1 Who we are
clip.inc is operated by Sound, LLC, the company behind sound.me ("clip.inc", "we", "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") apply to the clip.inc website, dashboards and related services (the "Services").
By creating an account, launching a campaign, joining a campaign or otherwise using the Services, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Notice. If you use clip.inc on behalf of a company, label, agency or artist, you confirm you're authorized to accept these Terms for them, and "you" includes them.
2 Using clip.inc
- You must be 18 or older, or the age of legal majority where you live, and able to enter a binding contract.
- Give us accurate information and keep it up to date. You're responsible for everything that happens under your account, so keep your login safe and tell us at once if you think someone else has used it.
- One person, one account. Accounts that share a device, a payout account or a phone number may be treated as one person. Don't share them with family or friends who also clip.
- You may not use clip.inc if you've been banned from clip.inc or sound.me, or if the law where you live doesn't allow it.
3 How clipping works
A brand (an artist, label, creator, studio, company or agency) launches a campaign. They provide source content, a brief, the platforms they want, a rate per 1,000 views (the "rate") and a budget. Clippers cut that content into short-form videos ("clips"), post them on their own TikTok, Instagram or YouTube accounts, and submit the links. We check each clip against the brief, track its views on the platform, and pay clippers for their verified views while budget remains.
"Verified views" means views on an approved clip that are reported by the platform, counted by our systems during the campaign's tracking window (30 days from when the clip is posted, while the campaign has budget), and not excluded as invalid under section 5(d). Our records of verified views decide what is charged and paid. If you think they're wrong, contact us (section 14) and we'll look into it.
clip.inc is a marketplace. Clippers are independent. They are not our employees, and not the brand's.
4 For brands
(a) What you're buying
You're paying for verified views on clips made by independent clippers, at the rate you set, up to your budget. You are not buying a set number of clips, particular clippers, a specific clip's performance, followers, streams, chart positions, sales or any other result. How audiences respond is up to the platforms' algorithms and the viewing public, not us.
(b) Your budget is a cap
We draw on your budget only as verified views are counted, and we never charge more than the budget you authorized. If you set a maximum spend per clip, no single clip draws more than that from your budget. If views we counted are later found to be fake, the amount drawn for them goes back to your campaign budget or clip.inc credit.
(c) Unspent budget
You can end a campaign early from your dashboard at any time. Clips already approved stay paid for. If a campaign ends or is canceled with budget left, the rest becomes clip.inc credit you can use on any future campaign. To have it refunded to your original payment method instead, email us within 90 days of the campaign ending. If no clips can be delivered at all, you'll receive a full refund of the budget.
(d) What isn't refundable
Budget spent on verified views on approved clips isn't refundable: those views happened and the clippers have been paid. Except where the law requires otherwise, we don't give refunds because a campaign got fewer clips or less engagement than hoped, because content didn't go viral or chart, because you changed your mind after launch, or because clippers later deleted or hid clips.
(e) Brief and quality
We check clips against your brief and reject those that don't follow it. Clippers are independent and work from your source, so we can't guarantee the creative quality or style of any clip. If you believe an approved clip broke your brief, tell us within 30 days of it being posted. If we agree, the amount charged for that clip is returned to you as clip.inc credit. This is how quality complaints are handled.
(f) Review before launch
We review your campaign before it opens to clippers, usually within 1 business day, and we may ask for changes, pause it or decline it, for example if the content breaks section 7 or a platform's rules. If we decline a campaign before it opens, you're refunded in full.
(g) Payment and taxes
- Campaigns are paid in full by card at checkout, through our payment provider, currently Stripe. You authorize us to charge the total shown at checkout.
- Prices are in US dollars. The amount you pay is exactly the budget shown at checkout; nothing is added. You're responsible for any taxes you owe on your purchase, other than taxes on our income.
(h) Talk to us before a chargeback
Please email us and give us 10 business days to sort out any problem before disputing a charge with your bank. Your campaign dashboard shows your results, including every clip link and view count. A chargeback on views already delivered breaches these Terms. We may suspend your account and recover the disputed amount and our costs where the law allows. Nothing here limits your rights under consumer protection law or your card network's rules.
5 For clippers
(a) You're independent
You choose which campaigns to join and how to make your clips. You aren't an employee, agent or partner of clip.inc or of any brand. You're responsible for your own equipment, costs and taxes.
(b) Making and submitting clips
- Follow the campaign's brief, use only the source content the brand provides for that campaign (plus any sound the brief allows), and post on your own account on one of the campaign's platforms.
- Every clip must be new. Old videos, reposts of someone else's clip, and AI-generated avatars are not accepted unless the brief says otherwise.
- Disclose the paid relationship as the law and the platform require, for example with the platform's paid-partnership label or #ad. We may reject clips that don't.
- Keep each approved clip up, public and unchanged for at least 60 days after posting. If you delete it, hide it, or remove the tags or sound before 60 days, you may lose the money from that clip.
(c) How you get paid
- You earn the rate shown to you on the campaign for every 1,000 verified views on your approved clip, counted during the campaign's tracking window, while the campaign has budget. Some campaigns cap what one clip can earn.
- When the budget runs out, the campaign stops paying, including for views that arrive later. The remaining budget is shown on each campaign.
- Earnings are paid to the payout account in your settings, currently PayPal, after we finish checking them and your balance reaches the payout minimum shown in your account. Payout providers may charge their own fees.
- You're responsible for taxes on what you earn. We may ask for tax forms (for example a W-9 or W-8BEN) and may hold payouts until we have them.
(d) Views must be real
Any manipulation of views, likes, comments or shares is prohibited. That includes buying them, bots, view or engagement exchanges, groups of accounts boosting each other, and anything else that inflates numbers artificially. Running more than one account is also prohibited. If we find it:
- the affected views are invalid and are never paid;
- earnings not yet paid out from those clips, and from other clips we reasonably believe were affected, are forfeited;
- you are permanently banned from clip.inc and sound.me, on every account that belongs to you; and
- we may recover amounts already paid for invalid views where the law allows.
We use automated systems and human review to spot invalid activity, as described in our Privacy Notice. If your account is restricted, you can ask us to review the decision by emailing us (section 14).
6 Content & rights
(a) Brands: your source content
You confirm that you own, or have all the permissions needed for, everything you upload or link to. That includes sound recordings, compositions, footage, names and likenesses. You grant clip.inc and the clippers on your campaign a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to copy, edit, cut, caption, combine and publish that content in clips for your campaign, and to keep those clips posted after the campaign ends. You also let us show your campaign to clippers and use anonymized campaign results to run and improve clip.inc.
(b) Clippers: your clips
You keep ownership of your edits. By submitting a clip you grant the campaign's brand and clip.inc a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual license to view, repost, share, embed and use the clip, and your username, to promote the brand's content and clip.inc, including in paid ads where the platform allows. You confirm the clip contains nothing you don't have the right to use.
(c) Our stuff
The clip.inc name, logo, website, software and designs belong to us or our licensors. You may use the Services for their intended purpose, and nothing in these Terms gives you any other rights in them.
(d) Copyright complaints
If you believe content on clip.inc infringes your copyright, email us with your contact details, the work, where the content is and a statement that you're authorized to act. We respond to valid notices and close the accounts of repeat infringers.
7 What's not allowed
You may not use clip.inc to:
- promote content that is illegal, hateful, harassing, sexually explicit, violent, deceptive, or that targets minors;
- promote gambling, weapons, drugs, adult services, financial schemes or political campaigns, unless we've agreed to it in writing and it's legal where it runs;
- infringe anyone's intellectual property, privacy or publicity rights, or impersonate anyone;
- break the rules of TikTok, Instagram or YouTube;
- manipulate views or engagement, run several accounts, or get around a ban;
- scrape, reverse-engineer, overload or interfere with the Services, or access them by automated means we haven't approved; or
- arrange campaigns or payments with clippers you met through clip.inc to avoid using the platform.
8 Suspension & closing accounts
You can stop using clip.inc and ask us to close your account at any time. We may suspend or close an account, pause or remove campaigns or clips, or withhold payouts while we investigate, if we reasonably believe these Terms or the law have been broken, or to protect brands, clippers, platforms or us. If we close a brand account for reasons other than a breach, unspent budget is returned under section 4(c). If we close a clipper account for reasons other than a breach, verified earnings above the payout minimum are paid out. Sections that by their nature should continue after an account closes will continue.
9 Disclaimers & limitation of liability
THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE". TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DON'T GUARANTEE THE PERFORMANCE OF ANY CAMPAIGN OR CLIP, THE CONDUCT OF ANY BRAND OR CLIPPER, OR THAT THIRD-PARTY PLATFORMS WILL REPORT VIEWS ACCURATELY OR KEEP CLIPS UP.
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT ALLOWED BY LAW, CLIP.INC AND SOUND, LLC WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA OR GOODWILL. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO THE SERVICES IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO US, OR WE PAID TO YOU, IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM, AND (B) US $100.
Some places don't allow these limits, so some may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that can't be limited by law.
10 Indemnity
You agree to defend and indemnify clip.inc and Sound, LLC, and our officers, employees and agents, against claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from your content, your campaigns or clips, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or anyone's rights.
11 Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms. We'll post the new version here with a new date, and for material changes we'll notify you by email or in the Services before they take effect. Campaigns already running continue under the Terms in force when they launched, unless the law requires otherwise. If you keep using clip.inc after the changes take effect, you accept them.
12 Disputes & arbitration
PLEASE READ THIS SECTION CAREFULLY. IT REQUIRES MOST DISPUTES TO BE RESOLVED BY INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION, NOT IN COURT, AND WAIVES CLASS ACTIONS AND JURY TRIALS.
- Talk to us first. Before starting any claim, send us a written notice with your name, contact details, what the dispute is about and what you want. We'll both try in good faith to resolve it within 30 days.
- Arbitration. If we can't resolve it, you and we agree to resolve any dispute arising from these Terms or the Services by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (or Commercial Rules for business users). The Federal Arbitration Act governs this agreement. Either of us may instead bring an individual claim in small claims court, or seek an injunction to protect intellectual property.
- No class actions. Claims may be brought only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective or representative proceeding. You and we both waive any right to a jury trial.
- Opt out. You can opt out of arbitration within 30 days of first accepting these Terms by emailing us with your name and "Arbitration opt-out".
- Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any claim not subject to arbitration will be heard in the state or federal courts located in California.
- If you live in the EU, the UK or another country where these arbitration terms aren't allowed, this section applies only as far as local law permits, and you keep the protections of the mandatory laws of your country.
13 General
- These Terms, the Privacy Notice and any campaign-specific rules we show you are the whole agreement between us about the Services.
- If any part is found unenforceable, the rest still applies. If we don't enforce something right away, we haven't given up the right to do so later.
- You can't transfer these Terms without our consent. We may transfer them, for example to an affiliate or in a sale of the business.
- We communicate electronically, by email and in the Services, and that counts as "in writing".
- We're not responsible for delays or failures caused by events outside our reasonable control, including outages or changes at TikTok, Instagram, YouTube or our payment providers.
- California residents may contact the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, 1625 North Market Blvd., Suite N 112, Sacramento, CA 95834, (800) 952-5210.