Terms of Service

Last Update: March 15, 2024

1. Acceptance of Terms

1.1 Overview

The following Terms of Service govern all use by Players (as defined below) of the rk9.gg websites, domains, and applications (including all web pages, subdomains and subparts therein contained, mobile applications, collectively, the "Site"), any and all services available on or through the Site or otherwise provided by RK9 Labs, LLC, and all Software (as defined below) (collectively, the "Services"). The Services are owned and operated by RK9 Labs, LLC ("RK9”). The Services are offered subject to your acceptance without modification of all of the terms and conditions contained herein and all other operating rules, policies and procedures that may be published from time to time on the Site by RK9. If you object to anything in these Terms of Service or the Privacy Notice, you are not permitted to use the Services. By using or accessing any part of the Services, you acknowledge that (a) you are at least 13 years of age, (b) you have not been previously banned, blocked, or suspended from the Services, and (c) you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service.

1.2 Modification

RK9 reserves the right, at its sole discretion, to modify or replace any of the terms or conditions of these Terms of Service (or any of the agreements that make up these Terms of Service) at any time (collectively, “Modifications”). Modifications to these Terms of Service will be posted to the rk9.gg website with a change to the "Last Update” date at the top of these Terms of Service. In certain circumstances RK9 may provide you with additional notice of such Modifications, via email or with in-Service notifications. Modifications will be effective thirty (30) days following the "Last Update” date or such other date as communicated in any other notice to you, except that changes addressing new functions of the Services or which do not impose any additional burdens or obligations on you will be effective immediately. It is your responsibility to check these Terms of Service periodically for Modifications. Your continued use of the Services following the effectiveness of any Modifications to these Terms of Service constitutes acceptance of those Modifications as well. If any Modification to these Terms of Service is not acceptable to you, you must cease accessing, browsing and otherwise using the Services. Other than as set forth in this paragraph, these Terms of Service may only be modified through a written agreement, signed by you and an authorized officer of RK9.

1.3 Language

RK9 may translate these Terms of Service, Privacy Notice or any other operating rules, policies and procedures that may be published from time to time on the Site into other languages for your convenience. The English language version of each of these documents is the version that governs your use of the Services and in the event of any conflict between the English language version and a translated version, the English language version will control.

2. Company Description

RK9 owns and operates an event registration and management software platform (the “Software”) (referred to above and included by reference in the Services) that is used in connection with trading card game and video game tournaments. The Services is offered to you (“Players”) to register for and participate in tournaments organized by third-party organizers and/or Pokémon Company International, Inc. (“TPCi”), including for you to: (i) pay the third party organizer (NOT RK9) through off-platform payment processors for applicable event registration fees; (ii) submit your deck and/or team list(s) for tournament events; (iii) review and/or complete all required tournament rules, terms, requirements, and other acknowledgements; and (iv) manage your account and interact with your past and future tournament information. These Terms of Service apply to you and your use of the Services as a Player. Other terms of use may apply to you and your use of the Services as a general user.

While RK9 provides the Services to enable Players to register and participate in tournaments organized by third-party organizers, RK9 is not responsible for the performance of those Organizers, nor does it have control over tournament production (including registration requirements and/or limitations), tournament payments and refunds, venue selection, creating or enforcing tournament rules and regulations, staffing, prize selection, or prize fulfillment.

3. Your Use of the Services

3.1 The Services

Pursuant to the terms and restrictions set forth herein, and for other good and valuable consideration, RK9 hereby grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicenseable right to access the Services for the purposes of browsing the Site, and searching for, viewing, organizing, managing, running, and interacting with, an event that is registered on the Site, in each case (i) in compliance with these Terms of Service, and (ii) to the extent permitted under all applicable laws and regulations (foreign and domestic).

Access to the Site and Services may be governed by a contract or subscription purchased by an individual and/or company, and may be limited-use in term and/or functionality. If this is the case, access to the Site and Services could be granted for a limited term, and will be revoked at the expiration of that term. RK9 is not obligated to provide access to the Site and Services past the term of any contract or subscription.

3.2 Intellectual Property Ownership

Ownership. RK9 retains the ownership of all right, title and interest in and to the Services (inclusive of all source code, object code, and any other third party software or materials), RK9’s trademarks, service marks, trade names and logos, RK9 software, RK9 services, RK9 websites and/or mobile applications, and all patents, copyrights and other intellectual property rights contained or made available therein (collectively, “RK9 IP”). RK9 shall own all rights, title and interest in all developments of and enhancements to the Services and other RK9 IP, including any customizations or modifications to the Services implemented by RK9 for any reason.

Restrictions. You shall not, and shall not permit anyone else to, directly or indirectly: (i) license, sublicense, sell, resell, transfer, assign, distribute, or otherwise commercially exploit or make available to any third party the RK9 IP in any way; (ii) modify, reproduce, or make derivative works based upon the RK9 IP; (iii) reverse engineer, disassemble, de-compile, re-compile, reconfigure, reinstall, update or otherwise access the RK9 IP (including in particular the Services); or (iv) otherwise take any action which may adversely affect or impair RK9’s ownership of the RK9 IP. All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved by RK9.

4. Privacy Notice

At RK9, we value and respect your privacy. Please see our Privacy Notice for how we go about accomplishing our privacy initiatives, and information on how we collect, use, and share your personal information. RK9 does not control and is not responsible for the acts of you or any other users of the Services.

From time to time, RK9 may publish articles and/or reports using data from the Site and Services. These may include, but are not limited to, registration trends and deck/team list meta analysis. All reports and/or articles will be published in a manner consistent with RK9's Privacy Notice.

5. Your Obligations

5.1 Your Account

As part of the Services registration process, you will provide a Google Account email that will be used to sign into the Site and Services. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials, and are fully responsible for all activities that occur under your account, including without limitation, anyone that you may have intentionally or unintentionally allowed access to your account. You are responsible for providing true, accurate, current and complete information about yourself as needed for the Services, and to maintain and promptly update that information as needed. If you provide any information that is untrue, inaccurate, nor current or complete, or RK9 has reasonable grounds to suspect that such information is untrue, inaccurate, nor current or complete, RK9 may, at our sole discretion, at any time and without advance notice or liability, suspend, terminate or restrict your access to any or all component(s) of the Services.

5.2 Your Events

As a Player, you are responsible for all aspects of your account/profile, events, and tournaments. You agree, to the best of your ability, to follow RK9's published best practices when using the Services. For the avoidance of doubt, RK9 only provides support for its Services, but does not provide support for secondary software, such as TOM, Discord, or any other software or services that it does not own.

5.3 Prohibits Uses

At no point during your use of the Services, including during in the process of registering for any organizer’s event, shall you: (1) transmit or upload any Malware or use or misappropriate the data on the Services for your own commercial gain; (2) use, or facilitate the use of, any unauthorized third-party software (e.g. bots, mods, hacks, and scripts) to modify or automate operation within the Service whether for yourself or for a third party; (3) use of any automated system or software to extract data from the Services ("screen scraping"), for commercial or non-commercial purposes; (4) bypass or circumvent other measures employed to prevent or limit access to the Services; (5) use any device, software or routine that interferes or attempts to interfere with the normal operation of the Services or take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our computer or network equipment; (6) use any feature of the Services for any purpose that is unlawful, harmful, or otherwise objectionable or inappropriate, as determined by RK9; (7) post or distribute any material on the Services that violates the rights of any third party or applicable law; (8) use the Service to collect or store personal data about others; (9) transmit any ad or promotional materials on the Services; (10) circumvent, disable or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the Services or features that prevent or restrict use or copying of any content or enforce limitations on the use of the Site or any content on the Services; (11) take any action to cause, or exploit, known or latent malfunctions, bugs or other defects in the Services or system used to operate the Services; (12) attempt to circumvent any restriction in any Services based upon age, geography, or other restriction imposed by RK9; or (13) impersonate any person or entity, or otherwise misrepresent your affiliation with a person or entity. “Malware” shall mean any software (sometimes referred to as “viruses,” “worms,” “trojan horses,” “time bombs,” “time locks,” “drop dead devices,” “traps,” “access codes,” “cancelbots” or “trap door devices”) that: (a) is intentionally designed to damage, disrupt, disable, harm, impair, interfere with, intercept, expropriate or otherwise impede in any manner, any data, storage media, program, system, equipment or communication, based on any event, including for example but not limited to (i) exceeding the number of copies, (ii) exceeding the number of users, (iii) passage of a period of time, (iv) advancement to a particular date or other numerals, or (v) use of a certain feature; or (b) would enable an unauthorized person to cause such result, or (c) would enable an unauthorized person to access another person’s information without such other person’s knowledge and permission. RK9 may, at our sole discretion, at any time and without advance notice or liability, suspend, terminate or restrict your access to any or all component(s) of the Services and/or void, terminate or revoke your registration for and participation in any event(s) you have registered for using the Services.

6. Disclaimers

All software, services, and RK9 IP is provided “as is” without warranty of any kind. RK9 makes no express or implied representations or warranties, and specifically disclaims any such representations or warranties, with respect to the software, services or RK9 IP to be provided hereunder, including, without limitation, warranties of their quality or condition, non-infringement, merchantability, fitness for any particular purpose, or use by tournament organizers or general users. RK9, and its parents, subsidiaries, affiliates, managers, members, directors, officers, employees, independent contractors, licensors, distributors, or agents (the “RK9 Parties”) do not warrant that the software and any RK9 IP will meet tournament organizers or general users needs or requirements, or that the operation of the Services and any RK9 IP will be uninterrupted or error free.

7. Limitation on Liability

RK9 and the RK9 Parties shall not be liable to you (either Players or others browsing or otherwise accessing and/or using the Services) for any (i) special, indirect, incidental, punitive, or consequential damages whatsoever (including but not limited to loss of profits, damages arising from loss of data or programming, loss of revenue or profits, failure to realize savings or other benefits, damage to equipment, and claims against tournament organizers by any third person), arising from or in any way related to the Services or the operation or use of the Services, even if the RK9 Parties have been advised of the possibility of such damages; or (ii) claims made a subject of legal proceeding against RK9 more than two years after any such cause of action first arose.

8. Release & Indemnification

In consideration of being permitted to access and use the Services, you hereby agree to release RK9 and the RK9 Parties from all damages (whether direct, indirect, incidental, consequential or otherwise), losses, liabilities, costs and expenses of every kind and nature, known and unknown, arising out of or in any way connected with disputes between you and third parties (including tournament organizers, general users, and other users) in connection with the Services, your access and use of the Services, or any events listed thereon.

In addition, you also covenant and agree that you will defend, indemnify and hold RK9 and the RK9 Parties harmless from and against any claim, cause of action, liability, expense, loss or demand, including-without limitation-reasonable legal and accounting fees, arising out of, or in any way connected with your breach of these Terms or the agreements made part of these Terms by reference, your breach of any applicable law, and your use of or access to the Services or the RK9’s IP.

9. Links to Other Websites

Our Services may contain links to third-party websites (“Third Party Sites”). Third Party Sites are not under the control of RK9 and RK9 is not responsible for the contents of any Third-Party Sites, including without limitation any link contained in a Third-Party Sites, or any changes or updates to a Third-Party Sites. You should contact the Third-Party Sites administrator or webmaster if you have any concerns regarding such links or the content located on such Third-Party Sites. You are solely responsible for following the terms and conditions of all Third-Party Sites. Please visit each individual Third-Party Sites to obtain and review their terms and conditions.

10. Miscellaneous

10.1 Entire Agreement

These Terms of Service constitute the entire agreement between you and RK9 and governs your use of the Services as a general user, Tournament Organizer, or other user, superseding any prior or contemporaneous agreements, proposals, discussions or communications between you and RK9 on the subject matter hereof.

10.2 Jurisdiction; Choice of Law

These Terms of Service will be governed and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of Illinois and without giving effect to principles of conflict of laws. Any proceeding arising out of or relating to these Terms of Service must be brought in the state or federal courts of Cook County, Illinois and all users of the Services irrevocably submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of each such court in any such proceeding. No waiver by RK9 of any breach of any provision of these Terms by you shall be deemed a waiver of any other contemporaneous, preceding, or succeeding breach or anticipated breach, whether or not similar.

10.3 Severability

In case any one or more of the provisions contained in these Terms of Service are held to be invalid, illegal or unenforceable in any respect for any reason, such invalidity, illegality or unenforceability will not affect any other provisions of these Terms of Service, and these Terms of Service will be construed as if such invalid, illegal or unenforceable provision had never been contained herein.

10.4 Force Majeure

RK9 shall be excused from performance under these Terms for any period and to the extent that it is prevented from performing any action, in whole or in part, as a result of delays caused by the other party or an act of God, war, civil disturbance, court order, labor dispute, or other cause beyond its reasonable control, including without limitation failures or fluctuations in electrical power or telecommunications equipment. Such nonperformance shall not be a default of these Terms.

I acknowledge that I have read and agree to the above Terms of Service and the RK9 Privacy Notice.