Here's what you need to know when you join the ePatron community!
ePatron is a creator platform built to facilitate connection. ePatron makes it easy for creators to share their creative offerings to others digitally, in the physical world, and in any remix they can conceive of! ePatron is dedicated to supporting human creators in building and maintaining agency over the business side of their creative pursuits.
ePatron was built to make it easy for creators to authentically connect, nurture community, and grow their creative business. In the spirit of making business easier for creators, we’ve attempted to keep these terms as straightforward as possible.
Welcome to ePatron!
These are ePatron’s Terms of Service, and they apply to all users of our platform. “We,” “our,” and “us” refer to ePatron Media, Inc. “ePatron” refers to this platform and the services offered by us, including APIs, mobile apps, embeddable content and our websites. By using ePatron, you agree to these terms and to the other policies we post, including our Privacy Policy. Please read them carefully and let us know if you have any questions. For information about our data practices, please see our Privacy Policy and our Cookie Policy. We collect, use, and share information in accordance with those policies. 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 create an account or otherwise use ePatron, you must be at least 13 years old and you must also be old enough to consent to the processing of your personal data in your country (in some countries we may allow your parent or guardian to do so on your behalf). You must be at least 18 years old or have your parent’s or legal guardian’s permission to have a Creator account on ePatron or to purchase an offering or subscription on ePatron. 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 immediately if you believe your account is compromised.
You are responsible for all activity on your account. If you violate our terms or policies, then we may terminate your account. Don’t do anything illegal, abusive towards others, that abuses ePatron in a technical way, or that exploits ePatron in an unintended manner that is detrimental to us, like using ePatron as a storage platform. If you are a Creator earning money on ePatron, we may be exposed to risk based on what you do with those funds. As a result, we may also look at what you do outside of ePatron. If you find novel and creative ways to hurt ePatron or our community, or otherwise exploit or make our services unsafe we will take action to prevent it.
Creator Channels
To become a creator on ePatron, simply launch your channel to start your offering or membership. When you join ePatron, you become part of the ePatron community. You can use creator tools that we provide to, among other things, showcase your creations, engage with the ePatron community, and manage your business relationships.
Memberships are a great option for your patrons. On ePatron you can provide your patrons something exciting that gives them special benefits including additional access, merchandise, exclusive creations, and engaging community experiences. In turn, you will receive loyal support from your patrons, and revenue from memberships and offerings that patrons have purchased on ePatron.
Payments
As a creator, you may make offerings available on ePatron on a one-time basis and may make memberships available on ePatron on an automatically-renewing subscription basis. All prices on ePatron are in United States Dollars (USD).
We may handle payments issues such as fraud, chargebacks, and resolution of payments disputes for all payments facilitated by ePatron. We try to provide timely access to the funds you’ve earned on ePatron. You may occasionally experience delays in accessing funds if there are unusual activities associated with payments as flagged by our payments partners.
We may also block or withhold access to these funds for violations of our terms or policies or for compliance reasons, including collecting tax reporting information. When this happens, we try to communicate the reason to you promptly. If you have questions about access to funds being blocked or withheld, please reach out to us.
In order to protect creators, we may block patrons’ payments if we believe them to be fraudulent. Sometimes activities like refunds to patrons and chargebacks from patrons can put your account balance into the negative and any fees you’ve incurred from ePatron may not be refunded to you when such refunds and chargebacks are processed. If your balance becomes negative, we reserve the right to recover those funds from future payments.
To make sure ePatron is a safe community for everyone, we prohibit creators sharing sexually explicit creations or creations that include nudity.
Fees
As a creator, there are fees associated with your offerings and paid memberships on ePatron. The general nature of these fees is summarized below. These fees may increase with notice to you and may vary depending on the type of ePatron services you take advantage of, including whether you choose to use ePatron’s paid pro creator service, free creator service, and/or services for facilitating one-time purchases:
You can see the fees for any offerings and subscriptions on your creator dashboard, though please note that this dashboard does not list the payout fee described above.
If a patron pays in a currency that is different from the currency associated with their payment type, then the financial institution associated with that payment type may charge them a foreign transaction fee for that payment. We have no control over these fees, have no knowledge of whether the fee is applied, and do not receive any of the funds from that fee.
In some cases, if a patron pays in the same currency as the currency associated with their payment type, when a patron’s payment is processed in a country different from the one associated with their payment type, then the financial institution associated with that payment type may charge them a foreign transaction fee for that payment. We have no control over these fees, have no knowledge of whether the fee is applied, and do not receive any of the funds from that fee, but our payment processing partnerships and how transactions are routed may impact or otherwise give rise to this fee.
Taxes
In order to satisfy our tax obligations, we collect tax identification information and, in certain circumstances, report this information and earnings to tax authorities as legally required.When we report to tax authorities we categorize creator earnings as earned for the sales of goods or services. You are responsible for reporting any income, withholding, or other earnings-based taxes which may be due as a result of money you’ve earned on ePatron.
We are additionally responsible for a number of transactional taxes across the world. These include, but are not limited to, Valued Added Tax (“VAT”), Goods and Services Tax (“GST”) and other local service or sales taxes in non-US locations (collectively referred to as “VAT”), as well as state sales tax in the United States.
Applicable tax will be charged in addition to the price of a relevant transaction based upon the benefits that you indicate that you will be offering. We will use the benefit categories that you assign to your membership or offering to calculate, collect, and remit the applicable taxes.
You are responsible for ensuring that all of your benefits are properly categorized using good faith efforts and to the best of your ability using the available tools. You agree to provide accurate information when you are engaging with the tier tools, sales tax weighting tools and, generally, when listing and categorizing benefits transferred within membership tiers and offerings. Once settled, the tax amount will be automatically deducted, and we will remit directly to the applicable taxing authority. A record of the transaction tax portion of the payment will be available on your creator dashboard.
Amounts payable under this agreement between a creator and ePatron may include VAT or sales tax, where applicable. You agree that you will provide us with any information and documents for accurate tax determination and compliance, where and as we request or as otherwise required.
Restrictions
We don’t allow offerings and benefits that violate our terms or policies. You can learn more by visiting our acceptable use policy.
If your patrons include people under the age of 18, then please remind them that they need their parent’s or legal guardian’s permission to purchase an offering or membership subscription on ePatron, and that those under the age of 13 cannot use ePatron. We are not required to allow any particular person or group of persons to access an offering, be a patron or otherwise access ePatron services.
As a creator, you are also responsible for keeping patron data safe. You agree to our Data Processing Agreement (DPA) found within our Privacy Policy.
An account is tied to your creative output and cannot be sold or transferred for use by another creator.
We are constantly experimenting with product features to make ePatron better and may add, remove, or test features with a subset of creators. Access to these features is not guaranteed and may not be subject to your control. Instead, we may enable and disable these early-access, beta, or test features at our sole discretion. These features may also be subject to additional restrictions and limitations.
Patrons
As a patron, you’re supporting a creator and may receive special benefits like shoutouts, exclusive creations, digital downloads, or physical merchandise. You pay on a one-time or automatically-renewing subscription basis as specified; ePatron is the billing entity that is associated with this charge. If your primary payment method fails and you’ve configured one or more backup payment methods, then we will charge those backup payment methods based on that configuration. For the purposes of these Terms, we use the words “Creations”, “Offering” or “Offerings” synonymously.
The timing and amount of each subscription or offering depends on the type of subscription or offering you select and the creator you support. You can see the details prior to purchasing the offering or starting the subscription and you can view all your active subscriptions and your billing history.
To become a patron, simply subscribe or purchase a paid subscription or other offering on ePatron. Subject to these terms and full payment of all applicable charges, to the extent a subscription or offering includes access to one or more of a creator’s creations, you receive a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable, limited license to access and view those creations for your own private, personal, non-promotional, non-commercial use. Offerings you gain access to in this manner will generally continue to be available to you, but may become unavailable at any time as described below.
In addition to one-time purchases, there are three types of paid, automatically renewing subscriptions offered on ePatron. One is a monthly subscription where you pay per month. The second is a per-creation subscription where you pay per-creation posted by the creator. You can set a limit on the number of creations you pay for in a single month under this per-creation subscription model. The third is an annual subscription, where you pay for a year of access up front, typically at a discounted rate. Not all types of membership subscriptions are offered by all creators and the then current subscription options for a given creator will be presented to you prior to entering into the membership.
Each type of paid subscription automatically renews monthly (for monthly and per-creation memberships) or annually (for annual memberships) until you cancel via your membership settings. If your subscription includes a free trial, then, unless you cancel via your membership settings before your free trial ends, you will be charged for the first time after the specified free trial period ends and you’ll start an automatically renewing paid subscription on ePatron of the type you selected.
Your recurring charge date may be earlier than the date you first subscribed for reasons including, for example, differences between your timezone and the timezone in which our billing systems operate and your most recent previous charge date being earlier due to variances in the length of months. The amount you are charged for a membership subscription may change with notice to you. This enables creators to, for example, adjust membership prices to account for increased costs, new or different benefits, or other changed circumstances, just like any other business. Similarly, this enables ePatron to, for example, account for new currency exchange rates by refreshing the conversion rate applied when a patron pays in a currency different than the one chosen by the creator. ePatron does not control the applicable tax that you may be charged and this amount may increase without notice to you.
You may cancel your free trial or recurring payments at any time, as described above. For monthly and annual memberships, canceling or lowering the tier support of your membership will impact your next recurring charge. For per-creation memberships, lowering the tier support of your membership will impact your next per-creation charge and canceling your membership will go into effect before your next per-creation charge. Annual memberships may be canceled or increased, but not lowered, and increasing your payment to a higher tier level in an annual membership will go into effect in the current payment term. When you increase your payment during the current payment term, you may be credited for any payment already made in that term. For example, if you upgrade from a monthly membership to an annual membership, then the amount you already paid for that particular month may be credited toward, and thereby reduce the first year cost of, the annual membership
Canceling your membership or lowering the tier support below the applicable threshold may result in your loss of access to membership subscription benefits, including a creator’s patron-only posts and other benefits. You may also lose access to offerings you’ve purchased and membership subscription benefits if, for example and as applicable, your payment method fails, we terminate your account, the creator blocks you, the creator stops making offerings and/or memberships available on ePatron, the creator deletes their ePatron account, the creator changes who has access to an offering and/or membership, the creator removes a post or offering from their ePatron account, we remove the creator from ePatron, we change who has access to an offering and/or membership, or we remove a post or offering from from a creator’s ePatron account. We are not required to allow you to access an offering, be a patron of, or to otherwise interact with any particular creator.
Membership subscriptions and offerings vary and we have limited control over the quality and specific benefits. We attempt to screen for fraudulent creator pages, but cannot guarantee the identity of creators or the validity of any claims they make. We appreciate your help reporting suspicious creator pages so we can keep the ePatron community safe.
If you are located in a jurisdiction in which ePatron is required to charge and collect tax, for example VAT or sales tax, then this tax is added to the total charge. Except in limited circumstances, this tax is shown to you when purchasing an offering or starting a paid subscription. ePatron remits all tax collected to the applicable taxing authority. As tax is largely dependent on your location, you agree to keep your location complete and up to date in order to enable accurate collection of taxes.
If you pay in a currency that is different from the currency associated with your payment type, then the financial institution associated with that payment type may charge you a foreign transaction fee for that payment. We have no control over these fees, have no knowledge of whether the fee is applied, and do not receive any of the funds from that fee.
Even if you pay in the same currency as the currency associated with your payment type, when your payment is processed in a country different from the one associated with your payment type, then the financial institution associated with that payment type may charge you a foreign transaction fee for that payment. We are not applying this fee, have no knowledge of whether the fee is applied, and do not receive any of the funds from that fee, but our choices about payment processing may impact or otherwise give rise to this fee.
We are constantly experimenting with product features to make ePatron better and may add, remove, or test features with a subset of patrons. Access to these features is not guaranteed and may not be subject to your control. Instead, we may enable and disable these early-access, beta, or test features at our sole discretion. These features may also be subject to additional restrictions and limitations.
Refunds
We do not provide refunds, including if you lose access to offerings and/or membership subscription benefits as described above, though we may allow for some exceptions where refunds are granted at our sole discretion. ePatron provides its platform for members and customers to pay creators directly. In most cases, ePatron will not refund on behalf of creators.
ePatron
ePatron provides its platform for members and customers to connect with and pay creators directly. As such, we endeavor to give as much autonomy to creators and patrons as possible. We also investigate reports of potential violations. These investigations may take a while to resolve and, primarily because ePatron may be exposed to risk based on what is done with funds earned on the platform, may include reviewing activity outside of ePatron.
In most situations, we will work with creators and patrons to resolve any potential policy violations and allow the creator or patron to continue using ePatron. ePatron may terminate creator or patron accounts when we believe it is necessary to protect creators, patrons, ePatron, or the broader community, but it is not an action we take lightly.
ePatron reserves the right to remove a creator or patron from participating in annual memberships. Removing a creator from participation in annual memberships will remove the option for further patrons to purchase annual subscriptions on ePatron for that creator. Removing a patron from participation in annual memberships will prohibit that patron from purchasing further annual membership subscriptions on ePatron for any creator. This will not, however, result in an automatic removal of the creator or patron from ePatron, unless there is an independent basis for that removal.
Please let us know if you see potential violations of these guidelines, our acceptable use policy, or actions that negatively impact the broader community.
As a company based in Canada with operations in other countries, we must comply with economic sanctions and trade restrictions, including those implemented by Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (“FINTRAC”). This means that we cannot take part in transactions that involve designated people, places, or items that originate from those places, as determined by agencies like FINTRAC.
We can terminate or suspend your account at any time at our sole discretion. We can also cancel any membership subscriptions and remove any descriptions, posts, offerings, or benefits at our sole discretion. You may not bring a claim against us for suspending or terminating another person’s account, and you agree you will not bring such a claim. If you try to bring such a claim, you are responsible for the damages caused, including attorneys’ fees and costs. These terms remain in effect even if you no longer have an account.
Intellectual Property
Creators keep full ownership of their creations and patrons keep full ownership of what they post on ePatron, but we need licenses from you for this material in order to operate ePatron’s services effectively. By making creations available on ePatron or otherwise posting or linking to them on ePatron, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license covering your creation or what you post in all formats and channels now known or later developed anywhere in the world to use, copy, reproduce, store, translate, transmit, distribute, perform, prepare derivative works, publicly display, and display in connection with any name, username, voice, or likeness provided in connection with it. If your creations contain any personal data, you also recognize ePatron’s “legitimate interest” in it in accordance with the scope of this license.
This sounds like a lot, but it’s important for us to operate our services, including hosting creations, offers, and offerings, providing and promoting memberships to your patrons, and enabling community features like post comments. For clarity, you keep full ownership over your creations and what you post on ePatron; we are not buying your intellectual property rights or leasing them from you for our gain. We will never try to steal your creations, use them in an exploitative way, or seek to profit off of them by any means other than facilitating memberships and offerings you’ve configured on ePatron.
You agree not to make available creations or otherwise make posts on ePatron that infringe others’ intellectual property or proprietary rights. ePatron reserves the right to remove creations and other material that violate these terms and ePatron’s policies, including these Terms of Service and community guidelines. We respond to complaint notifications of claimed copyright infringement and have adopted and reasonably implemented a policy for terminating, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of creators and patrons who are the subject of repeated complaint notifications of claimed copyright infringement or other evidence that suggests a pattern of repeat infringement.
Patrons may not use creations posted by creators in any way not authorized by the creator, including sharing those creations with others who have not purchased the offering or subscription through which those creations were made available.
ePatron’s creations are protected by copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text on the www.epatron.com site, the text on ePatron’s other websites, our mobile apps, our APIs, our embeds, our logo, and our codebase. We grant creators a license to use our logo and other copyrights or trademarks to promote their ePatron pages. You may not otherwise use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display, or prepare derivative works of our creations unless we give you permission in writing. Please ask us if you have any questions!
We welcome your feedback on the performance of the ePatron, including any early-access, beta, or test features to which you’ve been given access, and your help in identifying any problems, bugs, and defects. You agree that any suggestions, comments, ideas, bug reports, or suggested improvements that you provide to us will be fully owned by us so that we can use them to improve ePatron and thereby better help the community of creators and patrons.
Copyright Policy
ePatron provides a variety of services to different types of customers and providers. These different services call for different approaches in combating alleged copyright infringement:
ePatron provides a platform that brings creators and their patrons together to create a community centered on supporting a creator. These communities may engage in activity and/or create content outside of ePatron and this service does not involve transmission of any creative material or links to creative material, over ePatron’s network or system; only payment, identity and relationship information passes over ePatron’s network. We do not accept notifications of claimed copyright infringement under 28 U.S.C. § 512 regarding material or activities that do not reside, occur on or pass through our system or network and we do not apply a repeat infringer termination policy to subscribers or account holders accused of engaging in direct infringements outside our system or network.
ePatron also provides a platform that allows some creators and patrons to store material on our system or network for access by other users. In other words, this is a hosting service in which material is stored on our system or network at the direction of our users. We accept notifications of claimed copyright infringement regarding accused material stored on our system or network where those notifications comply with the provisions of 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3) and we apply our repeat infringer termination policy to creators and patrons who use this feature of our service.
ePatron’s technology also allows our creators and patrons to include hyperlinks or other information location tools on their pages or posts that reside on our system or network. With respect to those information location tools on our network, we accept notifications of claimed copyright infringement where those notifications comply with the provisions of 17 U.S.C. § 512(d)(3) and we apply our repeat infringer termination policy to any creators and patrons who are responsible for contributing the accused information location tools to our system or network.
If you are a copyright claimant or its agent and have a good-faith belief that particular material stored on ePatron’s system or network or an information location tool on ePatron’s system or network infringes your copyright, then please submit a complaint notification of claimed copyright infringement by emailing support@epatron.com with “copyright” in the subject line.
Please note that, in order to facilitate a dialogue that can help to resolve these claims, we may pass along information contained in your copyright complaint, including your name and contact information, to the ePatron user responsible for contributing the challenged material. If you are concerned about your information being forwarded in this manner, please consider using an agent to handle submitting your copyright complaint.
Trademark Policy
If you are a trademark claimant or its agent and have a good-faith belief that particular material stored on ePatron’s system or network infringes your trademark, please submit a notification of claimed trademark infringement by emailing support@epatron.com with “trademark” in the subject line.
Please note that, in order to facilitate a dialogue that can help to resolve these claims, we may pass along information contained in your trademark complaint, including your name and contact information, to the ePatron user responsible for contributing the challenged material. If you are concerned about your information being forwarded in this manner, please consider using an agent to handle submitting your trademark complaint.
ePatron reserves the right to terminate users for trademark infringement. We will also disregard trademark complaints that appear invalid or abusive.
Indemnification
You will indemnify ePatron and its employees from all losses and liabilities, including legal fees, that arise from these terms or relate to your use of ePatron. We reserve the right to exclusive control over the defence of a claim covered by this clause. If we use this right, then you will help us in our defence. Your obligation to indemnify under this clause also applies to our subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents, and third-party service providers.
Warranty
ePatron is provided “as is” and without warranty of any kind. Any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any other warranty, whether express or implied, is excluded and disclaimed to the greatest extent permitted by law. The disclaimers of warranty under this clause also apply to our subsidiaries, affiliates, and third-party service providers.
Limitation of Liability
To the greatest extent permitted by law, we are not liable to you for any incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of these terms, or your use or attempted use of ePatron. To the greatest extent permitted by law, our liability for damages is limited to the amount of money we have earned through your use of ePatron. We are specifically not liable for loss associated with unfulfilled offerings and benefits and from losses caused by conflicting contractual agreements. For this clause, “we” and “our” is defined to include our subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents, and third-party service providers.
Dispute Resolution
We encourage you to contact us if you have an issue. If a dispute does arise out of these terms or in relation to your use of ePatron, then the dispute will be resolved in the federal or provincial courts located in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada. Both parties consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the Victoria courts for the purpose of resolving any such dispute. British Columbia law governs these terms, all other ePatron policies, and any dispute that arises between you and ePatron.
In Closing
These terms and any referenced policies are the entire agreement between you and us, supersede all prior agreements, and do not create any partnership, joint venture, employee-employer or franchiser-franchisee relationship between you and us. If any provision of these terms is held to be unenforceable, then that provision is modified to the extent necessary to enforce it. If a provision cannot be modified to make it enforceable, then it is severed from these terms, and all other provisions remain in force. If either party fails to enforce a right provided by these terms, then it does not waive the ability to enforce any rights in the future.
We may sometimes make changes to these terms. If we make a change to these terms that, in our sole discretion, is material, then we will let you know before the changes come into effect. Continuing to use ePatron after a change means you accept the new terms or policies.
If you sign-up to receive text messages from us, you agree to receive recurring automated promotional and personalized marketing text (e.g., SMS and MMS) messages from us, including text messages that may be sent using an automatic telephone dialing system, to the mobile telephone number you provided when signing up or any other number that you designate. Consent to receive automated marketing text messages is not a condition of any purchase. Message and data rates may apply. Message frequency may vary. We reserve the right to alter the frequency of messages sent at any time, so as to increase or decrease the total number of sent messages. We also reserve the right to change the short code or phone number from which messages are sent. Not all mobile devices or handsets may be supported and our messages may not be deliverable in all areas. We, our service providers, and the mobile carriers supported by the program are not liable for delayed or undelivered messages.
