Brief Summary of the Contributor Agreement

The EU-FarmBook Horizon Europe project consortium, represented by Professor Pieter Spanoghe, Ghent University, Department of Plants and Crops, Coupure Links 653, 9000 Gent, Belgium, and further referred to as ‘’EU-FarmBook’’. 

Definitions

• “Contribution” of a Knowledge Object (KO) is any kind of project outputs useful for farmers, foresters and advisors submitted to the EU-FarmBook online platform. 
• ‘’Contributor” or provider of KOs is the (co)creator and/or contact person, with whom the contributor agreement is signed.  
• “Submit” or ‘’Upload’’ or ‘’Transfer’’ is the act of uploading, submitting, transmitting, or distributing content to the EU-FarmBook online platform, via an online upload form or via an API. 

Whereas

1. The UGent operates the EU-FarmBook online platform, www.eufarmbook.eu, which enables contributions to be freely accessible to any user/visitor of the platform;
2. The contributor is authorized in their role as project coordinator or contact person to arrange for the submission of project outputs to the online platform; and
3. EU-farmBook and the contributor recognize the value of open science and the free exchange of multi-actor project outputs, and agree (in accordance with the wishes of the European Commission) on the upload and transfer of project outputs to the EU-FarmBook online platform for the purposes of safekeeping (longevity), wider dissemination and, where appropriate, reuse.

Therefore

The contributor or persons appointed by them will ensure that they have the legal right to contribute knowledge objects, and that these outputs do not infringe third party intellectual property and conform to GDPR regulations if this is relevant. Contributors are free to choose their preferred copyright license. Unless the copyright of a KO has been assigned to a third party (e.g. a journal publisher) the default license will be a Creative Commons CC BY. but contributors can select other licenses if appropriate or needed.

The contributor notifies EU-FarmBook in case the work needs to, for any reason, be updated, replaced or removed from the platform. The contributor acknowledges and accepts that he/she shall not receive any monetary consideration by EU-FarmBook. He/she is satisfied by the publicity that he/she receives by the exchange of the practice-oriented materials by the EU-FarmBook online platform. The contributor acknowledges without further approval that EU-FarmBook retains the right to use, publish, translate any contribution submitted to its EU-FarmBook online platform in order to make the KO more widely known or accessible. On the EU-FarmBook platform, the contributor of a knowledge will be acknowledged as the relevant contact person for any requests for permission or other applications. 

Any amendments to this Contributor Agreement can only be made in writing, after consultation and mutual consent of EU-FarmBook and the contributor. Such amendments, once approved EU-FarmBook and the contributor, will become part of this Contributor Agreement. The Contributor Agreement shall remain in force unless cancelled by the contributor or EU-FarmBook. The Contributor Agreement may be terminated by written notice one month in advance to the other. In case of termination all material (knowledge objects) indicated by the contributor will be removed from the platform.

In order to respect the Intellectual Property Right of each practice-oriented material, EU-FarmBook must have this Contributor Agreement agreed by the contributor.

Please ensure that you have read and understand the Contributor Agreement before checking the agreement. Please contact us via email (contact@eufarmbook.eu) if you have any questions.

Contributor Agreement – Full version

This agreement (hereafter: the Agreement) sets out the rules and principles applicable to contributions to the EU-FarmBook Online Knowledge Platform. Acceptance of all these terms and to the accompanying Privacy Policy is a requirement to create and use an account on the Platform. This Agreement applies to the use of the account and to all the contributions made by a Contributor.

Identification of the parties

This Agreement is applicable in the relation between the Platform Owner and each Contributor, hereafter jointly referred to as “the Parties”.

Platform Owner

In this Agreement, “Platform Owner” refers to the institution that hosts the Platform commissioned by the EU-FarmBook Horizon Europe project consortium:

Ghent University - Universiteit Gent
Legal entity under Belgian Law
Belgian Enterprise Number 0248.015.142
Sint-Pietersnieuwstraat 25
9000 Gent
BELGIUM

The Platform Owner is legally represented by: 

Professor dr. Pieter SPANOGHE
General Coordinator EU-FarmBook Horizon Europe project consortium
Ghent University - Department of Plants and Crops
Campus Coupure
Coupure Links 653
9000 Gent
BELGIUM

The fastest way to reach the Platform Owner, is via the email address contact@eufarmbook.eu.

Contributor

In this Agreement, the “Contributor”  is authorized in their role as project coordinator or contact person to arrange for the submission of project outputs to the online platform. The Contributor is the (co)creator and/or contact person of a project who creates a Contributor Account on the Platform,

Each Contributor agrees to provide only correct, accurate and comprehensive data about their identity and contact details in the course of the account registration process.

When the Contributor is a legal person, the natural person or persons that create a Contributor Account guarantees that they are legally entitled to act on behalf of that legal person. When the Contributor is a natural person, the Contributor declares that he/she is at least 18 years old at the time of entering into this Agreement.

Definitions

In this Agreement:

“Contributor Account” shall mean: any account on the Platform that was created with the view of submitting Knowledge Objects to the Platform.

“Knowledge Object” shall mean: any individual piece of project outputs submitted to the Platform by a Contributor, via upload, transfer, hyperlinking or otherwise, as well as any combination of pieces of such content.

“Platform” shall mean: the EU-FarmBook online platform, available at www.eufarmbook.eu.

The terms “Contributor”, “Parties” and “Platform Owner” shall have their meaning as respectively defined in Article 1 of this Agreement.

The term “plagiarism” shall have the common meaning attributed to it in the field of research. It is notably understood as “using other people’s work or ideas without giving proper credit to the original source”.

The term “hyperlink” shall have the broadest common meaning attributed to it in the field of computing. It is notably understood as referring to anchor links, but equally to inline links, embedded links and deep links.

The term “intellectual property rights” shall be understood in the broadest, legal sense. It shall include, in particular but not exclusively: copyright(s), neighbouring rights, the sui generis right for database producers, patent rights, trade mark rights, and design rights. In this Agreement, infringements of “intellectual property rights” shall also include infringements of the law on the protection of trade secrets.

Essentials

Recognizing the value of open science and the sharing of research project outputs for practice in the fields of agriculture and forestry, the Parties agree to collaborate, in good faith as well as to the benefit of each other and of all practitioners of the agricultural and forestry communities in Europe as a whole, to the establishment and expansion of the Platform through the submission and wide dissemination of high-quality Knowledge Objects.

In pursuance of the described objectives, the Contributor agrees to submit Knowledge Objects that are pertinent for the scope of the Platform, and which it is entitled to submit and share.

In pursuance of the described objectives, the Platform Owner agrees to host, manage and monitor the Platform with a view to a broad dissemination, free of charge and on a non-commercial basis.

This Agreement shall not give rise to any monetary consideration or other remuneration to be paid by either the Platform or the Contributor.

Quality and Pertinence of Knowledge Objects

By virtue of Article 3.2, each Contributor assumes responsibility for the quality and the pertinence of each of its submitted Knowledge Objects.

The Contributor warrants that its submitted Knowledge Objects are not the result of research misconduct as understood in Article 3.1 of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity (version 2023).

The Contributor shall only use the Platform for the purposes outlined in Article 3. In particular, the Contributor shall not submit data or Knowledge Objects that are fraudulent, harmful, misleading, or in violation with criminal law.

It is not obligatory to transfer a copy of the Knowledge Object itself (e.g., a PDF fact sheet, video, etc.) to the EU FarmBook database. The contributor has the choice to store the Knowledge Object, in addition to the metadata, in the database or to provide a URL that redirects users to a different website or database. However, in order to fulfill the longevity/sustainability objectives of the EU FarmBook, provision of a full copy is preferred. If the Contributor submits a Knowledge Object that consists, in whole or in part, of one or more hyperlinks, the Contributor shall monitor the continued activeness (validity) of that or those hyperlinks.

In the case where the updating of a Knowledge Object is required, either because it contains or consists of an unactive hyperlink, because its substance has become obsolete or for any other reason, the Contributor undertakes to deliver updated content to the Platform within a reasonable period of time.

Entitlement of Contributors to Submit Knowledge Objects

For each of its submitted Knowledge Objects, the Contributor assumes responsibility for the permission to submit it to the Platform.

By virtue of Article 5.1 and notwithstanding Article 5.4, the Contributor shall only submit Knowledge Objects that are entirely composed of content that fits at least one of the following descriptions:

1. A)content of which the Contributor is the sole owner of all intellectual property rights;
2. B)content of which the Contributor is the joint owner of intellectual property rights, and for which the Contributor has obtained permission of all other intellectual property rights owners to submit it to the Platform and for which the Contributor is entitled to grant a licence pursuant to Article 7 of this Agreement;
3. C)content that is protected by intellectual property rights owned by one or more third parties, for which the Contributor has obtained a licence or other form of permission of all rights owners to submit it to the Platform and for which the Contributor is entitled to grant a licence pursuant to Article 7 of this Agreement;
4. D)content for which the intellectual property rights have been waived or licensed to a broad public, e.g. pursuant to an open access licence, provided that the Contributor ensures that it is submitted to the Platform pursuant to the reserved licence terms;
5. E)content that is not protected by intellectual property rights or that is in the public domain.

Conversely, the Contributor shall not submit Knowledge Objects that contain content that is, in whole or in part, protected by intellectual property rights owned by third parties that did not explicitly grant permission to the Contributor to share that content on the Platform, regardless of whether it was literally copied or subjected to adaptation.

When the Contributor provides one or more hyperlinks as a Knowledge Object or as a part of a Knowledge Object, the term “content” in Article 5.2 is to be read as a reference to the link label and link title, not as a reference to the contents of the hyperlink destination. In such a case, the Contributor ensures that neither its own acts of referring to the hyperlink destination, nor the acts of publishing the hyperlink on the Platform, nor acts of a Platform user to follow the hyperlink constitute protected acts of “communication to the public” of a copyright-protected work or of subject-matter of a neighbouring right, in the sense of Article 3 of Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society [2001] OJ L167/10 as explained by the Court of Justice in the EU, unless and insofar as the Contributor has demonstrable consent of all the rightholders involved. Likewise and under the same conditions, the Contributor ensures that those acts do not constitute protected acts of “distribution to the public” in the sense of Article 4(1)(c) of Directive 2009/24/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the legal protection of computer programs [2009] OJ L111/16, and that they do not constitute protected acts of extraction and re-utilization as defined in Article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Legal Protection of Databases [1996] OJ L77/20.

By virtue of Article 5.1, the Contributor shall not submit Knowledge Objects which, in whole or in part, contain elements that are the result of plagiarism.

Insofar as a Contributor submits one or more Knowledge Objects that are the outcome of an academic project or of a project that is funded, either in whole or in part, by public means, the Contributor ascertains that it is entitled to share those outcomes. Unless if otherwise agreed on between the Parties, this implies that the Contributor guarantees that it either is the project coordinator or the repository representative or contact person of the project, or that it is legally entitled to represent the project coordinator or the repository representative.

The Contributor undertakes to ensure that Knowledge Objects that contain content to which third parties participated and/or in which third parties have intellectual property rights, shall be accompanied by proper, accurate and complete references to its authors and sources pursuant to the customary norms and standards in the field of research.

Platform Owner’s Monitoring Role

To ensure effective compliance with this Agreement, and of its Articles 3 to 5 in particular, the Contributor understands and accepts that the Platform Owner reserves the right to decide whether and how submitted Knowledge Objects will be made available on the Platform. In particular, the Platform Owner reserves the right to approve or decline Knowledge Objects and updates to Knowledge Objects, either in whole or in part. 

The Platform Owner also reserves the right to make Knowledge Objects temporarily or permanently unavailable after its publication, as well as to delete and/or replace Knowledge Objects. Moreover, the Platform Owner reserves the right to suspend, block or delete Contributor Accounts when necessary.

The Platform Owner undertakes to exercise its monitoring role in good faith, applying the principles of proportionality and subsidiarity, and with respect for the Contributors and their interests. Except in instances that require expeditious action and in cases of grave, repeated or manifestly malicious violations, the Platform Owner undertakes to inform concerned Contributors at the earliest occasion about potential violations and prospective actions in a transparent way, with a view to allow Contributors to take explicit stance and set out their arguments.

Licence on the Intellectual Property Rights in the Knowledge Object

By submitting a Knowledge Object, or a part of a Knowledge Object, in which the Contributor itself holds copyright(s), sui generis rights for database producers, neighbouring rights or a combination thereof, either as the sole rightholder or jointly with other rightholders, the Contributor reserves its ownership in these rights but explicitly grants a licence in its own name and, where relevant, on behalf of all other rightholders, pursuant to this Article.

The licence granted by the Contributor pursuant to the previous paragraph, is a standardized Creative Commons “CC BY” licence that applies to the Knowledge Objects in all of their parts. The Contributor acknowledges to have read and understood the meaning of the text of those licence terms, which are entirely available on the website of creativecommons.org, and to agree to them without reservations.

Notwithstanding the previous paragraph and in addition to the licence granted pursuant thereto, the Contributor also grants to the Platform Owner an open-ended, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable licence to perform all acts protected by copyright law, the law on the sui generis right for database producers and neighbouring rights law, that are useful or needed for the Platform Owner to pursue the purpose as defined in Article 3.

The licence conferred by the previous paragraph, applies to all the subject-matter under the scope of Article 7.1 that is submitted by the Contributor, and includes, in particular but not exhaustively: computer programs, works of literature in digital format, works of visual arts in digital format, audio works in digital format, works of audio-visual arts in digital format, databases, fixations of an artistic performance, phonograms, fixations of a film, press publications and broadcasts. The licence conferred by that previous paragraph applies to all acts of exploitation of the subject-matter that are common on a publicly available digital platform. It includes: acts of reproduction, in whole or in part; acts of adaptation, in whole or in part, regardless whether or not they lead to the creation of derivate works; acts of translation, in whole or in part; acts of digital public lending; acts of distribution to the public; and acts of communication to the public via digital means, including acts of transfer via the internet and acts that fall within the scope of the right to make the subject-matter available to the public on a way that members of the public can access it at a time and on a moment individually chosen by them. As far as databases protected by the sui generis right for database producers are concerned, the licence also covers the acts of extraction and re-utilization as defined in Article 7 of Directive 96/9/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council on the Legal Protection of Databases [1996] OJ L77/20. Without prejudice to the last paragraph of this Article, the duration of this licence is identical to the duration of this Agreement, for each subject-matter, for each licenced prerogative and for each form of exploitation. For each form of exploitation, the royalty fee due is 0,- EUR (zero euros).

Under the same modalities as set out in the preceding paragraph, the licence in Article 7.3 entails the right for the Platform Owner and all its agents and sublicensees, to perform text and data mining on the subject-matter under the scope of Article 7.1 that is submitted by the Contributor. Without prejudice to the last paragraph of this Article, the duration of this licence is identical to the duration of this Agreement, for each subject-matter, for each licenced prerogative and for each form of exploitation. For each form of exploitation, the royalty fee due is 0,- EUR (zero euros).

Authors of submitted original works and performing artists of submitted fixations of artistic performances retain the moral rights that copyright and neighbouring rights law may attribute to them. That notwithstanding, the Contributor acknowledges that the Platform Owner does not infringe any moral right by performing any of the acts mentioned in Article 7.4 and Article 7.5. Moreover, the Contributor warrants the Platform Owner against any claims for breach of moral rights that may arise from making Knowledge Objects and accompanying data submitted by the Contributor available on the Platform.

Without prejudice to Article 5.7 and to the law on privacy and data protection, the Platform Owner undertakes to explicitly acknowledge authorship of the authors of submitted copyright-protected works on the Platform in accordance with the preferences expressed by those authors. Likewise, and again without prejudice to Article 5.7 and to the law on privacy and data protection, the Platform Owner undertakes to explicitly honour the neighbouring right to be recognized as a performing artist to those performing artists that are featured in submitted fixations of protected performances in accordance with artistic customs and with the preference expressed by those performing artists. On penalty of liability, the Contributor shall therefore ensure that it is correctly informed about the preferences of each of those authors and each of those performing artists, and shall inform the Platform Owner accordingly. In addition, the Contributor will expeditiously contact the Platform Owner if these preferences need to be updated. In the absence of indications to the contrary, the Platform Owner will assume that all authors and artistic performers want to be acknowledged as such on the Platform.

This entire Article survives this Agreement. It remains fully effective in the event where the contractual relationship between the Parties has come to an end, whether by mutual consent, by unilateral termination, by annulment or otherwise.

Intellectual Property Rights in the Platform

Without prejudice to any intellectual property rights held by Contributors and/or by third parties in specific content, the Platform Owner holds and retains all intellectual property rights that may be vested in the Platform or that are related with the Platform, including trade mark rights and copyright(s) in the underlying software and in visible or nonvisible textual and visual works. Neither the creation nor use of a Contributor Account implies the transfer of any intellectual property right from the Platform Owner to any Contributor. Without prejudice to exceptions and limitations that might apply pursuant to statute law that cannot be ruled out by contractual agreement, Contributors do not derive intellectual property prerogatives or licences from this Agreement, unless and insofar as explicitly provided for in this Article.

The Platform Owner hereby grants to the Contributor a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, non-transferable, non-sublicensable licence to perform all acts protected by copyright law that are needed to make use of the Platform for the creation and updating of a Contributor Account and for the submission, maintenance, updating and deletion of Knowledge Objects. This licence only applies insofar as the Contributor acts in good faith and in the pursuit of the legitimate purposes of the Platform, as defined in Article 3. Within these boundaries, the licence comprises the permission to perform digital acts of reproduction and digital acts of adaptation on the elements that constitute the Platform, including elements of software, textual works, visual works and audio. 

The licence granted by the Platform Owner pursuant to the previous paragraph is limited in time. Its duration is limited to the duration of this Agreement. The suspension or deletion of the Contributor’s Contributor Account also automatically suspends this licence during the period of suspension or deletion.

The Contributor shall only use the conferred licence through the application programming interface made available to it by virtue of its Contributor Account. The Contributor acknowledges and accepts that attempts to access the Platform by other technical means may amount to illicit circumvention of technical protection measures, which is a criminal offence.

The Contributor shall not autonomously perform acts protected by copyright act to proceed to error correction. After identifying potential technical errors that prevent them from properly using the Platform for the purposes described in Article 3, the Contributor shall promptly inform the Platform Owner about these errors with a view to having them repaired.

Termination of the Agreement

This Agreement is an open-ended agreement that is applicable as long as the Platform and the Contributor’s Contributor Account subsist. This Agreement is automatically terminated ex nunc when the Platform ceases to exist or when the Contributor’s Contributor Account ceases to exist, whichever event takes place first.

This Agreement is not automatically determined upon the demise, state of legal incapacity, state of insolvency or state of concursus creditorum of either of the Parties.

The Contributor is entitled to unilaterally terminate this Agreement, at its discretion but in good faith, free of charge, with effects only ex nunc (for the future). To exercise this right to termination, the Contributor shall contact the Platform Owner via electronic means, with an explicit and written request to delete its Contributor Account. The Platform Owner shall proceed to deleting that Contributor Account within a reasonable period of time.

Without prejudice to its monitor powers enshrined in Article 6, the Platform Owner is entitled to unilaterally terminate this Agreement, at its discretion but in good faith, free of charge, with effects only ex nunc (for the future). When exercising this right to termination, the Platform Owner shall contact the Contributor via the contact data provide for in its Contributor Account.

Without prejudice to the next paragraph, the termination of this Agreement only procures effects for the future. It has no retroactive effects and leaves the rights and claims of the Parties unaltered. Without prejudice to torts law, it does not give rise to any right to damage compensation.

This article is without prejudice to Article 7.4.

Disclaimers

To the extent permitted by the applicable law and without prejudice to instances of fraud, the Platform Owner will not be liable for the contents or management of Knowledge Objects. In addition, no liability for the Platform Owner will arise from the availability or unavailability of Knowledge Objects on the Platform. Correspondingly, Contributors will not be liable for Knowledge Objects that were not submitted by them, for the parts of the Platform that entirely managed by the Platform Owner, nor for the consequences that may result from the unavailability of the Platform or a part of the Platform.

Whenever the Platform Owner is faced with a claim, whether judicial or extrajudicial, that relates to a Knowledge Object submitted by the Contributor, the Contributor shall, when applicable, indemnify the Platform Owner and hold the Platform Owner harmless, if the claim arises out of the Contributor’s breach of this Agreement or out of an infringement of third-party rights through the content of the Knowledge Object. The same will apply whenever an agent of the Platform Owner is faced with such a claim.

Entire Agreement and Partial Invalidity

Without prejudice to rules of law that cannot be overridden by contract and unless and to the extent otherwise explicitly agreed on, the written terms in this Agreement and in the standardized licence terms referred to in Article 7.2 together exhaustively contain the entire and integrated agreement between the Parties. The Parties acknowledge that any summarized information made available when creating the Contributor Account is of purely informative value.

In the event that an Article, paragraph, clause and/or other constitutive part of this Agreement and/or the standardized licence terms referred to in Article 7.2, is or are invalidated, found ineffective or otherwise deprived of effects, the rest of this Agreement shall remain valid to the extent permitted by law. In that event and insofar as permitted by law, lacunas in this Agreement will be interpreted in conformity with the mutual intentions of the Parties.

Effectiveness, Governing Law and Jurisdiction

This is version 0.1 of the Contributor Agreement. It is effective since 15 October 2023. It is applicable to the Contributor Accounts created from that date onwards.

Without prejudice to rules of law that cannot be overridden by contract and to the extent permitted, this Agreement is governed solely by the law of the Kingdom of Belgium.

Without prejudice to rules of law that cannot be overridden by contract and to the extent permitted, the courts geographically competent in Ghent, Belgium shall, each within their material jurisdiction, have exclusive competence to resolve any disputes or claims arising from this Agreement.