Website Terms of Use

About These Terms

These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of https://lumenstories.org (the “Website”). The Website is currently owned and operated by Vino Chen Kong Wong (“Website Operator”, “we”, “us” or “our”) under the Lumen Stories publication name.

The Website Operator is in the process of establishing a company intended to be named Living Waters Collective Berhad (“LWC”). Following LWC’s incorporation and completion of the necessary transfer and assignment arrangements, LWC is intended to take over ownership and operation of the Website. Until any such transfer takes effect and these Terms are updated, these Terms govern use of the Website as currently operated. This description records the intended arrangement only.

By accessing or using the Website, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please discontinue use of the Website.

The Website is an independent slow-journalism digital publication featuring long-form editorial stories, photographic essays and multimedia documentary videos concerning crafts, culture, spaces and faith.

Permitted Use

You may access and use the Website for your personal, non-commercial reading, viewing, research and reference, subject to these Terms and applicable law. You may share links to publicly available pages, provided you do not misrepresent your relationship with us or imply endorsement without permission.

Intellectual Property and Copyright

Unless otherwise stated, the Website and its content, including articles, text, photographs, photographic essays, videos, graphics, design elements, logos, layout and compilation, are protected by applicable intellectual property laws.

Nothing in these Terms transfers ownership of any intellectual property to you. Except as permitted by applicable law or with prior written permission from the relevant rights holder, you must not reproduce, republish, distribute, publicly display, adapt, modify, commercially exploit or create derivative works from Website content.

You may quote or refer to a reasonable extract for lawful purposes where permitted by applicable law, provided that you give clear and appropriate attribution to Lumen Stories and the relevant author/photographer and include a link to the original page where practicable. Attribution does not replace the need for permission where permission is legally required.

Some content may be owned by third-party contributors or licensed to us subject to specific terms. Any rights notices, credits, captions or restrictions accompanying that content must be respected. Contact us if you wish to reproduce content beyond what is permitted by law.

Authors, Photographers and Contributor Credits

We seek to acknowledge the authors, photographers, videographers and other contributors credited on individual pieces. Credits and bylines identify contributors but do not necessarily mean that each contributor owns every right in the published work. Ownership and permitted use may vary by item.

Third-Party Content, Partners and Sponsors

The Website may include material supplied by, created with, or referring to external organisations, individuals, partners or sponsors, including names and logos accompanied by acknowledgements such as “Supported by” or “Created in partnership with”. Such acknowledgements describe the relevant relationship as stated on the applicable page and do not necessarily imply that the third party endorses all Website content.

Third-party content remains subject to the rights and terms applicable to that content. Inclusion on the Website does not grant you permission to reuse it.

Embedded Media and External Links

The Website may embed videos hosted by YouTube or Vimeo and links to third-party websites, social media platforms or services, including Instagram, Facebook, LinkedIn and WhatsApp. These services are operated by third parties and are subject to their own terms, policies and availability.

We do not control and is not responsible for third-party websites, services, content, security, privacy practices or availability. A link or embedded item is provided for convenience or editorial context and does not, by itself, constitute an endorsement.

Contact Form and Communications

You may use the Contact Us form to send enquiries, feedback or story pitches. You must provide information that is accurate to the best of your knowledge and must not use the form to submit unlawful, threatening, defamatory, abusive, fraudulent, infringing or otherwise inappropriate material.

Do not submit confidential, highly sensitive or time-critical information through the Contact Us form. Submission of an enquiry or story pitch does not create a confidential, fiduciary, employment, agency or other special relationship with us, and does not guarantee publication, a response or acceptance of the material.

Personal data submitted through the Website is handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

Prohibited Conduct

You must not, and must not attempt to:

• use the Website in breach of any applicable law or the rights of another person;
• interfere with, disrupt or compromise the Website, its servers, security or operation;
• gain unauthorised access to any restricted editor, administrator or other system account;
• introduce malware, malicious code, spam or harmful material;
• scrape, harvest, crawl, copy or systematically extract Website content by automated means, except for ordinary indexing by public search engines or as expressly permitted by us or applicable law;
• circumvent technical restrictions or security measures;
• misrepresent the source of content or remove copyright, attribution or other proprietary notices; or
• use Website content for commercial republication, dataset creation, AI model training or another purpose requiring permission without obtaining the necessary rights from the relevant rights holder.

Nothing in these Terms is intended to restrict activities that cannot lawfully be restricted under applicable law.

Website Availability and Changes

We may update, suspend, restrict or discontinue any part of the Website or its content at any time, including for maintenance, security, editorial or operational reasons. We do not guarantee uninterrupted, error-free or continuous availability.

No Professional Advice

The Website is an editorial publication. Its content is provided for general information, journalism, cultural discussion and educational interest. Unless expressly stated otherwise, it is not professional, legal, medical, financial, religious or other tailored advice. You should obtain advice from an appropriately qualified person before acting on information where the circumstances require it.

Disclosure and Confidentiality

Our collection and use of personal data through the Website are described in our Privacy Policy, which forms part of the framework governing use of the Website. Please read it before submitting personal data.

We reserve the right to disclose any personal data about you or your use of the Website and without your prior permission if we in good faith, believes that such action is necessary to:

• conform to legal requirements or comply with the law;
• protect and defend the rights or property of ours;
• enforce these Terms; or
• act to protect the interests of its members or others.

Any non-personal data or material sent to us by you will generally NOT be treated as confidential. For further details on use and disclosure of your personal data please see our Privacy Policy.

Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

The Website (including the services, information and content therein) is provided on an “as is” basis and to the fullest extent permitted by law is without warranty of any kind whatsoever, whether express or implied, including without limitation, any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for use, fitness for a particular purpose and/or non-infringement of third party rights. The separate Website Disclaimers also apply.

In addition, any warranties, whether express or implied, statutory or otherwise, in relation to use, access, operation, availability, continuity or non-interruption of the Website are hereby excluded to the fullest extent permitted by law.

While the information and content on the Website is believed to be accurate, it may contain errors or inaccuracies. To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will we be liable for any loss or damage of any kind whatsoever (including without limitation economic loss, loss of income, profits or goodwill, direct or indirect, incidental, consequential, exemplary, punitive, general or special damages) suffered or incurred by you or any other person or entity, howsoever arising whether in contract, tort, negligence, or any other legal theory, and whether or not we are advised of the possibility of such damages, in connection with or as a result of the Website, including but not limited to the following:

• use and/or access (or inability or delay in the use and/or access) of the Website;
• any content or information made available on the Website (including any errors, omissions or inaccuracies thereof);
• any content or information made available on the Website infringes the rights of any third party;
• any intrusion or any attack by any person, hardware, software, virus, trojan horses, worms, malware and/or macros or other harmful components of a destructive nature arising from any use and/or access of the Website;
• any websites (including the content therein) maintained by third parties, which are accessible via a link from or to the Website; and/or
• any unauthorised access to or alterations of your transmission or data.

In addition, we are not responsible for the contents of websites that are maintained by third parties and therefore shall not be liable or responsible for any links from the Website to other websites.

We will take reasonable measures to maintain the privacy and security of all personal data provided by you to the Website, but third parties (such as hackers) may breach or attempt to breach our security measures or may gain unauthorized access to our database or other equipment containing your information.

You agree that we shall not be liable for damages of any sort, whether arising under contract, tort, or otherwise, with respect to any breach of security of the Website.

Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you agree to be responsible for losses, liabilities, costs and expenses reasonably incurred by us as a result of your unlawful use of the Website or material breach of these Terms, including infringement of third-party rights. This clause does not apply to the extent a loss is caused by our own unlawful conduct.

Changes to These Terms

We may revise these Terms from time to time. The updated version will be published on the Website with a revised effective date. Your continued use of the Website after the revised Terms are published constitutes use under the updated Terms, to the extent permitted by law.

Severance

If any provision of these Terms is held to be illegal or invalid under present or future laws or regulations effective and applicable, such provision shall be fully severable and these Terms shall be construed as if such illegal or invalid provision had never comprised a part of these Terms and the remaining provisions of these Terms shall remain in full force and effect and shall not be affected by the illegal or invalid provision or by its severance from these Terms.

Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with it or the use of the Website shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of Malaysia.

The courts of Malaysia shall have exclusive jurisdiction to settle any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with these Terms or the Website.