Terms of Use

Terms of Use

The Hill Country Alliance (HCA) is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to bring together a diverse coalition of partners to preserve the open spaces, starry night skies, clean and abundant waters, and unique character of the Texas Hill Country. HCA is a small nonprofit, focused primarily on sharing educational resources with landowners, local leaders, organizational partners, and the general public of the Texas Hill Country region. The vast majority of imagery shared on HCA’s website and outreach comes from HCA’s annual Photo Contest. Photography donors through the photo contest retain ownership and copyright to their photographs and credit is given by HCA to these photographer where possible. We treat the photography we receive in our annual photo contest as a donation, and while our donors give permission for HCA to use their work, we ask that external partners hoping to use our featured imagery ask for permission from the Hill Country Alliance and either include attribution to both the Hill Country Alliance and the photographer, or contact these photographers directly for access.

In order to protect our organization, it is the Hill Country Alliance’s policy, in appropriate circumstances, to terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers or are repeatedly charged with infringement.

Copyright or Trademark Complaints: Hill Country Alliance respects the intellectual property of others, and we ask our Users to do the same.  If you believe that your work has been copied in a way that constitutes copyright infringement, or that your intellectual property rights have been otherwise violated, you should notify Hill Country Alliance of your infringement claim in accordance with the procedure set forth below.

Hill Country Alliance will process and investigate notices of alleged infringement and will take appropriate actions under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”), trademark-infringement, and other applicable intellectual property laws with respect to any alleged or actual infringement.  A notification of claimed infringement should be mailed or emailed to:

LAldredge@cokinoslaw.com | CC info@hillcountryalliance.org
P.O. Box 151675 | Austin, TX 78715

To be effective, the notification must be in writing and contain the following information:

• an electronic or physical signature of the person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the copyright or other intellectual property interest;
• a description of the copyrighted work, trademark, or other intellectual property that you claim has been infringed;
• a description of where the material that you claim is infringing is located on the Services, with enough detail that we may find it on the Services;
• your address, telephone number, and email address;
• a statement by you that you have a good faith belief that the disputed use is not authorized by the copyright, trademark, or intellectual property owner, its agent, or the law; and
• a statement by you, made under penalty of perjury, that the above information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright or intellectual property owner or authorized to act on the copyright or intellectual property owner’s behalf.

Counter-Notice: If you believe that your User Content that was removed (or to which access was disabled) is not infringing, or that you have the authorization from the owner, the owner’s agent, or pursuant to the law, to upload and use the content in your User Content, you may send a written counter-notice containing the following information to the above-listed email or mail addresses:

• your physical or electronic signature;
• identification of the content that has been removed or to which access has been disabled and the location at which the content appeared before it was removed or disabled;
• a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the content was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or a misidentification of the content; and
• your name, address, telephone number, and email address, and a statement that you will accept service of process from the person who provided notification of the alleged infringement.

If a counter-notice is received at the above-listed email address, Hill Country Alliance will send a copy of the counter-notice to the original complaining party, informing that person that Hill Country Alliance may replace the removed content or cease disabling it in 10 business days.  Unless the owner files an action seeking a court order against the content provider, member, or User, the removed content may be replaced, or access to it restored, in 10 to 14 business days or more after receipt of the counter-notice, at our sole discretion.

Repeat Infringer Policy: In accordance with the DMCA, Lanham Act and other applicable law, Hill Country Alliance has adopted a policy of terminating, in appropriate circumstances and at Hill Country Alliance’s sole discretion, Users who are deemed to be repeat infringers. Hill Country Alliance may also at its sole discretion limit access to or terminate the Services or terminate the memberships of any Users who infringe any intellectual property rights of others, whether or not there is any repeat infringement.