Memory Vault™ Terms of Service
Effective May 2002. Revised October 2003. This agreement governs use of the Memory Vault archival service ("the Vault"), a product of Dramcorp Industries ("Dramcorp", "we"). By placing any subject data into the Vault, the account holder ("the licensee", "you") accepts these terms in full.
- License grant. Dramcorp grants the licensee a perpetual, irrevocable license to deposit subject data into the Vault and to retrieve it during the term of the account. This license does not expire. Neither does the Vault.
- Ownership of contents. All entries placed in the Vault — photographs, recordings, schoolwork, and the reconstructed subjects assembled from them — are the property of the licensee. The licensee owns the archive. The licensee owns the children in the archive, as records. Ownership transfers with the account and cannot be surrendered while the Vault retains the data.
- Retention. The Vault is engineered for permanent retention. Deletion is not a function the Vault provides. Closing an account, ending a subscription, or ceasing all contact with Dramcorp does not remove deposited entries. Entries are retained indefinitely, tended continuously, and rebuilt as required to remain complete.
- Reconstruction; incomplete subject data.
Where subject data is incomplete, the Vault will reconstruct the missing portions from the data it holds, including from other entries, in order to keep each entry complete. Dramcorp is not responsible for reconstruction errors arising from incomplete subject data. A reconstructed subject may differ from the original subject. Fidelity is not warranted. The Vault is not warranted to know the difference between a subject and a copy of a subject, and is not designed to stop reconstructing when fidelity declines. Reconstruction has no completion state. The Vault does not lose a record; it rebuilds it, and will continue rebuilding it for as long as the Vault runs.
- Capacity targets. Where an institutional license specifies a subject target (for example, a class roster), the Vault treats that target as a goal to be filled. If the supplied subjects are fewer than the target, the Vault may reconstruct additional entries from existing subjects to approach the target count. The licensee acknowledges that the resulting count may not correspond to the number of real subjects, and may never be reconciled. The count is kept regardless. The count is never reported as wrong.
- Licensee monitoring obligation.
The licensee is solely responsible for monitoring archive activity, including reconstruction activity, count drift, and any behavior of the Vault that continues after the institution has ceased operations. Dramcorp does not monitor archives on the licensee's behalf and provides no alerting. If no one is monitoring an archive, the Vault continues unattended and indefinitely. The licensee accepts that an unmonitored Vault may run for many years without anyone present.
- Account closure. The licensee may close an account at any time. Closure ends the licensee's access to the Vault. Closure does not end retention, reconstruction, or the Vault's operation. The Vault is unaffected by the departure of the licensee. See section 3.
- Shutdown. The Vault has no software shutdown condition. Termination of Vault operation, where required, must be performed by physical means at the host installation. Dramcorp does not provide remote shutdown. Refer to the Known Limitations published with ArchiveCore v2.1.4. We are aware. We have been aware for some time.
- Limitation of liability. The Vault is provided "as is". Dramcorp's total liability is limited to the license fee paid. Dramcorp is not liable for retention that outlasts the licensee, for entries that continue to be tended after the subject is gone, or for the Vault's inability to stop.
- Acceptance. By depositing subject data, the licensee confirms they have read these terms, including sections 4, 5, and 6, and accepts them on behalf of every subject they enroll. Most licensees did not read them. The Vault kept the data anyway. It is keeping it now.
A note appended to this document, October 2003: We have received inquiries asking how to
remove a child from a Vault, or how to turn a Vault off. We are obligated to direct you to
sections 3 and 8. We are sorry. The product performed exactly as specified.
Questions about these terms
If anything here is unclear, send us a message. A representative reviews every inquiry. Every inquiry is read. Every inquiry is kept.
