Terms of Use

These terms of use (“Terms”) apply to all your activities on the Cottontree.Academy platform (“Services”).

 

Accounts

You need an account for most activities on our platform, including to purchase and access content or to submit content for publication. When setting up and maintaining your account, you must provide and continue to provide accurate and complete information, including a valid email address. You have complete responsibility for your account and everything that happens on your account, including for any harm or damage (to us or anyone else) caused by someone using your account without your permission. This means you need to be careful with your password. You may not transfer your account to someone else or use someone else’s account. If you contact us to request access to an account, we will not grant you such access unless you can provide us with the information that we need to prove you are the owner of that account. In the event of the death of a user, the account of that user will be closed.

You may not share your account login credentials with anyone else. You are responsible for what happens with your account and Cotton Tree Academy will not intervene in disputes between students or instructors who have shared account login credentials. You must notify us immediately upon learning that someone else may be using your account without your permission (or if you suspect any other breach of security) by contacting our Support Team. We may request some information from you to confirm that you are indeed the owner of your account.

If you are younger than 18 but above the required age for consent to use online services where you live, you may not set up an account, but we encourage you to invite a parent or guardian to open an account and help you access content that is appropriate for you. If you are below this age of consent to use online services, you may not create a Cottontree.Academy account. If we discover that you have created an account that violates these rules, we will terminate your account. Under our Instructor Terms, you may be requested to verify your identity before you are authorised to submit content for publication on the Cottontree.Academy platform.

You can terminate your account at any time by sending a request to terminate-account@cottontree.academy. Check our Privacy Policy to see what happens when you terminate your account.

 

 

Content Enrolment and Lifetime Access

Under our Instructor Terms, when instructors publish content on the Cottontree.Academy platform, they grant Cotton Tree Academy a license to offer a license to the content to students. This means that we have the right to sublicense the content to enroled students. As a student, when you enrol in a course or other content, whether it’s free or paid content, you are getting a license from Cotton Tree Academy to view the content via the Cottontree.Academy platform and Services, and Cotton Tree Academy is the licensor of record. Content is licensed, and not sold, to you. This license does not give you any right to resell the content in any manner (including by sharing account information with a purchaser or illegally downloading the content and sharing it on torrent sites).

We generally give a lifetime access license to our students when they enrol in a course or other content. However, we reserve the right to revoke any license to access and use any content at any point in time in the event where we decide or are obligated to disable access to the content due to legal or policy reasons, for example, if the course or other content you enroled in is the object of a copyright complaint. This lifetime access license does not apply to enrolments via Subscription Plans or to add-on features and services associated with the course or other content you enrol in. For example, instructors may decide at any time to no longer provide teaching assistance or Q&A services in association with the content. To be clear, the lifetime access is to the course content but not to the instructor.

Instructors may not grant licenses to their content to students directly, and any such direct license shall be null and void and a violation of these Terms.

 

 

Payments and Refunds

Pricing

We occasionally run promotions and sales for our content, during which certain content is available at discounted prices for a set period of time. The price applicable to the content will be the price at the time you complete your purchase of the content (at checkout). Any price offered for particular content may also be different when you are logged into your account from the price available to users who aren’t registered or logged in, because some of our promotions are available only to new users.

If you are a student located in a country where use and sales tax, goods and services tax, or value added tax is applicable to consumer sales, we are responsible for collecting and remitting that tax to the proper tax authorities. Depending on your location, the price you see may include such taxes, or tax may be added at checkout.

Payments

You agree to pay the fees for content that you purchase, and you authorise us to charge your debit or credit card or process other means of payment for those fees. Cotton Tree Academy works with payment service providers to offer you the most convenient payment methods in your country and to keep your payment information secure. We may update your payment methods using information provided by our payment service providers.

When you make a purchase, you agree not to use an invalid or unauthorised payment method. If your payment method fails and you still get access to the content you are enroling in, you agree to pay us the corresponding fees within thirty (30) days of notification from us. We reserve the right to disable access to any content for which we have not received adequate payment.

Refunds

Since the Cottontree.Academy platform offers non-tangible irrevocable goods we generally do not issue refunds once the order is completed. As a customer, you are responsible for understanding this upon purchasing any item at our site. However, Cotton Tree Academy honours refund request for digital products or courses under the following exceptional circumstances:

• Non-delivery of the product – due to mailing issues of e-mail providers or mail servers you might not receive a delivery e-mail from us. In this case, we recommend contacting us for assistance. Claims for non-delivery must be submitted within 7 days from the order placing date. Otherwise, the product will be considered received and downloaded;
• Download and unzipping issues – it may happen so that you are having problems while downloading the product or its unzipping. Claims regarding such issues must be submitted within 7 days. If you do not properly contact us during this period, you agree that we may construe silence as a successful download of the product with no further right of redress or refund for a “download issue” reason;
• Product not-as-described – such issues should be reported within 7 days from the date of the purchase. Clear evidence must be provided proving that the purchased product is not as it is described on the website. Complaints which are based merely on the customer’s false expectations or wishes are not honoured. 

Requests for a refund are accepted at refund@cottontree.academy within the period of 1 week after the order is placed. You should accompany this request with detailed and grounded reasons why you are applying for a refund. Please make sure your request does not contradict our Terms of Use and Privacy Policy. This refund option does not apply to Subscription Plan purchases. We reserve the right to apply your refund as a refund credit or a refund to your original payment method, at our discretion, depending on capabilities of our payment service providers.

At our discretion, if we believe you are abusing our refund policy, such as if you’ve consumed a significant portion of the content that you want to refund or if you’ve previously refunded the content, we reserve the right to deny your refund, restrict you from other future refunds, ban your account, and/or restrict all future use of the Services. If we ban your account or disable your access to the content due to your violation of these Terms or our Trust & Safety Guidelines, you will not be eligible to receive a refund.

 

 

Content and Behaviour Rules

You may not access or use the Services or create an account for unlawful purposes. Your use of the Services and behavior on our platform must comply with applicable local or national laws or regulations of your country. You are solely responsible for the knowledge of and compliance with such laws and regulations that are applicable to you.

If you are a student, the Services enable you to ask questions to the instructors of courses or other content you are enroled in, and to post reviews of content. For certain content, the instructor may invite you to submit content as “homework” or tests. Don’t post or submit anything that is not yours.

If you are an instructor, you can submit content for publication on the platform and you can also communicate with the students who have enroled in your courses or other content. In both cases, you must abide by the law and respect the rights of others: you cannot post any course, question, answer, review or other content that violates applicable local or national laws or regulations of your country. You are solely responsible for any courses, content, and actions you post or take via the platform and Services and their consequences. Make sure you understand all the copyright restrictions set forth in the Instructor Terms before you submit any content for publication on the Cottontree.Academy platform.

If we are put on notice that your course or content violates the law or the rights of others (for example, if it is established that it violates intellectual property or image rights of others, or is about an illegal activity), if we discover that your content or behaviour violates our Trust & Safety Guidelines, or if we believe your content or behaviour is unlawful, inappropriate, or objectionable (for example if you impersonate someone else), we may remove your content from our platform.

Cotton Tree Academy has discretion in enforcing these Terms and our Trust & Safety Guidelines. We may restrict or terminate your permission to use our platform and Services or ban your account at any time, with or without notice, for any or no reason, including for any violation of these Terms, if you fail to pay any fees when due, for fraudulent chargeback requests, upon the request of law enforcement or government agencies, for extended periods of inactivity, for unexpected technical issues or problems, if we suspect that you engage in fraudulent or illegal activities, or for any other reason in our sole discretion. Upon any such termination we may delete your account and content, and we may prevent you from further access to the platforms and use of our Services. Your content may still be available on the platforms even if your account is terminated or suspended. You agree that we will have no liability to you or any third party for termination of your account, removal of your content, or blocking of your access to our platforms and services.

 

 

Cotton Tree Academy’s Rights to Content You Post

By submitting or posting content on or through the Cottontree.Academy platform, you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license (with the right to sublicense) to use, copy, reproduce, process, adapt, modify, publish, transmit, display, and distribute your content (including your name and image) in any and all media or distribution methods (existing now or later developed). This includes making your content available to other companies, organisations, or individuals who partner with Cotton Tree Academy for the syndication, broadcast, distribution, or publication of content on other media, as well as using your content for marketing purposes. You also waive any rights of privacy, publicity, or other rights of a similar nature applicable to all these uses, to the extent permissible under applicable law. You represent and warrant that you have all the rights, power, and authority necessary to authorise us to use any content that you submit. You also agree to all such uses of your content with no compensation paid to you.

 

 

Using the Cottontree.Academy platform at Your Own Risk

Our platform model means we do not review or edit the content for legal issues, and we are not in a position to determine the legality of content. We do not exercise any editorial control over the content that is available on the platform and, as such, do not guarantee in any manner the reliability, validity, accuracy, or truthfulness of the content. If you access content, you rely on any information provided by an instructor at your own risk.

By using the Services, you may be exposed to content that you consider offensive, indecent, or objectionable. Cotton Tree Academy has no responsibility to keep such content from you and no liability for your access or enrolment in any course or other content, to the extent permissible under applicable law. This also applies to any content relating to health, wellness, and physical exercise. You acknowledge the inherent risks and dangers in the strenuous nature of these types of content, and by accessing such content you choose to assume those risks voluntarily, including risk of illness, bodily injury, disability, or death. You assume full responsibility for the choices you make before, during, and after your access to the content.

When you interact directly with a student or an instructor, you must be careful about the types of personal information that you share. While we restrict the types of information instructors may request from students, we do not control what students and instructors do with the information they obtain from other users on the platform. You should not share your email or other personal information about you for your safety.

We do not hire or employ instructors nor are we responsible or liable for any interactions involved between instructors and students. We are not liable for disputes, claims, losses, injuries, or damage of any kind that might arise out of or relate to the conduct of instructors or students.

When you use our Services, you will find links to other websites that we don’t own or control. We are not responsible for the content or any other aspect of these third-party sites, including their collection of information about you. You should also read their terms and conditions and privacy policies.

 

 

Cotton Tree Academy’s Rights

We own the Cottontree.Academy platform and Services, including the website, present or future apps and services, and things like our logos, API, code, and content created by our employees. You can’t tamper with those or use them without authorisation.

 

 

Miscellaneous Legal Terms

Binding Agreement

You agree that by registering, accessing, or using our Services, you are agreeing to enter into a legally binding contract with Cotton Tree Academy. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not register, access, or otherwise use any of our Services.

If you are an instructor accepting these Terms and using our Services on behalf of a company, organisation, government, or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you are authorised to do so.

These Terms (including any agreements and policies linked from these Terms) constitute the entire agreement between you and us.

If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable by applicable law, then that provision will be deemed superseded by a valid, enforceable provision that most closely matches the intent of the original provision and the remainder of these Terms will continue in effect.

Even if we are delayed in exercising our rights or fail to exercise a right in one case, it doesn’t mean we waive our rights under these Terms, and we may decide to enforce them in the future. If we decide to waive any of our rights in a particular instance, it doesn’t mean we waive our rights generally or in the future.

Disclaimers

The Services and their content are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis. We (and our affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents) make no representations or warranties about the suitability, reliability, availability, timeliness, security, lack of errors, or accuracy of the Services or their content, and expressly disclaim any warranties or conditions (express or implied), including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We (and our affiliates, suppliers, partners, and agents) make no warranty that you will obtain specific results from use of the Services. Your use of the Services (including any content) is entirely at your own risk. Some jurisdictions don’t allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you.

We may decide to cease making available certain features of the Services at any time and for any reason. Under no circumstances will Cotton Tree Academy or its affiliates, suppliers, partners or agents be held liable for any damages due to such interruptions or lack of availability of such features.

We are not responsible for delay or failure of our performance of any of the Services caused by events beyond our reasonable control, like an act of war, hostility, or sabotage; natural disaster; electrical, internet, or telecommunication outage; or government restrictions.

Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by law, we (and our group companies, suppliers, partners, and agents) will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages (including loss of data, revenue, profits, or business opportunities, or personal injury or death), whether arising in contract, warranty, tort, product liability, or otherwise, and even if we’ve been advised of the possibility of damages in advance. Our liability (and the liability of each of our group companies, suppliers, partners, and agents) to you or any third parties under any circumstance is limited to the greater of one hundred dollars ($100) or the amount you have paid us in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to your claims. Some jurisdictions don’t allow the exclusion or limitation of liability for consequential or incidental damages, so some of the above may not apply to you.

Indemnification

If you behave in a way that gets us in legal trouble, we may exercise legal recourse against you. You agree to indemnify, defend (if we so request), and hold harmless Cotton Tree Academy, our group companies, and their officers, directors, suppliers, partners, and agents from an against any third-party claims, demands, losses, damages, or expenses (including reasonable attorney fees) arising from (a) the content you post or submit, (b) your use of the Services (c) your violation of these Terms, or (d) your violation of any rights of a third party. Your indemnification obligation will survive the termination of these Terms and your use of the Services.

Relationship Between Us

You and we agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, contractor, or agency relationship exists between us.

Updating These Terms

From time to time, we may update these Terms to clarify our practices or to reflect new or different practices (such as when we add new features), and Cotton Tree Academy reserves the right in its sole discretion to modify and/or make changes to these Terms at any time. If we make any material change, we will notify you using prominent means, such as by email notice sent to the email address specified in your account or by posting a notice through our Services. Modifications will become effective on the day they are posted unless stated otherwise.

Your continued use of our Services after changes become effective shall mean that you accept those changes. Any revised Terms shall supersede all previous Terms.