Terms of Use for Kitchen Stories
These Terms of Use are a binding contract between AJNS New Media GmbH, Storkower Str. 115, 10407 Berlin ("AJNS") and you ("You"; "User"). For more information about AJNS see the disclaimer on our website www.kitchenstories.com.
You can use the "Kitchen Stories" App (the "App") and/or the “Kitchen Stories” Web services (the “Services”) only in accordance with these Terms of Use. These Terms of Use replace all previous contracts between the parties concerning the App and/or the Services. In addition to the Terms of Use, the Terms and Conditions for the distribution platform used to download the App (e.g., the Apple App Store, Google Play, etc.) apply, in particular regarding the way contracts are concluded in the case of in app purchases. In case of contradictions, the provisions of these Terms of Use take precedence. The provider of the respective app store is not a party to the contract regarding the use of the app and is not liable for any defects, damages or infringements of third party rights. However, in the event of a defect, you may be able to declare your rescission of a contract and submit a claim for a refund directly to the provider of the app store.
Subject of agreement
1.1 The App and the Services offer community functions and access to content (especially video) of AJNS and other users on the subject of cooking, which may be displayed in a newsfeed personalized for the User or accessed through a category list or search functionality. The precise system requirements and the full scope of functions of the App are found in the product description on the distribution platform used to download the App (hereinafter the "App Store"). The Services allow the entry and retrieval of content via a website.
1.2 The App is provided free of charge in the object code. Use of the community functions is also free of charge. The source code of the App is not the subject of this agreement.
1.3 Certain additional functions are only available for users with a paid Premium Account. Details are shown within the App. The Premium Account is subject to specific provisions within these Terms of Use.
1.4 AJNS reserves the right to provide further extended functions beyond those specified above, and run contests. This may be implemented through additional content within the app or through the in-App purchasing option of the corresponding App Store. In addition to these Terms of Use, other special terms and conditions or contest terms, respectively, may apply, which will be communicated accordingly before the in-App purchase or before use of such additional functions or participation in such contests, respectively. Use or or participation in such content or contests, respectively, is possible only after accepting such terms. The price and scope of functions of the corresponding in-App purchases is shown always in the offer shown in the App.
1.5 AJNS can provide updates for this App free of charge in the respective App Store, which change the scope of functions of the App. The exact system requirements and the complete scope of functions of such updates and the updated version of the App can be found in the product and update description in the corresponding App Store.
1.6 These Terms of Use apply correspondingly to all in-App purchases and updates and to the latest updated version of the App acquired in the process of in-App purchase and/or update.
1.7 In order for you to be able to use the community functions of the App and/or the Services (e.g., as available, create profiles, access content of other users, create list of bookmarks or “cook books”, participate in surveys / vote for most popular recipes, comment, participate in contests, communicate with other users), you have to register free of charge after downloading the App. You can also use the App and/or the Services without registering. The community functions are not available to you in this case. Important: AJNS does not appropriate the user's content!
1.8 ANJS may offer Business Accounts with specific functionalities for commercial use of the community functionalities. These Business Accounts are subject to additional terms.
Contract conclusion; optional registration
2.1 The contract for use of the App and the Services including the granting of the rights of use to the App comes into existence once the user clicks on the "install" button (may be called differently depending on the App Store) on the product description page in the corresponding App Store and enters his/her password for that App Store; the T&C of the corresponding App Store apply to further details, if pertinent.
2.2 The contract about the use of the community functions of the App and the Services come into existence as follows: By sending a fully completed registration form from the App or through the Kitchen Stories website, you are concluding a contract. AJNS will confirm the receipt of the registration form. AJNS can accept the offer by switching on the community functions in the App and in the Services. However, there is not claim to contract conclusion.
2.3 After registration, we explain to you via email the most important basic functions of the community. If you have opted in accordingly, we will also send you our newsletter, pointing out new features, products or content. You can unsubscribe from the newsletter at any time, e.g. by selecting the unsubscribe link in each newsletter. You can subscribe to the newsletter again at any time.
Rights and duties of the user
3.1 The data required for registration must be provided truthfully and updated immediately if it changes to ensure smooth use. If alternative methods with access to existing user profiles (e.g., registration via Facebook) are offered for registration, this obligation applies accordingly to the data stored in those user profiles.
3.2 You are responsible for protecting your registration and access data (e.g., user name, password) and you should not disclose them or tolerate or enable unauthorized or third parties to find them out. You are obliged to take the required measures to guarantee confidentiality and immediately report abuse or loss of such information or suspicions thereof to AJNS by e-mail to hello@kitchenstories.de.
3.3 As part of the community functions you have the option to set up your own content in your profile (e.g., personal information, profile picture) and the database of Kitchen Stories content (e.g., personal recipes and videos). Please keep in mind that all registered users can view your profile and all of the content you submit.
3.4 You are not allowed to add content that violates applicable laws or copyrights or personality rights of third parties or the Kitchen Stories Netiquette Rules (if available), or that could significantly disrupt the open and friendly environment in the community. In particular, you are not allowed to add any content that is abusive, defamatory, obscene, sexist, pornographic, political or extremist religious, violent, harmful to minors or otherwise illegal or unsuitable for an unrestricted circle of users. In addition, you may only add content that you have either created yourself or received permission to use from the author or any other disclosed people. You may not take content from other platforms or other sources without request and add it to the community under any circumstances.
3.5 Due to the large scope of user-generated content AJNS is not able to check all content before approving it, but it reserves the right to block, change, or delete content in reaction to complaints or upon obtaining knowledge in another way, if such content violates the principles mentioned in Section 3.4 or is not suitable for the subject of the community (cooking, food, recipes and kitchen equipment). AJNS reserves the right to ban a user temporarily or permanently, or terminate the Agreement, in the event of a breach of these Terms of Use. A ban is generally possible only after the user has been warned twice because of breaches of the Terms of Use, except where the gravity of the breach justifies an immediate ban, taking into account both parties’ interests. This weighing of interests must particularly take into account AJNS’ interest in providing an attractive offering for its other users. For clarity: To the extent it is possible to send private messages through the platform, Kitchen Stories accesses these messages only if at least one participant of such conversations has consented, for example by using the reporting functionality for inappropriate content.
3.6 Netiquette
As a member of our KS Community, you commit yourself to the basic rules of mutual tolerance and politeness. In our community we require the following netiquette:
3.6.1 You should always treat other members politely and respectfully. Write only what you would personally say to another person. Insults, harassment and personal attacks are not allowed in the KS community.
3.6.2 Try to avoid ambiguous formulations. Since gestures and facial expressions are missing in written communication, sarcasm and irony are difficult to understand. Make sure that your expression cannot be understood as an attack by others.
3.6.3 Be tolerant and respect the opinions of other community members. Don' trule out other members and don't make fun of other members, including their recipes and photos.
3.6.4 Think before you write a comment and pay attention to spelling, grammar, and language.
3.6.5 All forms of spam and inappropriate advertising are taboo in the KS Community.
Disparagements and insults of any kind will not be tolerated in our KS Community. It doesn't matter whether such statements are directed against other members, moderators, third parties or other groups of people. The same also applies to all contributions, which offend against valid law.
Rights and duties of the AJNS
4.1 AJNS provides the App for download through the App Stores.
4.2 AJNS provides the community functions for the App and the Services with the average availability rate of 97% a year. The availability calculation does not include the planned maintenance times within reasonable scope. AJNS will make an effort, within an economically viable scope, to inform about the planned maintenance times in a suitable location on the community platform ahead of time and to perform such maintenance work outside of the community peak times.
4.3 Clarification: AJNS can change the content available through the App and/or the Services at its own discretion at any time. There is no entitlement to initial or continued access to specific content. The provisions on the Premium Account remain unaffected.
Specific provisions for the Premium Account
5.1 Paid activation of the Premium Account is optional. The specific characteristics of the Premium Account, in particular price, term, and the features included in the Premium Account are displayed within the App. Any stated prices include VAT where applicable.
5.2 The Premium Account can only be purchased through the mobile App. Its functions can also be used when accessing the account through the Kitchen Stories website, to the extent they do not depend on specific technical features of mobile devices (such as a camera or sensors). The available payment methods depend on the user’s location and the relevant app store.
5.3 The additional content and functions of the Premium Account are digital content. The user does not acquire any property rights in them, only a simple right of use limited to the term of the contract or availability of the content (as applicable).
5.4 To the extent AJNS is entitled to temporarily or permanently suspend a user’s account, this also creates a right to withhold paid content and/or features.
5.5 AJNS may modify or remove the offered content and/or functions at any time. This does not apply for content that has already been purchased, i.e. if AJNS decides to discontinue the Premium Account or reduce its functions, this does not apply for already paid terms.
5.6 After the end of its term, the Premium Account automatically turns into a regular user account again.
Withdrawal right for Premium Account
In view of paid in app purchases, consumers (i.e. natural persons entering into a transaction for purposes not mainly associated with their commercial or independent professional activity) have a withdrawal right as follows:
Right of withdrawal
You have the right to withdraw from this contract within 14 days without giving any reason.
The withdrawal period will expire after 14 days from the day of the conclusion of the contract.
To exercise the right of withdrawal, you must inform us (AJNS New Media GmbH, Storkower Str. 115, 10407 Berlin, Germany; e-mail: hello@kitchenstories.de; phone +49 30 695 182 93) of your decision to withdraw from this contract by an unequivocal statement (e.g. a letter sent by post, fax or e-mail). You may use the attached model withdrawal form, but it is not obligatory.
To meet the withdrawal deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of withdrawal before the withdrawal period has expired.
Effects of withdrawal
If you withdraw from this contract, we shall reimburse to you all payments received from you, including the costs of delivery (with the exception of the supplementary costs resulting from your choice of a type of delivery other than the least expensive type of standard delivery offered by us), without undue delay and in any event not later than 14 days from the day on which we are informed about your decision to withdraw from this contract. We will carry out such reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless you have expressly agreed otherwise; in any event, you will not incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.
End of withdrawal notice.
Model withdrawal form
(If you wish to withdraw from the contract, please complete this form and return it to us)
To
AJNS New Media GmbH, Storkower Str. 115, 10407 Berlin, Germany
E-mail: hello@kitchenstories.de
I/We () hereby give notice that I/We () withdraw from my/our () contract of sale of the following goods ()/for the provision of the following service (*),
—
Ordered on ()/received on (),
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Name of consumer(s),
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Address of consumer(s),
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Signature of consumer(s) (only if this form is notified on paper),
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Date
(*) Delete as appropriate
Rights granted to the user
7.1 AJNS grants the user a world-wide, non-exclusive (simple), non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use the App, the Services, and the content of the community including any documents and user manuals found in the App for private purposes and save and display within the scope necessary for use in accordance with regulations and contract, and share exclusively by using the App functions intended for this purpose with other users in the community or through other supported social networks. This right is permanent for the App and AJNS's own content and time-limited for the community for the period of the contract for the use of community functions. The user may download and use the App exclusively on devices that are linked to the App Store ID used for the installation. All rights that are not expressly granted, especially the right to process, disseminate and/or otherwise exploit the App and the community content remain reserved.
7.2 The user may not decompile the App or otherwise reverse engineer it or try to find out the source code. An exception to this are actions that are necessary to obtain interface information required to ensure interoperability of the App with third-party software; this requires that the user has previously made unsuccessful attempts to find out such information from AJNS in exchange for an appropriate compensation of expenditures. Interface information obtained in this manner may only be used for establishing interoperability, and may not be published, and may only be provided to third parties in the scope necessary for establishing such interoperability.
Rights granted to AJNS; Indemnification
8.1 The user grants to AJNS the gratuitous, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable right, limited to the duration of the contract, to save all community content added by users (including permitted derivative works such as translations) for the purposes of the contract for the use of the App, the Services, and the community functions, in particular including the display content with other users of the Community, and to duplicate, make publicly accessible, translate into other languages, and edit technically to the necessary extent, especially due to compatibility and optimization of the need for storage space and transfer capacities (in particular to compress and slightly reduce, even if the effects are visible; but the content cannot be distorted), and use in other ways as needed for the purposes of the contract. This also includes AJNS’ right to make such content accessible to its third party cooperation partners through application programming interfaces to enable such third parties to display such content in their own services and on their own devices, but in such a way that the content is no longer visible in/on such third party services/devices once it has been deleted from Kitchen Stories. Important: AJNS does not appropriate the user's content.
8.2 AJNS reserves the right to “feature” certain user generated content with the user’s consent. Such consent may be obtained by e-mail or through a message within the App. Consent is voluntary. If the user consents to “featuring” content, they grant AJNS a gratuitous, worldwide, non-exclusive, transferable, sublicensable, perpetual, irrevocable right to store, copy, make publicly accessible, translate into other languages, modify, connect with other works (e.g. combine a recipe with new photo or video material that may or may not be similar to the originally submitted phot or video material). The foregoing includes in particular the right to make such content accessible to third parties via application programming interfaces, and the right to post the content in social media and other third party offerings and platforms, and to use it to advertise the offerings of Kitchen Stories.
8.3 The grant of rights in Sec. 8.2 applies accordingly for any content submitted for participation in a contest, except to the extent the contest terms for that specific contest expressly provide otherwise.
8.4 You commit to indemnify AJNS from all damages, claims, costs (including customary legal fees) and expenditures that AJNS incurs as a result of in-court or out-of-court legal actions taken by third parties or authorities against AJNS due to or in connection with a breach of Section 3.4 of these Terms of Use in the community content added by you. This does not apply if you are not the one responsible for the breach.
Warranty/Liability
9.1 To the extent the App is provided free of charge and other services (specifically the Services) are also provided free of charge, AJNS does not assume any warranties and is liable in accordance with the legal provisions only for intent and gross negligence; AJNS is only liable for App defects if AJNS maliciously concealed the defect.
9.2 To the extent certain functions of the App and/or certain services of AJNS are paid through in app purchases, the statutory warranty regime applies subject to the following provisions: In the event a content item or a functionality is defective and the user reports this defect to AJNS, AJNS will at its choice and within a reasonable period to be set by the user, remedy the defect (e.g. by means of an update) or provide the user with a new version of the content or the function (as applicable) which does not have the defect. In the event such supplementary performance is definitely denied or has definitely failed, the user may reduce the fees or terminate the contract regarding the concerned content and/or function, and in each case claim damages pursuant to Section 9.
9.3 If parts of the App and/or specific services of AJNS are not free of charge through in-App purchases, the statutory liability of AJNS is limited as follows:
9.3.1 The statutory liability of AJNS is unlimited in case of intent, gross negligence, personal injury, breaches of a guarantee – which must be expressly designated as such in order to be a guarantee in the legal sense – and under the German Product Liabilty Act.
9.3.2 Except in the cases described in Section 9.3.1, AJNS is responsible for slight negligence only in cases of breach of an essential obligation. Essential obligations are obligations that must be performed in order to achieve the purpose of the contract in the first place, and on the performance of which the user may therefore generally rely.
9.3.3 In the cases described in Section 9.3.2, AJNS is only liable for the typical and foreseeable damage.
9.3.4 In other cases, AJNS is not liable for slight negligence.
9.4 The user must regularly back-up his/her data. If AJNS is liable for data loss in accordance with this section, such liability is limited to the restoration costs, which would have been incurred in case of regular and risk-adequate preparation of back-up copies.
9.5 AJNS is not liable for damages resulting from a change of the App by the user or a software and hardware environment that differs from system requirements.
Duration and cancellation; consequences of cancellation
10.1 Clarification: The App itself is made available for permanent use; the corresponding right of use cannot be canceled.
10.2 The contract for the use of the underlying community functions and the Services is concluded for an undetermined period of time and may be terminated for convenience by either party at any time with a notice period of 7 days, unless otherwise specified in this section 8.
10.3 In deviation from Section 10.2 the special conditions for any time-limited premium functions acquired through in-App purchases may specify other periods for regular cancellation of the contract for the use of the underlying community functions; unless special regulations are contained therein, the cancellation will become valid only once the contract period of the time-limited premium function ends.
10.4 The legal right of both parties to an immediate extraordinary cancellation for an important reason remains reserved. An important reason for AJNS, in particular, is when the user breaches one of its obligations from Section 3 and, if the breach can be rectified, does not do so within 14 days after being prompted by AJNS to do so. In particular in case of breaches against Section 3.4 a notice period is superfluous.
10.5 After the cancellation of the use of community functions goes into effect, AJNS will no longer show the community content of the user and delete it after four weeks. Within this period, AJNS will provide the content to the user for download or in another reasonable manner on request.
Final provisions
11.1 Choice of law These Terms of Use are subject exclusively to the laws of Germany, excluding the CISG. If you are a consumer domiciled in a Member State of the EU other than Germany, this choice of law does not affect the application of the mandatory consumer protection laws of that Member State.
11.2 Language; contract text The contract is concluded in German and English. AJNS does not save the contract text. The Terms and Conditions can be viewed at any time on our website at kitchenstories.com/en/terms.
11.3 Place of jurisdiction The place of jurisdiction and performance is Berlin for (i) users who are not consumers, (ii) users who have no residence in Germany upon contract conclusion or move to another country after contract conclusion, and (iii) users whose regular place of residence is unknown at the moment when a lawsuit is filed. Otherwise, the place of jurisdiction for consumers is based on the general rules.
11.4 Dispute Resolution Information The European Commission offers an Online Dispute Resolution (ODR) Platform at http://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/. However, we are neither obliged nor willing to participate in a dispute resolution procedure before a consumer mediation entity.
11.5 Salvatory clause If a provision of this contract is or becomes invalid, the validity of the rest of this contract will not be affected. The parties agree, within reason and in good faith, to replace the invalid provision by a permissible regulation that is equivalent in terms of economic outcome, as long as this does not result in any substantial changes of the contractual content.
11.6 Changes to the Terms of Use AJNS may change and adapt these Terms of Use during the validity period of the contract for the use of community functions effective for the future, if this is necessitated by changes in the legal and economic general conditions, especially changes in the law and court practices. AJNS will send the amended Terms of Use to the user at least six weeks before the planned entry into effect per e-mail and point out especially the new provision. At the same time, AJNS will set a reasonable period of at least six weeks for the user to declare the acceptance of the amended Terms of Use for the further use of services. If no declaration of acceptance is made within this period, since the receipt of the information, the amended Terms of Use will be considered accepted. AJNS will inform the customers once the period begins in particular of the legal consequence, i.e., the right to object, the deadline for objection, and the significance of remaining silent. This change mechanism does not apply to changes of the parties' main contractual duties.
Last updated: March 2020