1. Membership Framework

• Package Availability: Membership in the ICJ Network is distributed strictly through our defined tiers: Guest, Student, Student Premium, Standard, Premium, and Institutional packages.
• Professional Vetting: Membership is strictly reserved for individuals who can demonstrate active professional or educational engagement in journalism, authorship, or research. Proof of journalistic activity (published work, press references, or official academic enrollment for students) is mandatory upon request.
• Validity & Renewals: Each individual or institutional membership is valid for exactly one (1) year starting from the precise date of successful payment.
• Refund Policy: All membership and partnership investments are annual, non-transferable, and strictly non-refundable, except where explicitly required by applicable law.
• Refusal of Service: ICJ reserves the exclusive right to accept, deny, suspend, or terminate any membership in cases of misconduct, breach of network rules, unethical behavior, or failure to maintain international professional standards.

2. Editorial & Publishing Rights

• Tier-Based Publishing: Members are granted rights to submit and publish content on ICJ platforms strictly in accordance with their designated membership level.
• Content Standards: All published material must be entirely original, accurate, objective, and fully compliant with international copyright laws and journalistic ethics.
• Editorial Discretion: ICJ retains absolute editorial discretion to edit, reject, or permanently remove any content that violates institutional standards, lacks objectivity, or breaches international legal frameworks.
• Distribution License: By submitting content, members grant ICJ Global Media Group a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to display, distribute, translate, and archive their work across all ICJ platforms and partner networks.

3. Projects, Assignments & Compensation

• Eligibility: ICJ may directly invite eligible tiers (Student Premium, Premium, Institutional) to participate in high-stakes corporate projects, research assignments, or media collaborations.
• Financial Compensation: Financial payouts for requested stories, investigative pieces, or specialized consulting projects will be negotiated and agreed upon individually, transparently, and contractually on a project-by-project basis.
• Professional Delivery: Engaged members bear sole responsibility for delivering truthful, thoroughly verifiable, and professional work that continuously upholds the highest global standards of journalism.

4. Institutional Media Partnerships

• Corporate Visibility: Accredited Institutional Members (Entry, Basic, Advanced, Golden) receive collective publishing rights and verified corporate visibility hosted entirely under their official organization’s name in the Partner Voices section.
• External Content Liability: For any co-branded partners or institutional links displayed on our network, ICJ assumes zero responsibility or legal liability for the content, opinions, or security of those external platforms.

5. Data Privacy & Protection

• Information Collection: ICJ collects essential personal and corporate data (including names, professional photographs, contact details, and country of residence) solely for network administration, verification, and public profile visibility.
• Third-Party Sharing: Personal data will never be sold, shared, or distributed to third-party entities without explicit written consent, except where strictly required by US federal or international law.
• User Rights: All verified members maintain the legal right to inspect, correct, or request the permanent deletion of their personal and professional data from our active databases.

6. Liability Limitation

• Damages Waiver: ICJ Global Media Group is not legally or financially liable for any direct or indirect damages, losses, or disputes arising from the use, interpretation, or syndication of content published on our platforms.
• Full Indemnification: Members and partner institutions bear total, unconditional legal and financial responsibility for the accuracy, legality, copyright compliance, and objectivity of their contributions.
• External Links Disclaimer: External hyper-links provided by members or institutional partners are completely beyond ICJ’s operational control; clicking or interacting with external links is done entirely at the user’s risk.

7. Financial Terms & Billing

• Upfront Payment: All individual membership fees and institutional partnership investments must be paid in full at the time of initial registration or automated annual renewal.
• Duplicate Charges: Refunds are strictly prohibited and will not be considered under any circumstances, with the sole exception of documented technical duplicate payments or explicit legal mandates.
• B2B Invoicing: All corporate and media plans are billed annually and require the formal execution of a digital or physical Institutional Partnership Agreement prior to account activation.

8. Intellectual Property & Strict Photography Rules

• Copyright Retention: Authors and journalists retain full copyright ownership over their original written intellectual property published with ICJ.
• Syndication Authority: By publishing within our network, members grant the ICJ Syndication Desk the operational right to showcase, market, and distribute their content to global media outlets according to their membership level.
• Copyright Infringement: Unauthorized reproduction, scraping, or distribution of ICJ proprietary content or network materials is strictly prohibited and subject to legal prosecution.
• Mandatory Photography Rules:
  • Members are strictly prohibited from using photographs, graphics, or illustrations from other media outlets without acquiring explicit, documented copyright permission.
  • Members must never publish photographs without clear, precise, and accurate author and source attribution in the caption.
  • The use of random internet screenshots, uncredited stock images, or any visual asset for which the member does not hold verified usage rights is completely forbidden.
  • Legal Enforcement: Any violation of these photography mandates places full personal, legal, and financial liability entirely on the individual member or partner institution that uploaded the offending content. ICJ will fully cooperate with copyright holders in identifying violating parties.

9. Code of Professional Conduct

• Ethical Journalism: Every member must fiercely uphold international journalistic standards, actively respect diversity, and completely avoid the creation of discriminatory, biased, or harmful content.
• Core Mandates: Uncompromising objectivity, absolute fairness, and rigorous factual accuracy are mandatory and non-negotiable requirements for all text and media contributions.
• Zero Tolerance Policy: Any engagement in hate speech, plagiarism, deliberate misinformation, defamation, or unethical journalism constitutes immediate grounds for the permanent termination of membership and network blacklisting without a refund.

10. Document Amendments

• Right to Update: ICJ Global Media Group reserves the right to modify, update, or completely rewrite these Terms and Conditions at any time to align with corporate policy or new legal frameworks.
• Client Notification: Active members and institutional partners will be formally notified of any significant, high-impact changes via their registered email address or through prominent official announcements on the primary ICJ portal.