Unraveling Intellectual Property and User Rights: A Guide to Vizcom's Terms and Conditions

Oct 21, 2023

Summary

TL;DR: This guide aims to provide a simplified explanation of our Terms and Conditions. It's crucial to understand the rights, responsibilities, and protections that apply to Free and Premium accounts, how we handle data privacy, and what you can expect from us.

Introduction

Welcome to our comprehensive guide on Intellectual Property and User Rights at Vizcom! Understanding the legal jargon and how it impacts your usage of our platform is essential. We've simplified our terms and conditions to help you navigate this complex landscape.

Definitions

Before diving in, let's clarify some terms that we'll be using frequently:

  • User Content: Simply put, this is all the content you upload, post, or provide on Vizcom.

  • Designs: These are the creative outputs you get from using our platform, based on your original content.

  • Intellectual Property (IP): The legal rights originating from your creative work, such as copyrights and design rights.

User Content & Design Ownership: What You Need to Know

Key Takeaways

  • You retain ownership of your User Content.

  • Vizcom is granted a limited license for operational use.

All Users

  • Ownership: Regardless of your subscription status, you retain the copyright to your User Content.

  • Exclusivity: Vizcom does not claim exclusive rights to your Designs or User Content.

Free vs. Paid Users

  • Free Users: You grant Vizcom a worldwide license to use your content and generated designs for operating and improving our platform. This content may also be used internally in an anonymized form.

  • Paid Users: You maintain full rights over both your uploaded content and the designs generated. However, you do grant Vizcom a limited license for service delivery.

Licensing: What Are You Really Signing Up For?

Key Takeaways

  • Free users give a broader license, Paid users give a limited license.

For Free Users

  • Scope: When you use Vizcom as a free user, you're granting us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license. What does this mean? Simply put, we can use your content to run and improve our services.

  • Expiry: This license expires if you decide to delete your content or account.

For Paid Users

  • Limited License: As a paid user, you're giving Vizcom a more restricted license. We can only use your content for delivering the services you've signed up for.

Data Privacy & Security: How We Protect You

  • Encryption: Your content is encrypted both when it's moving across the internet and when it's sitting on our servers. That means it's secure both "in transit" and "at rest."

  • Access Control: Only you and the people you choose can see or use your content and designs.

  • Third-Party Sharing: Rest assured, we don't share your data with any third-party services. Your data stays within our secure infrastructure.

Liability: What You're Responsible For

  • User Responsibility: You're solely responsible for the content you upload. Make sure it adheres to our terms regarding prohibited uses to avoid any complications.

Subscription Changes and Licensing: The Fine Print

  • Status Matters: Your licensing terms depend on your subscription status at the time when the content is uploaded, generated, or created.

  • Switching Plans: If you downgrade from a paid plan to a free plan, you don't lose the more favorable “Paid Users” license for images generated while you were on the paid plan.

Frequently Asked Questions

Copyright and Originality

Q: How much can Vizcom claim credit for designs if they are minimally different from the original content?

A: Vizcom doesn't claim ownership over your designs, even if they have been slightly refined using our platform features. You maintain copyright over the designs you create.

Data Ownership

Q: Does Vizcom retain and use our data for their own commercial purposes?

A: No, Vizcom does not claim authorship over your data for its own commercial purposes unless explicitly permitted by you

Data Usage for Beta Features

Q: Are Beta Features Exclusive to Paid Members Used to Improve Vizcom?

A: Yes, some beta features are exclusive to paid members. While the data from these features does help us improve our tool, the usage terms remain the same as outlined for paid users. Your data is not used for any other commercial purposes.

Gray Area for Free Users

Q: Why Does Vizcom Retain Rights to Materials Created by Free Users?

A: As a free user, the license you grant us helps maintain and improve the services we offer at no cost to you. This does not mean we claim ownership; it simply gives us permission to use your data within the scope defined by the license.

Artwork and Data Sets

Q: What Does Vizcom's Claim to Any Artwork Imply?

A: Vizcom does not claim ownership over your artwork. Our terms only allow us to use your data to improve our services, not for any other commercial activities, unless explicitly permitted by you.

Data Acquisition and Fairness

Q: How Does Vizcom Acquire the Data Used to Train Its Models?

A: Vizcom complies with all legal requirements and ethical guidelines when acquiring data for model training. The data sets are either created by us, licensed, or sourced from public domains.

Risky and Prohibited Uses

Q: What Constitutes 'Risky' or 'Prohibited' Use of Vizcom?

A: Risky uses include bypassing input filters, submitting outputs to art contests, misusing someone else's IP, or creating harmful deep-fakes. Any action that violates our terms constitutes a 'prohibited' use.