Welcome to the Across Online Crossword Library, a free service from Literate Software LLC ("Litsoft"), that allows anyone with crossword content to upload and share or publish that crossword as an interactive crossword in web pages, blogs and social media channels for solving in a web browser (as well as for use with Across Lite) without requiring any hosting facilities or software installations to do so.

The use of this service and use of any and all software associated with this service is subject to the terms listed in this document. To use this service, you must accept and agree to all of the terms listed below. If you do not accept any of the Terms, you may not use the service.

Summary of Terms

This section is a summary of some of the main points of the Terms of Service in plain language to establish the intent of the service but is not a replacement for the full Terms of Service included later below which is what you agree to when you use the service.

  1. You must own or otherwise have the rights to share/publish any and all crosswords you wish to use this service for. It is entirely your responsibility to obtain the required copyrights if you do not own the crossword. Litsoft, at its sole discretion, may remove any crossword that is disputed for copyright violations without necessarily making a determination of the validity of a claim of infringement. This is NOT an anonymous service to post pirated/disputed copyrighted content. You are entirely responsible for all consequences if you violate copyrights including protecting Litsoft against any legal action.
  2. You retain the copyright and any other rights in the crossword uploaded for sharing/embedding via the service. Until that crossword is deleted by you or by Litsoft, you provide us the limited rights to display that content to others interactively via the links that you share and embed (without which it isn't possible to provide the service!).
  3. You may use the service for non-commercial purposes or limited commercial purposes (e.g., syndication) subject to other terms below. However, any use that directly or indirectly charges any end-users (solvers) for access to the crosswords via this service is prohibited without written permission from Litsoft and payment of any applicable fees.
  4. Charging for software that displays the interactive crossword from the service or embeds it within the software is prohibited without written consent from Litsoft and payment of any applicable fees.
  5. You may not frame the service-hosted shared page or create overlays on the page with commercial or non-commercial content. If you need to publish the interactive crossword along with additional content, then you may use the embed code on a page hosted outside the service site subject to other terms here.
  6. You may use the service for sharing/embedding only by using the links and/or the embed code as provided by the service. You may not alter, replace or in any way modify the rendering of that code by replacing, masking or hiding any part of the rendered content. You must use the provided links and embed code in their entirety and may not use just a part of it.
  7. The links and code must be shared/embedded to be accessible from a general-purpose web browser (that allows end users to browse to any web site) or in software that preserves the entire rendering. You may not alter or use any part of the code. You may not fetch the crossword files to do your own rendering of the crossword content in third-party software.
  8. Litsoft provides no guarantees on continued availability, uptime and performance of the service and may discontinue it at any time.
  9. Litsoft reserves the right to remove any crossword from the service at any time with no advance notice, for any reason, including and not limited to violation of the Terms of Service.
  10. Litsoft may remove any crossword that has not been deleted by you and has not been accessed for more than a month to conserve resources.
  11. Litsoft makes no warranties or representations on the performance, availability, suitability of this service for your purposes and is not liable for any damages that you may encounter by using this service. Use it at your own risk on an as-is basis.

Full Terms of Service

Introduction

By accepting the terms and conditions of this Across Online Crossword Library ('Service") Terms of Service ("TOS") document, you are participating in a service where Literate Software LLC ("Litsoft") provides hosting and interactive crossword features to content providers who voluntarily seek to make their content available to end-users under the TOS. Litsoft reserves the right to update and change, from time to time, the TOS terms. You can always find the most recent terms at http://icrossword.com/publish/tos.html.

Description of Service

The Service allows you to upload crosswords in Across format (.puz files) created from Litsoft products or authorized third-party software for sharing and embedding an interactive version of that crossword to be rendered via Litsoft software to end-users. The crossword and the software to render it will be hosted by Litsoft. For each uploaded crossword, you will receive by e-mail, a link to a personal page containing

  1. A link that you can share privately or publicly as you wish to send recipients to a page hosted at Litsoft where the crossword will be available for interactive solving. Each visitor will be able to solve their own copy of the crossword.
  2. Codes for embedding the interactive crossword in web pages, blogs, etc., hosted by you or third parties so that visitors to that page will see the interactive crossword and solve it.

You can delete the crossword at any time from your personal page for the crossword and it will become unavailable at the share link page and on any third-party page where the code is embedded.

Participation in the Service

The participation in the Service is contingent on your acceptance of the Terms of Service and your continued compliance with the terms of the Service. Litsoft reserves the right to refuse participation, or bar and remove any of your content from the Service at any time in our sole and absolute discretion with no liabilities to Litsoft, for any reason, including repeat violation of the copyright policies or any other terms of this Service.

Uploaded content

You participate in the Service by uploading one or more crosswords in Litsoft's Across format (.puz file) created using Litsoft products (such as the free Across Lite program) or any product authorized to create such files. By choosing to obtain the share and embed links for such uploaded crosswords via e-mail, you direct and authorize Litsoft to display that crossword content in an interactive form to anyone who is able to visit the share link or access a page containing the embed codes. To enable this, you provide Litsoft worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license(s) to use, cache, store, host, transmit, distribute and render or publicly display the crossword within the Service, solely for the purpose for which it was submitted to this Service. In addition, you grant license(s) to anyone accessing the share link or pages with the embed code to solve the crossword(s) online or to download to print or solve offline for non-commercial and personal use and to further share the link or the link to the embedded page with others. This license exists only until the crossword is subsequently removed by you or by Litsoft from the service.

Rights and acceptable content

You maintain any ownership and all other rights to the content without granting any other rights to Litsoft other than as specified here for the Service. To participate in the Service for public display of the crossword, you must own or have the necessary rights, licenses, consents and permissions to use the crossword for this Service and to grant the limited license(s) to Litsoft necessary for implementing the Service as described in this TOS.

You represent and warrant that the uploaded content does not infringe on any copyrights, trademarks, patents or any other third party intellectual property.

You agree to not include in your crossword any content that is unlawful, harmful, abusive, defamatory, vulgar, pornographic, offensive, indecent, libelous, hateful or racially or ethnically or otherwise objectionable.

Use of links and embed codes

You may distribute the share link or embed the codes in any web page as you see fit for private or public distribution as long as:

  1. The Service hosted page that the share link points to is not framed within any other site or displayed with any overlays of third party content. The links can only be used in a fashion that sends the web browser to the full page hosted by the Service with the link URL visible in the web browser address bar.
  2. The embed codes can be placed on any web page that can be visited by any web browser and not limited to access only using a specific browser or specific third party software.
  3. There are no direct or indirect charges for end-users to access the crossword to solve it without explicit written permission from Litsoft and payment of any applicable fees.

You must use the share link(s) and embed code(s) in their entirety as provided and must not use it in part or with any modifications. You may not use the links or codes to render the crossword content in third party software other than generic web browsers or knowingly allow third parties to do so.

Reselling or re-purposing of the Service

You may not resell the Service and its functionality as Litsoft branded or branded as a third-party Service. You may not re-purpose the Service to provide any functionality or feature not part of the Service or to sell software or a web service that embeds the Service in whole or part without a written licensing arrangement with Litsoft.

Commercial use of the Service

The service may be used in a limited fashion for commercial purposes. You may provide the share and embed codes to client sites where you accept a fee for the content from the site as long as you provide this TOS and obtain the acceptance of the client site to these terms as if they were using the Service themselves with your permission for the content.

You may embed the codes provided by the Service in pages that are commercial in nature as long as the visitors to those pages are not charged directly or indirectly.

Advertising rights

Litsoft reserves the right to sell in the future advertising or promotion rights in the shared link page hosted by Litsoft without having an obligation to do so. You agree that Litsoft may keep any and all revenues that may be realized from such advertising or promotional material on the page.

You or third parties may place any content including advertising or promotional material on any third party hosted pages where the interactive crossword is embedded. You do not provide Litsoft with any rights to any revenues from such material on third-party hosted pages.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Litsoft and its owners, agents and employees from any claim or demand or reasonable attorney fees, from third parties due to or arising out of your participation in the Service, violation of the TOS, infringement of rights of others or violation of any applicable laws or regulations.

Service limitations

Litsoft may impose, in its sole discretion, limits on

Service Privacy Policy

The service requires no registration and does not collect any identifiable data other than an e-mail address for mailing the link to the share and embed codes for your crossword. This e-mail is stored for the purposes of

Litsoft will not voluntarily or knowingly share your e-mail address with any third party or publicly publish the e-mail address with the display of the uploaded crossword.

When you delete the crossword, your record of the e-mail address associated with that crossword is deleted. If you do not have any other crossword uploaded, we will no longer have your e-mail address in our active records.

Litsoft proprietary rights

You acknowledge and agree that the Service and software used in connection with the Service contains Litsoft proprietary intellectual property that is protected by copyright and applicable patent laws. You agree not to access the Service via any means other than as provided publicly by the Service.

DISCLAIMER OF WARRANTIES AND LIMITATIONS OF LIABILITY

THE SERVICE AND ALL SOFTWARE ASSOCIATED WITH THE SERVICE ARE PROVIDED "AS-IS" WITH ABSOLUTELY NO WARRANTIES. LITSOFT EXPRESSLY DISCLAIMS ANY WARRANTY REGARDING THE RELIABILITY, PERFORMANCE AND SECURITY OF YOUR CONTENT, MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR ANY PARTICULAR PURPOSE. LITSOFT PROVIDES NO WARRANTIES THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE ERROR-FREE OR UNINTERRUPTED FOR ANY PERIOD OF TIME. FURTHER, LITSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTY THAT THE SERVICE WILL CONTINUE TO BE OFFERED IN THE FUTURE.

IN NO EVENT SHALL LITSOFT BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INDIRECT DAMAGES PUNITORY OR EXEMPLARY REGARDLESS OF THE CAUSE OF THE DAMAGE INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ANY FAILURE OF THE SERVICE.

YOU UNDERSTAND AND AGREE THAT YOU USE THE SERVICE AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK AND THAT YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR BUSINESS, REPUTATION OR COMPUTER EQUIPMENT USED TO ACCESS THE SERVICE.

General

You understand and agree that this TOS is governed by the State of California and that you will submit to the personal jurisdiction of the courts in Santa Clara County of California and waive any objections to the exercise of jurisdiction over all parties by such courts and the venues within such courts.