Terms of Service

1. Who can use the Platform

You must be at least 18 years old to use the Platform. By using it, you represent that you’re 18 or older, that you haven’t previously been suspended or removed from our community, and that your use complies with the laws that apply to you.

2. Accounts and security

Some features require an account. Community membership in particular runs on an application: when your application is approved, you become a “Member” and create an account. Joining as a Member is the moment you formally accept these terms and the Privacy Policy.

When you hold an account, you agree to:

• provide accurate registration information and keep it current;
• keep your password and sign-in credentials confidential;
• maintain one account per person, with no sharing; and
• take responsibility for activity that happens under your account.

We may ask you to verify that you control your email address before you can post or take certain actions. If you believe your account has been compromised, tell us right away at community@museumprogress.com — we’ll help you secure it.

3. Your license to use the Platform

Subject to these terms, MaP grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to access and use the Platform, including any mobile or other applications we may make available.

Except where the law says we can’t restrict it, you may not:

• copy, distribute, modify, or create derivative works of the software and systems that power the Platform;
• interfere with or circumvent any security or access-control feature; or
• use the Platform if the law prohibits you from doing so.

4. Who owns what

Everything that makes up the Platform other than content posted by users — the design, code, text, graphics, data compilations, and other materials — belongs to MaP or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property law. These terms don’t grant you any rights in those materials beyond the license in Section 3, and there are no implied licenses.

5. Your content

Members can post content to the community — posts, comments, replies, profile information, images, and recordings (“User Content”). You keep the copyright and any other rights you hold in what you post.

By posting, you grant MaP a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, format, and distribute your User Content as needed to operate, improve, and promote the Platform, including through service providers who host and deliver the Platform on our behalf. This license exists so the community can function: it’s what lets your post be stored, shown to other members, included in a notification email, and surfaced in search.

You’re responsible for what you post. By posting User Content, you confirm that you own it or have the rights needed to post it, that it doesn’t infringe anyone’s intellectual property, privacy, or other rights, that it doesn’t violate the law, and that it isn’t something a reasonable person would consider harassing, threatening, hateful, or pornographic.

We don’t pre-screen User Content and have no obligation to monitor it, but we may remove, edit, or block any content that violates these terms or harms the community, at any time and without notice. Keep your own copies of anything you post — if your account ends, you may lose access to it.

Sexual, harassing, and predatory content is prohibited for everyone — that’s the paragraph above and Section 6. Where minors are involved, the law adds specific obligations: if we identify child sexual abuse material, we remove it, ban the account, and report it to the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, as federal law requires.

If you send us ideas or feedback about the Platform, we can use them without restriction or compensation — that’s what lets us act on suggestions without a negotiation each time.

6. Community conduct

The community works because members treat it as a room full of colleagues. By participating, you agree to:

• Respect and inclusion. Treat all members with respect. We don’t tolerate harassment, discrimination, or demeaning behavior.
• Confidentiality. Member discussions follow the Chatham House Rule — stories stay, lessons leave. Don’t share private conversations or member information outside the community. Our live sessions are recorded as a rule, and we sometimes share those recordings — with everyone, or within the group that attended.
• Honest participation. Share only what you have the right to distribute, credit others’ ideas, keep discussions relevant to museum practice, and skip promotional or spam content.
• Paid content. Don’t share access to paid workshops, events, or resources. Those are for registered participants.

Across the whole Platform, you also agree not to:

• use the Platform for any illegal purpose;
• harass, threaten, bully, or otherwise harm another user;
• infringe anyone’s rights, or encourage or instruct others to;
• access the Platform with scrapers, crawlers, or other automated tools, except standard search-engine indexing or with our written permission;
• interfere with security features, or probe, reverse engineer, or disrupt the systems that run the Platform;
• upload malware, send unsolicited offers or advertisements, or collect other users’ personal information without their consent;
• impersonate anyone, claim a false affiliation, or access another person’s account;
• sell or transfer your access to the Platform; or
• attempt any of the above, or help someone else do it.

7. How we contact you

Holding an account or subscribing to our emails means we’ll send you administrative messages — things like account, security, billing, and service notices. Promotional email, including our newsletter, always carries an unsubscribe link; opting out of promotional email doesn’t stop the administrative messages your account needs. If we add other notification channels in the future (for example, push notifications in a mobile app), they’ll come with their own controls.

8. Payments and refunds

Some offerings are paid. Payments are processed by Stripe, our payment processor — we never see or store your full card number. Prices and billing terms are shown at the point of purchase.

For paid memberships, programs, and purchases:

• access begins after payment;
• you can cancel a recurring membership anytime through your account;
• we don’t refund partial periods; and
• one-time purchases and new memberships carry a 7-day refund window. Renewal payments aren’t eligible for refunds.

9. Automated and AI-assisted features

Some parts of the Platform use automated processing — for example, ordering the community feed or analyzing how the site is used. Where we use AI-assisted tools to process Platform data, we configure them so your data is not used to train AI models.

10. Copyright complaints (DMCA)

We respect intellectual property rights and expect the same from everyone on the Platform. We respond to notices of claimed copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512). Our designated agent is registered with the U.S. Copyright Office (Registration DMCA-1043959):

Kyle Bowen
THE MAP COLLECTIVE LLC
240 Main St., P.O. Box 678
Northport, NY 11768
kyle@museumprogress.com

To submit a notice of claimed infringement, include:

• identification of the copyrighted work you believe is infringed;
• identification of the material you believe is infringing and where it appears on the Platform;
• your name, address, telephone number, and email address;
• a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use isn’t authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;
• a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you’re the copyright owner or authorized to act for them; and
• your physical or electronic signature.

We remove or disable access to material identified in a valid notice, and we may terminate the accounts of repeat infringers.

11. Third-party services

The Platform links to and works with services we don’t operate — calendar tools, scheduling, video sessions, and the like. Your use of a third-party service is governed by that service’s own terms, and we aren’t responsible for what those services do.

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the Platform evolves. For material changes, we’ll give at least 30 days’ notice before they take effect — by posting the updated terms here and emailing Members — and we may ask you to accept the updated terms to keep using member features. Non-material changes take effect when posted. The “Last Updated” date at the top of this page always tells you which version you’re reading. If you don’t agree to updated terms, stop using the Platform; Members can delete their account at any time.

13. Ending your account

These terms apply from your first use of the Platform. You can delete your account at any time from your account settings or by emailing community@museumprogress.com. The Privacy Policy describes what happens to your data when you do — account data is deleted within 30 days.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, and we may modify or discontinue parts of the Platform. If your account is terminated for violating these terms, you may not create a new one.

Provisions that by their nature should outlive an account — ownership, the content license in Section 5, indemnification, disclaimers, the limitation of liability, dispute resolution, and governing law — survive termination.

14. Indemnification

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you’ll defend and indemnify MaP and its members, officers, employees, consultants, and agents against claims brought by third parties — including related liability, damages, and reasonable attorneys’ fees — arising out of your misuse of the Platform, your violation of these terms, or your violation of someone else’s rights. We may assume the defense of any matter you’d otherwise indemnify, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defense.

15. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law: the Platform and everything on it are provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied — including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We don’t warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, or that problems will be corrected. You use the Platform at your own discretion and risk, and you’re responsible for any resulting damage to your devices or loss of data. Nothing you learn from us or from the Platform creates a warranty that isn’t stated in these terms.

We don’t disclaim anything the law prohibits us from disclaiming.

16. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law: MaP will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost profits, lost goodwill, or other intangible losses — arising out of or relating to the Platform, under any legal theory, even if we’ve been told such damage is possible. Except as provided in Section 17, our total liability for all claims relating to the Platform is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us for the Platform in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) US$100.

These limits, together with the disclaimers above, allocate risk between you and MaP and are an essential part of the agreement. Each is severable, and each applies even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose.

17. Dispute resolution and arbitration

If something goes wrong, contact us first — most issues can be resolved directly. For disputes that can’t be, you and MaP agree to resolve them through binding individual arbitration rather than in court. Arbitration uses a neutral arbitrator instead of a judge or jury, with more limited discovery and very limited review by courts. This covers every dispute connected with these terms or the Platform, whatever the legal theory, including disputes about whether this section applies — with the exceptions and the opt-out below.

By accepting these terms, you and MaP each waive the right to a trial by jury and to participate in a class action.

Exceptions. Either of us can still: bring an individual claim in small claims court; pursue an enforcement action through a federal, state, or local agency; ask a court for injunctive relief in aid of arbitration; or file suit in court for intellectual property infringement.

Opt-out. You can opt out of arbitration entirely by sending a letter within 30 days of accepting these terms to: Museums as Progress, Attention: Arbitration Opt-Out, 240 Main St., P.O. Box 678, Northport, NY 11768. Include your full legal name, the email address on your account, and a statement that you’re opting out of arbitration. Opting out voids this section — disputes then go to the courts named in Section 18 — and doesn’t affect anything else in these terms.

Rules and arbitrator. Arbitration is governed by the Federal Arbitration Act and administered by JAMS under its rules for consumer disputes, as modified by these terms. The JAMS rules and filing forms are at jamsadr.com or by calling +1-800-352-5267.

Notice first. Arbitration begins with written notice: the party raising the dispute sends the other a letter describing the claim and the relief sought, by certified mail or courier (or by email, if no current physical address is available). Our address for notices is Museums as Progress, 240 Main St., P.O. Box 678, Northport, NY 11768. The parties then have 30 days to resolve the claim directly before arbitration can be commenced. For claims of US$10,000 or less, we’ll reimburse your filing fee — unless we’ve received 25 or more similar demands, in which case JAMS rules govern fees. If the arbitrator finds a claim frivolous or brought for an improper purpose, JAMS rules govern all fees and the other side may seek reimbursement.

How it works. Hearings happen in the county where you live, unless we agree otherwise. For claims of US$10,000 or less that don’t seek injunctive relief, you choose the format: documents only, phone or video, or in person. Settlement offers stay hidden from the arbitrator until after the decision. The arbitrator must issue a reasoned written decision.

What the arbitrator can award. Any relief a court could award on an individual claim. If the arbitrator awards you more than our last written settlement offer before an arbitrator was selected, we’ll pay the greater of the award or US$10,000. The decision is final and binding, except for judicial review the law allows and review of any injunctive relief.

No class actions. Claims may be brought only in an individual capacity — never as a plaintiff or class member in a class or representative proceeding — and the arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any form of representative proceeding unless both of us agree.

Changes to this section. If we make a substantive change to this arbitration agreement, you can reject the change by writing to our notice address within 30 days; your account will end and the prior version of this section survives for any disputes.

If this section can’t be enforced. If the class action waiver or this entire section is found unenforceable, or if you opt out, this section is void and disputes go to the courts named in Section 18.

18. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. For any lawsuit these terms permit, you and MaP submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in Suffolk County, New York.

19. The fine print

These terms, together with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and MaP about the Platform. If part of these terms is found invalid, the rest stays in force, and the invalid part is enforced to the greatest extent possible. Our not enforcing a provision isn’t a waiver of it. You may not assign these terms or your account; we may assign these terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Section headings are for convenience, and “including” means “including but not limited to.”

By using the Platform, you consent to receiving communications from us electronically, and you agree that notices and other communications we send electronically satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing.

If you’re a California resident: under California Civil Code Section 1789.3, you may contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs at 1625 N. Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, California 95834, or +1-800-952-5210.

20. Contact

Questions about these terms:

Kyle Bowen
THE MAP COLLECTIVE LLC, d/b/a Museums as Progress
240 Main St., P.O. Box 678
Northport, NY 11768
community@museumprogress.com