VelvetRope Terms of Service

This is a legally binding contract between you and VelvetRope. Please make sure you read it (it should take about 15 minutes). We've tried to make it as clear as possible, but we welcome your feedback to info@velvetrope.com if you have suggestions or questions.

1. Your VelvetRope Account

You must be at least 13 years old to register for a VelvetRope account and you are responsible for your account.

When you create an account you must provide us with accurate information, in good faith, and you agree to keep your information updated if it changes. To join a creator's membership as a subscriber, or provide a membership as a creator, you must be at least 18 years old or have your parent's permission. You are responsible for anything that occurs when anyone is signed in to your account, as well as the security of the account. Please contact us at info@velvetrope.com immediately if you believe your account is compromised.

2. Definitions

VelvetRope provides creators with a platform for the sale of electronic content and the protection of external website content through the use of our service, API, and website. When we say "site", we mean VelvetRope.com and all the services offered through our site. When we say "we", "us" or "our" we mean VelvetRope LLC ("VelvetRope"). When we say “creator”, we mean someone who creates a membership page on VelvetRope to engage with members who have purchased subscriptions from VelvetRope to support the creator's content. There are a lot of information below about payments, fees, taxes and restrictions that you should read in full if you are a creator.And when we say "your content" or "content", we mean any text, sound, files, graphics or other material which you the creator post, upload, protect, or sell on or through the site; similarly, when we say "VelvetRope content", we mean the copyrightable text, sound, graphics, and other material owned by VelvetRope. When we say "terms", we mean these terms of service.

3. Accepting these terms

Please read these terms before using the site. If you do not agree to these terms, you may not register for the site. If we make material changes to these terms, we'll let you know either through the site or via email (at the email address you provide). If you do not agree to those changes, you may send a request to cancel your account to info@velvetrope.com. If we do not hear from you within ten days, the revised terms will apply to you. (Please also note that our Data Processing Addendum under the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) forms part of these Terms of Service and is incorporated herein by reference.)

4. Payment

For creators, you make your membership available on VelvetRope, and we provide other members access to your content on a subscription basis. We also manage payments issues such as fraud, chargebacks and resolution of payments disputes. We will try to deliver timely access to your account funds, however you may experience occasional delays in accessing your account funds. Also, we may hold or block payments for various reasons such as violating our policies or for compliance reasons, including but not limited to collecting tax reporting information. We will try to communicate promptly when and or why payments are blocked or delayed. If you have issues or questions about a payment hold or block, please contact us at info@velvetrope.com. For the protection of creators, we may block members' payments if we believe them to be fraudulent. Activities like refunds can put your account balance into the negative. If your balance becomes negative then we reserve the right to recover those funds from future payments.

VelvetRope will provide payments once per month, net of VelvetRope platform fee, plus applicable payment processing fees – detailed below in the Fees section. Please note, a minimum amount of $100 must be earned and accumulated in your VelvetRope account for the monthly payments to be made. If your account balance is below $100, your balance will continue to remain in your account but not paid until you reach the minimum $100 for payment. All users must provide accurate payment information during account setup for payments to be made.

5. Fees

There are two separate types of fees associated with your VelvetRope membership.

The first type of fee is the 30% VelvetRope platform fee. This fee is deducted from everyone's gross earnings.

The second type of fee is the payment processing fee, which is dependent on the currency selected.

Tax

As legally required, we collect tax identification information and report this to tax authorities. You are responsible for reporting any income or withholding taxes which may be due as a result of payments received. We are additionally responsible for a number of transactional taxes across the world. These include but are not limited to VAT on payments for electronically supplied services to subscribers in the EU, GST as an operator of an electronic distribution platform (EDP) within Australia, and state sales tax as a result of 'marketplace laws' within the United States. For the purpose of electronically-supplied services, creators make a supply of those services to us, and then we supply them to the subscriber. As a creator on our site, it is your responsibility to provide accurate information when you are engaging with the sales tax.

6. Permitted users

VelvetRope is designed for use by adults. You must be thirteen years of age or older to use it. If we learn that we have collected personal information from a child under the age of thirteen, we will delete that information as quickly as possible. If you believe that we might have any information from a child under the age of thirteen, please contact us at info@velvetrope.com. When you use the site, you represent and warrant that you have the legal capacity to form a binding contract with us, and are doing so by your agreement to these terms.

7. Copyright and intellectual property

We own our stuff; you own yours.

You retain ownership of all content you upload to, or otherwise share on the site. However, by posting, uploading, or sharing your content, you grant us a non-exclusive, sub-licensable, royalty-free, worldwide license to access, use, and display your content in connection with the site and services we provide to you. This license permits us to perform the services that you registered for; for example, it permits us to store your content on redundant data servers, but it does not permit us to sell your content to advertisers or any other third party, nor does it transfer the copyright to us. This license ends when you delete the material or your account (subject to our standard data backups, which we retain for 30 days).

In addition, the site provides features that allow you to sell your content to others. There are many things that others may do with that content, including copying it, modifying it, and re-selling it. So, please consider carefully what you choose to sell; we take no responsibility for that activity. Furthermore, you affirmatively agree not to reproduce, publish, or distribute content in connection with the site that infringes any third party's trademark, copyright, patent, trade secret, publicity, privacy, or other personal or proprietary right.

All VelvetRope content, the selection, compilation, arrangement and presentation of all materials, and the overall design of the site are copyrighted by us, and are protected by US and international laws. Use of our content without our express prior written permission is strictly prohibited.

VelvetRope.com, VelvetRope, and the VelvetRope logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of VelvetRope LLC, in the United States and other foreign countries. Our trademarks may not be used in connection with any product or service without our express written permission.

You agree that all custom development and other data or materials generated or developed by us in connection with the site, including without limitation in response to your request for custom development or integration services or in connection with your suggestions, enhancement requests, recommendations, or other feedback, shall be and remain the property of VelvetRope. To the extent that any rights to such materials, under applicable law, do not vest directly in VelvetRope, you hereby assign to VelvetRope the ownership of all such rights, including without limitation all copyrights, in such materials without the necessity of any further consideration and VelvetRope shall be entitled to obtain and hold in its own name all such rights in such materials. To the extent that any such rights to such materials do not vest directly in VelvetRope and applicable law prohibits the assignment of such rights to VelvetRope, you hereby grant to VelvetRope a royalty-free, worldwide, transferable, sublicenseable, irrevocable, perpetual license to all such rights without the necessity of any further consideration.

8. VelvetRope rules

We have some ground rules which you must adhere to when using the site. You agree NOT to do any of the following:

• Threaten others with violence.
• Use hateful, abusive, harassing, libelous, or obscene language towards others.
• Upload, publish, or distribute any material that infringes or violates any third party's copyright, trademark, trade secret, privacy, or other proprietary or property right.
• Upload, publish, or distribute any material which promotes illegal activity, could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable law or regulation.
• Upload, publish, or distribute any material that promotes racism, bigotry, hatred or physical harm of any kind against any group or individual
• Upload, publish, or distribute any material which is defamatory, inaccurate, abusive, profane, child pornographic, offensive, obscene or otherwise objectionable
• Upload, publish, or distribute video, audio, photographs, or images of another person without his or her permission (or in the case of a minor, the minor's legal guardian)
• Use the site to send spam, chain letters, junk mail, or any other type of unsolicited mass email
• Use the site to distribute viruses or other harmful, disruptive, or destructive files
• Use or attempt to use another person's account
• Disrupt or interfere with the security of, or otherwise abuse, the site, or any servers or networks connected to the site
• Attempt to obtain unauthorized access to or at the site
• Impersonate another person
• Make the site, in whole or in part, available to any other person, entity, or business except as expressly authorized by us
• Copy, reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any code or functionality of or at the site, in whole or in part, or otherwise attempt to discover the source code to any software used in or at the site
• Modify the site or any associated software or combine the site with any other software or services not provided or approved by us
• Share with any minor any content or materials inappropriate for children, or allow any minor access to such materials
• Systematically harvest data from the site, or programmatically register accounts on the site

You further agree that you are responsible for your actions in relation to the site, and for any communications transmitted under your account; that you will comply with all laws relating to the transmission of technical data or software exported from the United States; and that you will comply with all applicable local, state, national and international laws and regulations, including without limitation those related to privacy, data collection, and email creation and delivery.

If it appears you have violated any of these rules, we may, in our sole discretion, remove any offending material or immediately limit or terminate your account.

9. Canceling your account

You can cancel your account at any time by visiting Account Settings → Cancel Account in your VelvetRope Account Dashboard and you can also delete your individual sites by clicking on the Trash icon next to each site in your Dashboard. Upon canceling your account, all your data will be immediately and permanently deleted from our servers. Offsite backups containing your data will be deleted within 30 days.

10. Disclaimer of warranties

We will strive to prevent interruptions to the service and be good stewards of your data. However, the site and our services are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We disclaim all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including without limitation any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not make any warranty that the site or our services will meet your requirements, or that the services will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error free, or that defects, if any, will be corrected. You understand that you download from or otherwise obtain content or services through the site at your own discretion and risk.

11. Limitations of liability

Under no circumstances - including, without limitation, negligence - shall we be liable for any direct, indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, resulting from (1) the use or the inability to use the site; (2) the cost of procurement of substitute goods and services; (3) unauthorized access to or alteration of your transmissions or data; (4) loss of profits, use, data or other intangibles, even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages. The foregoing shall not apply to the extent prohibited by applicable law.

You will not hold VelvetRope responsible for any content made available through the site. Our site allows anyone to sell downloadable files, at any time, from anywhere, in a variety of pricing formats. We have no control over and do not guarantee the quality, safety or legality of the content advertised, the truth or accuracy of content, the ability of sellers to sell the content, the ability of buyers to buy the content, or that a buyer or and seller will actually complete or refund a transaction.

Our total cumulative liability to you for any and all claims arising from or in connection with these terms and/or the site (under any legal theory, including without limitation claims in contract or tort) will not exceed the amounts actually paid to us by you in the twelve (12) month period immediately preceding your formal written notice of the claim for liability hereunder. All claims that you may have against VelvetRope will be aggregated to satisfy this limit and multiple and/or subsequent claims will not enlarge this limit.

12. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless us, our officers, directors, employees, members, partners, agents, and suppliers, and their respective affiliates, officers, directors, employees, members, shareholders, partners, and agents, from any and all claims and expenses, including attorneys' fees, arising out of your use of the site, including but not limited to your violation of this agreement. We may, at our sole discretion, assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter subject to indemnification by you. The assumption of such defense or control by us, however, shall not excuse any of your indemnity obligations.

13. Right to terminate

We may at any time decide to alter, amend, modify, or terminate the site, any functionality or portion of it, all in our sole discretion, and you understand that there is no guarantee that the site or any portion or functionality of it will continue to operate or be available for any particular period of time.

14. General

These terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the state of Idaho, without giving effect to its conflict of law provisions. You agree that you will bring any claim or cause of action arising out of your use of the site in the courts located within Los Angeles, California, and you also agree to submit to the personal and exclusive jurisdiction of those courts. You agree that any claim or cause of action arising out of your use of the site or these terms must be filed within one year after such claim or cause of action arose or it shall be forever barred, notwithstanding any statute of limitations or other law to the contrary. If any provision contained in these terms is determined unenforceable, then such provision will be severed and replaced with a new provision that most closely reflects the intent of the original provision, and the remaining provisions of these terms will remain in full force and effect. No waiver of any provision of these terms shall be effective except pursuant to a written instrument signed by us expressly waiving compliance, and any such waiver shall be effective only in the specific instance and for the specific purpose stated in such writing. You agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, or agency relationship exists between you and us as a result of these terms and/or your use of the site. You may not assign any right, interest, or benefit provided under these terms or through the site without our express prior written consent. These terms set forth the entire agreement between you and us, and supersede any and all prior communications, agreements and proposals, whether electronic, oral or written, between you and us with respect to the site and our services. A printed version of these terms and of any notice given in electronic form shall be admissible in judicial or administrative proceedings based upon or relating to these terms and/or your use of the site to the same extent and subject to the same conditions as other business documents and records originally generated and maintained in printed form.