Terms & Conditions

Website: https://ozeaon.com

Website operator: Ozeaon OÜ (Registry Code 17484775)

Registered address: Tornimäe tn 5, 10145 Tallinn, Kesklinna linnaosa, Harju maakond, Estonia

Contact: legal@ozeaon.com

Privacy contact: privacy@ozeaon.com

Part I — General Terms of Use

1. Introduction

These Terms & Conditions govern your access to and use of the Ozeaon website at https://ozeaon.com and any related pages, forms, early access signups, waitlist features, website content, social network features, article and project publishing features, and restricted internal or editor functionality that Ozeaon may make available.

By accessing or using the website, you agree to these Terms & Conditions. If you do not agree to these Terms & Conditions, you should not use the website.

These Terms apply to the current Ozeaon public website, including its social network features (Part IV), article and project content publishing features (Part III), and copyright and intellectual property matters (Part II). They do not yet fully govern project funding, payments, tips, paid content, subscriptions, bounties, DAO participation, Progress tokens, $OZN utility, NFTs, IP-NFTs, OCIS climate intelligence, dMRV monitoring and reports, AI Footprint, or project verification workflows. Before those features are launched publicly, Ozeaon may publish additional payment terms, funding terms, governance terms, token terms, risk notices, verification terms, OCIS terms, dMRV terms, or other service-specific agreements. Part VI sets out, ahead of that launch, which project types will not be permitted through the project funding feature once it exists.

2. Who We Are

The Ozeaon website is operated by:

Ozeaon OÜ (17484775)
Tornimäe tn 5, 10145 Tallinn, Kesklinna linnaosa, Harju maakond, Estonia
Email: legal@ozeaon.com

Ozeaon OÜ is registered in the Estonian Commercial Register under registry code 17484775. Ozeaon OÜ's Estonian VAT identification number is EE17484775. This information, together with the contact details above, constitutes the mandatory trader identification information required under the Estonian Information Society Services Act (Infoühiskonna teenuse seadus) and, where applicable, Regulation (EU) 2019/1150.

Ozeaon's holding company is:

Ozeaon Pte. Ltd. (202535133H)
133 New Bridge Road, #08-01, Chinatown Point, Singapore 059413

Unless otherwise stated, references to “Ozeaon,” “we,” “us,” or “our” in these Terms mean Ozeaon OÜ in relation to the current website.

3. What Ozeaon Is

Ozeaon is a regenerative innovation platform being developed to connect knowledge, learning, publishing, projects, organisations, funding, governance, and verification across ocean, climate, land, and sustainability-related work.

The current website provides information about Ozeaon, its mission, its platform roadmap, its current and planned features, early access opportunities, educational content, project information, organisation information, published articles, social network participation, and related communications.

Some features described on the website may be planned, in development, experimental, in beta, restricted to internal testing, or subject to future launch conditions.

4. Eligibility

You may use the website if you are legally able to enter into these Terms under the laws that apply to you. The current website is not intentionally directed at children under the age required by applicable law for independent consent. Ozeaon's social network features carry a specific, higher age requirement — see Section 17.

If you are using the website on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to do so and to bind that organisation where applicable.

5. Use of the Website

You may use the website for lawful, personal, informational, educational, professional, partnership, publishing, social, or early access purposes.

You agree not to use the website in a way that:

• violates any applicable law or regulation
• infringes the rights of Ozeaon or any third party
• interferes with the security, operation, or availability of the website
• attempts to gain unauthorised access to systems, accounts, databases, infrastructure, or restricted areas
• introduces malware, malicious code, scraping systems, bots, spam, or harmful automated activity

6. Restricted Studio, Editor, and Administrative Access

Ozeaon may provide restricted access to Studio, editor, administrative, or internal website tools for authorised team members, collaborators, contractors, or partners.

If you are given access to restricted functionality, you agree to:

• keep login credentials secure
• use access only for authorised purposes
• not share credentials with others
• follow Ozeaon's instructions, policies, and content workflows
• protect confidential information
• report suspected unauthorised access or security issues promptly
• not upload unlawful, infringing, harmful, malicious, or unauthorised content

Ozeaon may suspend or revoke restricted access at any time where necessary for security, operational, legal, editorial, or organisational reasons.

7. User Submissions

The website may allow you to submit information, messages, interests, contact details, organisation details, project details, articles, posts, comments, files, images, feedback, or other materials.

You are responsible for the content you submit. You confirm that:

• you have the right to submit the content
• the content is accurate to the best of your knowledge
• the content does not infringe any third-party rights
• the content does not violate applicable law
• the content does not contain malware or harmful code
• the content does not contain confidential information you are not authorised to share
• the content does not include sensitive personal data unless Ozeaon specifically requests it through an appropriate process

For submissions specifically involving copyright, intellectual property, or cultural-knowledge rights, Section 25 in Part II sets out more detailed confirmations you make when submitting content. Where a form or account creation flow asks you to opt in to communications from Ozeaon, Section 112 explains how that works and how to unsubscribe.

Ozeaon may remove, reject, moderate, edit, or decline to publish submitted content where necessary to protect the website, comply with law, maintain quality standards, or protect users, partners, communities, or third-party rights.

8. Licence to User Submissions

You retain ownership of any rights you hold in content you submit to Ozeaon. By submitting content, you grant Ozeaon a licence to use it as necessary to operate the website and deliver the feature you submitted it through. The full terms of this licence — its scope, purpose, and limits — are set out in Section 26 (Licence Granted to Ozeaon for Submitted Content) in Part II; where a feature offers its own access level or licence choice, such as publishing under Part III, that choice governs how your content may be further used.

9. Ozeaon-Owned Content

Unless otherwise stated, content on the Ozeaon website is owned by Ozeaon, licensed to Ozeaon, or used with permission, and all rights are reserved unless a specific licence or permission is clearly stated. You may view, share, and link to public Ozeaon website pages for lawful informational purposes; uses beyond that are restricted. See Sections 20, 21, and 31 in Part II for the full detail on Ozeaon's content ownership, copyright notice, and permitted and prohibited uses.

10. Trademarks and Brand Use

"Ozeaon," the Ozeaon name, logo, brand identity, platform names, product names, and related marks are trademarks, trade names, or brand assets of Ozeaon. You may not use Ozeaon's name, logo, or brand assets in a way that suggests endorsement, partnership, sponsorship, approval, or affiliation without written permission. See Section 22 (Trademarks and Brand Assets) in Part II for the full detail, including how to request permission to use Ozeaon's brand assets.

11. AI-Assisted Content and Copyright

Users remain responsible for ensuring that any AI-assisted content they submit, publish, upload, or use through Ozeaon does not infringe copyright, privacy rights, confidentiality obligations, Indigenous knowledge rights, database rights, trade secrets, or other third-party rights. The full rules governing AI-assisted content are set out in Section 29 in Part II.

12. Open-Source Software and Third-Party Code

The website may include or rely on open-source software, third-party libraries, frameworks, APIs, infrastructure services, analytics tools, fonts, images, icons, and other technical or licensed components, which may be subject to their own licences, notices, conditions, and restrictions. The full detail is set out in Section 30 in Part II.

13. Third-Party Content, Links, and Services

The website may link to third-party websites, services, organisations, reports, social media pages, publications, platforms, or resources. Ozeaon is not responsible for third-party websites, content, practices, policies, accuracy, availability, security, or services. Links are provided for convenience, context, attribution, or further reading and do not necessarily imply endorsement. Your use of third-party services may be subject to their own terms and privacy policies.

14. Accuracy of Information

Ozeaon aims to provide accurate, useful, and up-to-date information, but the website may contain errors, omissions, outdated information, incomplete information, or content that changes over time. Platform descriptions, feature lists, roadmap information, launch plans, pricing, technical plans, token references, governance structures, OCIS capabilities, dMRV functionality, AI Footprint features, and other future-facing statements may change. Ozeaon may update, remove, revise, or discontinue website content at any time.

15. Roadmap, Beta, and Planned Features

Some information on the website may describe planned, future, beta, experimental, restricted, or phased features. These may include:

• project funding
• payments, tips, and paid content
• subscriptions
• bounties
• DAO participation
• Progress tokens
• $OZN utility
• NFTs and IP-NFTs
• OCIS project intelligence
• Project Integrity Scoring
• dMRV monitoring and reporting
• AI Footprint
• project verification workflows
• mobile applications
• marketplace features
• ecosystem governance features

These features may not be available yet, may be changed before launch, may be delayed, may be restricted by eligibility, may require additional terms, or may not be launched in the form described. Nothing on the website guarantees that any planned feature will be launched, available in your jurisdiction, available at a specific time, or available without additional terms, fees, eligibility requirements, compliance checks, or technical limitations.

16. No Professional Advice

The website is provided for general informational and educational purposes. Nothing on the website constitutes financial, legal, tax, scientific, technical, environmental, or regulatory advice, and you should seek independent professional advice appropriate to your circumstances before relying on website content for a significant decision.

17. Social Network Use and Eligibility

Ozeaon's social network features — including profiles, posts, comments, following, and messaging — are available only to users who are at least 18 years old, or the age of majority in your jurisdiction if higher. By creating a profile or otherwise participating in Ozeaon's social features, you confirm you meet this requirement, and Ozeaon collects an affirmative age confirmation at signup for these features.

Use of the social network is additionally governed by Part IV of these Terms (Sections 64–74), which sets out detailed conduct standards, prohibited behaviour, reporting, and enforcement specific to social participation. Content you post, share, or otherwise submit through the social network is subject to Section 7 (User Submissions) and Section 64 (Acceptable Use), as extended by Part IV.

18. Publishing Articles and Project Content: Overview

Ozeaon allows users, researchers, and organisations to publish articles, research content, and project descriptions on the platform, for informational and knowledge-sharing purposes.

Publishing an article is governed in full by Part III of these Terms (Sections 41–63 below), which sets out licensing choices, access levels, authorship and provenance requirements, and Indigenous and local knowledge protections specific to published articles.

Publishing a project description — including a project's stated goals, background, and reporting, but not any project funding, payment, or reward mechanic, which remains outside the scope of these Terms until Ozeaon publishes separate funding-specific terms — is governed by Section 62 together with Part II (Copyright and Intellectual Property).

Part II — Copyright and Intellectual Property

19. Introduction and Scope

This Part explains how copyright, intellectual property, platform content, user submissions, third-party materials, open knowledge, and rights complaints are handled on Ozeaon. It applies platform-wide — to the current public website, restricted Studio and editor functionality, and the publishing features set out in Part III — and should be read together with Ozeaon's Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy. The general scope limitations on these Terms, including which planned features are not yet fully governed, are set out in Section 1 and Section 15.

20. Ozeaon-Owned Content

Unless otherwise stated, content on the Ozeaon website is owned by Ozeaon, licensed to Ozeaon, or used with permission. This includes text, graphics, logos, icons, images, videos, animations, diagrams, illustrations, interface designs, page layouts, website copy, educational content, project descriptions, reports, specifications, product descriptions, software elements, databases, design systems, brand materials, documentation, trademarks, trade names, platform architecture, and visual identity elements. All rights are reserved unless a specific licence or permission is clearly stated. You may view, share, and link to public Ozeaon website pages for lawful informational purposes. Uses beyond that — copying, reproduction, commercial exploitation, and similar — are restricted; see Section 31 for the full list of prohibited uses.

21. Copyright Notice

Unless otherwise stated:

© 2026 Ozeaon. All rights reserved.

This notice applies to Ozeaon's website content, brand materials, original written content, visual assets, interface designs, diagrams, documentation, and other materials created or owned by Ozeaon. The absence of a copyright notice on a specific page, image, file, document, or asset does not mean the material is free to use.

22. Trademarks and Brand Assets

"Ozeaon," the Ozeaon name, logo, visual identity, product names, platform names, slogans, and related brand assets are trademarks, trade names, or brand materials of Ozeaon. You may not use them in a way that suggests endorsement, partnership, sponsorship, approval, accreditation, verification, investment status, or affiliation without written permission.

You may refer to Ozeaon factually, provided the reference is accurate, not misleading, and does not misuse Ozeaon's brand. Requests to use Ozeaon brand assets should be sent to legal@ozeaon.com.

23. Third-Party Content and Licensed Materials

The Ozeaon website may include or refer to third-party content, materials, services, reports, publications, images, icons, software, open-source libraries, fonts, APIs, tools, datasets, links, or resources. Third-party materials remain the property of their respective owners. Where Ozeaon uses third-party materials, it does so under an appropriate licence, permission, legal exception, or attribution basis.

Do not assume that third-party content appearing on or linked from the Ozeaon website is owned by Ozeaon or available for reuse — it may be subject to separate licences, rights, restrictions, or terms from the relevant rights holder.

24. Open Knowledge, Educational Resources, and Licensing

Ozeaon supports open knowledge, open science, educational access, and responsible knowledge-sharing. However, "open," "FAIR," "educational," or "accessible" does not automatically mean content is free from copyright, unrestricted, or available for commercial reuse.

Where Educational Resources, articles, reports, media, tutorials, datasets, or other materials are published under a specific licence, that licence controls how the material may be used. Licences may include, for example:

• all rights reserved
• attribution-required licences
• Creative Commons licences
• open-access licences
• restricted educational-use licences
• non-commercial-use licences
• no-derivatives licences
• platform-specific contributor licences
• access-by-request arrangements

Users must check the licence, attribution requirements, reuse conditions, and source information before copying, adapting, distributing, translating, teaching from, publishing, or commercialising any material.

25. User Submissions: Rights and Confirmations

This Section extends Section 7 (User Submissions) with confirmations specific to copyright, intellectual property, and cultural-knowledge rights, and applies to information, messages, interests, contact details, organisation details, project details, files, images, feedback, or other materials submitted through current or future Ozeaon features, including articles, media, tutorials, project pages, Educational Resources, Open Calls, bounties, NFTs, IP-NFTs, and public uploads.

You are responsible for any content you submit. By submitting content, you confirm that:

• you own the content or have the necessary rights, licences, permissions, and authority to submit it
• it does not infringe copyright, trademark, privacy, confidentiality, database rights, moral rights, cultural rights, Indigenous knowledge rights, or other third-party rights
• it does not contain unlawful, harmful, defamatory, misleading, or infringing material
• it does not contain malware, spyware, malicious code, or harmful files
• it does not include confidential information you are not authorised to share
• it does not include sensitive personal data unless Ozeaon specifically requests it through an appropriate protected process
• it does not include restricted cultural knowledge, sacred knowledge, community-held knowledge, or Indigenous knowledge unless you have the appropriate rights, consent, context, authority, and permission

Ozeaon may remove, reject, moderate, edit, restrict, or decline to publish submitted content where necessary to protect the website, comply with law, maintain quality standards, protect rights holders, protect communities, or protect users.

26. Licence Granted to Ozeaon for Submitted Content

You retain ownership of any copyright or intellectual property rights you hold in content you submit to Ozeaon. By submitting content, you grant Ozeaon a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use, store, process, copy, display, adapt, publish, transmit, and review that content as necessary to operate the website, respond to your request, manage early access or waitlist participation, review partnership or project enquiries, provide requested communications, maintain internal records, improve and develop Ozeaon, operate restricted Studio or content workflows where applicable, and comply with legal, security, or operational obligations.

This licence does not transfer ownership of your content to Ozeaon. If Ozeaon wishes to publicly publish, feature, commercialise, sell, license, or otherwise use your submitted content beyond the purposes reasonably connected to your submission, Ozeaon will seek your permission or rely on separate contributor, platform, publication, partnership, or feature-specific terms — including, for published articles, the licence and access level you select under Part III.

Future public publishing features may require additional contributor terms explaining how content is displayed, licensed, monetised, moderated, promoted, stored, removed, attributed, or shared.

27. Moral Rights and Attribution

Where applicable, authors and creators may have moral rights, attribution rights, integrity rights, or similar rights under applicable law. Ozeaon respects attribution and authorship where appropriate.

Users must not remove, falsify, obscure, or misrepresent copyright notices, licence information, attribution statements, author names, source references, metadata, or rights-management information. Where content is contributed by researchers, educators, artists, designers, scientists, organisations, communities, or project teams, Ozeaon may require appropriate attribution, source links, metadata, references, or licence information.

28. Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Cultural Materials

Ozeaon may describe or develop educational resources, hubs, or platform features connected to Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, cultural heritage, traditional ecological knowledge, community-led conservation, place-based stewardship, and cultural materials.

Not all knowledge should be treated as open content. Some knowledge may require consent, community review, restricted access, attribution, cultural protocols, custodianship, or non-public handling. Users must not submit, publish, share, copy, extract, commercialise, tokenize, mint, license, train AI systems on, or reuse Indigenous, local, cultural, sacred, restricted, or community-held knowledge unless they have the appropriate rights, permissions, consent, authority, and cultural context to do so.

Ozeaon may remove, restrict, reject, require additional review, or apply access controls to content that appears to involve culturally sensitive, restricted, misappropriated, unauthorised, or improperly attributed knowledge.

Ozeaon's approach to Indigenous and local knowledge is guided by consent, attribution, custodianship, cultural sensitivity, reciprocity, community review, access control, and knowledge sovereignty.

This Section governs substantively wherever Indigenous or local knowledge appears on the platform, including in published articles (Section 51) and project content (Section 62).

29. AI-Assisted Content and Copyright

Ozeaon may describe or use AI-supported tools as part of current or future platform development. Users remain responsible for ensuring that any AI-assisted content they submit, publish, upload, or use through Ozeaon does not infringe copyright, privacy rights, confidentiality obligations, Indigenous knowledge rights, database rights, trade secrets, or other third-party rights.

Users should not submit AI-generated or AI-assisted content that:

• copies protected works without permission
• imitates living artists or identifiable creators in a misleading or infringing way
• includes copyrighted text, images, audio, video, datasets, or media without appropriate rights
• misrepresents authorship or source material
• contains confidential or restricted information
• contains culturally sensitive or restricted knowledge without permission
• violates applicable platform rules, laws, or third-party terms

Future AI-related platform features may require additional AI content rules, disclosure rules, attribution rules, training-data restrictions, or verification procedures.

30. Open-Source Software and Third-Party Code

The website may include or rely on open-source software, third-party libraries, frameworks, APIs, infrastructure services, analytics tools, fonts, and other technical components. These materials may be subject to their own licences, notices, conditions, and restrictions. Nothing in these Terms grants users rights to open-source or third-party materials except where those rights are clearly provided by the relevant licence or rights holder. Ozeaon complies with applicable open-source licence obligations and third-party software terms.

31. Unauthorised Use of Ozeaon Content

Unless permitted by law or expressly authorised by Ozeaon, users must not:

• copy, reproduce, republish, redistribute, or commercially exploit Ozeaon content
• sell or license Ozeaon content
• scrape, harvest, or extract Ozeaon content or data
• remove copyright notices, licence notices, author credits, or source references
• use Ozeaon content to train AI systems without permission
• create misleading derivative works from Ozeaon content
• imply that Ozeaon endorses an unauthorised product, project, organisation, or service
• use Ozeaon brand assets without permission
• mint NFTs, IP-NFTs, tokens, or digital assets using Ozeaon content without permission
• use Ozeaon content in a way that violates law, rights, or these Terms

32. Reporting Copyright or Intellectual Property Infringement

If you believe content on the Ozeaon website infringes your copyright or intellectual property rights, send a notice to legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Copyright / IP Complaint," including:

• your full name and organisation, if applicable
• your contact email address
• a description of the copyrighted work or protected material
• the URL or location of the allegedly infringing material on Ozeaon
• evidence that you own the rights or are authorised to act for the rights holder
• a clear explanation of why you believe the use is unauthorised or infringing
• any relevant registration, publication, licence, attribution, or ownership information
• the action you request — removal, attribution correction, access restriction, or further review
• a statement that the information in your notice is accurate to the best of your knowledge

Ozeaon may request additional information where needed to assess the complaint.

33. Ozeaon's Response to Complaints

When Ozeaon receives a copyright or intellectual property complaint, it may take steps such as acknowledging receipt, reviewing the complaint, requesting additional information, temporarily restricting or removing access to the disputed material, contacting the user or contributor who submitted it, correcting attribution or licence information, restoring content where the complaint appears invalid or resolved, preserving records for legal, security, or dispute-resolution purposes, and referring the matter to legal advisers where appropriate.

Ozeaon may act quickly where a complaint appears credible, urgent, legally significant, or connected to sensitive cultural, community, or Indigenous knowledge. Ozeaon may decline to act where a complaint is incomplete, abusive, misleading, unsupported, fraudulent, or outside the scope of copyright or intellectual property rights.

34. Disputing a Complaint

If content you submitted has been removed, restricted, or challenged, contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Copyright / IP Dispute," including:

• your full name and contact email address
• the content or URL involved
• why you believe you had the right to submit, publish, or use the content
• any relevant licences, permissions, contracts, attribution records, source links, or ownership information
• whether the content was original, licensed, public domain, open access, fair dealing/fair use, permitted by exception, or used with consent
• any other information that may help Ozeaon review the dispute

Ozeaon may review the dispute, request additional information, maintain the restriction, restore the content, or require the parties to resolve the matter directly.

35. Repeat Infringement and Misuse

Ozeaon may restrict, suspend, or terminate access to website features, restricted tools, public publishing features, or future platform accounts where a user repeatedly submits infringing, unlawful, unauthorised, or rights-violating content. Ozeaon may also restrict users who repeatedly submit false, abusive, misleading, or bad-faith copyright complaints.

36. Public Domain, Open Access, and Licence Claims

Users must be careful when claiming that content is public domain, open access, Creative Commons licensed, or otherwise free to use. Before submitting or publishing such content, check:

• the source, licence, and author
• attribution, commercial-use, and derivative-use restrictions
• jurisdictional rules and database rights
• image, music, video, and personality rights
• cultural or community permissions
• whether the content has been modified or adapted
• whether the licence applies to all parts of the material

Public availability online does not mean content is free to copy, reuse, publish, commercialise, tokenize, or upload to Ozeaon.

37. Research, Citation, and Fair Use / Fair Dealing

Ozeaon supports research, education, commentary, criticism, citation, and open knowledge. However, users remain responsible for ensuring their use of third-party materials is lawful. Depending on the jurisdiction, copyright law may allow limited uses for purposes such as quotation, criticism, review, education, research, parody, or news reporting — these exceptions vary by country and context.

Do not assume a use is lawful merely because it is educational, non-commercial, research-related, or attributed. Where appropriate, use short quotations, cite sources clearly, link to original materials, use open-licensed materials, request permission, or avoid reproducing protected content.

38. NFT, IP-NFT, Token, and Digital Asset Restrictions

Future Ozeaon platform features may allow users or organisations to mint NFTs, create IP-NFTs, use $OZN, or connect content and innovation assets to digital records.

Users must not mint, tokenize, register, sell, license, or represent digital assets based on content, media, intellectual property, research outputs, project documentation, cultural materials, Indigenous knowledge, brand assets, or third-party works unless they have the appropriate rights and permissions. Creating an NFT, IP-NFT, token, or digital record does not create copyright ownership where the user does not already hold the relevant rights, and does not replace formal legal protections, patent registration, contracts, technology transfer agreements, licensing agreements, or professional intellectual property advice. Future NFT, IP-NFT, token, and digital asset features may be subject to additional terms, eligibility requirements, jurisdictional restrictions, and legal review.

39. Project, Research, and Organisation Content

Users and organisations may submit or publish project descriptions, research summaries, media, tutorials, files, images, project documentation, environmental data, or organisation information through current or future Ozeaon features, and are responsible for ensuring they have the necessary rights to do so. This includes ensuring that:

• co-authors are properly credited
• institutional permissions are respected
• funder or grant conditions are followed
• research publication rules are respected
• confidential data is not disclosed without permission
• personal data is not uploaded unlawfully
• third-party images, diagrams, maps, data, or reports are used lawfully
• project partners have authorised publication where needed
• Indigenous, local, or community-held knowledge is handled with consent and context, consistent with Section 28

Ozeaon may require additional review, attribution, metadata, licences, or documentation for project, research, and organisation content.

40. Removal Does Not Waive Rights

If Ozeaon removes, restricts, corrects, or declines to publish content, this does not mean Ozeaon accepts liability, admits infringement, waives rights, or agrees with every claim made by a complainant. Ozeaon may take practical action to manage risk, protect users, protect rights holders, protect communities, or maintain platform integrity.

Part III — Publishing: Articles and Project Content

41. Publishing Scope: Article Types Covered

This Part applies to all article types available on the platform, including Research, Intellectual Property, Innovation/Concept, Field & Local Insight, Blog/Opinion, Educational/Informational, Project Log, and Volunteering & Conservation types. The licensing, access, authorship, and reader-interaction provisions in this Part apply consistently across all article types, except where Section 60 notes a type-specific consideration.

42. Author Rights — You Retain Copyright

You retain copyright, and all other intellectual property rights, in any article you publish on Ozeaon. By submitting an article, you grant Ozeaon a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, display, process, and distribute your article on the platform, and to make it available to readers in accordance with the access level and licence you select for that submission (Sections 43–45). This licence is granted to Ozeaon only for the purpose of operating the platform and delivering your article as you have configured it — it does not transfer ownership, does not give Ozeaon any right to sublicense your work for purposes beyond operating the platform, and does not limit your ability to publish the same work elsewhere.

This is consistent with, and extends, the licence described in Section 26 (Licence Granted to Ozeaon for Submitted Content) to the specific case of published articles.

43. Choosing a Licence for Your Submission

Each article is published under a licence that you choose at submission, from a configured list that may include Creative Commons licences (such as CC BY, CC BY-SA, or CC0) and other licence types Ozeaon makes available, or a custom licence you specify in the free-text field where Ozeaon permits this. The licence you select controls how readers and other users may reuse your article, consistent with Section 24 (Open Knowledge, Educational Resources, and Licensing). You are responsible for understanding what the licence you select actually permits. The licence is displayed in the always-visible License & Access Panel on the article's page (Section 45) and is never hidden behind a tab — reuse terms must be visible to a reader without requiring extra clicks.

You choose a licence separately for each submission. If you do not make a selection, Ozeaon will treat the submission as incomplete and will not publish it until a licence is chosen.

Once published, a licence grant to readers who have already accessed or copied your article under that licence cannot be retroactively withdrawn, consistent with how open licences generally work — changing your licence choice or deleting the article later (Section 58) affects future access, not rights already validly granted to existing readers.

44. Reuse Permissions: Commercial Use and Derivatives

In addition to selecting a licence, you will confirm at submission whether commercial use of your article is permitted, and whether derivative works based on your article are permitted, both displayed in the License & Access Panel. These settings work together with your licence choice — where a selected licence (such as CC BY-NC or CC BY-ND) already restricts commercial use or derivatives, your settings should be consistent with that licence, and Ozeaon may prompt you to correct an inconsistency.

45. Access Levels and What Each Means

You may publish an article under one of the following access levels, displayed in the always-visible License & Access Panel:

• Open — available to any reader, immediately, consistent with your selected licence.
• Scheduled — held until a publish date you set.
• Gated: Connections Only — available only to users connected to you on the platform.
• Gated: By Request — available only to readers who request and are granted access.
• Embargoed — held until an embargo end date you set. Before the embargo date is reached, the article's title, subtitle, abstract, author and provenance information, licence, and other identity metadata remain visible to readers, but the full text of the article is withheld until the embargo lifts. This preserves the article's citability and discoverability during the embargo period while respecting the embargo itself — useful where you need to remain consistent with a separate publisher's embargo policy (see Section 53).
• Token-gated / Payment-gated — available only on payment or token-based access, where the platform's Content Payments infrastructure supports this. Pricing, currency, and preview-rule configuration for this access level are not yet available and will be introduced in a later phase; until then, this access level cannot be selected for a live submission.

Where an article is gated or embargoed, the article's page structure (tabs, sections) still displays to a reader, but shows an access-gate state rather than the underlying content, consistent with Section 46 (Attribution) still being visible regardless of access level.

Choosing an access level other than Open does not change your underlying copyright or licence — it only controls who can currently view the article. You may change an article's access level after publication, subject to Section 54 (Revision History and Changelog), which will record the change, and Section 58 (Owner Controls After Publication).

46. Attribution

Ozeaon automatically generates a suggested attribution text for your article, drawn from the author name(s), title, platform URL, and DOI (where present). This auto-generated text is provided as a convenience for readers who wish to cite your work correctly — you remain responsible under Section 27 (Moral Rights and Attribution) for ensuring author names, affiliations, and other attribution-relevant information you provide are accurate, since the auto-generated text is only as accurate as the information you submit. Attribution information remains visible even where an article is gated or embargoed (Section 45), since it is part of the article's identity metadata rather than its full-text content.

47. Jurisdiction and Legal Notes Field

Where relevant, you may add free-text notes describing legal constraints on your article — for example, export control restrictions, consent limitations on data included in the article, or jurisdiction-specific restrictions on reuse. This field is optional and does not substitute for selecting the correct licence and access level; it is a supplementary notice to readers and does not itself create or waive any legal obligation.

48. Authorship, Affiliations, Contributor Information, and Discovery Metadata

You must provide the name of each author of the article. Where available, you should provide each author's ORCID identifier and institutional affiliation, and may link the article to an organisation on the platform where relevant. Accurate authorship information is required under Section 39 (Project, Research, and Organisation Content), which requires that co-authors are properly credited.

Articles may also display Categories, Subcategories, and SDG (Sustainable Development Goal) badges to support discovery and browsing. These are discovery and classification metadata only — selecting a category, subcategory, or SDG badge has no effect on an article's licence, access level, or reuse permissions, which are governed exclusively by Sections 43–45.

Where the platform supports assigning specific contributor roles (for example, using the CRediT taxonomy) in a later phase, the same accuracy requirement described above will apply to that information once available.

49. Funding Source Disclosure

Where applicable, you should disclose the funding source(s) for your article — for example, a grant, institutional sponsor, or self-funded status — and link the article to a related project on the platform where one exists. Accurate funding disclosure is part of respecting funder conditions under Section 39, and helps readers and institutions assess the provenance of published work.

50. Geographic Scope

Where relevant to your article (for example, field research, local case studies, or regionally specific findings), you may indicate whether the article's scope is global, regional, or local, including relevant country information. This is informational and does not itself restrict who may read or reuse the article — that is governed by your access level and licence choices in Sections 43–45.

51. Indigenous and Local Knowledge

Content published, submitted, or shared on Ozeaon must not include Indigenous, local, or community-held knowledge unless the person submitting it has the appropriate rights, permissions, consent, authority, and cultural context to do so. Section 28 sets out Ozeaon's substantive Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Cultural Materials policy, which governs across the platform and is incorporated here by reference.

For published articles specifically, if your article contains, describes, or draws on Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, cultural heritage, traditional ecological knowledge, or community-held knowledge, you must indicate this at submission using the Indigenous/Local Knowledge flag.

Where this flag is set to yes, a basic consent acknowledgement is required in Phase 1 — a short confirmation that you have appropriate rights, permissions, consent, authority, and cultural context to publish the knowledge described, displayed alongside the flag in the article's Authorship & Provenance block, visible to readers. The more detailed regional and cultural taxonomy fields (Indigenous macro-region, sub-region, cultural area, specific peoples or nations, and local territory/community) remain a later-phase enhancement (Section 61) — but the consent acknowledgement itself is treated as a Phase 1 requirement, not deferred, given how central this protection is to Ozeaon's mission and institutional relationships.

This same standard applies to Indigenous, local, or community-held knowledge included in project descriptions and other platform content generally, consistent with Section 62 (Project Content Publishing) and Section 39 (Project, Research, and Organisation Content).

52. Review Status Labels

Articles may display a review status: Unreviewed (the default for a newly published article), Community-reviewed or Expert-reviewed (where the platform's review features have been used), or DAO-approved. The DAO-approved status is not currently available, since it depends on DAO governance functionality that has not yet launched — this label will remain inactive until that feature exists.

53. Versioning, Persistent Identifiers, and the Version of Record

Each article receives a permanent platform URL when first saved as a draft, and a version number that begins at v1.0 on first publication. Subsequent edits are recorded as new versions, with a changelog entry describing what changed (Section 54). The current version number, platform URL, and DOI (where provided) are always visible in the article's identity header, alongside the article's title, subtitle, and language.

You may optionally provide a DOI where one exists (most relevant for Research and Intellectual Property article types). Where an article has also been submitted to, or published by, a separate journal or publisher, you are responsible for ensuring your Ozeaon submission is consistent with any embargo, exclusivity, or version-of-record conditions imposed by that publisher — Ozeaon's platform is intended to host author-submitted versions (such as preprints or accepted manuscripts) and does not represent itself as a substitute for, or competitor to, formal journal publication. Use the Embargoed access level (Section 45) where you need to delay full-text availability to remain consistent with an external publisher's policy.

54. Revision History and Changelog

Every publish action and subsequent edit creates a changelog entry, maintaining a version history of the article, viewable by readers as an expandable changelog alongside the Authorship & Provenance block. You should provide a short description of what changed with each edit — this supports transparency for readers, co-authors, and institutions relying on the article, and creates a clear record if a dispute arises about what an article said at a particular point in time or when an access level or licence was changed.

55. Reader Interactions: Voting, Sharing, Favouriting, Bookmarking, and Tipping

Readers may interact with a published article through upvoting, downvoting, sharing, favouriting, and bookmarking/saving it as a note. These interactions do not grant the reader any reuse right beyond what the article's licence and access level already permit (Sections 43–45), and do not affect the author's underlying copyright.

Where tipping is enabled for an article, a reader may send a monetary tip to the author, processed through the same payment infrastructure used for Ozeaon's Tips & Content Payments feature. Tipping is a separate, voluntary payment of appreciation — it does not purchase any additional reuse right in the article beyond the licence already in place, and is governed by Ozeaon's Creator Monetisation Terms rather than by this Part.

56. Reporting and Flagging an Article

Any reader may flag or report an article — for example, where it appears to breach this Part, contain unlawful content, misuse Indigenous or local knowledge without consent, or otherwise breach these Terms. This general reporting function is separate from a copyright or intellectual property complaint, which is handled under Sections 32–35 in Part II, and separate from a report that the article's content is illegal, which is handled under Part V (Illegal Content Reporting, Sections 75–90). A single report may sometimes raise more than one of these concerns, in which case Ozeaon will coordinate its review rather than requiring separate submissions. Ozeaon will review flagged articles and may take any of the actions described in Section 63.

57. Blocking Another User (Article Context)

A reader may block another user from an article's overflow menu. Blocking affects how content and interactions appear between the two users going forward and is a personal moderation tool for the blocking user — it is not a report to Ozeaon and does not, by itself, trigger a review of the blocked user's content under Section 56. This is the same underlying blocking mechanism described in Section 72 for the social network generally; the same tool applies wherever you interact with another user's content on the platform.

58. Owner Controls After Publication: Edit, Delete, Archive, Visibility

As the author (or an authorised co-author), you may edit, delete, archive, or change the visibility/access level of your article after publication, from the article's overflow menu. Editing creates a new version and changelog entry (Sections 53–54).

Archiving removes an article from active discovery and browsing while preserving its record and, where already accessed by readers under its existing licence, does not withdraw rights already granted to them (Section 43).

Deleting removes the article from the platform going forward, but, consistent with Section 43, does not retroactively revoke a licence already validly granted to readers who accessed or copied the article beforehand, and does not erase Ozeaon's record-keeping obligations where retention is required for legal, complaint-handling, or dispute-resolution purposes.

Changing visibility/access level (for example, from Open to Gated, or vice versa) takes effect going forward and is recorded in the changelog (Section 54); it does not change the licence already granted for versions previously accessed under a different access level.

59. Submission Attestation

Before an article is published, you will be asked to confirm the following, consistent with Section 39 (Project, Research, and Organisation Content):

• you own the content, or have the necessary rights, licences, permissions, and authority to publish it
• co-authors have been properly credited and, where required, have consented to publication
• any applicable institutional permissions, funder conditions, or research publication rules have been followed
• the article does not disclose confidential information without authorisation
• any third-party images, diagrams, maps, data, or reports used are used lawfully
• where the article involves Indigenous, local, or community-held knowledge, the consent acknowledgement in Section 51 has been completed

This attestation is a condition of publishing, not a passive notice — declining to confirm any item will prevent publication until the underlying issue is resolved.

60. Notes on Specific Article Types

Intellectual Property articles: selecting this article type and publishing a description of an invention, method, or innovation does not itself create, register, or protect any patent, trade secret, or other formal IP right. Formal IP protection generally requires separate registration or professional advice, and publishing publicly may affect your ability to seek certain protections (such as patent novelty) in some jurisdictions. Consider seeking IP advice before publishing under this article type if formal protection may be relevant to you.

Field & Local Insight and Volunteering & Conservation articles are the types most likely to involve Indigenous or local knowledge, third-party location data, or community consent issues — Section 51 applies with particular relevance to these types.

Blog/Opinion and Educational/Informational articles remain subject to the same licensing and attribution requirements as other types, notwithstanding their more informal tone.

61. Publishing Fields Present but Not Yet Operative (Phase 2 / Phase 3)

The article submission and display schema includes several fields that are visible or planned but not yet functional:

• multi-language submissions (single language only in Phase 1)
• author-controlled major/minor version-bump selection with change summaries (versioning is currently system-driven only)
• CRediT contributor role taxonomy
• detailed Indigenous/local knowledge regional and cultural taxonomy fields (macro-region, sub-region, cultural area, specific peoples/nations, local territory/community) — the basic consent acknowledgement itself is operative in Phase 1 (Section 51)
• linked DAO treasury as a funding source, and "DAO-approved" review status
• linked Pod as an organisation type
• token-gated / payment-gated access pricing and preview rules

None of these create obligations or options for authors until Ozeaon updates these Terms to reflect their availability.

62. Project Content Publishing

Publishing a project description — including a project's stated goals, background, and reporting, but not any project funding, payment, or reward mechanic, which remains outside the scope of these Terms until Ozeaon publishes separate funding-specific terms — is governed by these Terms together with Section 39 (Project, Research, and Organisation Content) and Section 28 (Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Cultural Materials), and requires the same accuracy, rights, and consent standards as an article: you are responsible for ensuring you have the necessary rights to publish the content, that co-authors and contributors are properly credited, that institutional permissions and funder conditions are respected, and that any Indigenous, local, or community-held knowledge is handled with consent and context, consistent with Section 51 above. Where a project description also seeks funding, Part VI (Prohibited Project Types) sets out which project types are not permitted through the project funding feature.

63. Ozeaon's Review and Moderation Rights (Publishing)

Ozeaon may review, restrict, remove, or decline to publish an article, or act on a report under Section 56, where necessary to comply with law, protect rights holders or communities, enforce this Part or Part II (Copyright and Intellectual Property), or address a valid complaint, consistent with Sections 32–35 (copyright complaints and response process).

Part IV — Community Conduct: Social Network Use and Enforcement

64. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use the website in a way that:

• implies false endorsement, partnership, accreditation, investment status, verification, or approval
• harasses, threatens, defames, or abuses another person
• impersonates another person, organisation, or Ozeaon itself
• infringes intellectual property, privacy, or confidentiality rights
• violates applicable law or these Terms
• disrupts, overburdens, or attempts to circumvent the website's security or operation

For the social network specifically, Sections 65–74 below set out additional, more detailed conduct standards, prohibited behaviour, and enforcement measures that apply alongside this Section.

65. Social Network Conduct: Scope and Age Eligibility

This Part sets out the standards of conduct expected of anyone using Ozeaon's social network features — posting, commenting, following, messaging, and otherwise interacting with other users. It extends and gives concrete, social-network-specific meaning to the general conduct rules already in Section 64 (Acceptable Use) — it does not replace that Section, and both apply together. Where this Part is more specific than Section 64 on a social-conduct matter, this Part governs; on all other matters, Section 64 continues to apply. This Part works alongside Part II of these Terms (Copyright and Intellectual Property), Part III of these Terms (Publishing), and Part VI of these Terms (Prohibited Project Types) where social conduct intersects with those areas.

The age-eligibility requirement for social features is set out in Section 17. Ozeaon may take action under Section 73 (Enforcement) against any account found to belong to a person under 18, including removal of the account and its content. If you become aware of an account on Ozeaon belonging to someone under 18, please report it using the process in Section 71.

Where Ozeaon becomes aware of signals indicating that an account may belong to a person under the required age notwithstanding the affirmative age confirmation given at signup — for example, through a report under Section 71 or a notice under Section 79 — Ozeaon will investigate and, where appropriate, apply additional verification steps or take enforcement action under Section 73, consistent with Ozeaon's commitment to proportionate protective measures for minors under Article 28 of the DSA.

66. The Kind of Network Ozeaon Is

Ozeaon's social network is designed as a professional and academic network for people working in or connected to ocean, climate, and regenerative innovation — researchers, educators, project builders, funders, and organisations. It is closer in spirit to a professional network than a general-purpose social feed, and the standards in this Part are written with that in mind: substantive, respectful, and reputationally serious, in keeping with the environment researchers and institutional partners expect to engage in.

67. Core Conduct Principles

When using Ozeaon's social features, you agree to:

• treat other users with respect, even in disagreement
• engage substantively and in good faith, particularly in scientific, policy, or professional discussion
• give credit where credit is due, and avoid misrepresenting others' work as your own
• respect the boundaries other users set (for example, by not attempting to circumvent a block)
• consider the professional and academic context of the platform in how you present yourself and engage with others

68. Prohibited Conduct

In addition to the prohibitions in Section 64 (Acceptable Use), you agree not to:

• harass, bully, threaten, or repeatedly target another user, whether directly or through coordinated behaviour involving multiple accounts
• post or send hateful, discriminatory, or dehumanising content directed at a person or group based on a protected characteristic
• dox or otherwise share another person's private or identifying information without their consent
• impersonate another person, organisation, or Ozeaon itself, or create a fake or deceptive account
• engage in spam, inauthentic engagement, or coordinated manipulation of visibility, votes, or reach
• knowingly spread misinformation presented as fact, particularly in scientific, environmental, or health-related content
• use the social features to promote a prohibited project type under Part VI (Prohibited Project Types), or to circumvent restrictions placed on a project or account elsewhere on the platform
• infringe another person's or organisation's intellectual property, privacy, or confidentiality rights, consistent with Part II of these Terms
• publish or share Indigenous, local, or community-held knowledge without appropriate consent and cultural authority, consistent with Section 28

69. Professional and Academic Integrity

Given Ozeaon's professional and academic character, you additionally agree not to:

• misrepresent your credentials, qualifications, institutional affiliation, or authorship of research or other work
• plagiarise, or present another person's research, writing, or ideas as your own, in social posts and comments as well as in published articles
• fail to disclose a material conflict of interest when presenting professional or research-related content where such disclosure would reasonably be expected
• use social features to circumvent the peer-review, attribution, or licensing requirements set out in Part III of these Terms

70. Content Standards

Regardless of the professional context, you agree not to post or share:

• sexually explicit or gratuitously graphic violent content
• content that facilitates self-harm, illegal activity, or harm to others
• malware, phishing links, or other harmful technical content

71. Reporting Content or Behaviour

If you see content or behaviour that breaches this Part, you may flag or report it directly from the relevant post, comment, profile, or message. Reports of illegal content are handled under Part V (Illegal Content Reporting, Sections 75–90); reports of conduct that breaches this Part but may not be illegal (for example, unprofessional conduct or a Part-specific violation) are reviewed by Ozeaon under this Section. Where a report could fall under either process, Ozeaon will coordinate its review rather than requiring separate submissions.

72. Blocking Another User

You may block another user to stop them from interacting with you or seeing your content going forward. Blocking is a personal tool for managing your own experience — it is not the same as reporting a user to Ozeaon, and does not, by itself, trigger a review of the blocked user's conduct under Section 73. If the underlying behaviour breaches this Part, please also report it under Section 71. This is the same blocking mechanism described in Section 57 for published articles specifically.

73. Enforcement

Where Ozeaon determines that a user has breached this Part, it may take one or more of the following actions, proportionate to the severity and pattern of the conduct:

• a warning or request to correct or remove content
• temporary restriction of specific features (for example, posting or commenting)
• temporary suspension of the account
• permanent removal of specific content
• permanent suspension or termination of the account

Serious breaches — including harassment, doxxing, hate speech, credential fraud, or repeated violations after a warning — may result in immediate suspension without prior notice. Ozeaon will, where practicable, explain the reason for an enforcement action, but may withhold specific details where necessary for security, legal, or privacy reasons.

74. Appeals

A user who disagrees with an enforcement action under Section 73 may contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Community Guidelines Appeal," explaining why they believe the action was mistaken. Ozeaon will review the appeal and inform the user of the outcome.

Part V — Illegal Content Reporting (Notice-and-Action / DSA Compliance)

75. Introduction and Status

This Part sets out Ozeaon's Notice-and-Action / Illegal Content Reporting Procedure — explaining how anyone can report content on Ozeaon that they believe is illegal, and how Ozeaon reviews and responds to such reports, consistent with the EU Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065, "DSA").

This Part applies platform-wide — to social posts and comments (Part IV), published articles (Part III), profiles, project pages, and any other content Ozeaon hosts — because the DSA's notice-and-action obligation applies to hosting services generally, not only to social-network-style features. It should be read together with Part II (Copyright and Intellectual Property).

76. Scope: What This Procedure Covers

This Procedure covers reports that specific content hosted on Ozeaon is illegal — meaning it breaches applicable law, not merely that it is unwelcome, disagreeable, or breaches a platform guideline without also being unlawful. This includes, for example, content that is unlawfully defamatory, incites violence, constitutes illegal hate speech, involves child sexual abuse material, breaches sanctions law, or is otherwise prohibited by applicable law.

This Procedure applies to any content hosted on Ozeaon, including:

• social posts, comments, and messages
• published articles and their metadata
• user and organisation profiles
• project pages and funding round descriptions
• any other user-submitted content on the platform

This Procedure does not cover copyright or intellectual property complaints, which are handled under Sections 32–35 in Part II, or reports of a suspected prohibited project type, which are handled under Section 100 (Reporting a Suspected Prohibited Project), or general conduct violations that are not also illegal, which are handled under Section 71. Section 90 explains how these processes relate to each other and what happens where a single report touches more than one.

77. What Counts as Illegal Content

"Illegal content" means any information that, in itself or through its use, does not comply with applicable law — because of its content, or because of how it relates to an illegal activity (for example, content facilitating an illegal transaction). Ozeaon reviews reports against this standard, not against a broader "anything I dislike" standard; content that is merely offensive, incorrect, or against a platform guideline without being unlawful is instead addressed under Part IV (Community Conduct) or other relevant Ozeaon policy.

78. Single Point of Contact

Ozeaon's single point of contact for notices under this Procedure, for use by any person, organisation, or public authority, is:

• legal@ozeaon.com

This is also Ozeaon's designated contact for matters arising under the DSA generally.

79. How to Submit a Notice

To report content you believe is illegal, contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Illegal Content Notice," or use any in-platform reporting tool Ozeaon makes available for the relevant content type (post, article, profile, or project page). Submissions through an in-platform tool are treated the same as an email notice under this Procedure.

80. What a Valid Notice Should Include

A notice should include, to the extent reasonably possible:

• a sufficiently substantiated explanation of why you consider the content to be illegal
• a clear indication of the exact location of the content (a URL or other precise reference)
• your name and contact email address (notices may be submitted anonymously where the notifier prefers, but this may limit Ozeaon's ability to follow up or provide updates)
• a statement of your good-faith belief that the information and allegations in the notice are accurate and complete

Ozeaon may request further information where reasonably necessary to assess a notice.

81. Acknowledgment

Ozeaon will acknowledge receipt of a notice without undue delay.

82. Review Process

Ozeaon will review a notice in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary, and objective manner. Review may include assessing the content against applicable law, considering context, and, where appropriate, seeking further information from the notifier or from the person who posted the content. Ozeaon may act more quickly where a notice concerns content that appears urgent, high-risk, or manifestly illegal (for example, content facilitating an imminent risk to life or safety).

83. Statement of Reasons

Where Ozeaon removes, restricts, demotes, or otherwise acts against content following a notice, or on its own initiative, it will provide a statement of reasons to the person who posted the content, including the facts and circumstances relied on, whether automated means were used, the legal or contractual ground relied on, and information about the ability to dispute the decision under Section 85. Ozeaon may withhold or limit specific details of a statement of reasons where necessary for security, legal, or safety reasons, or where the content is manifestly illegal content related to serious criminal offences.

84. Possible Outcomes

Following review, Ozeaon may: take no action, where the content is not found to be illegal or the notice is not well-founded; remove or restrict access to the content; label or restrict distribution of the content pending further review; suspend or restrict the account of the person who posted it, consistent with Part IV or these Terms; or refer the matter to law enforcement or another competent authority where appropriate or required by law.

85. Counter-Notice: Disputing an Action

If content you posted has been removed or restricted under this Procedure, you may dispute the decision by contacting legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Notice-and-Action Dispute," including:

• your name and contact email address
• the content and its location
• why you believe the content is not illegal or the action was mistaken
• any supporting information

Ozeaon will review the dispute and may restore the content, maintain the restriction, request further information, or refer the matter for further review. Nothing in this Section limits your right to pursue a complaint through a competent authority or the courts, consistent with Sections 113 and 117 below.

86. Repeat Offenders

Ozeaon may suspend or terminate, for a reasonable period, the account of a user who frequently posts manifestly illegal content, taking into account the nature and seriousness of the content, the number of instances, and the overall size of the user's activity on the platform, consistent with these Terms, including Part IV.

87. Misuse of This Procedure

Ozeaon may suspend, for a reasonable period and after prior warning, the ability of a person to submit notices or counter-notices under this Procedure where they frequently submit notices or counter-notices that are manifestly unfounded, taking into account the number of such submissions and the context in which they were made.

88. Ozeaon's Size and What That Means for This Procedure

Some DSA obligations — including formal internal complaint-handling systems for certain categories of decisions, mandatory out-of-court dispute settlement participation, prioritised handling for accredited "trusted flaggers," and enhanced transparency reporting — apply on a scale appropriate to a provider's size, and additional relief is available to micro and small enterprises under the DSA. Ozeaon operates this Procedure as a good-practice baseline appropriate to its current size, and will expand it — including formal trusted-flagger prioritisation and any additional obligations that apply as Ozeaon grows — as required by law and as the platform scales.

89. Transparency Reporting

Consistent with Article 24(5) of the DSA, providers of online platforms are required to submit, without undue delay, the statements of reasons they issue under Section 83 for actions taken against content to the European Commission's DSA Transparency Database — except that, per Article 19(1) DSA, this specific obligation does not apply to providers that qualify as micro or small enterprises under Commission Recommendation 2003/361/EC, consistent with Section 88. Where that exemption applies to Ozeaon, no submission is currently required, though Ozeaon may elect to submit voluntarily; where it does not, or once Ozeaon no longer qualifies, Ozeaon submits through the Transparency Database's API or webform accordingly. Independently of that obligation, Ozeaon also publishes periodic, proportionate transparency information about notices received and actions taken under this Procedure, scaled appropriately to Ozeaon's size and activity.

90. Relationship to Other Reporting Mechanisms

Ozeaon operates several reporting pathways, each suited to a different kind of concern:

• Copyright or intellectual property infringement — Sections 32–35 in Part II
• A suspected prohibited project type (for example, an undisclosed financial-return offer) — Section 100 (Reporting a Suspected Prohibited Project)
• Conduct that breaches Part IV but is not necessarily illegal — Section 71
• Content believed to be illegal — this Part

Where a single report plausibly falls under more than one of these (for example, a project page that both infringes copyright and appears to offer an undisclosed financial return), Ozeaon will coordinate review across the relevant processes rather than requiring separate submissions for each.

Part VI — Prohibited Project Types (Project Funding Feature)

91. Introduction and Status

This Part sets out the categories of project that are not permitted to be created, funded, or promoted through Ozeaon's project funding feature. As noted in Section 1 and Section 15, project funding is not yet fully governed by these Terms and remains subject to additional funding-specific terms Ozeaon has not yet published or integrated into this document — Project Funding Terms, Project Owner Agreement, Supporter Terms, Refund Policy, and KYC/KYB Policy. This Part is included here as the prohibited-project-types content policy that will become fully operative once the project funding feature and those documents are integrated into these Terms; the cross-references below to those still-external documents will resolve once that happens. It applies to project owners, prospective project owners, and supporters. This Part operationalises the general prohibitions in Section 64 (Acceptable Use) and the specific warranties in Project Owner Agreement Sections 5–6 (once that document is integrated), for the project funding feature specifically. Where this Part is more specific than those documents on a project-funding matter, this Part governs; on all other matters, the general provisions of these Terms continue to apply.

92. Purpose of This Part

This Part serves two purposes, and both matter equally:

• Protecting supporters and the platform from unlawful, deceptive, or harmful project activity, in the same way any responsible marketplace screens what can be listed on it.
• Preserving Ozeaon's regulatory position. Ozeaon's project funding feature operates as reward- and donation-based crowdfunding, which sits outside the authorisation regime under Regulation (EU) 2020/1503 (the European Crowdfunding Service Providers Regulation, "ECSPR"). That position depends on no project ever actually offering a financial return to supporters. This Part is the operative boundary that keeps that true — a breach of Section 93 is not just a content violation, it is the specific thing that could change Ozeaon's regulatory status if left unaddressed. It is enforced accordingly.

93. Financial-Return Project Types (Prohibited)

The following are not permitted through Ozeaon's project funding feature, regardless of how they are described, packaged, or marketed:

• equity crowdfunding, or any offer of shares, ownership interest, or convertible instruments
• loans or lending arrangements to project owners, including peer-to-peer lending structures
• revenue-share or profit-share arrangements of any kind
• interest payments, dividends, or other periodic returns
• tokenised investment rights, or any token, coin, or digital asset structured to represent or track a financial return
• guaranteed-return promises, however phrased (including implied guarantees such as "buy-back," "repayment," or "return by [date]")
• special purpose vehicles or pooled investment structures created to channel supporter funds into a financial-return arrangement

94. Environmental and Impact Market Products (Prohibited)

Given Ozeaon's focus on ocean, climate, and environmental projects, the following are specifically called out as prohibited, even though a project may otherwise appear reward- or donation-based:

• carbon credit investment products, including pre-sale of credits with an implied or stated financial return
• biodiversity credit or nature-credit investment products structured with a financial-return expectation
• any project marketing environmental outcomes as a tradeable or appreciating financial asset for supporters

This does not prohibit projects that describe genuine environmental, conservation, or research goals and offer non-financial rewards (recognition, reporting, educational access, and similar) — it prohibits structuring the environmental outcome itself as the financial product being sold.

95. Unlawful, Harmful, and High-Risk Project Types (Prohibited)

The following are also not permitted:

• projects for unlawful purposes, or that would require unlawful conduct to complete
• projects involving weapons, munitions, or related equipment
• projects proposed by, or intended to benefit, individuals or entities on applicable sanctions or restricted-party lists
• projects making unverified or misleading medical, health, or therapeutic claims
• projects making misleading environmental, sustainability, or impact claims not supported by the project owner's actual activities
• projects involving high-risk financial products or services, crypto-asset offerings, or speculative financial instruments unrelated to Ozeaon's own supported features
• projects that infringe third-party intellectual property, privacy, cultural, or Indigenous knowledge rights, consistent with Part II (Copyright and Intellectual Property)

96. Misrepresentation-Based Prohibitions

Consistent with Section 64 (Acceptable Use) and Project Owner Agreement Sections 5–6, a project must not:

• imply endorsement, partnership, accreditation, investment status, verification, or approval that does not genuinely exist
• misrepresent the project owner's identity, credentials, affiliations, or authority to raise funds
• misrepresent a funding round's progress, threshold status, or deadline
• describe reward-based funding in language that implies a financial return (for example, describing a reward as a "dividend," "yield," or "return on contribution")

97. Stripe's Own Restricted Business Terms

In addition to the categories above, Ozeaon does not permit any project type that Stripe's own acceptable-use or restricted-business terms prohibit, since Stripe's willingness to process the transaction is a practical precondition for any project operating on the platform. Where Stripe's restricted-business terms are updated, this Part is treated as updated to reflect them even before this document's stated "last updated" date is changed, and the formal update will follow.

98. Borderline Cases and Ozeaon's Discretion

Some projects may not clearly fall into a prohibited category but may still raise concerns — for example, a project structured in a way that is ambiguous about whether a reward carries financial value, or a project in a sector Ozeaon treats as higher-risk under the KYC/KYB Policy. In these cases, Ozeaon may request clarification, additional documentation, or a restructuring of the project before allowing it to proceed, and may decline to publish a project where reasonable doubt remains about its compliance with this Part.

99. How Prohibited Projects Are Identified

Ozeaon may identify a potential breach of this Part through platform review before a project is published, automated or manual screening of project descriptions and terms, Stripe's own risk and compliance signals, user or supporter reports (see Section 100), or during ongoing monitoring of active rounds.

100. Reporting a Suspected Prohibited Project

If you believe a project on Ozeaon breaches this Part, contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Prohibited Project Report," including the project name or URL, the specific concern, and any supporting information. Ozeaon will review reports in a timely manner and take appropriate action under Section 101.

101. What Happens When a Project Is Found to Breach This Part

Depending on the nature and severity of the breach, Ozeaon may: request the project owner correct or clarify the project; suspend or remove the project or round; withhold or reverse a pending payout; restrict the project owner's ability to launch future rounds; refund affected supporters, consistent with Ozeaon's Refund Policy; or terminate the project owner's access to the platform entirely. Breaches of Section 93 (Financial-Return Project Types) are treated as serious breaches and may result in immediate suspension without prior notice, consistent with Project Owner Agreement Section 15.

102. Appeals

A project owner who disagrees with a decision made under this Part may contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Prohibited Projects Appeal," explaining why they believe the project or round complies with this Part. Ozeaon will review the appeal and inform the project owner of the outcome.

Part VII — Institutional Partners

103. Institutional Partners: Overview

This Part summarises, in plain language, how these Terms apply to universities, research institutes, and non-profit partners publishing on Ozeaon. It is a plain-language summary of provisions already set out elsewhere in these Terms — it does not create new obligations beyond them. Researchers, students, and affiliates publishing under an institutional affiliation are bound by these Terms in the same way as any other user, through the same account-creation and publishing-flow acceptance mechanism described in Section 1.

104. Publishing Rights for Institutional Researchers

When a researcher publishes on Ozeaon under an institutional affiliation:

• They retain copyright in their own work, consistent with Section 42 (Author Rights — You Retain Copyright).
• Ozeaon receives only a non-exclusive licence to host and display the content, consistent with Section 26 (Licence Granted to Ozeaon for Submitted Content) and Section 42 — enough to run the platform, nothing more.
• The researcher selects a licence for that specific submission, consistent with Section 43 (Choosing a Licence for Your Submission), which controls how others may reuse it.
• Full detail is in Part III (Publishing: Articles and Project Content).

105. Attribution, Authorship, and Funder Conditions (Institutional)

Ozeaon's submission process asks authors to confirm co-authors are properly credited, institutional permissions are respected, and funder or grant conditions are followed before anything is published, consistent with Section 48 (Authorship, Affiliations, Contributor Information, and Discovery Metadata), Section 49 (Funding Source Disclosure), and Section 59 (Submission Attestation). This is a required step in the publishing flow, not just a line in a policy document.

106. Indigenous and Local Knowledge (Institutional Context)

Given the nature of ocean and environmental research, this deserves its own line: Section 28 (Indigenous Knowledge, Local Knowledge, and Cultural Materials) commits Ozeaon to handling Indigenous knowledge, local knowledge, and cultural materials guided by consent, attribution, custodianship, cultural sensitivity, reciprocity, community review, access control, and knowledge sovereignty. Content involving such knowledge cannot be tokenised, minted, licensed, used to train AI systems, or otherwise reused without appropriate rights, permissions, consent, authority, and cultural context. Where a submission involves this kind of knowledge, the author is required to confirm they have the appropriate consent and authority before it can be published, consistent with Section 51 (Indigenous and Local Knowledge) — this is a mandatory step in the submission flow, not an afterthought. Institutional partners working with Indigenous communities and marine knowledge holders who want to discuss the specific mechanics of how this works can contact legal@ozeaon.com.

107. Data Handling for Institutional Collaborations

Where a collaboration involves research data (for example, citizen-science data, survey data, or datasets containing personal information), this is handled under Ozeaon's Privacy Policy and, where a formal partnership is in place, a Research Data Addendum specific to that collaboration under the Institutional Content Partnership Agreement described in Section 108. If a partnership ends, Ozeaon works with the institution on returning or deleting the relevant data, subject to any retention Ozeaon is legally required to maintain.

108. Formal Institutional Partnerships: Relationship to This Document

Sections 103–107 describe the baseline terms that apply to any researcher, student, or affiliate publishing on Ozeaon under an institutional affiliation, accepted through the standard account-creation and publishing-flow mechanism described in Section 1 — no separate institutional signature is required for this baseline level of participation.

Where a university, research institute, or other institution wants a formal arrangement — for example, around a specific named research programme, a defined dataset, or an ongoing collaboration involving negotiated terms such as a specific notice period, a data controller/processor designation, mutual confidentiality obligations, or mutual indemnities between Ozeaon and the institution — that is handled through a separate, bilaterally negotiated Institutional Content Partnership Agreement, executed by an authorised signatory for each Party. That Agreement supplements, and does not replace, these Terms; where it conflicts with these Terms on a matter within its scope, the executed Agreement governs as between Ozeaon and that institution.

A standard platform sign-up checkbox is not a substitute for that Agreement. The Agreement's core provisions — mutual warranties and indemnities, confidentiality obligations running in both directions, a negotiated term and termination process, and a specific allocation of data-protection responsibilities — depend on being agreed by someone with actual authority to bind the institution, and on terms specific to that institution's collaboration. A checkbox clicked by an individual researcher at account creation does not establish that authority, and collapsing a bilateral, negotiated contract into a one-size-fits-all clickthrough would remove the negotiability that makes the Agreement fit for purpose. Institutions seeking a formal partnership should contact legal@ozeaon.com to negotiate and execute the Agreement directly, rather than relying on standard platform sign-up.

Part VIII — General Legal and Administrative Terms

109. Suspension, Restriction, and Removal

Ozeaon may restrict, suspend, remove, disable, or refuse access to website features, submissions, uploads, communications, accounts, or restricted areas where Ozeaon reasonably believes this is necessary to:

• protect website security
• prevent abuse, spam, fraud, or misuse
• comply with law
• enforce these Terms
• protect users, communities, partners, or third parties
• protect intellectual property or privacy rights
• protect culturally sensitive or restricted knowledge
• maintain editorial, platform, or operational integrity
• respond to technical, security, or legal issues

Where appropriate, Ozeaon may provide a reason for restriction or removal, but it may withhold details where necessary for security, confidentiality, legal compliance, or abuse-prevention reasons. If Ozeaon removes, restricts, corrects, or declines to publish content, this does not mean Ozeaon accepts liability, admits infringement, waives rights, or agrees with every claim made by a complainant.

110. Availability and Changes to the Website

Ozeaon may modify, suspend, restrict, remove, replace, or discontinue any part of the website at any time. The website may not always be available. Downtime, errors, maintenance, technical issues, provider outages, security incidents, infrastructure failures, or other interruptions may occur. Ozeaon does not guarantee that the website will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or available at all times.

111. Privacy and Cookies

Ozeaon processes personal data in accordance with its Privacy Policy. Ozeaon uses cookies and similar technologies in accordance with its Cookie Policy. By using the website, you acknowledge that your personal data and cookie preferences are handled as described in those policies. Users can manage cookie preferences through the cookie banner, preferences panel, or Cookie Settings link where available.

112. Communications and Marketing Emails

When you create an account, join Ozeaon's waitlist or early access list, or otherwise sign up to use the website or platform, you may be asked to agree to receive communications from Ozeaon, including product updates, launch announcements, educational content, and other marketing or informational emails. Where such communications are optional, you can unsubscribe at any time using the unsubscribe link included in the email, through your account settings, or by contacting privacy@ozeaon.com.

Unsubscribing from optional marketing or update emails does not affect transactional or service-related emails Ozeaon may still need to send you — for example, account verification codes, security notices, confirmations of an action you have taken, or updates about a report, complaint, or appeal you have submitted under these Terms — which remain necessary to provide the service you have requested or to protect your account.

Full detail on the legal basis, retention, and handling of this data is set out in Ozeaon's Privacy Policy.

113. Consumer Rights

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any mandatory rights that you may have under applicable consumer protection, data protection, digital services, unfair contract terms, or other mandatory laws. If you are a consumer in the European Union, European Economic Area, United Kingdom, or another jurisdiction with mandatory consumer rights, those rights remain unaffected.

If any part of these Terms is found to be invalid, unlawful, or unenforceable, the remaining parts continue to apply to the extent permitted by law.

114. Disclaimers

The website is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Ozeaon does not guarantee that:

• the website will meet your expectations
• the website will be uninterrupted, secure, timely, or error-free
• website content will always be accurate, complete, current, or suitable for your needs
• planned features will be launched
• any project will receive funding, endorsement, verification, or market access
• any platform feature will produce a specific result
• any token, funding, governance, verification, or market feature will be available in your jurisdiction
• any website content is suitable for professional, legal, financial, scientific, technical, environmental, or regulatory decision-making without further advice

These disclaimers do not limit rights that cannot legally be excluded.

115. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Ozeaon is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, punitive, or exemplary damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, data, business, opportunity, or anticipated savings arising from or related to your use of the website. Nothing in this Section limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, including liability for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

116. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify Ozeaon against claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, and expenses arising from your breach of these Terms, your unlawful use of the website, your violation of any third party's rights, or content you submit, post, or publish, to the extent permitted by applicable law.

This indemnity is limited to losses that are a direct and reasonably foreseeable consequence of the relevant breach, and does not extend to indirect or consequential losses of the kind excluded under Section 115. Where you are a consumer, this indemnity applies only to the extent consistent with, and does not displace, your mandatory rights under applicable consumer protection law, including Estonian law implementing Directive 93/13/EEC on unfair contract terms.

This indemnity does not limit any mandatory consumer rights that apply to you.

117. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of Estonia, unless mandatory laws in your country of residence require otherwise. Nothing in this Section limits any right you may have to bring proceedings in your country of residence where applicable consumer protection law provides for this.

118. Related Policies

This document should be read alongside:

• Ozeaon's Privacy Policy, which governs how personal data is handled
• Ozeaon's Cookie Policy, which governs cookies and similar technologies
• Ozeaon's Institutional Content Partnership Agreement, a separate bilateral contract for institutions seeking a formal partnership beyond the baseline terms summarised in Part VII

Ozeaon's Project Funding Terms, Project Owner Agreement, Supporter Terms, Refund Policy, Risk Disclosure, KYC/KYB Policy, and Complaints Handling Procedure are separately available and will be incorporated into these Terms — together with Part VI (Prohibited Project Types) becoming fully operative — when project funding, tips, and paid content features are integrated. Ozeaon's Creator Monetisation Terms — referenced in Section 55 for tipping — is also separately available pending that feature's launch.

119. Changes to These Terms

Ozeaon may update these Terms from time to time, including where Ozeaon:

• launches new features or functionality, including new article types, licensing options, or the Phase 2/Phase 3 publishing fields described in Section 61
• updates content licensing rules, copyright complaint procedures, or moderation and publication workflows described in Part II or Part III
• changes legal, regulatory, operational, or security requirements, including where Ozeaon's size or scale changes in ways that affect obligations under Part V (for example, thresholds under the EU Digital Services Act)
• reflects new risks, changes to Stripe's restricted-business terms, or applicable law affecting Part VI — noting that Section 97 already treats Part VI as automatically updated to reflect a Stripe restricted-business terms change ahead of a formal update to this document
• changes its business or entity structure

Where changes are material, Ozeaon may update the date at the top of these Terms, provide notice, or request renewed acceptance where appropriate. Your continued use of the website after updated Terms are published means you accept the updated Terms, unless applicable law requires a different process.

120. Contact

For general questions about these Terms, or about publishing on Ozeaon: legal@ozeaon.com

For copyright, intellectual property, brand, licensing, permissions, or takedown questions, including a Copyright / IP Complaint (Section 32) or Dispute (Section 34): legal@ozeaon.com

To appeal a Community Guidelines enforcement decision under Section 74, contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Community Guidelines Appeal."

To submit an illegal content notice under Part V, contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Illegal Content Notice," or use the applicable in-platform reporting tool.

To report a suspected prohibited project under Part VI, contact legal@ozeaon.com with the subject line "Prohibited Project Report." To appeal a decision under Part VI, use the subject line "Prohibited Projects Appeal."

For institutional partnership discussions, including negotiating the Institutional Content Partnership Agreement described in Section 108: legal@ozeaon.com

For questions about privacy or personal data, contact: privacy@ozeaon.com