Terms and Conditions of Use

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing, browsing, or using the Platform in any manner, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these T&C. These T&C apply to all users of the Platform, including individuals, institutions, corporations, non-profits, publishers, and any other entity or person accessing the Content.

Cognitive Constraint Journal (“CCJ,” “the Journal,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) reserves the right to modify these T&C at any time. Continued use of the Platform after any such modification constitutes acceptance of the revised T&C. It is your responsibility to review these T&C periodically.

2. Definitions

• “Content” means all articles, preprints, white papers, research papers, data, figures, tables, supplementary materials, metadata, abstracts, and any other scholarly or editorial materials published on or through the Platform.
• “Articles” means peer-reviewed research papers published by the Journal and made freely available to Individual Users.
• “Preprints” means manuscripts made available for open review prior to formal publication, freely available to Individual Users.
• “White Papers” means research reports, policy papers, technical analyses, and similar publications whose access is determined by the subscription tier held by the user or their institution.
• “Individual User” means any natural person accessing the Platform for personal, non-commercial, non-institutional purposes.
• “Institutional Licensee” means any college, university, secondary school, public library, museum, foundation, government agency, research center, think tank, association, or scholarly society that has entered into a license agreement with CCJ.
• “Corporate Licensee” means any for-profit company, corporation, or commercial entity that has entered into a license agreement with CCJ.
• “Non-Profit Licensee” means any non-profit organization (501(c)(3) or equivalent) that has entered into a license agreement with CCJ.
• “Publisher Licensee” means any academic publishing company, journal, or press that has entered into a license agreement with CCJ permitting citation of Content in externally published works.
• “Authorized User” means any person permitted to access Content under these T&C, including Individual Users and persons accessing Content through a Licensee.
• “Technical Protection Measure” (“TPM”) means any technology, device, or component used by CCJ to control access to Content, including but not limited to CAPTCHAs, rate limiting, and authentication systems.

3. Who May Access the Content

Individual Users: Any natural person may access Articles and Preprints on the Platform free of charge, without registration, for personal, non-commercial use. No account is required. Access to White Papers by Individual Users may require a subscription, as described in Section 6.

Institutional Licensees: Colleges, universities, schools, libraries, research centers, and similar organizations may access Content only pursuant to a valid license agreement with CCJ. Authorized Users of an Institutional Licensee include current students, faculty, staff, librarians, administrators, and affiliated researchers, subject to the terms of the applicable license.

Corporate Licensees: For-profit entities may access Content only pursuant to a valid Corporate License agreement with CCJ.

Non-Profit Licensees: Non-profit organizations may access Content only pursuant to a valid Non-Profit License agreement with CCJ.

Publisher Licensees: Academic publishers seeking to publish works containing citations to or substantial references of Content must hold a valid Publisher License.

4. Permitted Uses

Subject to the restrictions in Section 5, Authorized Users may use Content in the following ways:

• Personal Reading: Individual Users may read, download, and print Articles and Preprints in reasonable quantities for personal, non-commercial, scholarly purposes.
• Fair Use: Use in accordance with the doctrine of Fair Use under 17 U.S.C. § 107, including brief quotation for purposes of criticism, commentary, news reporting, teaching (subject to the educational restrictions below), scholarship, or research.
• Personal Social Media: Individuals (including academics using personal accounts for personal commentary) may share brief excerpts, commentary, and links on personal social media accounts.
• Non-Commercial Discussion: Discussion, commentary, and review of Content in non-commercial settings, including personal blogs, podcasts, and public forums.
• Entertainment & Media: Use of brief excerpts in television programs, films, documentaries, and other entertainment media for commentary or informational purposes, consistent with Fair Use.
• In-House Citation: Formal scholarly citation within CCJ and its affiliated publications is permitted and encouraged without additional licensing.
• PDF Sharing: Individual Users may share downloaded PDF files with other individuals for personal use, provided that the file remains intact, unmodified, and inclusive of all original watermarks, headers, footers, and copyright notices.

5. Prohibited Uses

The following uses of the Platform and Content are strictly prohibited unless expressly authorized by a valid license agreement with CCJ:

• Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning: Use of any Content as training data, input, fine-tuning material, or evaluation data for any artificial intelligence, machine learning, large language model, neural network, or any other automated system, whether commercial or non-commercial, is strictly prohibited. This prohibition applies to all Content without exception. See Section 10 for the complete AI and Data Mining Policy.
• Automated Access & Scraping: Automated access, crawling, scraping, indexing, harvesting, or systematic downloading of Content by bots, spiders, scrapers, AI training pipelines, or any other automated means is strictly prohibited.
• Circumvention of Technical Protection Measures: Any attempt to bypass, disable, or circumvent any TPM, including but not limited to CAPTCHAs, rate limiters, access gates, or authentication systems, constitutes a violation of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. § 1201, and equivalent international intellectual property laws.
• Commercial Use: Use of Content for commercial purposes or financial gain, including but not limited to selling access, incorporating Content into commercial products or services, or using Content in marketing materials, is prohibited without a valid license.
• Unauthorized Educational Use: Use of Content within any educational institution—including but not limited to classroom instruction, inclusion in syllabi, assignment as required or recommended reading, upload to any Learning Management System (Canvas, Blackboard, Moodle, etc.), distribution via course reserves (physical or digital), or incorporation into lecture materials or slides—is prohibited without a paid Educational Site License.
• Unauthorized Institutional Use: Use by associations, think tanks, research institutes, government agencies, or similar organizations is prohibited without a paid Institutional License.
• Unauthorized Publisher Citation: Academic publishing companies may not publish works (books, edited volumes, journals, textbooks, etc.) containing citations to or substantial references of Content without a paid Publisher License. Authors seeking to cite Content in externally published materials must ensure their publisher holds a valid Publisher License.
• Redistribution: Hosting, mirroring, or redistribution of Content on any public repository, database, or website—including but not limited to ResearchGate, Academia.edu, SSRN, Sci-Hub, LibGen, institutional repositories, or any similar platform—is strictly prohibited.
• Systematic Downloading: Downloading, printing, or copying Content in quantities that exceed what is reasonable for personal scholarly use, or in a manner that suggests systematic collection or redistribution, is prohibited.
• Modification: Altering, adapting, translating, reverse-engineering, or creating derivative works from Content without express written permission from CCJ is prohibited.
• Misrepresentation: Representing Content as your own work, removing or obscuring authorship attribution, copyright notices, watermarks, or any proprietary markings is prohibited.

6. Content Types & Access Levels

The Platform publishes multiple categories of Content with different access levels:

• Articles (peer-reviewed research papers): Free to all Individual Users. Institutional, Corporate, Non-Profit, and Publisher use requires a valid license.
• Preprints (manuscripts available for open review): Free to all Individual Users. Institutional, Corporate, Non-Profit, and Publisher use requires a valid license.
• White Papers (research reports, policy papers, technical analyses): Access is determined by the subscription tier held by the user or their institution. Individual Users may access White Papers only with an applicable subscription. Institutional Licensees, Corporate Licensees, and Non-Profit Licensees may access White Papers only if their license tier includes White Paper access. Specific White Papers may be further restricted to particular license tiers at the discretion of CCJ.

CCJ reserves the right to introduce additional Content types and to modify the access levels for any Content type at any time. Any such changes will be reflected in an updated version of these T&C.

7. Licensing Tiers

CCJ offers the following license types. Specific terms, pricing, and inclusions are defined in each license agreement:

• Individual Access (Free): Natural persons may read, download, and print Articles and Preprints for personal, non-commercial use at no cost. White Paper access may require a paid individual subscription.
• Educational Site License: Grants colleges, universities, secondary schools, and other educational institutions the right to use Content in curriculum, course materials, LMS platforms, and classroom instruction. Access to White Papers depends on the tier purchased.
• Institutional License: Grants research institutes, associations, think tanks, government agencies, libraries, museums, foundations, and similar organizations the right to access and use Content for their organizational purposes. Access to White Papers depends on the tier purchased.
• Corporate License: Grants for-profit companies and commercial entities the right to access and use Content for internal business purposes. All Corporate Licenses include White Paper access.
• Non-Profit License: Grants 501(c)(3) organizations and equivalent non-profit entities the right to access and use Content for their organizational purposes. Access to White Papers depends on the tier purchased.
• Publisher License: Grants academic publishing companies, journals, and presses the right to publish works containing citations to or substantial references of Content. Required for any commercial peer-reviewed publication other than CCJ and its affiliated publications.

For information about obtaining any license, please contact us.

8. Citation Policy

In-House Citation: Formal scholarly citation within CCJ and its affiliated publications is permitted and encouraged without additional licensing.

Personal & Non-Commercial Citation: Individuals may cite Content in personal writings, blog posts, social media, and non-commercial publications consistent with Fair Use.

External Commercial Publication: Any academic publishing company, journal, or press seeking to publish works containing citations to or substantial references of Content must hold a valid Publisher License. Authors submitting manuscripts to external publishers that cite Content are responsible for ensuring their publisher holds a valid Publisher License prior to publication.

Attribution: All citations of Content must include proper attribution to the original author(s) and to the Cognitive Constraint Journal, including a link to the original work on the Platform where feasible.

9. Intellectual Property Rights

Copyright: All Content published on the Platform is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. Copyright in each work is retained by the respective author(s) and/or CCJ, as specified in the applicable publication agreement. All rights not expressly granted herein are reserved.

DMCA Protection: Access to certain Content is protected by Technical Protection Measures (TPMs) as defined in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. § 1201. Circumvention of any TPM is a federal offense and may result in civil and criminal liability.

Trademarks: “Cognitive Constraint Journal,” “CCJ,” and associated logos, trade names, and trade dress are trademarks of Cognitive Constraint Journal. Use of these marks without prior written consent is prohibited.

DMCA Takedown Notices: If you believe that any Content on the Platform infringes your copyright, please contact us at our contact page with the information required under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3).

10. AI and Data Mining Policy

Absolute Prohibition on AI Training Use: No Content published on the Platform may be used, in whole or in part, as training data, fine-tuning data, evaluation data, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG) source material, or input of any kind for any artificial intelligence system, machine learning model, large language model, neural network, natural language processing system, or any other automated computational system. This prohibition applies regardless of whether the use is commercial or non-commercial, academic or industrial.

No Automated Access: Automated access to the Platform or Content by any means—including but not limited to web crawlers, spiders, bots, scrapers, indexers, API calls not expressly authorized by CCJ, or any software designed to systematically access, download, or process Content—is strictly prohibited.

No Text and Data Mining: Text mining, data mining, and any computational analysis of Content for the purpose of extracting information, patterns, or data is prohibited without express written permission from CCJ.

robots.txt & Machine-Readable Directives: The Platform maintains robots.txt directives and other machine-readable signals restricting automated access. Disregard of these directives constitutes a violation of these T&C and may constitute unauthorized access under applicable law, including the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act (CFAA), 18 U.S.C. § 1030.

No Indexing Without Permission: Indexing of Content by search engines or other services beyond standard web search indexing (title, URL, and brief snippet) requires express written permission from CCJ.

CCJ will never sell, license, or otherwise provide Content to any entity for the purpose of AI training or data mining. This commitment is made to our authors and readers.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability

As-Is Basis: The Platform and all Content are provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, completeness, or non-infringement.

No Guarantee of Availability: CCJ does not warrant that the Platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of viruses or other harmful components. CCJ reserves the right to modify, suspend, or discontinue the Platform or any portion thereof at any time without notice.

Limitation of Liability: To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, CCJ, its officers, directors, employees, agents, and affiliates shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits or revenues, whether incurred directly or indirectly, or any loss of data, use, goodwill, or other intangible losses, resulting from (a) your access to or use of or inability to access or use the Platform; (b) any Content obtained from the Platform; or (c) unauthorized access to or alteration of your transmissions or data.

Scholarly Content Disclaimer: Content published on the Platform represents the views and findings of its respective authors and does not necessarily reflect the views of CCJ. CCJ does not guarantee the accuracy, reliability, or completeness of any Content and is not responsible for any errors, omissions, or consequences arising from the use of any Content.

12. Termination & Enforcement

Termination of Access: Violation of any provision of these T&C immediately and automatically terminates your license to access and use the Platform and Content. CCJ may, at its sole discretion, suspend or terminate access to the Platform for any user or Licensee at any time, with or without notice, for conduct that CCJ believes violates these T&C or is harmful to other users, CCJ, or third parties.

Legal Remedies: CCJ reserves the right to pursue all available legal remedies for unauthorized use of Content, including but not limited to:

• Injunctive relief
• Statutory and actual damages under the DMCA, Copyright Act, and other applicable laws
• Recovery of attorney’s fees and costs
• Referral to law enforcement for criminal violations, including violations of the CFAA

Institutional Liability: Institutional, Corporate, Non-Profit, and Publisher Licensees are responsible for ensuring compliance with these T&C by all persons accessing Content through their license. Violations by any such person may result in termination of the Licensee’s agreement and access.

Survival: Sections 5, 9, 10, 11, 12, and 14 shall survive any termination or expiration of these T&C.

13. Privacy

CCJ respects your privacy. Our collection, use, and disclosure of personal information is governed by our Privacy Policy, which is incorporated into these T&C by reference. By using the Platform, you consent to the collection and use of your information as described in the Privacy Policy.

CCJ will never sell personal information to third parties. Anonymized, aggregated usage data may be used for internal analytics and to improve the Platform.

14. General Legal Provisions

Governing Law: These T&C shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the United States and the State of Georgia, without regard to its conflict of laws principles. Any dispute arising under these T&C shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts located in the State of Georgia.

Severability: If any provision of these T&C is found to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable by a court of competent jurisdiction, such invalidity shall not affect the remaining provisions, which shall continue in full force and effect.

Entire Agreement: These T&C, together with any applicable license agreement, constitute the entire agreement between you and CCJ with respect to the use of the Platform and Content, and supersede all prior or contemporaneous communications, representations, or agreements, whether oral or written.

Waiver: The failure of CCJ to enforce any right or provision of these T&C shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision. Any waiver of any provision of these T&C will be effective only if in writing and signed by CCJ.

Assignment: You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations under these T&C without the prior written consent of CCJ. CCJ may assign its rights and obligations under these T&C without restriction.

Force Majeure: CCJ shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance resulting from causes beyond its reasonable control, including but not limited to acts of God, natural disasters, war, terrorism, pandemics, government actions, or failures of third-party services.

Contact: Questions about these T&C should be directed to our contact page or emailed to founder@cognitiveconstraint.com.