Terms and conditions
2. Subject matter of the contract and terms of reference
7. Costs and payment for fee applying services
12. MIKESTAR copyright and related right
These General Terms and Conditions (GTC) govern the conclusion, content and settlement of contracts between the MIKESTAR GmbH, succeedingly called MIKESTAR, and the user of the services offered by MIKESTAR. MIKESTAR reserves the right to alter or add to these General Terms and Conditions at a reasonable period of notice. An announcement notice will exclusively be made on the Websites of MIKESTAR. If the user disagrees with the changes of the GTC within a period of 14 days, MIKESTAR will be authorized to terminate the contract or access to services for this user, from the point of time the announced changes will take place.
2. Subject matter of the contract and terms of reference
Free of charge services offered by MIKESTAR include the ability to view karaoke playbacks (re-recorded songs), to sing and save an own version of the recordings and finally publishing them. MIKESTAR reserves the right to reduce or restrain the extend of free services offered. Users are also given the ability to create their own user profile, to rate and comment on other recordings, to invite new users, to found friendships and to send mails to other users via the internal mailingsystem. Users are furthermore able to participate in contests or challenge other users to a battle. Eventual, chargeable offers and services may be introduced by an announced change of the General Terms and Conditions. MIKESTAR reserves the right to offer new services or alter or remove current services and functions on the MIKESTAR-domain at any given time. All current or prospective functions and services may become chargeable, after an advanced notice of 6 weeks. MIKESTAR offers services exclusively for personal, not commercial use. By registering at MIKESTAR, the user agrees to use the services offered by MIKESTAR exclusively for personal purposes.
By registering at MIKESTAR and hereby becoming a member, the user agrees explicitly to the General Terms and Conditions between MIKESTAR and the member. Opposing conditions will not be accepted. If offers, functions or services are offered by co-operation partners, their General Terms and Conditions apply. The user is obliged to keep passwords, sent by MIKESTAR to grant access to their services, secretly. The user is also obliged to notify MIKESTAR as soon as possible, after he takes notice of an unauthorized third party knowing his password or access. If the actual fault for unauthorized third parties using a users password to access and use services offered by MIKESTAR, lies within the user, he will be held responsible for any damage caused by the third party to MIKESTAR. Following actions are forbidden for users: The use of mechanisms, software or scripts in association with MIKESTAR's websites, especially the use of "robot", "spider" or "offline-reader" software, that automatically create user queries over the internet. It is also forbidden for users to modify, overwrite, copy or publish any domains or contents, not provided by MIKESTAR for these reasons, including the domains or contents of other users. The User is not allowed to use MIKESTAR services and offers, in whole or parts of, access or other user's contributions, especially recordings, for commercial purposes in any way, e.g. imitating, selling, renting or using or offering it for own or external promotion purposes. Any action, suitable to harm the functionality of MIKESTAR's infrastructure, especially to overload it, is forbidden.
MIKESTAR saves pictures, informations and recordings (together the "contents") for the user and enables the recording of audio/video. The user alone is responsible for all contents, created or imported by him onto the MIKESTAR platform. This means, the user guarantees, his contents do not contravene or infringe against any laws, public morals or third-party rights (naming-, personality-, copyright- or privacy-rights etc.). The user is especially obligated not to display pornographic, violence-glorifying or demagoguery contents; not to instigate or give instructions to any criminal offence and not to offer or have services offered, that involve pornographic material. The same applies to the sending of E-Mails, messages or comments on the MIKESTAR platform. These also are not allowed to include unsolicited advertising, Ponzi schemes or the likes of it. Likewise it is not allowed to create or insert contents with reference to political activities, like party meetings, demonstrations, flyer- or collecting-signatures campaigns and the display of political symbols. It is furthermore forbidden to insert or create contents offending, insulting, defaming, abusing or in any other way harming other users and members. It is not allowed to impersonate somebody, e.g. a representative for MIKESTAR or someone, in any way responsible for the services of MIKESTAR. MIKESTAR principally does not and would not be able to check and supervise all contents, saved, published and/or transmitted by members or other users onto the MIKESTAR platform and therefore does not guarantee for the validity, adequacy and quality of these contents. The user is aware of the possibility of being exposed to contents, that can be offending, objectionable or in other ways indecent, when using the services available at the MIKESTAR platform, if the user, responsible for these contents does not comply with these General Terms and Conditions or the relevant rules and laws. It is prohibited for a user to send or save data on the MIKESTAR platform, that are suitable in their manner (e.g. viruses or worms) or in their size and/or quantity (e.g. spamming) to harm the existence or continuance of MIKESTAR's services and data networks. In such a case, MIKESTAR reserves the right to claim a contractual penalty fee of EUR 5.000,00 (in words: Five-thousand Euro) from the responsible user and make him compensate for all further damages caused to MIKESTAR by sending or distributing forbidden data. The user may only copy and distribute his received karaoke files and songs to an extent, permitted by applicable law. In addition the user is not allowed - as long as not permitted by applicable law - to attempt, a) to remove or alter Digital Rights Management- or identification systems connected to the karaoke files, and b) to bypass any technical functions connected to the karaoke files, that intent to limit or restrict unauthorized usage. If a user contravenes against any of these prohibitions, MIKESTAR is authorized under reserve of potential compensation claims, to deny the recording of contents and to delete contents, pages and links of that user and/or to terminate the contracts between MIKESTAR and the user without notice and MIKESTAR does not take over any verification obligations. The user is personally liable for any violations of the stated rules and prohibitions and will be held responsible to compensate for any direct and implied damages caused by the violations. The user exempts MIKESTAR in their internal Relationship from all claims by third parties, caused by violations of the user.
MIKESTAR grants the user a basic, nontransferable right to use all offers and services provided on the MIKESTAR platform. This right expires, when the contract with MIKESTAR is terminated. The user transfers the legal right of use of his contents to MIKESTAR by creating and uploading them on the MIKESTAR platform. The legal right of use includes the revocable right to worldwide copy, distribute, send, show in public, publicize or comparably otherwise use the transmitted contents, solely within the offers and services provided by MIKESTAR, without any rights to claim payment for the user or third parties. The user can use his right of rescission at any time, by simply deleting the queried contents. The user is aware of the possibility to be exposed to advertisment provided by MIKESTAR in the setting of and around his contents (e.g. recordings, videos) and explicitly agrees to this circumstance. The user guarantees towards MIKESTAR to possess all required rights related to the contents he saves, publishes and/or sends with the services offered by MIKESTAR and that this does not infringe any rights of third parties, provisions of law or any rules of these general terms and conditions. If the user is not the sole owner of the related rights for his created content, he guarantees to have successfully obtained all necessary transfers of right, licenses, permissions, compliances etc. MIKESTAR reserves the right to save contents and pass them on to third parties, as long as it is legally compulsory or necessary, considering an obligatory assessment and permitted by law, to (a) meet legal requirements or judical or governmental warrants, (b) enforce these general terms and conditions, (c) react towards an infringement of a third parties rights or (d) maintain and protect the rights, assets or security of MIKESTAR, his users or the general public.
The user has the right to terminate his membership and account at any time and without a statement of reasons. The Termination can be submitted and made effective by sending a note to MIKESTAR with the contact-form available on the MIKESTAR websites. The user has to enclose his e-mail adress registered with the MIKESTAR-platform to the termination note. MIKESTAR is authorized to terminate the contracts with the user in accordance with the provisions of law and at any time and without a period of notice if an important reason is present. An important reason is present, if the continuation of the contractual relationship until the end of the cancellation period becomes unreasonable, after a consideration of all circumstances of the individual case and a weighing of MIKESTAR's and the user's interests. Important reasons are particulary the following occurrences: Violations of statutory provisions by the user, violations against his contractual agreements, especially against paragraph 3.,4. and 5. of these general terms and conditions; the reputation of services offered by MIKESTAR is considerably affected by the presence of a user (e.g. a registered user happens to be legally convicted and a considerable amount of other users know of this conviction), the user advertises for associations or communities - or their methods and activities, that are under observation by the office for legal youth protection or the constitution protection, or cause harm to one or more other users. If an important reason applies, MIKESTAR will be authorized to impose the following sanctions besides the termination of contracts: deletion of that user's contents, sentence of a warning or banning the user from access to the services, available on the MIKESTAR platform.
7. Costs and payment for fee applying services
MIKESTAR offers services, free of charge at the moment. MIKESTAR reserves the right to offer special or general fee applying services in the future. Costs and conditions will be announced in time, before any fee applying changes are taken into service. MIKESTAR is authorized to claim costs incurred by fee applying services, up to 12 months in advance. The user agrees, if necessary, to receive invoices in electronic form. MIKESTAR reserves the right to change or raise the costs at any time, after an advanced written notice of 6 weeks. The altered costs become valid, if the user does not explicitly disagree with the altered costs within a period of 6 weeks, after the change is announced. The contractual relationship will then be continued with the new costs and conditions. if the user disagrees to the changes in due time, both parties have the right to terminate the contract at the end of the month within a period of 1 month. The costs are generally fixed prices, unless not explicitly regulated in a different way. If the user delays the payment, MIKESTAR is authorized to discontinue the services and/or to disable the user's account or respectively disable partial functions or services offered on the MIKESTAR platform instantly; the user will still be under obligation to pay the appointed fee, also for the disabling phase of the account or partial functions or services. If the payment of the appointed fees is made by direct debit and there is a charge back, MIKESTAR charges a processing fee of Euro 9,80 per debit note plus the incidental commission charged by the bank.
MIKESTAR may limit the access to services or completely stop them, if the existence or continuance of MIKESTAR's services and data networks is harmed, especially to avoid serious disturbances to the platform, the software or saved data and contents. The user uses the services, offered by MIKESTAR at his own risk. This explicitly applies to downloading or different use of contents, especially of contents from other users. The user is therefore alone responsible for all eventual damages occuring during the use of services offered by MIKESTAR to his computer system or other technical devices and for any other damages, including damages to third parties. MIKESTAR does not take guarantee for all services offered on the MIKESTAR platform to meet the requirements of the user and to be available at any time, without disruptions, contemporary, safe and free from errors. MIKESTAR does not guarantee validity or reliability for available informations or results, possible to achieve with the services offered on the MIKESTAR platform. Neither does MIKESTAR guarantee non-stop, error-free functionality for MIKESTAR's used hard- and software or the correction of bugs or errors occuring within MIKESTAR's hard- and software. MIKESTAR does not assume liability for the behaviour of users or other third parties or their contents and declarations, passed on by users or other third parties in the context of the services offered by MIKESTAR. The MIKESTAR platform may contain links or referrals to other services, including contents saved onto the MIKESTAR platform by users. MIKESTAR does not inspect or control the destinations and purposes of these links or referrals; does not adopt any contents available through these links, referrals or other third party resources and does not assume any liabilities or guarantees for these.
MIKESTAR does not assume any liabilities for pictures, webcam footage, texts or other contents published or saved by users on the MIKESTAR platform. MIKESTAR exclusively offers the possibility for users to re-record and film their own version of songs, offered on the MIKESTAR platform. The user dispenses MIKESTAR from any third party claims, substantiated from infringements of the users saved or sent contents against the rights, especially author-, licenses, competition-, copy- and other related rights of the third party. The user has to refund all expenses caused by legal prosecution and the infringements caused by his contents. The user places all required documents and informations at MIKESTAR's free disposal, for the sake of legal defense. MIKESTAR dispenses the user from all substantial claims of third parties, if the claims are substantiated from infringements of commercial copy- or other related rights, done by MIKESTAR, if the user notified MIKESTAR of such claims in writing and without delay, and if the user reserves the right for all technical and legal defense possibilities and settlement negotiations to MIKESTAR. These liabilities for MIKESTAR will be omitted if the third party claims are based on infringements, caused by actions from the user, especially by saving or publishing contents on the MIKESTAR platform.
MIKESTAR can only be made liable for damages, based on intentional or reckless violations of contracts.
This applies accordingly to violations of pre- and subcontracts as well as for defective and consequential damages. MIKESTAR can only be made liable for slight negligence, if the violation infringed fundamental contractual obligations (cardinal duties) and if the hereby caused damages were not predictable. MIKESTAR is furthermore liable for violations and damages according to the product liability law as well as for damages, caused by injuries to life, body or health. The possibility for MIKESTAR to raise an objection of contributory negligence stays unaffected. These prevailing limitations of liability also apply for violations of duty, done by statutory representatives or vicarious agents of MIKESTAR. MIKESTAR explicitly dissociates itself from all contents of pages, available or referred to with direct or indirect links on the MIKESTAR platform. MIKESTAR does not assume any liabilities for the linked websites and contents. Responsible and liable for the contents and the pages are the providers of these websites themselves. Compensation claims against MIKESTAR come under the statute of limitations after 12 months since the arisal of the claims; exceptions are claims, that are based on intentional or unlawful acts or on acts that infringe the product liability law. The prevailing limitations of liability additionally apply to all companys connected to MIKESTAR as well as to the personal liability of MIKESTAR's or the connected company's employees, representatives, associates and vicarious agents. You hereby declare that you exempt and indemnify MIKESTAR, connected companies, employees, representatives, associates and vicarious agents from claims and demands raisd by third parties because of contents, you saved, published or sent on the MIKESTAR platform or because of your type of use of the services offered by MIKESTAR or because of violations against these general terms and conditions or the rights of third parties; this includes adequate attorney fees and law costs.
MIKESTAR's privacy policy is applicable to all services offered and you hereby explicitly take acknowledgement of it.
12. MIKESTAR copyright and related right
The user acknowledges, that all rights of the services offered by MIKESTAR and their titles, including trademark-, industrial property-, author-, or license- and other related rights exclusively belong to MIKESTAR and will not use these without a prior, explicit and written approval by MIKESTAR or will not remove any references to their legal ownership to MIKESTAR. Particularly forbidden is the use of the MIKESTAR trademark; the copy, alteration, disassembly or creation of replica software as well as the trace of the sourcecode.
Applicable to these general terms and conditions as well as to all contracts and legal relationships are the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany in disregard of german conflict of laws and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). The whole extend of these general terms and conditions stay unaffected, if individual appointments prove to be invalid or incomplete. The invalid or incomplete appointment will be replaced by an appointment closest to the economically intended purpose; the same applies to eventual regulatory gaps of these general terms and conditions. Verbal agreements will not be considered, changes in these general terms and conditions require a written form. This also applies to changes or the removal of this stipulation. Place of fulfilment and the legal domicile for all disputes connected to MIKESTAR is, as long as permitted by law, Hamburg, Germany.
