(Last updated on 10 November 2008)

We welcome your use of the American Institute of Physics ("AIP") journal website (the "Site"), subject to the following terms and conditions ("Terms").

1. Use of the Site

1. By using the Site, you agree to be subject to these Terms. If you do not agree to be subject to the Terms, do not use the Site. We may revise the Terms at any time without notice by posting the revised Terms to this page. The date at the top of the page will reflect the most recent revision. Please be sure to note any changes whenever you access the Site. By using the Site after the Terms have changed, you agree to be bound by the revised Terms.
2. We reserve the right to monitor and record all use of the Site.
3. The Site is intended for use by persons 18 years of age or older. If you are not at least 18 years old, do not use the Site.
4. Use of the Site is subject to the terms of AIP's online privacy policy, which can be view here http://www.aip.org/aip/privacy.html and which is incorporated into these Terms by reference.

2. Intellectual Property Rights

1. All content, trademarks, and software on the Site (collectively, the "IP") is the property of AIP or by third parties who have licensed AIP and is protected by copyright, database, trademark, and other intellectual property laws and treaties. All rights to this IP is retained by AIP or by third parties, as applicable. You are not granted any rights with regard to the IP except the right to use the IP as specifically permitted by these Terms.
2. You may read, print, and download the IP for your own, non-commercial private use. You are not permitted to copy, reproduce, adapt, create a derivative work, republish, download, make available to the public, disseminate, transmit, or otherwise exploit the material for any other purpose without written permission from AIP or from the appropriate rights holder. Without limiting the foregoing, you may not respost any comments from the Site to any other forum or website or otherwise redistribute the comments in any format. To obtain permission from AIP, please contact: rights@aip.org.

3. Contributing Material to the Site

1. If you submit comments or any other material to any part of the Site (collectively, "Material"), we ask that you do so responsibly. Please be aware that there is no expectation of privacy or anonymity in the Material or your submission of the Material. Without limiting the terms of our online privacy policy, we reserve the right to identify you as a contributor if asked to do so by a court of law or other legal authority.
2. By submitting Material to any part of this Site, you grant AIP an irrevocable, perpetual, royalty-free, fully paid-up, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use, copy, publicly perform, publicly display, reformat, translate, excerpt (in whole or in part) and distribute such Material for any purpose and in any format on or in connection with the Site or the promotion thereof, to prepare derivative works of, or incorporate into other works, such Material, with the right to grant sublicenses at multiple levels. You may not upload or submit any material for which you do not own the rights or have not obtained the written permission of the rights holder. By submitting Material to the Site, you represent and warrant that you are the owner of the Material or have written permission from the owner to post the Material and are not violating the intellectual property, confidentiality or privacy rights of any third party by posting the Material to the Site.
3. The following are unacceptable and prohibited uses of the Site:
   1. Posting material that:
      1. contains obscene, lewd, profane or suggestive content and or pornography;
      2. contains libelous, threatening, harassing, racist, demeaning or defamatory content about any person or company, including but not limited to AIP and other Site users;
      3. links to any objectionable or harmful material, including anything defamatory, obscene, abusive, offensive, insulting, threatening, menacing, unlawful or blasphemous; anything that is an invasion of privacy, a breach of any data protection principle or legislation, or that may incite violence or racial hatred; or anything that may cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety;
      4. infringes any third party's intellectual property rights, including but not limited to copyright, patent, trademark or trade secret rights or that violates the right of privacy or publicity, or any other proprietary or intellectual property right of any third party;
      5. contains or contains links to the personal, proprietary, confidential or privileged information of another person or entity or otherwise invades another person's or entity's privacy, proprietary or confidentiality rights;
      6. attempts to impersonate someone else or falsely imply a affiliation with any individual or entity;
      7. contains marketing, such as advertising, chain letters, pyramid selling, spam, or promotional materials for other sites;
      8. contains links to files that may contain a virus, corrupted data, Trojan horse, or any other potentially damaging files;
      9. contains comments not pertinent to the discussion topic; or
      10. uses any oversized fonts or JavaScript;
   2. posting multiple duplicative comments;
   3. collecting personal data about other contributors via the Site, including but not limited to manually or through use of robots, spiders, or similar means;
   4. circumventing or tampering with the security features built into the Site;
   5. attempting to forward Site traffic to another site;
   6. using or allowing others to use the Site in any way that violates these Terms;
   7. stalking or harassing another person or harming another person or entity in any way;
   8. uploading or inserting any computer hardware or software, viruses, Trojan horses, worms, spyware, or any other computer programming onto the Site or AIP's systems that may interfere with the operation of AIP's Site or systems and or create or impose a large burden or load on AIP's Site or systems; or scanning or testing the vulnerability or security of AIP's Secure Site or systems;
   9. violating or possibly causing AIP to violate any applicable law, statute, ordinance or regulation; or
   10. creating liability for AIP in any manner whatsoever.

4. AIP's Rights

In addition to all other rights AIP has under these Terms, AIP's online privacy policy, or otherwise, AIP reserves the following rights:

1. We have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor the Site and any discussion groups on the Site. We may remove any Material without informing you, for any reason or no reason, at any time.
2. We may prohibit your access to the Site at any time without informing you.
3. We do not agree to maintain or make comments available for any predetermined length of time. You should make copies of any material that you wish to save. We may, at any time, decide to discontinue the Site or any portion thereof, any feature or any discussion topic. We do not guarantee that the Site or any portion thereof will be available and accessible to you at any given time.

5. Accuracy of Information and Disclaimer

1. AIP does not endorse and is not responsible for the accuracy, completeness or use of any opinion, advice, statement, service, offer, information or content provided or made by any third party on the Site, including contributors to the Site. AIP does not control the Material posted to the Site by third parties. AIP cannot and will not evaluate and is not responsible for the accuracy, reliability, completeness, veracity or suitability of any Material uploaded to the Site by third parties, or for verifying the identity of the submitting registrant. Like any information you obtain through the Internet, you should verify Material uploaded or posted by other registrants before acting upon it. AIP is not responsible for any losses you may incur as a result of relying on Material posted or uploaded by third parties, even if AIP was advised of the possibility of such losses.
2. This Site may contain links to other sites, which are provided solely as a convenience to you, or which are provided by other contributors. AIP is not responsible for the availability of external sites or resources linked to the Site, and does not endorse and is not responsible or liable for any content, advertising, products, services or other materials on or available from such sites or resources. Transactions that occur between you and such third-party sites are strictly between you and the third party and are not the responsibility of AIP. We are not liable for any loss or damage caused by or in connection with any use of, or reliance on, any information, materials, goods or services provided through another website. Because AIP is not responsible for the availability or accuracy of these outside resources or their contents, you should review the terms and conditions and privacy policies of these linked sites, as their policies may differ from ours. Any concerns regarding any other websites should be directed to the administrator or webmaster of that site.
3. While we try to ensure that the information and content provided by us on the Site is accurate, all such information is offered "as is." We make no representations, warranties or guarantees that such information is accurate, up-to-date or complete, and we accept no liability for any loss or damage caused by inaccurate, out-of- date or incomplete information or content on the Site, even if we were advised of any potential problems with such information.
4. Please verify any information and content before relying on it. If you suspect that something is inaccurate, unlawful, or an infringement of intellectual property rights, please contact us immediately at rights@aip.org.

6. Limitation of Liability

1. THIS SITE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY. AIP ACCEPTS NO LIABILITY FOR DAMAGES RELATED TO THE SITE, ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL AVAILABLE ON THE SITE, OR YOUR USE OF THE SITE. WITHOUT LIMITING THE FOREGOING, AIP AND ITS SUBSIDIARIES, AFFILIATES, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, PARTNERS AND LICENSORS SPECIFICALLY DISCLAIM ANY IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF TITLE, MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT AND ALL OTHER WARRANTIES, REPRESENTATIONS, TERMS, CONDITIONS AND UNDERTAKINGS, WHETHER IMPLIED BY STATUTE, COMMON LAW, CUSTOM, TRADE USAGE, COURSE OF DEALING OR OTHERWISE
2. WE HAVE NO LIABILITY FOR AND DO NOT WARRANT OR GUARANTEE UNINTERRUPTED ACCESS TO THE SITE OR ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL ON IT; NOR DO WE GUARANTEE THAT OPERATION OF THE SITE WILL BE ERROR-FREE.
3. WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR, AND HAVE NO LIABILITY FOR, ANY ERROR OR CORRUPTION OR BREACH OF SECURITY RESULTING FROM THE TRANSMISSION OF ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL OVER ANY TELECOMMUNICATIONS NETWORK.
4. WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT OR CONSEQUENTIAL LOSS, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF BUSINESS, PROFIT, REVENUE OR GOODWILL, OR LOSS OR CORRUPTION OF DATA, LOST OR WASTED MANAGEMENT TIME OR THE LOST TIME OF EMPLOYEES ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF THE SITE OR ANY INFORMATION OR MATERIAL ON IT, OR YOUR INABILITY TO USE THE SITE (WHETHER THAT LOSS IS DIRECT OR INDIRECT).
5. Some jurisdictions do not permit the exclusion of some representations, warranties or liability. Therefore, some of the exclusions above may not apply to you.

7. DMCA NOTICES

If you believe that a copyrighted work that you own is accessible on this Site without your permission, you may notify us by sending the following information to the address listed below:

1. The signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright. This signature can be physical or electronic.
2. A statement that this person is authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
3. A statement that this person has a good faith belief that the use of the material in the complained-of manner is not authorized either by the copyright owner, by the owner's agent, or by law;
4. A description of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed, and a description of where the allegedly infringing material is located on the Site; and
5. Your address, telephone number, and e-mail address. Please put "Notice of Infringement" in the subject line of all such notifications, and send the notification to: rights@aip.org.

8. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless AIP, its subsidiaries and affiliates and their officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, partners and licensors and suppliers, from and against any and all losses, liabilities, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable legal fees and court costs, arising or resulting from any violation of these Terms or any use by you of the Site. You agree to be responsible for any and all losses, liabilities, expenses, damages and costs, including reasonable legal fees and court costs, arising or resulting from any technical disruption of the Site or AIP’s systems that you cause.

9. General

1. No delay, neglect or forbearance on our part in enforcing any of these Terms will be, or be deemed to be, a waiver; nor will it prejudice any of our rights.
2. If any of these Terms is (for any reason) held to be unenforceable, illegal or in some other way invalid, the unenforceable, illegal or invalid provision will not affect the remainder of these Terms; and they will continue in full force and effect.
3. These Terms will be governed by, and construed in accordance with, the laws of the State of New York, applicable to contracts entered into and fully performed in the State of New York.
4. No addition to or modification of any provision of these Terms that you propose will be binding on us unless made in writing and signed by our duly authorized representative. "Writing" includes e-mail.

10. Further Information

This Site is operated by American Institute of Physics.

Please contact us at rights@aip.org with regarding any violations of these Terms.