California Arts & Climate Archive: Terms of Service

The California Arts & Climate Archive (“the Archive”) is a project of the University of California Climate Action Arts Network (UC CAAN), hosted by the University of California, Santa Cruz (“UC Santa Cruz,” “we,” or “us”). The Archive is a non-commercial educational resource documenting creative work that responds to climate, ecology, and environmental change across California. It is made for teaching, learning, research, and public understanding.

These terms apply when you submit a creative work, event, talk, organization, or other material to the Archive (“your submission”). By checking “I accept the Terms of Service” and submitting, you agree to them. If you submit on behalf of an organization or collective, you confirm that you are authorized to agree for them.

Your work and the permission you give

You keep ownership. Submitting does not transfer copyright or any other rights in your work. You remain free to use, license, sell, or publish it elsewhere.

The permission you give us. You grant UC Santa Cruz a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to store, reproduce, display, and share your submission for educational, research, and archival purposes only. We will not sell your submission or use it for commercial purposes. This includes:

• displaying it on the Archive website and in related UC CAAN teaching, programs, exhibitions, and non-commercial publications;
• making copies needed to preserve it, such as backups and format migrations; and
• creating descriptive information (“metadata”) about it, such as titles, dates, themes, and keywords.

Descriptive information is shared openly. The metadata we create about submissions, such as titles, dates, themes, and keywords, is dedicated to the public domain under CC0, so other archives and researchers can reuse it. This applies only to the descriptions, never to your images, video, audio, or text.

Your choices come first. If you selected a Creative Commons license, a restricted access level, or noted that Indigenous cultural protocols apply, we will follow that choice. Where your choice is narrower than the license above, your choice controls.

Removal. You may ask us to remove your submission at any time by contacting us (see Contact). We will remove it from public view within a reasonable time. Copies already made under the license, such as in printed materials or backups, may remain.

Your responsibilities

By submitting, you confirm that, to the best of your knowledge:

• you created the work, or you have permission from the rights holder to submit it under these terms, or you have marked its rights status as unknown;
• people who can be identified in your images, video, or audio have agreed to appear, or you have told us otherwise in the notes;
• the information you provide is accurate; and
• you have disclosed any meaningful use of AI tools in creating the work.

Unsure about rights? That’s fine. Select the closest option or “Orphan work (rights unknown),” and we will work it out with you before publishing.

Indigenous knowledge and cultural protocols. If your submission includes Indigenous knowledge, cultural expressions, sacred or sensitive material, or images of Indigenous community members, please select “Indigenous cultural protocols apply.” We follow the CARE Principles for Indigenous Data Governance and will consult with you and with the relevant community, where appropriate, before publishing. Communities may ask us to restrict or remove material at any time.

Please don’t submit material that:

• infringes someone else’s copyright, trademark, or privacy;
• is harassing, hateful, or threatening;
• shares private information about others without their consent; or
• contains malware or anything designed to harm the site.

How we handle submissions and your information

Review. Every submission is reviewed before anything is published. We may contact you with questions, edit or add descriptive information (titles, themes, keywords) for consistency, or link your submission to related records. We may decline or remove a submission that falls outside the Archive’s scope or these terms. Submitting does not guarantee publication.

Credit. The creator you name is credited with the work. You choose separately how you, as the submitter, are credited: privately, by name, or by name and email.

Your contact information. We use your name and email only to contact you about your submission and to keep an archival record of where it came from. We will not publish them beyond what you choose, sell them, or use them for marketing. Your information is handled in line with University of California privacy policies.

No payment. Contributions are voluntary and unpaid.

Images and materials from other sources

Some records include images or short excerpts that the Archive gathered from publicly available sources, such as artist and institutional websites, rather than receiving them through this form. We include this material only to support teaching, learning, and research about art and climate. Our approach follows the College Art Association’s Code of Best Practices in Fair Use for the Visual Arts, particularly its principles for teaching about art and for online access to archival collections.

In practice, that means:

• Purpose. We use material to document, teach, and discuss creative work, never for decoration, advertising, or commercial use.
• Only what’s needed. We use as much as the educational purpose requires, generally images at a size suited to study and discussion rather than high-resolution reproduction.
• Credit. We name the creator and source of every item and link to the original wherever possible.
• Access. Material gathered for a specific course may be limited to its students and instructors rather than shown publicly.
• Clear labels. Each record carries a rights statement so visitors know the material remains under its creator’s copyright.
• Asking first. Where we can reach creators, we seek their permission, and we invite artists to submit their own work and preferred images.

If your work appears in the Archive, you can ask us to correct the credit, replace an image with one you prefer, or remove it. Contact us (see Contact) and we will respond promptly. If you ask, we will remove the material from public view while we review your request.

Legal basics, changes, and contact

Age. You must be 18 or older to submit. Work by students under 18 may be submitted on their behalf by a teacher, parent, or guardian, who confirms they have permission from the student and the student’s parent or guardian.

No warranty. The Archive is provided as is. We work to preserve submissions but cannot guarantee that the site will always be available or that files will never be lost. Keep your own copies of your work.

Copyright concerns. If you believe something in the Archive infringes your rights, contact us and we will review it promptly, removing it from public view while we do if appropriate.

Changes to these terms. We may update these terms. Changes apply to submissions made after the update is posted. For earlier submissions, we will continue to honor the terms in place when you submitted.

Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California.

Contact. Questions, removal requests, and rights concerns: caan.ucsc@gmail.com, or use the Contact Us form on the Archive website.