About these terms
These terms are the agreement between you and Vods, Inc. (“Vods”, “we”) for using Vods. You accept them when you set up a creator or an advertiser profile, and we record the version you accepted. Our privacy policy explains how we handle your data.
Vods is a marketplace for sponsorship slots. A creator lists an ad slot on an upcoming stream or video, advertisers bid, the winner pays, and Vods holds the payment until the ad has run and the advertiser approves it.
The deal for a slot is between its creator and its advertiser. Vods runs the auction, holds and passes on the money, enforces these terms and decides the disputes the two sides cannot settle. Vods does not place the ad: the creator does.
Who can use Vods
- You must be at least 18 years old and able to make a binding agreement.
- If you use Vods for a company, you confirm that you may accept these terms for it.
- Creators can be paid only to a bank account in a country payouts are open to: United States (Payouts).
- You may not use Vods to get around a suspension, a strike or a limit on your account.
Your account
- You sign up with an email address and a password, or with Google. You must confirm your email address before you can sign in.
- Keep your sign-in details to yourself. You are responsible for what happens on your account; tell us at once at support@vods.com if you think someone else has used it.
- Give accurate details, and keep them up to date.
- One account can be a creator, an advertiser or both. Creators list slots on their own channels, run the ad and are paid; advertisers bid, supply the ad material and pay.
Channels and their figures
- Before you can list a slot, you must connect the channel it is on, which proves the channel is yours. You must own each channel you connect, or be authorised to act for it. A channel can be connected to one Vods account only.
- A Rumble channel belongs to the account whose Livestream API link Rumble still accepts. If someone else has connected yours, reset the link on Rumble and connect it again with the new one.
- Figures marked as verified come from the platform. Figures a creator gives themselves, such as the viewer numbers in proof of delivery, are the creator’s own statement, and must be true.
- A channel’s details and figures are shown on your listings only with your approval, which you give when you connect it, and only as far as that platform’s terms allow. You can withdraw or give it again at any time with the channel’s “Show my numbers to advertisers” switch on your Channels page (our privacy policy says what is shown).
Listing a slot
- A listing names the stream or video and when it goes out, the ad type and its details (such as where a banner sits on screen or how long a read lasts), the retention term, a starting bid of at least $10, and how long the auction runs: 3, 5 or 7 days.
- An auction must end at least 72 hours before its stream or video goes out. A slot on a video that was never a stream can be listed on YouTube only.
- A listing is open for bids as soon as it is made. Until its first bid you may change its title and when it goes out, or cancel it; after that it can be neither changed nor cancelled.
- New listings have no reserve price. An auction listed with one before this rule keeps it: its page says whether the reserve is met, and it sells only if it is.
- Listing is free. There is a limit on how many auctions one creator can list in a day.
What a creator promises
By listing, you promise to run the ad as the listing describes, with the approved ad material; to disclose it as an ad (Disclosure); and to keep it viewable in the replay for the retention term.
The retention term is how long the ad stays in the replay. The listing form offers only the terms the platform can keep. Taking the replay down before the term ends breaks these terms. A platform can remove or mute a replay for its own reasons, such as Twitch’s copyright muting; that risk is the creator’s.
Vods checks YouTube and Twitch replays through the platform’s own API while the term runs (a permanent replay, for a limited time after it airs), and while the term runs the advertiser may report a replay gone, on any platform. A replay found gone is reviewed by the Vods team, which may give the creator a strike (Not paying, and strikes), refund the advertiser in part or in full (Refunds), or do nothing. Both sides are emailed when the review opens.
Listings Vods takes down
The Vods team may take down a listing that breaks these terms. An open auction taken down is cancelled, its bidders are told and nobody is charged; a slot already sold is dealt with through its order.
Brand categories
An advertiser declares one category for what its brand sells when it sets up its profile, and must keep it accurate. It can change the category but not remove it, and cannot bid without one.
Vods does not accept brands that sell any of these, and none of them can be chosen as a category:
- Weapons
- Tobacco and vaping
- Cannabis
- Adult content
- Prescription and illegal drugs
- Counterfeit goods
A creator may refuse any category, on their Profile page. Each auction keeps the categories its creator refused when it was listed, or last changed before its first bid, and shows them on its page; an advertiser in one of them cannot bid on it. Changing your refusals later does not change an auction already listed.
Bidding
- To bid you need an advertiser profile with its category (Brand categories), a confirmed email address and a card on file that does not expire before the auction can end.
- Bids are binding. Once placed, a bid cannot be withdrawn.
- Automatic bidding. You enter the most you are willing to pay, your maximum. Vods bids for you only as much as you need to lead: the price is one step above the next-highest maximum (or the starting bid, while nobody else has bid), never above yours. Your maximum is never shown to anyone, the creator included.
- Bid steps. The first bid must be at least the starting bid, and each later bid must beat the price by: $5 below $500; $10 below $1,000; $25 below $2,500; $50 below $5,000; $100 from $5,000.
- Equal maximums. The earlier bid leads.
- While you lead, you may raise your own maximum. Unless that moves the price, nobody else sees it, it does not count as a bid and it does not extend the auction.
- Time extension. A bid in the last 3 minutes that changes the price or the leader resets the clock to 3 minutes, as often as it happens.
- Vods’ server clock decides when an auction ends and whether a bid arrived in time. The countdown in your browser is a display only.
- A bid is on the listing as you saw it. If the listing was changed while your page was open, your bid is refused and you are shown the change.
- You may not bid on your own auction, bid to raise the price for an auction’s creator, or bid for someone who may not bid.
- You cannot bid on an auction that refuses your category, or on the auctions of a creator who has blocked you (Reports and blocks).
Watching an auction
Signed in, you may add an open auction to your watchlist, unless it is your own. If you have not bid on it, we email you as it nears its end. You can take it off your watchlist at any time.
Winning and paying
- When the auction ends, the highest bid wins (where an auction has a reserve, only if the reserve is met). The price is the price shown at the end.
- The winner’s card on file is charged when the auction closes, for the price plus the service fee (Fees).
- If the charge fails, the winner has 24 hours to pay on the order’s page, ending sooner if the slot goes out sooner: payment closes 12 hours before it goes out. Until the winner pays, or the time runs out, they cannot bid or accept a runner-up offer anywhere on Vods.
- If the winner does not pay in time, the order is cancelled, they get a strike (Not paying, and strikes), and the slot may be offered to the runner-up.
Runner-up offers
If the winner does not pay, or the creator rejects the winner, the next bidder who qualifies may be offered the slot at the price they would have paid had the winner never bid: never above their own maximum, and never below the starting bid or the reserve. The offer says how long it lasts, and you do not have to accept it. Accepting is binding, and is charged the same way. One offer is made per auction, and none within 12 hours of the slot going out.
Payment held by Vods
The winner’s payment is charged at the close into Vods’ account with Stripe, our payment provider, and held there. It is released to the creator only once the advertiser approves the delivery, or the time to review it ends without a dispute, and the clearance period has passed (Payouts). If the order is refunded, what is held goes back to the card that paid.
Payments are in US dollars. Card details are handled by Stripe, never stored by Vods, and Stripe’s own terms apply to its services.
Fees
- Service fee: 5% of the price, added to the advertiser’s total.
- Creator’s fee: 10% of the price, taken from the creator’s payout.
- Each fee is rounded to the nearest cent. The fees in force are shown on each auction’s page and in its bid form, and each order shows its own. Listing and bidding cost nothing, and Vods pays its payment provider’s charges itself.
- After a partial refund, the refund comes out of the price and the service fee in proportion, and the creator’s fee is taken from the price that is left.
- Each side is responsible for its own taxes.
The 0% promotion
While Vods runs its 0% promotion, both fees are waived. The promotion is for a limited time: we may end it at any time, and the site shows its banner only while it runs.
An order keeps the fee rates in force when its auction closed, whatever changes later. A deal closed during the promotion stays free of fees after it ends; a bid placed during the promotion on an auction that closes after it ends pays the fees in force at the close. A slot passed to a runner-up keeps the rates of its auction’s close.
Orders and delivery
A paid win becomes an order. Each deadline below is shown on the order’s page, in your time zone.
The creator accepts or rejects
- The creator has 24 hours from payment to accept or reject the order, never past the ad material’s deadline. Silence accepts it, and so does approving the ad material.
- The creator may reject only before accepting, giving a reason. The advertiser is refunded in full, the slot may be offered to the runner-up, the order’s messages become read-only, and the rejection counts in the creator’s public rejection rate.
Ad material
- The advertiser sends the ad material (a script, a link, files) by 24 hours before the slot goes out. For an order paid later than that, it is due 6 hours after payment, and never later than 2 hours before the slot goes out (the last call).
- The creator reviews each version within 12 hours, never past the last call. Silence approves a first version. If the creator asks for changes, the advertiser may send a new version up to the last call.
- A version sent after one was approved needs the creator’s approval, and until then the approved version is the one that runs. Once the creator approves such a change, the advertiser gives up the right to dispute the delivery.
- If no version is approved by the deadline (one waiting for the creator’s review is waited for), the order ends and the advertiser is refunded in full.
Running the ad, and proof
- The creator runs the ad as listed, with the approved material, and discloses it.
- The creator sends proof within 48 hours after a video goes out. A live stream’s proof is due 60 hours after its scheduled start, allowing 12 hours for the stream itself. Proof is the replay link and timestamps, with a screenshot or clip where the ad is not part of the video, and the creator’s confirmation that the ad was disclosed.
- If no proof arrives in time, the order ends and the advertiser is refunded in full.
- Once the order is accepted, a creator whose stream will not happen may cancel it until they send proof; the advertiser is refunded in full.
- An order that ends because one side did not do its part is refunded in full, with no runner-up offer and no strike. We record the reason, and the Vods team sees each account’s count.
Approval
The advertiser has 5 days after proof arrives to approve the delivery or open a dispute. If they do neither, the delivery is approved automatically. Approval completes the order, and the payment is released for the creator’s payout.
Disputes
- While the delivery is under review, the advertiser may open a dispute: what went wrong, a partial or full refund asked for, and evidence.
- The two sides then take turns. A turn may propose a partial or full refund; the creator may instead stand by the delivery, or offer a make-good: running the ad again on a later stream, at most 30 days ahead and at least 24 hours after the other side’s time to answer ends, once per order. The other side may accept, answer with a proposal of its own, or ask the Vods team to decide.
- Each side has 48 hours to answer a proposal. Silence accepts the proposal on the table.
- After 4 proposals without agreement, the Vods team decides. A dispute opened after a make-good goes straight to the Vods team.
- The advertiser may withdraw a dispute; the delivery is then approved.
- The Vods team may decide on a full refund, a partial refund, a make-good or no remedy. Its decision settles the order on Vods, and takes away no right you have by law.
- Use this process rather than your bank. While an advertiser’s bank dispute over a payment is open, the creator’s payouts are held, and Vods may end the order.
Refunds
- Everything the advertiser paid is refunded when the creator rejects or cancels the order, when no ad material is approved or no proof arrives in time, when a dispute ends in a full refund, or when the Vods team decides so.
- A partial refund comes only from a dispute or a decision of the Vods team.
- After an order completes, even once the creator has been paid, only the Vods team can refund it, in part or in full: for example, when the replay was taken down before its retention term ended. Vods pays the advertiser at once, and the creator’s share of the refund is recovered from their next payouts (Payouts).
- Refunds go back to the card that paid; your bank decides how soon they show.
- An order cancelled because its winner did not pay took no money, so there is nothing to refund.
Payouts
- Creators are paid through Stripe Connect. To receive payouts, set up a Stripe account from your Payouts page: Stripe checks your identity and holds your bank details, and the Stripe Connected Account Agreement applies. Payouts go only to a bank account in: United States.
- You are paid the price minus the creator’s fee, at the order’s own rates, in US dollars.
- Payouts are automatic; there is no withdraw button. A completed order clears for 7 days after approval, or 14 days until your first order completes with no dispute and no bank dispute, and is then paid out with your other cleared orders.
- Your first payout, and any payout over $500, is reviewed by the Vods team before it is sent, and may be held while we check it.
- When the bank account on your Stripe account changes, payouts are held for 72 hours and we email you.
- If an advertiser’s bank takes back a payment, your payouts are held while the bank dispute is open, and the amount comes out of your share of that order. If your share was already paid out, we may reverse that transfer from your Stripe balance.
- If Vods refunds an advertiser after your share of an order was released or paid out, your share of that refund (what you would not have been paid had the refund come before the release) is held back from your next payouts, and we email you the amount. Each payout shows what it held back, and anything not yet recovered stays owed.
- Your payouts may also be held while the Vods team reviews your account (Sanctions and closing an account).
Not paying, and strikes
- Each auction you win and do not pay for in time is a strike. Two strikes suspend your bidding: you can no longer bid or accept a runner-up offer.
- While a winning charge is unpaid, your bidding is paused everywhere (Winning and paying).
- A creator who rejects an order, cancels it or does not deliver gets no strike. Rejections show in the creator’s public rejection rate, and every order that ends this way is recorded.
- A creator whose replay was taken down before its retention term ended may be given a strike for that order by the Vods team (Listing a slot). It stays on the account, but only strikes for not paying count towards suspending bidding.
Reports and blocks
Reports
You may report a listing, an advertiser, a comment, or the thread of an order you are part of, with a reason and any details. The Vods team reviews every report. We don’t tell whoever you reported that you did, and we don’t tell you what came of it.
Blocks
From an order’s thread, either side may block the other. While a block stands, neither of you can send messages in any order’s thread between you, and an advertiser a creator has blocked cannot bid on that creator’s auctions. The messages so far stay, readable by you both and by the Vods team in a case, and every order between you carries on through all its steps. The thread shows who blocked, and only the one who blocked can undo it.
What is not allowed
- Ads must follow the rules of the platform they run on, including its advertising, branded content and community rules, and the law where they are shown. On YouTube, for example, a pre-made commercial cut into a video is not allowed; the creator presents the ad. A creator may refuse ad material that breaks these rules.
- No ads for anything illegal, no misleading claims, and nothing that infringes anyone else’s rights.
- No ads for anything Vods does not accept, and no declaring a category your brand is not in (Brand categories).
- No fake bids, no bidding on your own or an associate’s auction to raise its price, no false figures, no impersonating anyone, and no listing a channel you do not control.
- No harassment, hate, threats or spam, in comments, messages, reviews or anywhere else on Vods.
- No uploading malware, or files other than those a field asks for.
- No scraping, no bots, no getting around rate limits or security checks, and no interfering with Vods.
- No using another person’s account or card.
Disclosure
Disclosure is a term of every listing. The creator must turn on the platform’s paid-promotion or branded-content setting; say that the content is sponsored when the ad begins, and show “Sponsored” or “Ad” on screen while it runs; and, on a stream over an hour long, repeat the disclosure regularly. Proof of delivery includes the creator’s confirmation that the ad was disclosed.
Reviews
- Once an order completes, or is refunded after the creator accepted it, each side may review the other within 14 days: 1 to 5 stars and an optional text. An order the creator rejected cannot be reviewed.
- A review stays hidden until both sides have posted or the time ends. Reviews cannot be changed; the side reviewed may post one public reply.
- Reviews must be honest and about the order. The Vods team may hide a review that breaks these terms. A review is independent of any dispute.
Sanctions and closing an account
If an account breaks these terms, puts others at risk of fraud, or the law requires us to act on it, the Vods team may:
- warn it;
- limit its bidding to bids on one open auction at a time;
- hold its payouts while it reviews the account;
- suspend it, so it can no longer bid, list or comment; or
- close it.
- Automatic checks only flag an account for review: a person on the Vods team decides every sanction. A sanction may also cover the accounts linked to yours by a saved card or a payout bank account.
- We email you when a warning, a bid limit or a suspension is applied, and when a bid limit, a payout hold or a suspension is lifted; while a payout hold stands, your Payouts page says so. We may not tell you exactly what led to a sanction, so that the reason cannot be used to get around our protections.
- Suspending an account never strands money: its open orders are completed or refunded.
- Appeals. If you think a sanction or a strike was a mistake, write to us at support@vods.com. A person on the Vods team reviews every appeal.
- You may ask us to close your account at any time, at support@vods.com. Orders under way are completed or refunded first, and records are kept as our privacy policy says.
YouTube, Twitch, Kick and Rumble
Vods uses YouTube API Services. By connecting a YouTube channel or using any YouTube feature of Vods, you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service. The Google Privacy Policy covers Google’s use of your information.
Each platform’s own terms and policies keep applying to everything you do on it, including the ads you run: YouTube’s, Twitch’s, Kick’s and Rumble’s. Connecting Twitch, Kick or Rumble is open only where that platform has agreed to it, and a platform can change or withdraw its service at any time, so a connection or the figures it shows may stop working.
YouTube, Twitch, Kick and Rumble are trademarks of their owners. Vods is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them.
Content and intellectual property
- What you upload or write stays yours. You give Vods a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy and show it as needed to run Vods: your profile, listings, comments and reviews to anyone, and an order’s material to its other side and the Vods team. The licence ends when the content is deleted, except for the records we keep.
- An advertiser confirms it has the rights to its ad material, and lets the creator use it for the slot, including in the replay for the retention term.
- A creator lets the advertiser and the Vods team use the proof to check the delivery.
- Vods’ name, mark, site and software belong to Vods. Do not copy or reuse them without our permission.
What Vods does not promise
- Vods is provided as it is and as available. We work to keep it running and correct, but do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or free of errors.
- We do not promise any result from a sponsorship: no audience, views, clicks or sales. Figures come from the platforms or from creators, and are marked with their source.
- We do not control the platforms, and are not responsible for their decisions, outages or changes.
- Nothing in these terms limits a right you have by law that cannot be limited.
Limits on liability
- As far as the law allows, Vods is not liable for indirect or consequential losses, lost profits or lost opportunities, and our total liability to you for any claim about Vods is limited to [Liability cap].
- You are responsible for claims that arise from your content, your ads or your breaking these terms, and you agree to cover Vods’ reasonable costs of meeting them.
- Nothing here limits liability for fraud, for death or injury caused by negligence, or for anything else the law does not allow to be limited.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the law of the State of Delaware, United States, and its courts decide any dispute about them, unless the law where you live gives you the right to go to your own courts.
Changes to these terms
We may change these terms. We will publish the new version here with its date and, for a change that matters, email you before it takes effect. If you do not agree to a change, you may close your account before it takes effect.
Contact
Vods, Inc., 7190 W Sunset Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90046, United States. Email: support@vods.com.
Comments and messages
Comments
Messages
Each order has one thread between its creator and its advertiser, text only, open from payment until 14 days after the order ends, and read-only at once if the creator rejects the order. Messages cannot be changed or deleted: they are the record of the order. The Vods team reads a thread only while handling a case about its order.
Keep deals on Vods
Do not use comments or messages to take a deal off Vods: no arranging to pay or be paid outside Vods, and no sharing contact details to avoid the fees. Repeated attempts are reviewed and can lead to suspension.