Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the SurfVault website at surf-vault.com and the SurfVault mobile application (collectively, the “Service”), operated by SurfVault, LLC (“SurfVault”, “we”, “us”, or “our”). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under the age of majority where you live, you may use the Service only with the involvement of a parent or guardian. By using the Service, you represent that you meet these requirements.

2. Your Account

You are responsible for the activity that happens under your account and for keeping your login credentials secure. You agree to provide accurate information and to keep it up to date. You may hold more than one account (for example, separate surfer and photographer accounts). Notify us promptly of any unauthorized use of your account.

3. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Upload content you do not have the right to share, or that infringes anyone’s rights
• Upload unlawful, harmful, harassing, or abusive content
• Misrepresent your identity or tag people in a misleading way
• Attempt to access other users’ private content without permission
• Scrape, reverse-engineer, overload, or interfere with the Service
• Use the Service to send spam or for any unlawful purpose

We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate these Terms.

4. Your Content

Your Content is yours. You own the photos, videos, and other content you upload (“Your Content”). Uploading it to SurfVault does not give us ownership of it, ever. You are responsible for Your Content, including having the necessary rights, permissions, and releases for anyone depicted in it.

The license you give us to run the Service. By uploading Your Content, you grant SurfVault a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example, to create watermarked previews, thumbnails, and other variants), display, and distribute Your Content only as needed to operate and provide the Service — including delivering it to the users and recipients you choose. We do not sell Your Content, and we do not license it to third parties.

Promotional use is opt-in and revocable. With your permission, we may feature Your Content in SurfVault’s own feeds, marketing, social media, and editorial features to showcase the work of our community. We will credit you. You can withdraw that permission at any time by contacting us, and we will stop using Your Content in any new promotional material and remove it from anything we still control.

When you leave, your content leaves with you.

If you delete Your Content or close your account, we permanently delete it. That means the original files and every derived copy — previews, thumbnails, and watermarked variants — are removed from our storage. We keep no archive copy, no backup copy, and no internal copy for our own use. Every license you granted us above ends. Full details, including the 30-day grace period during which you can change your mind, are in our Privacy Policy.

There are only two things we cannot undo, and we want to be upfront about both:

• Files another user already downloaded. If you shared or delivered photos to someone through the Service and they saved those files to their own device, those copies are on their device and outside our control. This is true of any platform that lets you deliver files to someone.
• Posts already published to third-party platforms. If, with your permission, we previously featured your work in a post on a service we do not control (for example, an Instagram post that others have since reshared), we can delete our own post but we cannot retract copies that others have made of it. Tell us and we will take down anything still within our control.

Neither of these is us keeping your work. We do not retain Your Content, and we do not continue to use it, once you’re gone.

5. Photographers, Shapers, and Other Creators

If you deliver, sell, or showcase work through the Service, you are solely responsible for your dealings with other users, including any pricing, delivery, bookings, custom orders, or off-platform payments you arrange. SurfVault is a platform that connects people — we are not a party to those transactions and do not guarantee any outcome, sale, or booking.

You are responsible for obtaining any model releases, location permissions, or other rights required for the content you upload and the services you offer.

6. Payments and Subscriptions

The Service offers a free plan and paid storage plans. Paid plans are billed through our payment provider, Chargebee, on the web at surf-vault.com; the mobile app does not process payments.

• Paid subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until cancelled.
• You can upgrade, downgrade, or cancel at any time; changes take effect according to your billing cycle.
• Except where required by law, payments are non-refundable.
• If you downgrade or cancel, your content is not deleted, but you may be unable to upload more until you are within your plan’s storage limit.

We may change prices or plan features with reasonable notice.

7. Advertising and Credits

Advertisers run campaigns using prepaid credits. Credits are not money, have no cash value, and are non-refundable except where required by law. Monthly subscription credits do not roll over; à la carte credit packs remain in your wallet until used. We do not sell guaranteed placement or priority, and we may pause, remove, or decline ads at our discretion, including for content that violates these Terms.

8. Intellectual Property

The Service itself — including the SurfVault name, logo, software, design, and content we create — is owned by SurfVault and protected by intellectual property laws. These Terms do not grant you any right to use our trademarks or branding without our prior written permission.

9. Third-Party Services

The Service relies on and links to third-party services (such as Auth0, AWS, Chargebee, Apple, and Google). Your use of those services may be subject to their own terms. We are not responsible for third-party services or content.

10. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access if you violate these Terms, if required by law, or to protect the Service or its users.

The licenses you grant us in Section 4 end when you delete Your Content or close your account — they do not survive termination. Sections that by their nature should survive (disclaimers, limitations of liability, and indemnification) will survive.

11. Disclaimers

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose, availability, or that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free. You use the Service at your own risk.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, SurfVault and its officers, employees, and partners will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, photos, profits, or goodwill, arising out of or related to your use of the Service. Our total liability for any claim relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or USD $100.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless SurfVault from any claims, damages, or expenses arising out of Your Content, your use of the Service, or your violation of these Terms or the rights of others.

14. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of [STATE], United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any disputes will be resolved in the courts located in [STATE], unless applicable law requires otherwise.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will notify you through the Service and update the effective date above. Your continued use of the Service after a change means you accept the updated Terms.

16. Contact Us

Questions about these Terms? Contact us at:

Email: logan@surf-vault.com
Website: https://www.surf-vault.com