BSCW - Basic Support for Cooperative Work is a service developed by Fraunhofer FIT for the international scientific community. The service is provided by Fraunhofer Institute for Applied Information Technology FIT, Sankt Augustin free of charge.

The Use of the BSCW service is governed by the terms and conditions detailed below. Fraunhofer FIT reserves the right to modify these terms and conditions at any time - especially to adapt them to changes in legal, technical or organizational requirements.

The maximum amount of disk space allowed per user is 20 Megabyte. After one year of inactivity user accounts will be deleted.

Fraunhofer FIT reserves the right to terminate the BSCW service at its sole discretion with a at least 3 months’ advance notice.

Fraunhofer FIT takes no liability that the BSCW service will meet the user's requirements or purposes. As the BSCW service is provided free of charge, Fraunhofer FIT shall not be liable for any direct or indirect damages or termination resulting from the use of the BSCW service.

Fraunhofer FIT reserves the right to modify BSCW's functionality and user interface and to install new releases of BSCW.

Fraunhofer FIT undertakes reasonable efforts to provide BSCW as a reliable service. However, Fraunhofer FIT takes no warranty that the BSCW service - in whole or in part - is accessible without interruptions or for an unlimited period of time. Thus, Fraunhofer FIT shall not be liable for any direct or indirect damages resulting from the fact that the BSCW service may temporarily not be accessible.

Fraunhofer FIT undertakes every reasonable efforts to make sure that access to information in a BSCW workspace is granted or denied according to the access rights defined. However, Fraunhofer FIT takes no warranty that BSCW will block and prevent any unauthorised access by third parties to information stored in a BSCW workspace. Thus, Fraunhofer FIT shall not be liable for any direct or indirect damages resulting from unauthorized access to information stored in a BSCW workspace.

Fraunhofer FIT undertakes reasonable efforts to provide safe storage of information in a BSCW workspace. However, Fraunhofer FIT takes no warranty for a secure and permanent storage. Thus, Fraunhofer FIT shall not be liable for any direct or indirect damages which might result from information in a BSCW workspace being altered, damaged or deleted.

Each user takes unlimited liability that her/his use of the BSCW service does not infringe copyrights or intellectual property rights of third parties.

The use of BSCW is subject to German law. This forbids any use of BSCW which would violate legal terms or offend the general rules of fair dealing, including - but not limited to - storing or sharing information with pornographic or racially discriminating content. Should a user fail to comply with these obligations, Fraunhofer FIT reserves the right to exclude this user from any further use of the BSCW service and to delete any incriminating information from the server without further notice. Fraunhofer FIT reserve the right to claim damages resulting from such missuse.