These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of robert.winter.ink and the podcast On the Subject of Leadership with Dr Robert N. Winter (together, "the Site"), including all articles, podcasts, newsletters, member areas, and related services. They form a binding agreement between you and Dr Robert N. Winter of New South Wales, Australia ("I", "me", "my").
These Terms should be read alongside the Privacy Policy, the Content Licence, the Disclaimer, and—where applicable to paid membership—the Refund Policy. Together, those documents form the agreement between us.
By accessing or using the Site, or by registering for any membership tier, you accept these Terms. If you do not accept them, you must not use the Site.
1. Eligibility
You must be at least sixteen years of age to register for free membership of the Commons, and at least eighteen years of age to purchase an Inner Circle paid subscription. By registering, you represent that you meet the applicable age requirement and have the legal capacity to enter into a binding agreement in your jurisdiction.
2. Accounts and Membership Tiers
The Site operates a three-tier access model:
Public. Articles and podcast episodes designated as public may be accessed without registration or payment.
The Commons. A free membership, which requires registration with a valid email address. Members of the Commons receive all public Content together with Content designated for Commons members, including the weekly article delivered by email.
The Inner Circle. A paid subscription that provides access to all Content produced for the Site, including Inner Circle exclusives and scholarly marginalia.
Access to Commons and Inner Circle tiers is personal to the registered member and not transferable. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your account credentials and for all activity undertaken through your account. If you become aware of unauthorised use of your account, contact me promptly via the contact form.
3. Paid Subscriptions
Billing and renewal
Inner Circle subscriptions are offered on a recurring basis—monthly or annually, as you choose at sign-up. Payment is processed by Stripe at the start of each billing period. Subscriptions automatically renew at the end of each period unless cancelled in accordance with these Terms.
Cancellation
You may cancel your subscription at any time through the member portal on the Site. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and you will retain Inner Circle access until that date. Cancellation does not of itself entitle you to a refund for the remainder of the paid period, except as provided in the Refund Policy or as required by the Australian Consumer Law.
Price changes
I may change subscription prices from time to time. A change of price will not affect any billing period for which you have already paid. Where a price change will apply to your next renewal, I will notify you by email at least thirty days before the change takes effect, and you may cancel before renewal if you do not wish to continue at the new price.
Taxes
Subscription prices are quoted in the currency shown at sign-up. Any goods and services tax (GST), value added tax (VAT), or equivalent sales or consumption tax applicable in your jurisdiction will be added at the rate in force at the time of the transaction.
Refunds
Refunds are governed by the Refund Policy. Nothing in these Terms or the Refund Policy excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee or right that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law (Schedule 2 to the Competition and Consumer Act 2010 (Cth)) or any equivalent consumer protection law applicable to you.
4. Acceptable Use
When you use the Site, you agree not to:
- Use the Site in breach of any law, or in a way that is likely to infringe the rights of any other person.
- Attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Site, to any account other than your own, or to any underlying system or infrastructure.
- Introduce any virus, malware, or other malicious code to the Site.
- Use automated tools to scrape, mirror, or index the Site other than in a manner expressly permitted by its
robots.txtfile. - Reproduce or redistribute Content except as permitted by the Content Licence.
- Harass, defame, or post hateful or discriminatory material in comments or correspondence.
- Impersonate any other person, or misrepresent your affiliation with any organisation, in your account details or in any comment or submission.
- Use the Site or any Content to train, fine-tune, ground, evaluate, or otherwise develop any machine-learning model, large language model, or generative artificial intelligence system. This prohibition is set out in full in the Content Licence.
I reserve the right to suspend or terminate the access of any person who breaches this clause, subject to the provisions in clause 8 below.
5. Member Content
If you post a comment on the Site (a feature available only to signed-in members), you are responsible for the content you post. You represent and warrant that you have the right to post it and that it does not infringe the rights of any third party or breach these Terms.
In posting a comment, you grant me a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to host, display, moderate, reproduce (for the purposes of moderation, backup, and caching), and—where appropriate—quote your comment in public responses or subsequent articles, with attribution to the name under which you posted. This licence is limited to what is reasonably necessary to operate the Site and to engage with the discussion on it. It does not transfer ownership of your comment and does not extend to commercial exploitation of your comment outside that purpose.
I may at any time, and in my sole discretion, remove or edit any comment that I consider in breach of these Terms, inconsistent with the character of the publication, or otherwise unsuitable. I accept no obligation to preserve comments indefinitely and may delete them when a membership is terminated, when technical constraints require, or when the comment is no longer relevant to the article on which it was posted.
6. Intellectual Property
All Content published on the Site is the intellectual property of Dr Robert N. Winter, save where third-party material is used under licence or in reliance on fair dealing. Your rights in relation to Content are set out in the Content Licence, which forms part of these Terms.
The marks robert.winter.ink, On the Subject of Leadership, and any associated logos are my trademarks. No right or licence to use those marks is granted to you by these Terms, except for incidental use in accurate citation of the publication.
7. Privacy
My collection and use of Personal Information in connection with the Site is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of these Terms.
8. Suspension and Termination
By you
You may terminate your account and these Terms at any time by cancelling your subscription (if you are an Inner Circle member) and, if you wish, by requesting deletion of your account in accordance with the Privacy Policy.
By me
I may suspend or terminate your account—with reasonable notice where practicable, and immediately where a material or repeated breach makes immediate action appropriate—if:
- you have breached these Terms, the Content Licence, or any other applicable law;
- you have used the Site in a way that threatens its security, integrity, or performance; or
- I am required to do so by law.
If I cease to operate the Inner Circle service, I will aim to continue access through to the end of each subscriber's current paid period, after which the subscription will not renew. Any claim arising from cessation before the end of a paid period will be dealt with in accordance with the Refund Policy and the Australian Consumer Law.
Survival
Provisions of these Terms that by their nature are intended to survive termination—including provisions governing intellectual property, limitation of liability, indemnity, and governing law—will continue in force after termination.
9. Copyright Infringement Notifications
If you believe that Content published on the Site infringes your copyright, please contact me via the contact form with:
- a description of the work you claim has been infringed;
- a description of the material on the Site that you claim infringes it, including the URL;
- your contact details;
- a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use complained of is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
- a statement that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are, or are authorised to act on behalf of, the owner of the right claimed to be infringed.
I will investigate promptly and, where a claim appears well-founded, remove or disable access to the material in question. Where the notification relates to conduct governed by the Copyright Act 1968 (Cth), I will deal with it in accordance with that Act. Where the notification relates to the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act or another overseas copyright regime that applies, I will deal with it in accordance with that regime as well.
10. Disclaimers
The Site is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. To the maximum extent permitted by law, I disclaim all warranties, representations, and guarantees of any kind, whether express or implied, including as to fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, merchantability, and non-infringement. I do not warrant that the Site will be available without interruption, that errors will be corrected, or that the Site or the servers that make it available are free of viruses or other harmful components.
Content published on the Site is offered for general information, education, and professional commentary. It does not constitute legal, financial, investment, medical, or other professional advice, and should not be relied on as a substitute for advice appropriate to your particular circumstances. Further detail is set out in the Disclaimer.
Nothing in this clause excludes, restricts, or modifies any consumer guarantee or right that cannot be excluded at law, including under the Australian Consumer Law.
11. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, my total aggregate liability to you in respect of all claims arising out of or relating to the Site or these Terms—whether in contract, tort (including negligence), breach of statutory duty, or otherwise—is limited to the greater of:
- the amount you have paid to me under these Terms in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim; or
- one hundred Australian dollars (AUD 100).
I will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or exemplary loss, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or business opportunity, however arising.
Nothing in this clause excludes, restricts, or modifies any liability that cannot be excluded at law, including under the Australian Consumer Law. To the extent that a consumer guarantee applies under that law and cannot be excluded, my liability for failure to comply with the guarantee is limited, at my option, to:
- in the case of services, the resupply of the services or the payment of the cost of having the services resupplied; and
- in the case of goods, the replacement of the goods, the supply of equivalent goods, the repair of the goods, the payment of the cost of replacement or equivalent goods, or the payment of the cost of having the goods repaired.
12. Indemnity
You agree to indemnify me in respect of any loss, damage, cost, or expense (including reasonable legal costs) that I suffer or incur as a direct result of your breach of these Terms or your use of the Site in a manner that infringes the rights of another person. This indemnity does not apply to the extent that the loss, damage, cost, or expense arises from my own negligence or wilful misconduct, and does not exclude, restrict, or modify any consumer right that cannot be excluded at law.
13. Changes to These Terms
I may change these Terms from time to time to reflect changes in the Site, in the services I use to operate it, or in applicable law. The date of the most recent revision appears at the foot of the Terms. Where a change is material, I will notify registered members by email and post a prominent notice on the Site before the change takes effect; minor or clarificatory changes will be published without separate notice. If a change materially reduces your rights under these Terms, and you do not accept the change, you may terminate your account in accordance with clause 8.
14. Governing Law, Jurisdiction, and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New South Wales, Australia. You and I submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of New South Wales and the federal courts of Australia sitting in Sydney.
Before commencing any proceeding, you and I agree to attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute by direct communication for a period of at least thirty days. This clause does not prevent either of us from seeking urgent interlocutory or injunctive relief where it is appropriate to do so.
Where you are a consumer in a jurisdiction that grants you non-excludable rights to bring proceedings in your local courts, nothing in this clause deprives you of those rights.
15. General
Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the documents incorporated by reference, constitute the entire agreement between us in respect of the Site.
Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be severed to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.
No waiver. A failure or delay by me in exercising any right under these Terms does not operate as a waiver of that right.
Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms without my prior written consent. I may assign these Terms to a successor entity in the event of a reorganisation, acquisition, or business transition, provided that the successor agrees to be bound by them on terms no less favourable to you.
No agency. Nothing in these Terms creates a partnership, joint venture, agency, or employment relationship between us.
Notices. Notices under these Terms may be sent by email to the address associated with your member account (where you are a member) or by any other reasonable means.
16. Contact
For questions about these Terms, please contact me via the form at robert.winter.ink/contact.
Last updated: 23 April 2026