Creator Terms of Service

These Creator Terms of Service (“Creator Terms”) govern your participation as a creator on Dolpho (dolpho.net, operated by Dolpho, Inc.). By applying for and accepting a creator account, you agree to these terms.

These Creator Terms supplement the general Terms of Service. If there is a conflict, these Creator Terms control for creator-specific matters.

1. Creator Accounts

Eligibility

Creator accounts are available by application only. Dolpho reviews every application and may accept or reject any application at its sole discretion. Approval of a creator account does not guarantee any particular level of promotion, curation, or visibility on the platform.

Account Responsibilities

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account credentials. You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. You must provide accurate information during onboarding, including legal name and valid payment information for Stripe Connect.

2. Content Ownership & License

You Own Your Content

You retain full ownership of all content you upload to Dolpho. Dolpho does not claim ownership of your videos, images, descriptions, or any other materials you provide.

License to Dolpho

By uploading content, you grant Dolpho a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, stream, display, reproduce, and promote your content on and through the Dolpho platform. For titles you make free, this license also covers selling and showing advertising and sponsorships before, during, and alongside those titles, and sharing information about them (such as title, genre, rating, and length) with advertisers and ad partners so ads can be sold, shown, and measured. This license is limited to operating and promoting the platform and your content on it, including the advertising described in section 6. What you earn from purchases, subscriptions, and advertising is set out in sections 5 and 6.

This license is revocable. You may remove your content at any time, and Dolpho’s license to that content terminates upon removal, except as needed to fulfill existing rental obligations to viewers who purchased access before removal.

Copyright Warranty

You represent and warrant that you own or have obtained all necessary rights, licenses, and permissions for all elements of your uploaded content, including but not limited to: video footage, audio, music, sound effects, images, likenesses of any persons appearing, scripts, and artwork.

You are solely responsible for ensuring your content does not infringe on any third party’s intellectual property rights, right of publicity, or any other rights.

If you make a title free, you also confirm that you hold the rights to show it with advertising, including the rights to any music in it. Music licenses often treat ad-supported use separately from other uses, so check yours before you make a title free.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Dolpho, its officers, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, or expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from or related to your content, your breach of these terms, or any claim that your content infringes the rights of a third party.

3. Content Standards

You agree not to upload content that:

• Depicts, promotes, or facilitates the exploitation or abuse of minors in any way
• Contains non-consensual intimate imagery
• Violates any applicable law
• Infringes the intellectual property rights of any third party
• Contains malware, viruses, or harmful code

Dolpho reserves the right to remove any content that violates these standards and to suspend or terminate creator accounts for violations. Dolpho may also remove content for any reason with reasonable notice, except in cases of serious violations where immediate removal is warranted.

4. Pricing & Monetization

Pricing Control

You set the price for your content. Prices may range from $0.25 to $50.00 per item, or you can make a title free. You may change prices at any time. Price changes apply to future purchases only; existing rentals are not affected.

Free Titles

Free titles are supported by advertising. If you make a title free, Dolpho will show ads with it as described in section 6. To keep a title ad-free, set a price. If a free title also has a rental or purchase price, viewers can pay to watch it without ads, and those sales earn the standard purchase split.

Curation Pricing Override

When Dolpho curates your content into a Film or Show (the premium presentation layer), Dolpho may adjust the price to reflect the premium positioning. You will be notified of any price override. The revenue split remains the same regardless of who set the price.

Pocket Change (Quarters)

Content priced under $4.00 can only be purchased by viewers using Quarters (Dolpho’s platform currency). Content priced at $4.00 or above can be purchased with Quarters or directly via credit card.

5. Revenue & Payouts

Revenue Split

You receive 80% of the gross transaction value for every purchase of your content. On subscription payments you receive 95% for a Standard subscription and 80% for a subscription with DRM protection turned on. Dolpho retains 20% on purchases, and 5% or 20% on subscriptions depending on that setting. These splits apply to all transaction types: direct credit card purchases, Quarter spends, and subscription renewals. Ad revenue from free titles is shared as described in section 6.

Direct Credit Card Purchases ($4.00+)

For purchases made via credit card through Stripe, payment processing fees (approximately 2.9% + $0.30 per transaction) are split equally between you and Dolpho. These fees are deducted before the revenue split is applied. The net effect is that you receive approximately 75–78% of the gross transaction value on direct card purchases, depending on the transaction amount.

Quarter (Pocket Change) Purchases

When viewers spend Quarters on your content, your 80% share is recorded as a pending earning. No payment processing fee is deducted at the time of spend.

Payout Schedule

Earnings from Quarter spends are batched and paid out weekly (every Sunday). Earnings are subject to a 72-hour hold from the time of the transaction before becoming eligible for payout.

The minimum payout threshold is $5.00. If your accumulated earnings are below $5.00 at payout time, they roll forward to the following week.

Stripe Account Fee

Stripe charges a $2.00 monthly fee for active connected accounts. This fee is split evenly across your payouts within the month. If you have no earnings in a given month, this fee is waived and Dolpho absorbs it.

This fee will appear as a named line item (“Stripe account fee”) on your payout statement.

Payout Method

All payouts are made via Stripe Connect to the bank account you have linked through Stripe. You are responsible for maintaining accurate and current banking information in your Stripe account. Dolpho is not responsible for payouts sent to incorrect banking information you have provided.

Collab Revenue Splits

For content created under a collaboration agreement (via Dolpho’s collab system), the 80% creator share is divided between collaborators according to the revenue split agreed upon at the time of greenlight. Dolpho does not arbitrate disputes between collaborators regarding revenue splits.

6. Advertising on Free Titles

How Ads Work

Free titles are supported by ads. Dolpho decides where ads appear (before and during a title, and alongside it on the page), how often they run, and which advertisers appear. Mid-roll ads run only in longer titles. Dolpho may also show its own promotions (house ads), which generate no ad revenue.

Your Share

You receive 55% of the net ad revenue from your free titles. Dolpho retains 45%.

Net ad revenue is the amount Dolpho actually receives for ads and sponsorships shown with your titles, minus fees charged by ad partners, ad exchanges, and sales agencies, and minus refunds, credits, and amounts withheld or reversed for invalid traffic. Where an ad partner reports revenue by title, Dolpho uses that figure. Otherwise, Dolpho divides revenue among titles in proportion to the ads each title served.

When You Are Paid

Ad revenue is calculated monthly. Your share for a month is added to your regular weekly payout once Dolpho has received payment for that month from its ad partners, which usually takes 30 to 60 days after the month ends. The $5.00 minimum payout threshold and the other payout terms in section 5 apply.

Content Descriptors

You agree to describe your titles accurately, including any rating and content descriptors Dolpho requests (for example violence, gore, nudity, and strong language). Ad partners restrict ads on some content, including graphic violence. Dolpho may classify titles, limit the ads shown with them, or turn ads off on them, and ad earnings on those titles may be lower or nothing.

Invalid Traffic

You may not generate or encourage artificial views, ad impressions, or ad clicks, including through bots, scripts, paid or incentivized views, or repeatedly viewing your own titles. Dolpho may withhold, reverse, or recover ad earnings connected to invalid traffic and may turn off ads on the affected titles.

No Guarantee

Ad earnings depend on your audience, advertiser demand, and ad partner decisions. Dolpho does not guarantee any number of ads, ad rates, or earnings.

Collaborations

For free titles created under a collaboration agreement, the 55% creator share is divided between collaborators according to the revenue split agreed at greenlight.

7. Refunds

72-Hour Refund Window

Viewers may request a refund within 72 hours of purchase. If a refund is granted within this window, the corresponding earnings are deducted from your pending payout.

Post-72-Hour Refunds

After 72 hours, refunds are issued to viewers as Quarter credits rather than cash. Your earnings are not affected by post-72-hour refunds.

Fraudulent Purchases

Dolpho reserves the right to reverse earnings from transactions determined to be fraudulent, regardless of the 72-hour window.

8. Curation

How Curation Works

Dolpho may elevate your uploaded videos to premium presentation as Films or Shows. This curation is at Dolpho’s sole discretion and includes enhanced metadata, carousel placement, browse page inclusion, and editorial promotion.

Curation is additive. It does not restrict or remove access to your content through your creator profile. Your original video remains accessible and under your control regardless of curation status.

No Guarantee of Curation

Uploading content to Dolpho does not entitle you to curation. Dolpho may curate, decline to curate, or remove curation from any content at any time.

9. Content Protection

Every title hosted on Dolpho streams through signed, time-limited links, so a copied link stops working after a short time. Titles embedded from YouTube play through the YouTube player instead. Some paid titles also use digital rights management (DRM) encryption. You acknowledge and agree that:

• Dolpho chooses the protection used for each title
• Dolpho implements reasonable technical measures to prevent unauthorized copying and redistribution
• No protection system is perfect, and Dolpho does not guarantee that unauthorized copying will never occur
• Dolpho will take reasonable steps to enforce its viewer terms prohibiting redistribution

10. Analytics & Data

You will have access to analytics about your content’s performance, including views, revenue (including ad revenue), and engagement metrics. For free titles, you will receive a monthly statement of the ad revenue credited to each title. Dolpho does not share individual viewer identities with creators. Aggregate and anonymized data may be used by Dolpho to improve the platform.

11. Termination

By You

You may terminate your creator account at any time by contacting Dolpho. Upon termination:

• Your content will be removed from the platform
• Pending earnings above the minimum payout threshold will be paid out on the next payout cycle
• Existing viewer rentals will remain accessible for their remaining rental period
• Your share of ad revenue earned before removal will be paid once Dolpho receives it
• Your Stripe Connect account will be disconnected after final payout

By Dolpho

Dolpho may suspend or terminate your creator account for violation of these terms, the general Terms of Service, or for any reason with 30 days’ written notice. In cases of serious violations (illegal content, fraud, repeated copyright infringement), Dolpho may terminate immediately without notice.

Upon termination by Dolpho:

• Pending earnings for legitimate, non-fraudulent transactions will be paid out, including ad revenue earned before termination once Dolpho receives it
• Dolpho may withhold payouts pending investigation of suspected fraud or terms violations

12. Disputes

Any disputes arising from these Creator Terms will be governed by the laws of the State of California. You agree to attempt informal resolution before pursuing legal action. Any legal proceedings will be conducted in the courts of Los Angeles County, California.

13. Changes to These Terms

Dolpho may update these Creator Terms from time to time. We will notify you of material changes via email or through the creator dashboard at least 30 days before they take effect. Your continued use of the platform after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

Contact: support@dolpho.net