Welcome to the spectator.co.uk website. These terms and conditions together with any additional terms and conditions applicable to any of the ‘The Spectator’ branded microsites, (together the “Terms”) govern how you may access, browse and use (1) the spectator.co.uk website or any of the ‘The Spectator’ branded microsites, and (2) any of the apps available for use on a Mobile Device (together the “Site”). By: (a) accessing, browsing or otherwise using the Site by any means and via whatever device; or (b) registering your details with us to access certain areas of the Site or to receive our email services, you agree to be bound by these Terms.
1. About us and our business
The Site is operated by or on behalf of The Spectator (1828) Limited (“we” or “our”). We are a company registered in England and Wales with the company registration number 1232804. Our registered office address is 22 Old Queen Street, London SW1H 9HP and our VAT number is 893 8633 67.
2. Changes to these Terms
We reserve the right to change these Terms at any time and we encourage you to revisit these Terms periodically to ensure that you are at all times fully aware of them. Any changes are effective immediately upon posting to the Site. Your continued use of the Site constitutes your agreement to all such Terms.
3. Registration
Access to our email services and to some areas of the Site is restricted to users who have registered their details with us. If you register with us and you choose, or you are provided with, a password as part of the registration process, you must treat your password as confidential and you must not disclose it to any third party.
4. Use of the Site
4.1. For the purposes of these Terms:
“Content” includes, but is not limited to, all or part of any text, graphics, layout, logos, images, audio material, films or other moving images, product details and/or software published or otherwise available on the Site from time to time (including, without limitation, anything made available for download); and “Trade Marks” means the trademarks, logos and service marks (whether or not registered) displayed on the Site.
4.2. We are the owner or the licensee of all intellectual property rights in the Site the Content and the Trade Marks. Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, temporary, revocable, and non-exclusive licence to access, browse and use the Site (including the Content and Trade Marks) for your personal and non commercial use only. Where specified on the relevant part of the Site, the licence granted in this section 4.2 may be limited to a particular period of time and/or may be subject to additional terms and conditions.
4.3. While accessing, browsing and/or using the Site you must:
4.3.1. comply with all applicable laws, regulations, and codes;
4.3.2. not impersonate another person or use a false name or email address;
4.3.3. not deep-link to and/or frame or use framing techniques to enclose the Site or any part of the Site without our prior written consent;
4.3.4. not modify or attempt to modify all or any part of the Content or the Site;
4.3.5. not gain or attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Site, the server on which the Site is stored, or any server, computer, or database connected to the Site;
4.3.6. not post, transmit, submit, refer to, make available or link to or from (or authorise or permit any other person to do the same) any material which:
a) is untrue, fraudulent, inaccurate, or incomplete; and/or
b) is obscene, threatening, menacing, offensive, defamatory, abusive, causes annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety, is in breach of confidence, in breach of any intellectual property right (including, without limitation, copyright), or otherwise is in breach of or violates any applicable law or regulation or code, and/or
c) makes excessive demands for bandwidth; and/or
d) constitutes advertising (unless approved or otherwise authorised by us); and/or
e) contains any virus or other harmful code, or which may otherwise impair or harm the Site or our computer systems or any third party computer system, and we shall have sole discretion as to whether any material is in breach of this clause.
4.4. Except as set out in the limited licence in section 4.2 above (or as required under any applicable law), the Content, Trade Marks and/or any other part of the Site may not be used, reproduced, duplicated, copied, sold, resold, accessed, modified, or otherwise exploited, in full or in part, for any purpose without our prior written consent. In particular, you are not permitted to republish any part of the Site (including the Content) on another website, in any other medium (print, electronic or otherwise) or as part of any commercial service without our prior written permission. If you require any further information on permitted use, or a licence to republish any part of the Site (or any Content), please email us at editor@spectator.co.uk, or contact us by telephone on +44 207961 0200.
At any time and without giving you any advance notice, we may permanently or temporarily and for any reason:
4.5.1. terminate, suspend or deny your access to the Site (whether in whole or in part); and/or
4.5.2. terminate, suspend or deny your access to the email services, the registration areas of the Site and/or your password referred to in section 3 above; and/or
4.5.3. remove or edit any Content on the Site at any time, and in such circumstances, all liability of The Spectator (1828) Ltd, its directors, employees, or other representatives for any loss whatsoever arising from our removing or editing Content and/or your limited use of or inability to use the Site (either in whole or in part), email services and/or password is excluded, insofar as it is possible to do so in law.
5. Use of comments
5.1.1. To view and contribute to the comments section, login credentials and an active subscription are mandatory on the website. Subscribers will be automatically authenticated into their Spectator Disqus account for comment participation and participation is possible via the website only. Non-subscribers seeking to participate may obtain a free trial via the website.
5.1.2. Comments will be posted using a display name for each user. By default, display names will maintain the names provided at the point of subscription. Creating a custom display name is possible in each user’s individual account portal.
5.1.3. Constructive debate is encouraged, but any instances of abuse, inappropriate language, or spam will be automatically removed. Users who violate the rules risk suspension from further engagement.
5.1.4. Commenters will not have access to ‘Subscribe’ or ‘Follow’ functionalities for receiving notifications on comment responses. Supporting additional functionality may be considered for future implementation.
6. Material that you submit to the Site
6.1. Where the facility is made available to you on the Site, you may send material (including, without limitation, text, photographs or other images, audio material, films, or other moving images) to us for publication on various areas of the Site. When you send any materials to us for publication on the Site, you do so in accordance with these Terms including, in particular, the following:
6.1.1. you grant us a royalty-free, worldwide, perpetual and non-exclusive licence to use, copy, distribute, publish, syndicate, sub-license and transmit the whole or any part of such material (including without limitation any of the information, details, ideas, concepts, and/or formats contained within it) in any manner and in any format and/or media (including, without limit, archiving and making such material available on the Site);
6.1.2. publication of any material you submit to us will be at our sole discretion and we reserve the right to edit or otherwise amend such materials prior to publication;
6.1.3. you agree that we may (at our discretion) disclose your identity to any third party who is claiming that any material sent by you to the Site is defamatory, in breach of confidence, in breach of any intellectual property right (including, without limitation, copyright), in breach of any of the warranties set out in sections 5.1.4 or 5.1.5 below or otherwise is in breach of or violates any applicable law or regulation or code;
6.1.4. you warrant to us that any material you submit to us is your own original work and that you own the copyright and any other relevant rights;
6.1.5. you warrant that the material you submit is not: obscene, threatening, menacing, offensive, defamatory, abusive, likely to cause annoyance, inconvenience, or needless anxiety, in breach of confidence, in breach of any intellectual property right (including, without limitation, copyright) or otherwise in breach of or violates any applicable law or regulation or code; and
6.1.6. you acknowledge that any breach of the warranties set out in sections 5.1.4 or 5.1.5 above may cause us damage or loss and you agree to indemnify us in full and permanently on demand against any third-party liabilities, claims, costs, loss, or damage we incur as a result of publishing material you submit to us, including consequential losses.
6.1.7. you waive any moral rights in all material you submit
6.2. Whilst you acknowledge that we do not necessarily pre-screen any material that you have submitted to the Site, we reserve the right to remove, at any time and without reason or prior notice or any liability to you, any material that you have submitted.
6.3. Notwithstanding the generality of section 5.2 above, The Spectator (1828) Ltd reserves the right (but not the obligation) to monitor any communications that are made via the Site and you now consent to any such monitoring.
7. Data Protection and Privacy
Full details of the way in which we use cookies on the Site and how we hold and process information from which we can identify you or any third party are set out in our Privacy and Cookie Policy.
8. E-commerce
8.1. Most of the online sales and other e-commerce services available via the Site are provided either by us as an agent for third-party suppliers or directly by third parties via websites that are framed on the Site. For some goods and services, however, we act as principal meaning that the resulting legal contract for the goods or services in question will be made directly between you and us. Where we act as principal, specific terms and conditions will apply to any resulting online sales and these will be drawn to your attention before the sale is complete. Where we act as agents for third-party suppliers or where we frame third-party websites, the following applies:
8.1.1. the contract for the goods or services in question will be made directly between you and the relevant supplier. In most cases, this will mean that there will be separate terms and conditions governing the contract. Please make sure that you have read the relevant supplier’s terms and conditions before completing your transaction. You can obtain a copy of the relevant supplier’s terms and conditions by contacting the supplier directly; and
8.1.2. we have no contractual liability to you in respect of the goods or services provided by the third-party supplier. We may, however, still be liable to you if we have been negligent, if we have misrepresented important information or if we have been in breach of any other relevant law.
9. Third-party links
The Site contains hypertext links to third-party websites. We are not responsible for, nor do we endorse in any way such third-party websites or their content. If you decide to access any of the third-party websites linked to the Site, you do so entirely at your own risk.
10. Advertising and Sponsorship
10.1. Parts of the Site contain advertising and sponsorship. Advertisers and sponsors are responsible for ensuring that material submitted for inclusion on the Site complies with all legal and regulatory requirements and does not contain any material which is objectionable including, without limit, information that is defamatory, obscene, threatening, or untrue. We are not responsible for any such material or any error or inaccuracy contained in such material and any issues which you may have should be raised directly with the relevant advertiser or sponsor.
11. Promotions, competitions, and prize draws
We may from time to time run competitions, free prize draws, and/or other promotions on the Site. Any such competitions, prize draws, and/or other promotions will be subject to additional terms and conditions that will be made available to you at the relevant time.
11.1. New subscriber experience survey. Each week one submission will be randomly selected and sent a bottle of Pol Roger champagne. We will reach out to verify the subscription address and delivery of champagne. To be eligible you must be a new subscriber and based in the United Kingdom. You must be over the age of 18 years old.
12. Exclusions and limitations of liability
12.1. All information and/or data on the Site is provided on an “as is” basis. Save to the extent required by law, no representations, warranties, or terms of any kind are made (or shall be implied by statute or otherwise) in respect of the Site or the Content, including, without limitation, warranties of satisfactory quality, conformity to contract, accuracy, adequacy, conformity to description or fitness for any particular purpose.
12.2. We are not authorised by the Financial Services Authority of England. The information and/or data on the Site is provided by us and our data providers for your general information only and use and is not intended for trading purposes or to address your particular financial or other requirements. In particular, the information and/or data on the Site:
12.2.1. does not constitute any form of advice (investment, tax, legal or otherwise); and
12.2.2. does not constitute any inducement, invitation, or recommendation relating to any of the products listed or referred to; and
12.2.3. is not intended to be relied upon by you in making (or refraining to make) any specific investment or other decisions; and
12.2.4. has not been issued or approved by The Spectator (1828) Ltd for the purposes of section 21 of the Financial Services and Markets Act 2000 (as amended from time to time).
APPROPRIATE EXPERT INDEPENDENT ADVICE SHOULD BE OBTAINED BEFORE MAKING ANY INVESTMENT OR OTHER DECISIONS.
12.3. Neither The Spectator (1828) Ltd nor any of its data providers or affiliates gives any warranty or guarantee relating to availability of the Site or that the Site and/or our operation of it, the Content, or the server that makes the Site available are error or virus free or free of other harmful components or that your use of the Site and/or the Content will be uninterrupted.
12.4. You agree that The Spectator (1828) Ltd, its directors, employees, agents or other representatives, data providers, or affiliates will not be responsible or liable (whether in contract, tort, or otherwise), under any circumstances for any amount or kind of loss or damage (including without limitation, any direct, indirect, punitive or consequential loss or damages, or any anticipated loss of profit, loss of profit, loss of opportunity, loss of data, costs and fines and/or any special or incidental damages of any kind) that may result to you or a third party arising from or connected in any way to:
12.4.1. interruption of business; or
12.4.2. access or other delays, terminations, suspensions, denials, or access interruptions to the Site; or
12.4.3. data non-delivery, data misdelivery, data corruption, destruction of data, or other modification of data; or
12.4.4. third-party website links on the Site; or
12.4.5. reliance on the information contained on the Site; or
12.4.6. computer viruses, system failures, or malfunctions which may occur in connection with your use of the Site; or
12.4.7. any inaccuracies, omissions, or misleading, false, or deceptive statements in the Content; or
12.4.8. events beyond our reasonable control.
12.5. Notwithstanding any provision of these Terms, The Spectator (1828) Ltd does not exclude or limit its liability for:
12.5.1. death or personal injury caused by its negligence or that of any of its officers, employees, or agents; or
12.5.2. fraudulent misrepresentation; or
12.5.3. any liability which it is not lawful to exclude either now or in the future.
13. Indemnity
You will indemnify and will keep indemnified The Spectator (1828) Ltd and its data providers and affiliates on demand against all claims, costs, proceedings, demands, losses, damages, expenses (including legal expenses), or liability whatsoever arising directly or indirectly as a result of:
13.1. any breach of these Terms by you; or
13.2. your fault, negligence, or breach of statutory duty; or
13.3. your use of software robots, spiders, crawlers, or similar data gathering and extraction tools, or any other action you take that imposes an unreasonable burden or load on our infrastructure (whether owned by, leased, or licensed to us) or that of any of our Suppliers.
14. General
14.1. Any contractual or legal relationship between you and The Spectator (1828) Ltd will be concluded in English.
14.2. All notices shall be given by e-mail to us at spectator@spectator.co.uk, or to you at either the e-mail or postal address you provide during the registration process (if any). Notice will be deemed received 24 hours after e-mail is sent or 3 days after the date of posting.
14.3. These Terms (together with any variations to them pursuant to section 2) form the entire agreement between the parties concerning your access to, browsing, and/or use of the Site and supersede all prior agreements, arrangements, understandings, and representations made between us (whether written or oral) concerning the Site.
14.4. The licence granted in section 4.2 above is personal to you and may not be assigned, transferred, or sub-licensed (in whole or in part) without our prior written consent.
14.5. Nothing in these Terms is intended to or shall operate to create a partnership or joint venture of any kind between us or to authorise either of us to act as agent for the other, and neither of us shall have authority to act in the name or on behalf of or otherwise to bind the other in any way (including but not limited to the making of any representation or warranty, the assumption of any obligation or liability and the exercise of any right or power).
14.6. If the whole or any part of any provision of these Terms is or becomes invalid, void, or unenforceable for any reason the same shall to the extent required be severed from these Terms and rendered ineffective so far as is possible without modifying the remaining provisions of these Terms and shall in no way affect the validity or enforceability of any other provisions.
14.7. No waiver by The Spectator (1828) Ltd of any breach of these Terms shall constitute a waiver of any other prior or subsequent breach and The Spectator (1828) Ltd shall not be affected by any delay, failure, or omission to enforce or express forbearance granted in respect of any of your obligations.
14.8. The rights and remedies of The Spectator (1828) Ltd under these Terms are independent, cumulative and without prejudice to its rights under the law.
14.9. These Terms are not intended to create and shall not create any rights, entitlements, claims, or benefits enforceable by any third party by virtue of the Contracts (Rights of Third Parties) Act 1999.
14.10. These Terms and/or your use of the Site shall be governed by and construed in accordance with English law and the English Courts shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute which may arise.
15. Writing for The Spectator
Invoices: If we ask for a piece to be written (or illustration drawn) ‘on spec’ it’s on the understanding that there will not be a kill fee if it’s not used. If it’s a firm commission, then we’ll pay a kill fee of half the usual sum. If you’re sending hard copies of artwork and want the originals back, please say so as we tend not to store things.
Copyright rests with The Spectator (1828) Ltd unless otherwise agreed beforehand, so we may use your copy or artwork online, for books of the Best of the Spectator, used in a podcast, expressed via smoke signals, or any other way that technology will allow us. We tend not to syndicate copy, but if we do we’ll check with you. If the request for syndication comes several years after publication and we can’t reach you, then we may grant permission anyway. Do let us know if that would be a problem.
Warranty: You warrant that your work will not be dull, nor plagiarised (within reason) and conform to the IPSO Editor’s Code.
16. Introductory offers and free trials
16.1. Our introductory offers are available only when paying by continuous payment method (direct debit or continuous credit card). Direct debit is only available in the UK. Once your introductory period has come to an end, your subscription will continue at a higher rate unless you cancel. This follow on rate will be stated to you at the time you subscribe and will be re-iterated in a confirmation email or letter shortly after subscribing. You can cancel anytime within your introductory period to avoid moving onto the higher rate, though cancellations may take up to a week to process. We recommend cancelling by contacting us and by getting in touch directly with your bank. One subscription per household.
16.2. Free trials are considered introductory offers and, as such, also require customers to enter some form of continuous payment information before the free trial commences. Towards the end of your free trial, you will automatically move onto the higher rate stated to you at the point of subscribing. Once again, you can avoid moving onto a higher rate by cancelling within your free trial period, though cancellations may take up to a week to process. Please note that some extended trial offers are only available to customers living in the UK.
16.3. Both introductory offers and free trials are only available to new customers, therefore if you have previously taken a trial offer you will immediately be charged the follow-on rate for any further offers. Please note that free trials are not available for print-only subscriptions. This is stated on the initial payment page and in your confirmation correspondence. We reserve the right to withdraw a customer’s eligibility to a free gift if they are suspected of being in breach of our terms and conditions.
16.4 Free gift items can take up to 21 days to dispatch and 28 days to be delivered in the UK (longer in other countries). Only subscribers with their auto-renew function still on are eligible to receive their free gift. We reserve the right to replace a free gift with one of similar value in the unlikely event stock runs out.
16.5 Where subscription offers comprise a free gift containing alcohol, you must be 18 or over to place an order. Our courier will ask for proof of ID upon delivery. We are unable to send alcohol outside of mainland UK.
16.6. If your introductory offer includes a free trial to The Telegraph then card details are required to activate your free digital trial, but no money will be taken until your trial period comes to an end. You can cancel any time, even within your free trial. If you don’t cancel, your subscription will continue automatically. If you have previously had a free trial to the Telegraph then you won’t be eligible for six months’ free access.
17. Gift cards
If an introductory offer includes a free gift card, this will be sent by email within 14 days of the subscription being taken out. We advise customers to check their junk and spam folders first if they suspect the gift card has not arrived. If a customer continues to have difficulty locating their gift card, they can contact spectator@spectator.co.uk for further assistance. Gift cards are valid for three months from the date they are sent. If any customer does not redeem their voucher before it expires, we will not send a replacement voucher. In reference to section 15.3, we reserve the right to withdraw a customer’s eligibility to a free gift if they are suspected of being in breach of our terms and conditions.
18. Cooling off period
Should you change your mind about taking a subscription you can cancel at any point within the 14-day cooling-off period and receive a full refund. This cooling-off period begins on the day of taking out the subscription whether as a free trial or a paid contract. Payments following a free trial and any subsequent payments are not covered by the 14-day cooling-off period.
None of this is in breach of your rights as a consumer.