
The Blue Brain Project (hereinafter, the “BBP”), a Swiss Brain Initiative operating within the École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne (hereinafter, the “EPFL”) has developed, for the past 20 years, approximately 18 million lines of code that enable the building, simulating, analyzing, and visualizing of digital brain models – biologically accurate replicas of brain tissue or entire brains. The EPFL’s BBP has open-sourced its related data, models, and software for use by the research community. This foundational contribution serves as the starting point for the Open Brain Institute, a not-for-profit Swiss Foundation registered under IDE number CHE-329.972.115 (hereinafter, the “OBI”), to share these resources with the community and catalyze further development of Digital Brain Models of any kind.
The OBI operates the Open Brain Platform (hereinafter, the "Platform"), a web-accessible online platform running on cloud computing resources and designed to aggregate and provide access to neuroscience-related content and tools.
These Terms and Conditions (hereinafter, the “Terms”) govern the use of the Platform for academic research purposes to the exclusion of commercial research and purposes. Any commercial use of the Platform is authorised only upon the prior conclusion of a commercial agreement between the User and OBI. Subject to the above, the academic access and use of the Platform is expressly and exclusively governed by these Terms as well as the privacy policy (the “Privacy Policy”) and the citation policy (the “Citation Policy”). Paid Services offered by OBI are in addition governed by the financing policy (the “Financing Policy”).
The Platform is composed of three main sections (“Explore”, “Build”, and “Experiment”) as well as a chat available in each section. The Build, Explore, and Experiment sections are accessible through Virtual Laboratories, which the User can create or join. Each section gives access to specific functionalities, as follows:
These functionalities are subject to a subscription and/or credit fee, as defined in Section 6.b below, and to the acceptance of the Financing Policy.
The Platform may include third party (including but not limited to AWS, Github and Stripe) software, products or services (the “Third Party Services”), which are subject to their own terms and conditions, to which the User undertakes to comply by using the Platform. The Users acknowledge and agree that the Platform and the Assets are hosted and managed by Amazon Web Services (AWS).
Each Third Party Service is the sole responsibility of the third party from which it originates. OBI shall not be held responsible or liable for:
The User acknowledges that the performance and availability of such Third Party Services are beyond the control of OBI, and any issues arising from these Third Party Services shall not constitute a breach of these Terms by OBI. OBI PROVIDES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, WITH REGARD TO THIRD PARTY SERVICES OR COMPONENTS, AND OBI WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY FAILURE OF ANY THIRD PARTY SERVICES OR COMPONENT TO FUNCTION AS EXPECTED OR INTENDED.
OBI may at any time and without notice remove or add Third Party Services from/on the Platform.
The Platform may provide/contain links or references to other websites and resources, including to Third Party Services. OBI hereby makes no representations, warranties, or other commitments or endorsements whatsoever about those websites and resources that may be referenced, accessible from, or linked to. OBI shall not be liable for any content associated with such websites and resources.
The User agrees to use the Platform at his/her own risk.
The User shall not use the Platform:
The User further undertakes:
In addition:
Any unauthorized use of the Platform, its Services and/or its Assets as well as any use or access in violation with these Terms, may engage the User’s liability (see Section 9.b below).
The fees consist of a monthly or yearly subscription fee for the Pro and Premium plans as well as credits. The various subscription options, the credits and the payment methods are further described in the Financing Policy, which forms an integral part of these Terms.
The User shall provide full acknowledgement and citation in any reproduction, regardless of the form or method used (including, but not limited to downloading, screen capture, printing, etc.), of all or part of the elements of the Platform, including, but not limited to, its content (such as texts, images, videos, data, databases, user interface elements, etc.). The User undertakes to mention in a clearly visible manner the source of the data concerned, in close proximity and each time it is used, at least in the following form: [Source: Open Brain Institute (OBI). Retrieved from [https://openbraininstitute.org] on [Date]]. For academic or professional use, Users should adhere to the citation style appropriate to their field.
Any adaptation, modification, translation, transformation of any kind of all or part of the elements of the Platform, including, but not limited to, its content (such as texts, images, videos, data, databases, user interface elements, etc.) shall be mentioned in a clearly visible manner and in close proximity to the adapted content, for example: [[Type of adaptation (e.g. Created/, Translated, etc.)] using data/content from Open Brain Institute (OBI), [https://openbraininstitute.org], accessed on [Date]]. For academic or professional use, Users should adhere to the citation style appropriate to their field. The User shall not misrepresent, distort, or materially alter the original data or content in a manner that could mislead or misrepresent the original source's intent, meaning, or context.
Not withstanding the foregoing, all image files contained on the Website are protected by a copyright and shall include all required copyright information. The User shall, in all cases and at all times, retain the copyright notice associated with the image files as displayed on the Website. As regards OBI’s copyright, and unless otherwise indicated, all image files shall include the following notice:[© [Year]OBI].
The data privacy related to the access and use of the Platform are governed by the Privacy Policy, which forms an integral part of these Terms, available here: [https://www.openbraininstitute.org/privacy].
By accepting these Terms, the User accepts to be publicly listed on the Platform.
Any question about these Terms shall be addressed to info@openbraininstitute.org.