Topical Talk Festival Terms and Conditions

By accessing a Topical Talk Festival account you agree to these terms, in addition to the Website terms found here: talk.economistfoundation.org/about/terms-of-use

Payment terms

A Topical Talk Festival account (‘Festival Account’) allows you to participate in a Topical Talk Festival (a “Festival”), and to create accounts for your students on the Festival Site, enabling them to take part in the Festival as well.

You will have access to your Festival Account, and be bound by these terms, for up to four weeks before the Festival begins, the duration of the Festival (up to 10 weeks) and up to four weeks after the Festival ends.

Once you have accessed your Festival Account it cannot be cancelled and we cannot reimburse your payment.

Invoices are payable within 30 days.

Parental permission

You take full responsibility for obtaining informed parental consent for each of your students to take part in the Topical Talk Festival and ensuring that students do not feature in photos or videos as part of the Festival unless their parents / guardians have given permission. We will provide a parental permission form that you can use, but we accept no liability for a student taking part in the Festival in ways that their parents / guardians did not consent to.

User Generated Content

The Festival Site and any Digital Applications may include commenting capability, bulletin boards, discussion groups and other public areas or features that allow the publication of user-created content and other interaction between users on the Site and/or with the Foundation’s representatives (“Posts”). The Foundation reserves the right (which it may exercise at its sole discretion without notice) to delete, move or edit all such Posts and to terminate your access to and use of the Site if you fail to abide by these Terms and any rules published by the Foundation relating to the content of Posts.

The Foundation will take reasonable steps to moderate content posted by users on the Site, but it cannot guarantee the accuracy, integrity or quality of any Posts. Some users may breach these terms and post content that is misleading, untrue or offensive. You must bear all risk associated with your use of the Site and should not rely on Posts when you make (or refrain from making) any specific decision.

It is not possible for the Foundation to fully and effectively monitor infringement of third-party rights. If you believe that any content infringes your legal rights, you should notify the Foundation immediately.

You take full responsibility for instructing your students that the content of their Posts must comply with any rules published by the Foundation. Your students must not:

Post, link to or otherwise publish any content containing material that is obscene, racist, homophobic or sexist or that contains any form of hate speech;
Post, link to or otherwise publish any content that infringes copyright;
Post, link to or otherwise publish any content that is illegal, libellous, defamatory or may prejudice ongoing legal proceedings or breach a court injunction or other order;
Post, link to or otherwise publish any content that is abusive, threatening or makes any form of personal attack on another user or an employee of the Foundation;
Post in any language other than English;
Post the same content, or a very similar content, repeatedly;
Post or otherwise publish any content unrelated to the particular topic;
Post, link to or otherwise publish any content containing any form of advertising or promotion for goods and services or any chain messages or "spam";
Post, link to or otherwise publish any content with recommendations to buy or refrain from buying a particular product or security or which contains confidential information of another party or which otherwise has the purpose of affecting the price or value of any security;
Disguise the origin of any Posts;
Impersonate any person or entity (including the Foundation’s employees or the Site’s guests or hosts) or misrepresent any affiliation with any person or entity;
Post or transmit any content that contains software viruses, files or code designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of the Site or any computer software or equipment, or any other harmful component;
Collect or store other users' personal data; and/or
Restrict or inhibit any other user from using the Site.
Post any content generated or modified by artificial intelligence including large language models or generative AI (eg. ChatGPT)

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the Foundation from all claims, costs and expenses (including legal expenses) arising out of any Posts posted or published by your students that are in breach of these Terms.

You agree to grant the Foundation a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty free non-exclusive licence to reproduce, modify, translate, make available, distribute and sub-license the Posts in whole or in part, and in any form. This may include personal information such as your students’ anonymous usernames and their expressions of opinion. The Foundation reserves the right to contact you by e-mail about your, or your students’, use of the Site. You waive any moral rights that you may have in regard to your students’ Posts. You can find more information on our privacy policy here.

You agree to use any content that is created by The Economist Educational Foundation for the Festival (“Festival Content”) strictly for personal, non-commercial use only. You may not re-publish or share it, or any part of it, with anyone outside of your school.

You take full responsibility for keeping your Festival Account username and password safe and confidential. It is for you and should not be shared with anyone else.