Terms of Use & Code of Conduct

These Terms of Use and Code of Conduct set out how you may use the Forum and Communities sections of the Sony website. By using these sections of the website you agree to be bound by the terms set out below.
Please note; your use of the Forum and Communities sections of the website are also subject to the general Terms and Conditions of Website Use which can be accessed at the bottom of this (and every) page of the Sony website.

We reserve the right to amend the Code of Conduct Terms and the general Terms and Conditions of Website Use from time to time, so you should review these terms from time to time for any changes.

1. Children

Some content available via our sites may not be appropriate for children under a certain age. In some cases, ratings will be displayed to indicate the suitability of content or access may be restricted to certain age groups. Parents and guardians should supervise their children’s access to our websites and in particular, their use of any Community or Forum areas.

2. Intellectual Property

The contents of the Sony Forum and Community sections of this website are copyrighted and /or protected by other rights. All intellectual property rights in the information and content available on our sites belong to Sony or our licensors. Your use is subject to applicable copyright, trade mark and other laws.
Unless otherwise stated, content may be copied only for your personal use. Content should not be modified, performed, published, transferred to anyone else or used for any commercial purpose without the prior written permission of the copyright owner. Except to the extent permitted by applicable law, you must not disassemble, de-compile, reverse engineer or otherwise break or attempt to break encryption protecting the content.

3. Links to other sites

We have not approved or checked any third party sites linked to our sites and we are not responsible or liable in any way for their content. Your use of third party sites will be subject to the terms and conditions of those sites

4. Disclaimer

Sony does not warrant the accuracy, reliability or completeness of any information contained on our sites. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Sony, our affiliated companies and/or licensors exclude all liability for any loss or damage suffered by you or any third party whether direct or indirect, incidental or consequential and howsoever arising from your use of or access to, or inability to use or access a site, including any loss of data or damage caused by downloading content from our sites.

You may have rights as a consumer which are not affected by these Terms of Use. If any provision of these Terms of Use is deemed unlawful, void or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall continue in full force and effect.

5a. Information and Content Provided by Forum & Community Users

You are entirely responsible for any text, video, audio, images, photographs or any other materials or content you provide for our sites. Please use any available community tools responsibly. In particular, do not post content that infringes the law or third party rights, or which includes activities or statements which are discriminatory, offensive, obscene or defamatory or which may cause offence to others on grounds of nationality, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, religion, faith or disability. You should not use the forum and community areas for any commercial purpose.

You agree that third parties can download your material for private use, and free to use. The commercial use of any images requires the consent of the user or owner of the image. Sony shall not be liable for any use that violates these Terms of Use.
The preceding section shall not apply to personal information that is submitted by a user, which enables them to be identified. Any personal information provided by a user on this website will only be processed by Sony in accordance with the Privacy Statement which can be accessed on any page of this website.
You understand that we do not monitor all user-generated content on our sites and we are under no obligation to do so. However, we reserve the right to monitor all such content and, without notice, to edit, delete or remove any content which we deem to be inappropriate.
The views expressed in the community areas are those of members of the public and are not those of Sony, our affiliated companies, licensors or partners. If you believe that any content breaches these Terms of Use, please report to us on forum@eu.sony.com, with details of the breach, the username of the person responsible and the area of the site where it happened.

5b. Code of Conduct for Forum & Communities

To make sure that the forums are an enjoyable and informative place to be, please ensure that your posts agree with the following Community Guidelines and the Sony website Terms of Use.

You must not damage, interfere with or disrupt access to our sites or their content, nor do anything that may impair functionality or interfere with another person’s access to our sites or their content. You must not use the sites or their content in any way that is unlawful or damaging to Sony, our affiliated companies or any other person.
Respect your fellow community members by not creating threads or posts that intimidate, bully or insult other people. Online harassment such as trolling, flaming, thread assassination, quote hacking, browser bombing, and impersonation is also prohibited.
Trolling is deliberately posting provocative, negative or controversial messages to a thread or forum, with the intention of causing maximum disruption and argument, or to make the troll the centre of attention. Trolls will quite often try to "bait" other forum members into breaking the rules or embarrassing themselves - don't be trollbait; don't feed the trolls!
To keep things friendly, the use of swearing and vulgar language is not permitted on the Sony Forums; this includes attempts to sidestep the automatic profanity filters and the use of slang acronyms that contain swear words.
Don't post anything that could be perceived as discriminatory, gross or offensive; such as racist, sexist, pornographic, profane, vulgar, derogatory, hateful, or threatening content and “shock” images or websites.

Don’t use the forums to “name and shame” cheaters or start campaigns to get other community members evicted.
Spamming and flooding are not permitted, although high forum use is fine as long as you are sensible. Please also avoid double-posting and creating duplicate threads.
Do not post chain letters, solicitations, pyramid schemes or advertisements. While it’s fine for users to exchange opinions and advice, the forum should not be used to promote any external products or services, nor to buy or sell anything. If you wish to promote your own website, please use the biography area of your profile to include any information you wish to share about you, but don’t use your username or your signature to advertise any commercial services.
Do not post messages that support or condone any illegal activities, such as drug use, piracy, hacks, warez etc.
Do not post anything that could be considered libellous or defamatory.
Do not post copyright material on the Forum, with the exception of material that SONY holds the copyright to. Basically, this means that posting wholesale from published books, magazines, game guides etc. is a no-no, as it could land you (and us) in it.
For your own safety when online, NEVER give out personal details such as your email, surname, postal address, phone number or Blackberry ID in the Forums, and keep other personally identifiable information private. For your own privacy, please don’t include both your name and your surname in your username. If you do, our Moderators might ask you to pick a new username to protect your privacy. SONY Staff will never ask you for your password.

You can help us keep the Forum a friendly place by reporting abuse and spamming by using the ‘Report Content’ button which can be found on every forum post.

If you break the rules of conduct, either intentionally or by accident, we will either edit or remove your post. Persistent or excessive misconduct may result in a temporary or even permanent suspension of your ability to post. And because these Rules can’t cover everything, we also reserve the right to remove any content or suspend your account without prior notice and at our discretion.

7. Personal Information

Please note that any information such as email address, phone number, and others that you add in any of the below fields may be shared publicly and can be viewed by any of the registered Sony Community members.

8. Governing law

These Terms of Use are governed by English law. The contract between you and SONY is formed in England.