Pipplop Terms of Service

DRAFT — pending legal review. This text has not been reviewed by a lawyer and is not yet in force. Items in [square brackets] are for the operator to fill in.

Last updated: [date]

These terms are an agreement between you and [Operator legal name] ("Pipplop", "we", "us"), the operator of the Pipplop platform at piplop.com and the Pipplop apps for desktop, web, Android and iOS (together, the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service you agree to these terms and to the Privacy Policy at piplop.com/privacy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Who can use Pipplop

• You must be 13 or older. We ask for your birth month and year at sign-up and refuse anyone under 13.
• If you are under 18, or under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must agree to these terms for you, and they are responsible for your use of the Service, including purchases.
• Some features depend on age. Accounts under 18 have a strict chat filter, and voice starts off; once turned on, they hear and are heard by nearby players, and can limit it to friends. Accounts under 16 see no ads. We do not cap spending by age: use the parental controls of Apple, Google or your payment method to limit a child's purchases. Cashing out creator earnings needs you to be 18 or older.
• You may not use the Service if we have banned you, or if the law where you live forbids it.

2. Your account

• You sign in with a link sent to your email, or with a supported provider such as Google, Discord or Apple. Keep access to your email and those accounts secure; you are responsible for activity on your account.
• Your handle and display name must follow the rules in section 5. We may refuse or change a name that breaks them.
• One person, one account. Do not share, sell or transfer your account.
• You can delete your account at any time from your account page (piplop.com/me), in the app, or through the API. Section 11 says what deletion removes.

3. What Pipplop is

Pipplop is a platform where people make multiplayer games, often with the help of an AI builder, and play games other people made. Most games on Pipplop are made by other users, not by us. Games run in a sandbox and reach only the engine's features; they cannot read your files or your device.

We may change, add or remove features at any time. We try to give notice of changes that take away something you paid for.

4. Games and content you make

• You keep ownership of the games, scripts, scenes, thumbnails, text and other content you create and upload ("your content").
• You give us a licence to host, store, copy, run, display, distribute, scan and adapt your content so we can operate, promote and improve the Service, and so other people can find and play your games. This licence is worldwide, non-exclusive and royalty-free. It ends when your content is removed from the Service, except for copies kept in backups for a limited time, copies other users have made under a remix licence, and what we must keep by law.
• Remixes and templates. If you turn on remixing, or sell a game as a template, other users may copy and change your game in their own games, under the settings you chose. A template licence a user has bought continues after you stop selling it.
• You are responsible for your content. You confirm you have the rights to everything you upload, and that it follows these terms and the law.
• AI builder. Content made with the AI builder is your content under these terms. The AI can make mistakes; check what it builds before you publish. Do not ask it to make content section 5 forbids. Use of the AI builder is subject to daily allowances (section 7).
• Review and removal. Every publish is scanned automatically. Some versions are held until a moderator approves them, and some are flagged for review. We may remove, hide or refuse any content, and roll back or disable any game, at our discretion.

5. Rules of conduct

You must not, on the Service or through it:

• harass, bully, threaten, stalk or intimidate anyone, or encourage self-harm;
• post hate speech, or attack people for who they are;
• post sexual content, or any content that sexualises minors; seek personal information from minors, or try to move a minor to another service;
• post graphic violence, or content that promotes terrorism, violent extremism or illegal activity;
• share someone's personal information without their permission, including your own address or phone number in public;
• impersonate a person, a creator or Pipplop staff;
• scam, phish, or trade accounts, credits or items for money outside the Service;
• cheat, exploit bugs, use bots or automation against the Service (beyond the tools we provide), or try to get around a ban, block, rate limit or age gate;
• upload malware, or try to break out of the game sandbox, attack the Service, or access accounts or data that are not yours;
• infringe anyone's copyright, trademark or other rights;
• break any law.

Chat is filtered, and you can report players and games, block people, and mute voice. Report anything that breaks these rules from a game's page, with /report in a game, or by email to [email protected].

6. Chat and voice

• Text chat in games passes through an automatic filter. Filtering is not perfect, and other players may still say things you find offensive.
• Proximity voice lets you hear players near your character. Voice is relayed live to nearby players and is not recorded or stored by us. Players can turn voice off, limit it to friends, or mute other players. Accounts under 18 start with voice off; once they turn it on, they hear and are heard by nearby players, like everyone else, unless they limit it to friends.
• When you report a player in a game, the report includes the server's recent chat lines so moderators can see what happened.

7. Credits, purchases and plans

• Credits are a limited, revocable licence to use features of the Service. They are not money, have no cash value, cannot be cashed out, transferred or exchanged outside the Service, and are not your property. Prices in credits may change.
• Buying credits. On the web, you buy credit packs through Stripe. In the Android and iOS apps, you buy them through Google Play or the Apple App Store, under that store's terms. Taxes may apply.
• Spending credits. You can spend credits on items and passes in games, game templates, Premium, Creator Pro and private-server tiers. Each purchase is final once delivered. If a game does not deliver an item within 10 minutes, the purchase is refunded automatically.
• Premium and Creator Pro are plans you buy with credits, for 30 days at a time. They do not renew automatically; buying again adds another 30 days. Premium adds 10% bonus credits to packs you buy while it is active. Creator Pro lets you earn from your games (section 9), raises game and version limits, adds analytics, and raises your daily AI builder allowance. We may change what a plan includes for future purchases.
• No age-based spending limits. We do not limit how much an account spends by age. Parents can limit or approve a child's purchases with the parental controls of the Apple App Store, Google Play or their payment method; a parent or guardian is responsible for a minor's purchases (section 1).
• Refunds. Except where the law requires otherwise, purchases of credits are non-refundable. Refunds for store purchases follow Apple's or Google's policies. If a payment is reversed or charged back, we may remove the credits and anything bought with them.
• Losing credits. Credits and plans end if your account is deleted or banned. We may correct credits granted in error.

8. Rewarded ads

Some games offer an item in exchange for watching an ad in the Android app. Ads are served by Google AdMob. Ads are never shown to accounts under 16, and there is a daily limit per game. You get the item only after the ad network confirms the ad was watched. The game's creator earns from the ad only while they have Creator Pro (section 9).

9. Creator earnings and cash-out

• You earn only while you have an active Creator Pro plan. While it is active: when a player buys something in your game, or buys your template, you earn 80% of the price in credits as creator earnings; you also earn from rewarded ads and billboards in your games, and from the monthly engagement pool (a share of Premium revenue split by time Premium members spent in your games), if your Creator Pro is active when that month's pool is paid out. The amounts and rules are shown on the platform and may change for future earnings.
• Without an active Creator Pro plan you earn nothing: the platform keeps the creator's share of those sales, ads, billboards and the engagement pool, and it is not held for you or paid later if you buy Creator Pro afterwards.
• Creator earnings are kept separately from credits you bought. Only creator earnings can be cashed out.
• Cash-out is available to creators 18 and older who complete identity and tax verification with our payout provider, Stripe (Stripe Connect). You may withdraw earnings older than 30 days, at least 5,000 credits at a time, at the current rate (now 50 US cents per 100 credits). Stripe's terms also apply to you. Earnings you already have can be cashed out whether or not your Creator Pro plan is still active.
• We may hold, reverse or refuse earnings that come from fraud, refunds, chargebacks, or a breach of these terms. You are responsible for any taxes on your earnings.

10. Moderation, suspension and bans

We may warn you, remove content, limit features, or suspend or ban your account if you break these terms or we reasonably believe it is needed to protect players or the Service. A banned account can appeal once from the page it is shown. Owners of games and private servers can also moderate their own servers (kick and ban players, and appoint moderators), and those bans are kept by the platform.

11. Deleting your account

When you delete your account we remove it along with its sign-ins, sessions, friends, blocks, pending sign-in links and saved player data. Your games stay on the platform without an owner and are made private. Unspent credits, plans and earnings that have not been cashed out are lost. Some records, such as purchase and payout records, reports and ban records, may be kept as the Privacy Policy describes.

12. Our intellectual property

The Service, the Pipplop name and logo, the engine, the built-in blocks and templates, and everything else we provide (except user content) belong to us or our licensors. You may use them only to use the Service as these terms allow.

13. Copyright complaints

If you believe content on Pipplop infringes your copyright, email [email protected] with: your contact details, the work you own, where the infringing content is (for example the game's URL), a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised, a statement that your notice is accurate, and your signature. We will remove content when appropriate and may ban repeat infringers. [Reviewer: decide on a DMCA designated agent registration.]

14. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the extent the law allows, we make no warranties of any kind, including that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free or secure, or that user content (including games and AI-generated content) is accurate, safe or appropriate. Games are made by users; we do not endorse them.

15. Limitation of liability

To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, credits or goodwill. Our total liability for any claim about the Service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and US $50. Some places do not allow these limits, so they may not apply to you.

16. Indemnity

You agree to defend and compensate us for claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) that arise from your content or your breach of these terms, to the extent the law allows.

17. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is significant we will tell you in the Service or by email before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after that means you accept the new terms.

18. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of [jurisdiction]. Disputes will be heard in the courts of [venue], unless the law where you live gives you the right to bring them elsewhere. [Reviewer: decide on arbitration and class-action terms, and EU/UK consumer rights.]

19. App stores

If you got the app from the Apple App Store or Google Play, these terms are between you and us, not the store. The store has no obligation to provide support or maintenance for the app. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms for iOS users, and may enforce them.

20. Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected].