Terms of use

These are the terms on which Lakatips is made available to you. They are a contract, but they are meant to be read, so they are written in ordinary language and organised so you can find the part you need. Using the site means you accept them.

1 These terms

These terms of use are an agreement between you and Lakatips, of 23 Parirenyetwa Road, Rhodes Park, P.O. Box 32147, Lusaka, Zambia. They apply whenever you use lakatips.com, read a page of it, subscribe to the email briefing or send us a message through one of our forms.

If you do not accept them, please do not use the site. You do not need an account, so there is nothing to close: stopping is enough.

Three other documents sit alongside these terms and form part of the same agreement: the privacy policy, the copyright and takedown policy, and the editorial policy. Where a specific document deals with a subject in more detail, that document governs it.

2 What Lakatips is

Lakatips is a Zambian news service with two distinct parts, and the difference between them runs through the whole of these terms.

• An index. We follow the public feeds of established Zambian newsrooms and record the headline, a short extract we write ourselves, the byline, the publication time, a picture where one was supplied, and a link. For most stories this is all the site shows, and the article itself is read on the publisher’s own site.
• Licensed republication. Where a publisher has given us written permission, we carry their complete article on Lakatips, credited to them, linked to their original, and marked as theirs. We do this only where the permission is recorded and dated. It is not something we decide for ourselves because an article happened to be readable.

A small amount of original copy is written by the Lakatips desk and published under our own name. It is labelled as ours and is never mixed up with anyone else’s work.

Every story page carries a label saying which of these you are looking at, and states the publisher before the article begins as well as at its foot.

3 Words we use

“We”, “us”, “our”

Lakatips, the publisher of lakatips.com.

“You”

Anyone using the site, whether as a reader, a subscriber, a publisher or an advertiser.

“Publisher” or “newsroom”

The organisation that originally reported and published a story we index or carry.

“Index entry”

A headline, our own short extract, the byline and publication time, a thumbnail and a link.

“Republished article”

A publisher’s complete article carried on Lakatips with their written permission.

“Lakatips content”

The things we make: the name and marks, the design, the code, our written extracts, our section and topic classifications, and copy written by the Lakatips desk.

4 Who is responsible for a story

Responsibility for the accuracy, fairness and legality of a report rests with the newsroom that published it. That is true of an index entry and equally true of a republished article: permission to carry somebody’s journalism does not make us its author, and we do not hold ourselves out as such.

We take reasonable care in choosing which newsrooms to follow. We do not read every story before it is indexed, we do not verify the claims in it, and including a story is not an endorsement of it, of its publisher, or of anyone quoted in it. Two newsrooms in our index may report the same events differently; both appear, and we do not adjudicate between them.

The exception is copy written by the Lakatips desk, which is ours and for which we answer.

5 Republished articles

Where an article appears in full on Lakatips:

• the publisher holds the copyright, and carrying it here changes nothing about that;
• the publisher is named above the article and again at its foot, and their name links to their own copy of that exact story;
• the journalist is credited where the publisher gave a byline, and the original publication date is preserved;
• the page tells search engines that the publisher’s copy is the original, so the search ranking stays with them;
• we do not carry the publisher’s photographs unless the permission covers pictures as well as text.

A permission can be withdrawn at any time. If a publisher withdraws, the full text comes down promptly and the story reverts to an index entry with a link. Nothing in these terms gives you any right in a publisher’s article beyond reading it.

6 Our own reporting

Copy written by the Lakatips desk is published under our name, marked as ours, and subject to our editorial policy. If we get something wrong, tell us at news@lakatips.com and we will correct it and say that we have.

7 Corrections and takedowns

If a report about you or your organisation is wrong, the publisher can correct it and we cannot; every story page names them and links to them, and a correction they publish reaches us on their next update. If the fault is in how we have handled the story — a mangled headline, the wrong section, an article shown in full that should not have been, a picture we should not be using — that is ours to fix and we want to hear about it.

The copyright and takedown policy sets out how to ask, what to include, and how quickly we respond. Requests can also be sent to info@lakatips.com.

8 Who owns what

Publishers’ material remains theirs. The Lakatips name, logo, design, layout, code, written extracts, classifications and desk-written copy are ours or licensed to us, and are protected by copyright and by the law relating to trade marks and unfair competition.

Nothing on this site transfers any of those rights to you. You get permission to read it and to do the ordinary things described in section 9, and no more.

9 What you may do

Without asking us, you may:

• read the site, on any device, as often as you like;
• link to any Lakatips page, including deep links to individual stories, using the headline as the link text;
• share a link on social media, in a message or in an email;
• quote a short passage of Lakatips content with attribution and a link, as fair dealing allows;
• subscribe to our RSS feed for personal reading;
• print or save a page for your own reference.

Journalists, researchers and students who want to do more than this are welcome to write and ask. We are usually glad to say yes.

10 What you must not do

You must not:

• copy, republish or redistribute Lakatips content in bulk, or build a product, feed or dataset out of it;
• copy a republished article off this site — our permission comes from the publisher and does not extend to you;
• scrape, harvest or systematically download the site, or use it to train a model, without our written agreement;
• present Lakatips content as your own, or present a publisher’s work as ours or as yours;
• remove, obscure or alter a byline, a credit, a source link or a content label;
• frame the site, or embed it in a way that hides where the content came from;
• use our name, logo or design in a way that suggests we endorse you or are connected with you;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the site, its server or its database;
• probe, scan, overload, disrupt or attack the service, or interfere with anyone else’s use of it;
• introduce malicious code, or use the site to distribute it;
• use our forms to send spam, abuse, threats or anything unlawful; or
• use the site for any purpose that is unlawful under Zambian law.

11 Crawlers and feeds

Well-behaved crawlers are welcome, and search engines are how most readers find us. Our robots file sets out what we ask, and we expect it to be honoured: use an honest user-agent that identifies who you are, request pages at a civil rate, and do not pretend to be a browser to get around a limit.

There is an RSS feed if you want the headlines in a structured form, and sitemaps for indexing. Using those is far easier than crawling and puts no load on the site; if what you need is not in them, write and ask rather than scraping around the problem.

We treat sustained automated access that ignores the robots file, disguises itself, or bulk-copies the index as a breach of section 10, and we may block it.

12 Availability

We aim to keep Lakatips up and current, and it updates itself through the day. We do not guarantee it. Feeds go down, publishers change their systems without telling anybody, hosting has maintenance windows, and Zambian connectivity is not always kind. Any part of the site may be changed, suspended or withdrawn at any time without notice.

We may also add, remove or change which newsrooms we follow, how stories are ordered, and which publishers’ articles appear in full — the last of those being largely their decision rather than ours.

13 Accuracy

Headlines are shown as the publisher wrote them, save that a headline filed in block capitals is re-set in ordinary case. Extracts are drawn from the opening of the report. Sections and topics are assigned automatically and are occasionally wrong. Publication times come from the publisher’s own feed and depend on their clock being right.

Nothing on Lakatips is advice. Do not rely on a headline, an extract or an article here for a legal, financial, medical, safety or business decision without checking it at the source and taking proper advice.

14 No warranty

Lakatips is provided as it stands and as it is available. To the fullest extent the law allows, we give no warranty of any kind, express or implied, about the site or its content — including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, timeliness, uninterrupted availability or freedom from error.

15 Liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of the site or your inability to use it, including loss of profit, revenue, business, opportunity, goodwill or data, and including loss arising from reliance on anything published or indexed here, from the conduct or content of any site we link to, or from any interruption, withdrawal or error.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. If you use Lakatips as a consumer, your statutory rights under Zambian law are not affected.

16 Links to other sites

Lakatips links out constantly, to sites we do not control and do not check. We are not responsible for their content, their advertising, their security or their handling of your data, and a link is not a recommendation. Once you leave, their terms and their privacy policy apply.

17 Advertising

Advertising and sponsored placements are labelled as such and are kept visually and editorially separate from the index. Advertisers have no say in which stories are indexed, how they are ordered, or how a publisher is treated. Our editorial policy explains how that separation is maintained.

Any dealing you have with an advertiser is between you and them. We are not a party to it and take no responsibility for their goods, services, claims or conduct. Enquiries about advertising go to advertise@lakatips.com.

18 Things you send us

When you send us a message, a correction, a tip or a suggestion, you keep whatever rights you have in it. You give us permission to read it, to act on it, to keep a record of it, and to reply.

If you send us something for publication — a statement, a press release, a letter, a photograph — you confirm that it is yours to send or that you have the right to send it, that it is not unlawful, and that we may publish it with attribution. Tell us clearly if you are sending something in confidence, and we will treat it that way.

Please do not send us confidential material you are not free to share, and do not send anything defamatory, harassing or unlawful. We may decline to act on a message, and we may keep a record of abusive correspondence.

19 The email briefing

The briefing is free and optional. Signing up is your consent to receive it; every issue carries an unsubscribe link that works in one click, and you may also ask us to remove you by email. We use the address for the briefing and nothing else, and we do not track whether you opened it. See the privacy policy for the detail.

We may change how often the briefing is sent, or stop sending it altogether.

20 For publishers

If you run a Zambian newsroom, these are the terms on which we deal with you.

• Being indexed. We index public feeds and always link back. If you would like to be included, write to info@lakatips.com.
• Being treated differently. If you would prefer a shorter extract, no thumbnail, or no listing at all, say so and we will act on it. We will not argue with you about it.
• Full articles. We carry your complete article only where you have given written permission. Permission is recorded against your newsroom with the date it was checked, and it covers article text; if it also covers photographs, tell us and we will record that separately.
• Withdrawing. Written notice to info@lakatips.com is enough. On notice, the stored text of your articles is deleted, those pages revert to a headline, extract and link, and the change takes effect across the site and its sitemaps promptly. You do not have to give a reason.
• Protections you set. Where your site challenges automated requests, requires registration or sits behind a paywall, we do not work around it. We ask instead.

21 Suspending access

We may block or restrict access to the site — by network address, by user-agent or otherwise — where we reasonably believe these terms are being breached, where automated traffic is degrading the service for readers, or where we are required to. We will lift a block that turns out to be a mistake; if you think yours is one, write to us.

22 Privacy

How we handle personal information is set out in the privacy policy, which forms part of these terms. In summary: the site sets no cookies, loads nothing from third parties, and holds personal details only for people who write to us or subscribe to the briefing.

23 Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. The current version always lives at this address and carries both the date these terms took effect and the date the wording was last revised. Where a change is material we will flag it on the front page.

Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the revised terms. If you do not accept them, stop using the site; if you subscribe to the briefing, unsubscribe.

24 Law and jurisdiction

These terms, and any dispute or claim arising out of them or out of your use of Lakatips, are governed by the laws of the Republic of Zambia. The courts of Zambia have exclusive jurisdiction, except that we may bring proceedings to protect our intellectual property in any court with jurisdiction over the infringement.

Before starting proceedings, please write to us. Most disputes are a misunderstanding and can be resolved in a letter.

25 General

If part of this is unenforceable

That part is severed and the rest continues to apply, read so far as possible to give effect to what was intended.

Delay is not waiver

If we do not enforce a term straight away, we have not given it up and may enforce it later.

The whole agreement

These terms, with the privacy, copyright and editorial policies, are the whole of what is agreed between us about your use of the site, and replace anything said beforehand.

Transfer

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these terms to another organisation, and will say so on the site. You may not transfer yours without our written agreement.

Nobody else may enforce them

These terms are between you and us. No one else has a right to enforce them, except that a publisher whose material we carry may enforce section 5 and section 10 in respect of their own work.

Events outside our control

We are not in breach of these terms for a failure caused by something beyond our reasonable control, including power and network failure, hosting failure, or action by a third party whose service we depend on.

26 How to reach us

Lakatips
23 Parirenyetwa Road, Rhodes Park, P.O. Box 32147, Lusaka, Zambia
General and legal: info@lakatips.com
Newsroom and corrections: news@lakatips.com
Advertising: advertise@lakatips.com