic affiliation, details regarding participation in a conference and general use of the software, can be processed by the Licensor as a processor in order to perform this agreement and comply with law, and the Licensor will be authorized to engage one or more other for such processing.
The software may not be used to organize conferences which are or might be in conflict with German law and/or jurisdiction or in order to provide illegal content.
In addition, organizers are not allowed to promote content that can by common standards be considered extremist, pornographic, discriminating or hateful.
The software, including all its components (product manuals, technical documents, descriptions, designs, images and texts that are included in software) is copyrighted material by international treaties and property of the software producer, Converia GmbH (“the Producer”). The Customer accepts the above copyright explicitly. The copyright includes in particular the program code, documentation, appearance of the software, design of the user interface and the corresponding input and output forms, the structure and organization of program files, the program and module names, logos and other forms of representation within the software and / or their components. Any not explicitly authorized reproduction, use, dissemination, alteration or reproduction of the contents of the software is prohibited. Any use of any part of the software beyond this license agreement and the usual purpose of the software is explicitly prohibited. The software is to be treated like any copyrighted material. The foregoing is without prejudice to mandatory law.
Other parts of the software, such as supplied designs, templates and patterns may only be used with the software and are also subject to the provisions stated above.
For each case of infringement regarding one of these rules, the Customer agrees to award the Producer liquidated damages in the amount of 5,000 Euro for each breach, but not totaling more than Euro 25,000 per Costumer per conference. , and the Licensor may seek the damages that it has suffered as a result of such breach to be redressed by the Customer.
The translation of the program code (source code) of the software into other forms of code (decompilation) and other kinds of reverse engineering of the various stages of manufacturing of the software (reverse engineering) and / or changes in the program code are prohibited and subject to mandatory law.
Copyright notes or other features for the identification of the software may not be removed or changed, unless the option for “white labeling” has been ordered for the conference(s) affected by this removal.
In case the Customer violates any of these terms, the Licensor is entitled to terminate the license by written notice to the customer. Subject to mandatory law, this license cannot be otherwise terminated prior to the lapse of its agreed term.