Terms and Conditions

BMJ & Student BMJ: Subscription terms and conditions purchased via this website

These terms and conditions set out the conditions relating to sale of personal joint print and online subscriptions, or institutional print only subscriptions, of the BMJ or Student BMJ Journals purchased on this website. For institutional joint print and online, or institutional online only subscriptions, please contact consortiasales@bmjgroup.com as you may not purchase these via this website. You should download a copy of these for your records. These journals are owned by the BMJ Publishing Group Limited ("BMJ Group").

The BMJ Group, is a private limited company, incorporated in the United Kingdom under company registration number 3102371. The BMJ Group's registered office is situated at BMA House, Tavistock Square, London, WC1H 9JR. VAT Number 674738491. To contact us please phone +44 (0) 73836270, Fax +44 (0) 7383 6402 and email via customerservice.group@bmjgroup.com

BMJ Publishing Group Limited as a publisher is governed by the self regulated Press Complaints Commission. Their Code of Practice can be viewed by accessing their website.

1. Types of subscriptions and what is included?

1.1 Print and online personal subscriptions (BMJ)

• A personal, non exclusive non transferable right to access online the full text of all issues subscribed to from the date of contract,and by downloading single copies of articles fully in accordance with our licence (see below).
• The specified journal(s) delivered to your nominated address, for 1 year starting with the current issue at the point of contract. We will make every effort to deliver print goods within 30 days of publication, but cannot be responsible for postal delays.Online access should occur upon publication (subject to Clause 6 below ).

Delivery of the required online journals subscription will be deemed to take place once a contract comes into effect (thus subject to acceptance of your offer). Any individual subscription to an online journal, is subject to our licensing agreement and purchasing a subscription is acceptance of our licence terms below.

1.2 Print only personal or institutional subscriptions (BMJ and Student BMJ)

• The specified journal(s) delivered via postal mail to your nominated address, for 1 year starting with the current issue at the point of contract. We will make every effort to deliver the goods within 30 days, but cannot be responsible for postal delays.

2.Placing an order and our acceptance

2.1 When making a request to do an online payment, the language that will be offered to you for conclusion of this process, will be in English only.

2.2 When submitting your request to subscribe to the BMJ and/or Student BMJ, you will be asked to indicate where you are ordering from and which type of subscription you require. For print and print and online subscriptions, this will be for a period of 12 months, unless Clause 2.5 below applies. The 12 months will start in accordance with Clause 2.4 below. If you wish to cancel any subscription, you will have no contractual right to do so and acceptance of that cancellation request shall be at our discretion and if accepted, may be subject to a cancellation charge.

2.3 After indicating what kind of subscription you require, you will then proceed to an alternative screen detailing the price and we will request your location details and we will request your credit card details for an online payment Included on these screens will be the total price for the subscription for the period requested including VAT (if applicable) and UK/International delivery charges. You will be asked to confirm that you have read these terms and conditions. When you do submit your request for payment to be authorised by whatever means, you are making an offer to purchase a subscription, which we may accept or decline. For online payments, after you submit your offer, for online orders our online payment provider and/or us will send you an email confirming receipt of your payment request. We may at that time allow you to have temporary access online to the journal(s) you have asked to subscribe to, from the terminal you submitted the order from, but this is a gesture of goodwill, and does not represent acceptance of your offer.

2.4 Your online payment will then be processed by us and we will confirm if your payment is not validated. A binding contract comes into effect between us when we email you your online password (if applicable) or if we have not contacted you within 10 working days of you submitting your order (whichever is earliest). We have included this term to protect us in the case that a mistake has been made in pricing on the website, if we have inadvertently under-priced goods, or we are no longer able to supply a particular product for some reason. In the case of a change of price, we will always contact you first to ensure that the price is acceptable - see Clause 4 below. If accepted, delivery will be made to you as specified above.

2.5 Subscriptions are supplied subject to availability, remaining in current circulation and journals continuing to be owned by us. In the event that we are unable to supply any subscriptions for the agreed term, we will inform you as soon as possible and provide you with a pro rata refund in the event that you have paid for a period for which we cannot comply. We will not however be liable for any other direct or indirect losses nor any losses (as set out in Clause 6), caused as a result of not being able to supply you with the subscriptions for all or any of the periods subscribed to. This does not affect your statutory rights.

3. Your Account Details

If your print and online subscription is accepted, you will be responsible for maintaining confidentiality of your online account and password, restricting access to your computer and/or prevent unauthorised access to your account. You agree to take responsibility for all activities that occur under your account or password. If you believe that your account or password is being or is about to be used by anyone else you should inform us immediately via customerservice.group@bmjgroup.com.

4. Prices and Payments

4.1 The price that you pay for your subscription should be the standard pricing as indicated on the website, which will depend on your billing/invoice address. These prices are valid for purchases during the calendar year which the purchase relates to. You will be charged in the currency as indicated in the Checkout phase which, if not the country of your bank account, will be converted by your bank into the currency of your bank account, when processed. We are not responsible for any additional charges your bank may apply.

4.2 Whilst we try to ensure that all of our prices on our website are accurate, errors may occur. If we discover any error in the prices of the subscriptions you have ordered, we will inform you as soon as possible and give you the option of recommencing your order at the correct price or cancelling it. If we are unable to contact you we will treat the order as cancelled. If you cancel for this reason and we have already processed your payment, you will receive a full refund.

4.3 Payments may be made through this method specified on our payment options section prior to concluding the transaction. We take all reasonable precautions to keep the details of your order and payments secure, however unless we are negligent, we cannot be held liable for losses caused as a result of unauthorised access to the information provided by you.

4.4 This website only accepts payment via credit/debit card details submitted online via this website. If you wish to fax your payment details to us, or discuss other methods of payment, please contact customerservice.group@bmjgroup.com.

5. Customs

When you are ordering the BMJ and/or Student BMJ for delivery overseas, you may be subject to import duties and taxes, which is levied once the package reaches the specified destination. Any additional charges for custom clearance must be borne by you, we have no control over these charges and cannot predict what they may be.

6. Losses

6.1 We try to ensure that website availability is uninterrupted and that transmissions will be error-free. However, we cannot, guarantee that your access will not be suspended or restricted for reasonable periods from time to time, including to allow for repairs, maintenance or the introduction of new facilities or services. We of course try to limit the frequency and duration of any suspension or restriction

6.2 We will not be liable for any direct or indirect loss or consequential losses (including loss of profit, revenue, contracts, anticipated savings, data, goodwill or wasted expenditure), other than as stated in Clause 6.3 or when your subscriptions cannot be fulfilled, and in which case, our liability to you will be as set out in clause 2.5.

6.3 We do not however exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injury caused from our negligence or fraudulent misrepresentation, nor does this affect your statutory rights.

6.4 Use of BMJ and/or Student BMJ content is subject to all disclaimers as contained on the relevant website and within paper publications.

7. Alteration of Service or Amendments to the Conditions

We reserve the right to make changes to our website, policies, and these terms and conditions at any time. You will be subject to the general policies and conditions in force at the time that you use the website or that you order goods from us, unless any change to those policies or these conditions is required to be made by law or government authority (in which case it will apply to orders previously placed by you). If any of these conditions is deemed invalid, void, or for any reason unenforceable, that condition will be deemed severable and will not affect the validity and enforceability of any remaining condition.

8. Events beyond our reasonable control

We will not be held responsible for any delay or failure to comply with our obligations under these conditions if the delay or failure arises from any cause which is beyond our reasonable control including reasons of Force Majeure which shall include any default due to an act of God, war, or threatened war, act of terrorism or threatened act of terrorism, strike, lockout individual action, fire, flood, drought, tempest or other event beyond the control of either party. This condition does not affect your statutory rights.

9. Waiver

If you breach these conditions and we take no action, we will still be entitled to use our rights and remedies in any other situation where you breach these conditions.

10. Use of our content and website(s)

The content, layout, design, data, databases and graphics on our websites and within our print publications are protected by UK and other international intellectual property laws and are owned by the BMJ Group and/or its Licensors. Unless expressly permitted in writing in a licence agreement or otherwise permitted by the terms and conditions on the BMJ website, and other than printing a small proportion of content or displaying this on your screen or both, (strictly for your personal non-commercial use), no part of the website may be reproduced, stored in any medium, including but not limited to a retrieval system or transmitted, in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, broadcasting nor,shown in public. You may not create any derivative work or make any other adaptation, without our prior written consent. You must not modify the copies you have displayed or printed in any way and you may not use any illustrations, photographs, videos or audio sequences or any graphics separately from any accompanying text. Any permitted use of our material is subject to ensuring that our copyright notices and trade marks appear as they do on all copies online and customary bibliographical citations including author attribution, date article title (where applicable) and the URL to the relevant BMJ Group website are included. If you print off or download any material from our website(s) in breach of thes terms of use, your right to use our site(s) will cease immediately and you must at our option return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made. All rights not expressly granted in these terms or any express written licence, are reserved.

The BMJ Group’s trademarks and logos which are displayed on any relevant website are the trademarks of the BMJ Group and its Licensors. Any use including framing, metatags or other text utilising the BMJ Group’s trademarks or other trademarks displayed, is strictly prohibited without our (or our Licensor's) express written consent.

Any material you upload to our sites will be considered non-confidential and non-proprietary (unless otherwise stated on the site) and we have the right to use, copy, distribute and disclose to third parties any such material for any purpose. We also have the right to disclose your identity to ay third party who is claiming that any material posted or uploaded by you to our site constitutes a violation of their intellectal property rights, or of their right to privacy.

Any request for permission of our content or images, or other use of our intellectual property not authorised under a subscription, should be made using the contact us details on either the BMJ or Student BMJ wesbites (as applicable).

You must not use the website in any way that causes or is likely to cause the website or access to it to be interrupted, damaged or impaired in any way. You understand that you are solely responsible for all electronic communications and contents sent from your computer to us. You must use the website for lawful purposes only. You must not use the website for any of the following:
• Fraudulent purposes in connection with a criminal offence or otherwise unlawful activity
• To send, use or re-use any material that is illegal, offensive, abusive, indecent, harmful, defamatory, obscene or menacing; or in breach of copyright, trademark, confidence, privacy or any other right; or is otherwise injurious to third parties; or objectionable; or which consists of or contains software viruses, trojan horses, worms, time bombs, keystroke loggers, spyware, adware or any other harmful or similar computer code designed to adversely affect the operation of any computer software or hardware, political campaigning, commercial solicitation, chain letters, mass mailings or any spam
• To cause annoyance, inconvenience or needless anxiety
• To reproduce, duplicate, copy or resell any part of our site in contravention with these terms of use.

Our websites contain links including hyperlinks which may take you outside BMJ Group websites. Links are provided for your convenience, and an inclusion of any link does not imply endorsement or approval by us of the linked website, its operator or content. We have no control over the contents or functionality of those sites and accept no responsibility for any loss or damages that may arise from your use of them. We are not responsible for any website outside the BMJ Group websites, and such websites use will be subject to relevant terms and conditions and privacy policies.

You may link to articles or the home page of the BMJ or BMJ Journals websites otherwise you must not deep link to any of our websites or link to our home pages without our agreement in writing. You may not provide a link which suggests a form of association, approval or endorsement on our part, unless we have expressly agreed to this in writing. We reserve the right to withdraw any linking permission upon notice to you or by amending these terms and conditions.

11. Privacy

Our full privacy policy is set out on our corporate website at http://group.bmj.com/group/about/legal/privacy/. Please note that in addition to as stated within that policy, cookies are used on this shopping site to keep track of the contents of your shopping cart, to store delivery addresses if the address book is used and to store your details if you select the 'Remember Me' Option. They are also used after you have logged on as part of that process. You can turn off cookies within your browser by going to 'Tools | Internet Options | Privacy' and selecting to block cookies. If you turn off cookies, you will be unable to place orders or benefit from the other features that use cookies.

12. Governing law and jurisdiction

These conditions are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. You agree, as we do, to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the English courts.

Date of Document: May 2008

Download our BMJ & Student BMJ: Subscription terms and conditions purchased via this website as a PDF document.