Terms of use

Research and educational purpose

RSRC is a research and education resource operated by the Social Technology and Safety Foundation. Its content is informational and does not constitute legal, financial, medical, mental-health, clinical, law-enforcement, cybersecurity-response, or other professional advice. RSRC does not provide emergency services, investigate individual crimes, recover money, represent victims, or guarantee that a listed resource will accept or resolve a matter. Seek qualified professional or official assistance for decisions about a specific situation.

AI-assisted content and original sources

RSRC uses automated and AI-assisted processes to organize publications, generate or update research notes and syntheses, map evidence, and perform quality checks. These processes can omit context, misinterpret evidence, or produce errors. Public provenance labels describe the recorded source and review state; automated checks and administrative approval are not the same as independent human or subject-matter-expert review.

Publication titles and bibliographic records may come from publishers, repositories, scholarly registries, authors, or submitters. Follow the DOI or original-source link, read the underlying work, evaluate its methods and limitations, and cite the original publication rather than treating an RSRC synopsis as a substitute. Report suspected errors through the research correction form.

Permitted use, attribution, and intellectual property

You may read, link to, quote brief portions of, and cite RSRC public pages for lawful research, education, commentary, and noncommercial use, subject to applicable copyright and attribution requirements. Attribute RSRC as the source, identify the page or Research Insight, link to its canonical URL when practical, preserve material qualifications and review labels, and do not imply RSRC endorsement.

Unless a page or download states otherwise, these terms do not grant permission to republish an entire RSRC page or dataset, remove notices, use RSRC names or marks as your own, sell substantially reproduced RSRC content, or train a commercial model on bulk-collected RSRC content. Bibliographic facts may not be protected by copyright, but publisher abstracts, linked papers, images, marks, and third-party material remain subject to their owners’ rights and terms. Contact RSRC for uses beyond these permissions.

Messages, research submissions, and corrections

You represent that information you submit is accurate to the best of your knowledge, lawful to provide, and does not infringe another person’s rights. Do not submit confidential manuscripts, victim case files, sensitive personal information, malicious code, or content you are not authorized to disclose. A submission does not create a confidential, fiduciary, professional, employment, partnership, or agency relationship.

By submitting bibliographic details, explanatory text, evidence links, or correction material, you grant RSRC a nonexclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to store, reproduce, analyze, verify, adapt for formatting, and use that material as reasonably necessary to evaluate the submission, maintain the research record, correct the site, and document the decision. RSRC may accept, decline, edit, remove, or retain a decision record and is not required to add a proposed publication or make a requested change.

Acceptable use and automated access

You may not:

• interfere with the site, evade access controls or rate limits, probe for vulnerabilities without written authorization, or introduce malicious code;
• use the service to harass, defraud, impersonate, dox, identify, or target victims, researchers, administrators, or other people;
• submit false, unlawful, infringing, or deceptively attributed material;
• scrape, crawl, download, or query the site at a rate or scale that degrades service, bypasses published controls, or reproduces a substantial part of the collection; or
• misrepresent automated output, administrative approval, or an RSRC page as professional advice, expert endorsement, or a guarantee of accuracy.

Ordinary search-engine indexing and modest scholarly use consistent with technical controls are permitted. RSRC may restrict automated access, suspend an account, preserve evidence, or block activity when reasonably necessary to protect the site, its users, or the research record.

Third-party content and services

The site links to publishers, repositories, DOI resolvers, government agencies, service organizations, PayPal, and other third parties. A link is provided for access or context and does not necessarily endorse the linked party, its conclusions, availability, security, or privacy practices. Third-party terms govern your use of those services. RSRC does not host public copies of the copyrighted research papers represented in the Library; access rights and charges are determined by the source provider.

Availability, disclaimers, and limitation of liability

The site and its content are provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent permitted by law, RSRC and the Social Technology and Safety Foundation disclaim warranties of accuracy, completeness, merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, noninfringement, uninterrupted availability, and freedom from harmful components. Research findings can change as evidence develops, and links, resources, dates, classifications, and automated content may become incomplete or outdated.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, RSRC and the Foundation will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data, opportunities, funds, or goodwill arising from use of or inability to use the site, reliance on its content, or interaction with a linked service. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

Privacy, changes, and general terms

The Privacy Notice explains how information is handled. RSRC may update these terms as the service changes. The effective and review dates above identify the current version; continued use after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised terms to the extent permitted by law.

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of South Dakota, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where applicable law requires otherwise. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remainder will continue in effect. Failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. These terms and the Privacy Notice constitute the agreement concerning public use of this site and do not alter a separate written agreement with the Foundation.

Questions about these terms may be sent through the contact form, by email to info@romancescamresearch.org, or by mail to 1100 W Cherry St, Vermillion, SD 57069, USA.