Terms of use

Access to and use of this website ('comedy.co.uk') is provided by Digital Mark Ltd, trading as British Comedy Guide, a company registered in England under Company Number 06706722, and is subject to the following terms:

  1. By using this website you agree to be legally bound by these terms, which shall take effect immediately on your first use. If you do not agree to be legally bound by all the following terms please do not access and/or use comedy.co.uk nor any of the website's sub-domains and associated domains.
  2. British Comedy Guide may change these terms at any time by posting changes online, with or without notice. Your continued use of comedy.co.uk after changes are posted means you agree to be legally bound by the updated and/or amended terms.

Use of British Comedy Guide's website

  1. You may not copy, reproduce, republish, download, post, broadcast, transmit, make available to the public, or otherwise use comedy.co.uk content in any way without written permission from British Comedy Guide. You also agree not to adapt, alter or create a derivative work from any comedy.co.uk content except for your own personal, non-commercial use.
  2. You agree to use comedy.co.uk only for lawful purposes, and in a way that does not infringe the rights of, restrict or inhibit anyone else's use and enjoyment of comedy.co.uk. Prohibited behaviour includes harassing or causing distress or inconvenience to any person, transmitting obscene or offensive content, or disrupting the normal flow of dialogue on the website.

Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

  1. Comedy.co.uk content, including the information, names, images, pictures, logos and icons regarding or relating to British Comedy Guide is provided "AS IS" and on an "IS AVAILABLE" basis without any representations or any kind of warranty made (whether express or implied by law) to the extent permitted by law, including the implied warranties of satisfactory quality, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, compatibility, security and accuracy.
  2. Under no circumstances will British Comedy Guide be liable for any of the following losses or damage (whether such losses where foreseen, foreseeable, known or otherwise): (a) loss of data; (b) loss of revenue or anticipated profits; (c) loss of business; (d) loss of opportunity; (e) loss of goodwill or injury to reputation; (f) losses suffered by third parties; or (g) any indirect, consequential, special or exemplary damages arising from the use of comedy.co.uk regardless of the form of action.
  3. British Comedy Guide does not warrant that functions contained in comedy.co.uk content will be uninterrupted or error free, that defects will be corrected, or that comedy.co.uk or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or bugs.

Intellectual Property

  1. The names, images and logos identifying British Comedy Guide and the third parties and their products / services / programmes are subject to copyright, design rights and trademarks and may not be used without permission of the relevant owners.

British Comedy Guide User Account Rules

The following rules relating to comedy.co.uk user accounts must be adhered to:

  1. The registering of multiple accounts is not permitted. Each individual may only have one account.
  2. Offensive or inappropriate nicknames are not permitted. Additionally, you may not choose a nickname that may portray yourself as someone you are not - for example, a stand-up comedian, an actor, musician, writer, another member of comedy.co.uk, or a brand or service to which you're not attached.
  3. The email address you use to sign in with must belong to you. If you have more than one email address we request you choose an address that you check frequently.
  4. All personal details you enter into the system must be accurate. You may however use a nickname (note rule 2 above), so that you are not personally identifiable in public.
  5. It is the responsibility of account holders to keep their records correct and up-to-date. If any of your personal details or your email address changes please update your account via the online interface (or send us an email).
  6. Accounts set up for the primary reason of hoping to get a search engine ranking (SEO) boost from link(s) posted is strictly forbidden. We have systems in place to swiftly identify and delete such links and ban such accounts.
  7. Members under 16 years of age are encouraged NOT to sign up for a BCG account. If they do do so, they should be supervised by a responsible adult whenever they are signed in.
  8. A user who is banned from British Comedy Guide is not permitted to return under any circumstances, unless expressly agreed with the Site Editors. Attempts to rejoin the site despite after being banned will be considered harassment, and will be reported as such to the user's Internet Service Provider with recommendation of account termination; and if necessary, to local law enforcement agencies.
  9. Users should refrain from accessing the site through proxy servers, or by other means that mask or falsify their true identity, including but not limited to, IP addresses. Users accessing the site through such means will be considered to be (potential) trolls, troublemakers, and/or otherwise unwanted and unsavoury persons, and dealt with accordingly.
  10. Even if you delete your account, you should be aware your posts will remain on the message board to ensure context is maintained. To find out more about how information related to your user account is used, see our Privacy Policy. By using your account you are confirming you understand and agree to our policies in this regard.

Message Board Rules & Conditions

To help keep British Comedy Guide's message board friendly and usable, we have a number of additional rules to follow in addition to the general BCG Account rules. Please be aware we may opt to enforce the below rules with zero-tolerance. The violation of these rules could result in the offending user(s) being temporarily suspended or permanently banned from the website. Any and all restrictions and other judgments are made at the discretion of the message board moderators and administrators.

General

  1. The word of a moderator, when acting in his or her capacity as a staff member, is to be considered 'gospel' and cannot be disputed with the moderator privately or publicly, or with the community as a whole. Should the decision of the moderator be considered particularly unjust, the user should contact BCG's Editors, whose decision will be final.
  2. Be aware moderators or administrators may edit, remove, or otherwise modify any data on the message board without warning. This includes, but is not restricted to, threads, individual posts, user profiles, and entire user accounts.
  3. You should be aware that anything you post can be found by Google and other services, and associated with your nickname. If your nickname is your real name do be careful in this regard about what you reveal.
  4. The delete and edit post functionalities are time-limited. After a specified time period, to protect the integrity of the thread, you will not be able to remove or modify your post.

Posting

  1. Unless said in legitimate context (for example, a proper noun), "txt spk" is strictly forbidden.
  2. As far as is possible, correct English spelling and grammar should be used at all times.
  3. Members should refrain from SHOUTING UNNECESSARILY in their posts.
  4. Posting simply to increase a user's post count is not permitted.
  5. Before creating a thread, users should make use of the forum search functionality in order to ensure that a relevant thread does not already exist for their intended topic of discussion.
  6. Off-topic - that is, deviation from a thread's topic - material and discussion is forbidden in a number of forums. These forums can be identified by a warning/reminder message above post submission fields.
  7. If a user has a complaint regarding another user's conduct, suspects them of holding multiple user accounts, or wishes to raise any other concern or point regarding another user, these should be conveyed to a moderator or the Editor privately (for example, by private message). Such matters aired publicly (i.e. in threads) will be considered trolling and dealt with accordingly.

Post Content

  1. Contributions must be civil and tasteful. Users may not post information relating to or otherwise post content in any form concerning the following:

    • Activities illegal in the United Kingdom or other locales
    • Religious material (except where in legitimate discussion of a programme)
    • Slanderous material of any individual, organisation, or company
    • Material that could reasonably be considered offensive to others, particularly images depicting violence or nudity
    • The promotion of content malicious to computer hardware or software, such as viruses
    • Content that violates privacy
    • Requesting participants for any competition or contest without obtaining the prior consent of the Site Editors
    • Copyrighted material for which the user posting the material is not the copyright holder
    • Specific resources to aid in the acquisition of copyrighted material, of which the user posting is not the legitimate copyright holder
  2. Users may not advertise in posts, private messages, or other posted material without first obtaining permission from the Site Editors (contact us here). This includes referral/affiliate links, links to sites for which the poster will directly financially benefit, advertising for a free resource, sending an unsolicited private message offering a product or service, or otherwise posting simply for financial or membership benefits. Permission will often be given, provided the advert will be of interest to message board users (i.e. comedy related), but it must be sought.
  3. Users must post their questions or comments in one thread in one forum, not multiple threads in one forum or multiple threads in multiple forums. That is, users must not make "double posts" by which they post in multiple forums with the same message or question.
  4. Unless he/she has a legitimate reason (the definition of "legitimate" is at the discretion of the moderators), users should not post within their own thread simply for the sake of making that thread appear at the top of the forum, commonly referred to as "bumping".
  5. Please clearly label all spoilers (in this case, a spoiler is revealing detail about plot developments that have not been broadcast in the UK yet) so that users can avoid if they so wish.

Contributions to British Comedy Guide

  1. Where you are invited to submit any contribution to comedy.co.uk (including any text, photographs, graphics, video or audio) - whether that be in a published feature way or through entering something into one of our interactive features, e.g. a forum post - you agree, by submitting your contribution, to grant British Comedy Guide perpetual, royalty-free, non-exclusive, sub-licensable right and license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, perform, play, make available to the public, and exercise all copyright and publicity rights with respect to your contribution worldwide and/or to incorporate your contribution in other works in any media now known or later developed for the full term of any rights that may exist in your contribution, and in accordance with privacy restrictions set out in British Comedy Guide's Privacy Policy. If you do not want to grant to British Comedy Guide the rights set out above, please do not submit your contribution to comedy.co.uk, or contact the site Editor first to discuss the possibility of a special arrangement.
  2. Further to section 1, by submitting your contribution you warrant that your contribution:

    • is your own original work and that you have the right to make it available to British Comedy Guide for all the purposes specified above;
    • is not defamatory; and
    • does not infringe any law; and
    • indemnify British Comedy Guide against all legal fees, damages and other expenses that may be incurred as a result of your breach of the above warranty; and
    • waive any moral rights in your contribution for the purposes of its submission to and publication on comedy.co.uk and the purposes specified above.

BCG Supporter and BCG Pro

BCG's Supporter programme and BCG Pro are subscription-based services that offer users additional functionality and services: as a small thanks for a donation (BCG Supporters) or an annual fee (BCG Pro).

All user accounts - and subscriptions attached to them - are intended for the use of one person and one person only. Any accounts found to be shared by more than one person will be closed immediately, with all benefits of subscription removed and no refund made. Note: BCG Pro has subscription packages that let creative collectives, teams and businesses to sign in using individual accounts - so there is no need to share a password.

A subscription may be ended at the discretion of British Comedy Guide; after successive billings failures; or by the user actively cancelling the subscription via their control panel. Any account that has its subscription terminated will lose access to the associated extra functionality.

The features provided to BCG Supporters and to BCG Pro accounts may be changed without notice.

No refunds will be offered for BCG Pro subscriptions.

Payments & Refunds

Users are able to carry out financial transactions with British Comedy Guide through this website, including but not limited to BCG Pro membership subscriptions, the services and courses advertised via BCG Pro, entry into the Sitcom Mission comedy writing competition, and making donations. Payments are processed by Braintree, a PayPal Service and can be made by PayPal account or credit/debit card.

Sitcom Mission
Entry into this writing competition is governed by the competition's rules. The rules state that no refunds are possible once you have paid for your entry.

Donations
We very much welcome donations. Donations can be made on a one-off basis, or by recurring subscription. Recurring subscriptions will be automatically rebilled at the end of each billing cycle (either a month or a year, depending on what you select), unless cancelled via a user's account control panel. Payment for each billing cycle will automatically be processed from the user's default billing method, which can also be changed via the account control panel.

In return for donations, we offer a number of additional benefits. The full list can be seen at the bottom of the donations page. British Comedy Guide reserves the right to remove, change, or - more likely - add to the benefits at any point without notice.

BCG Supporters can access all the extra benefits for as long as they have an active, recurring donation plan. For those making one-off donations, we grant one month's access to the benefits per £1 donated (up to a maximum of one year at a time).

BCG Pro subscriptions
BCG Pro subscriptions, unless otherwise indicated, are billed in 12-monthly cycles are non-refundable. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing cycle unless terminated by British Comedy Guide or explicitly cancelled by the user via their account control panel. Payment for each billing cycle will automatically be processed from the user's default billing method, which can also be changed via the account control panel.

BCG reserves the right to alter the price of subscriptions, taking effect immediately for new subscriptions and at the start of the next billing cycle for existing subscribers. Existing subscribers will be notified of rebilling - and the cost of renewal - via the email address associated with their user account 7 (seven) calendar days before their end of their current billing cycle. Unless a subscription is cancelled, we will attempt to process payment for a new billing period at the end of the previous cycle.

Shop Disclaimer

British Comedy Guide does not sell DVDs, books, downloads or any other form of merchandise found within our Shop directly. Instead we store details of products sold by other retailers.

  • Association: British Comedy Guide has no formal business relationship with the retailers listed on this website, although some do pay a small percentage of sales totals as commission through third party affiliate schemes. We cannot take any responsibility for any purchases you choose to make so please check all details very carefully before placing an order. If you have any questions or problems with your order you should contact the retailer directly.
  • Scope: We have chosen to link to a select group of retailers due to the range of goods available on their websites, the generally low and/or fair prices of the products in their catalogues, their reputations, and their customer service. Visitors should be aware that some retailers pay British Comedy Guide a small referral fee for any purchases. Such payments keep this website free to use. Other retailers listing the products may exist.
  • Accuracy: We try to offer our visitors a better shopping experience by providing photos, product details, reviews and more on our website. However, whilst we believe the descriptions and graphics to be accurate representations of the products, we cannot guarantee that they are. The only data that can be assumed to be correct is the actual listing on the retailer's website. If you do spot an error or find an incorrect link please do report it to us.
  • Compatibility: You are reminded to double-check that any goods you intend to purchase are usable by yourself and/or your device(s). British Comedy Guide cannot be held responsible if any product proves to be unusable or unplayable upon delivery.

General

  1. If there is any conflict between these terms and specific terms appearing elsewhere on comedy.co.uk then the above shall prevail.
  2. If any of these terms are determined to be illegal, invalid or otherwise unenforceable by reason of the laws of any state or country in which these terms are intended to be effective, then to the extent and within the jurisdiction in which that term is illegal, invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and deleted from these terms and the remaining terms shall survive, remain in full force and effect and continue to be binding and enforceable.
  3. These terms shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of England and Wales.

These terms of use were last updated on the 24th May 2018 (with minor clarifications made on 3rd September 2020)


See also: BCG's privacy policy