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Creator Agreement & Community & Content Guidelines

Date of Last Revision: 28 March 2023

1. Terms of Use

Story City is a digital, interactive storytelling platform that enables you to create and self-publish interactive storytelling content through our online creator tools and submit it to us online for distribution through Story City’s platforms (the “Content”) and be paid for its purchase by users.  By publishing and submitting your Content via Story City’s website and app you agree to be bound by these terms and conditions (the “Agreement”).

One of our core tenants is to put creators first, and that is what these terms attempt to do. Most people skim through terms of use, but we promise we have done everything we can to make this easy to get through! At the top of almost every section, we’ve summarised the most important parts, but note these summaries are not legally binding, so please look at the full version of the text if you have questions.

This Agreement must be carefully read and understood as your acceptance to it shall form a part of the legal relationship between you and Story City Inc. (“Story City”) a company incorporated in Alberta, Canada.

1.1. Welcome to Story City!

To summarise: by using Story City as a creator, organisation, or sponsor (collectively known as ‘Creator’ or ‘Creators’ in this agreement), you agree to these terms.

These are Story City’s terms of use, and they apply to all users of the Story City platform. “We,” “our” or “us” refers to Story City Inc. and our subsidiaries. “Story City” refers to this platform and the services offered by us. By using Story City, you agree to these terms and to the other policies we post. Please read them carefully and let us know if you have any questions. For information about our data practices, please see our Privacy Policy. We can collect and use your information in accordance with those policies.

1.2. Your Account

To Summarise: You must be at least 13 years old to register for an account. You are responsible for your account.

When you create an account you must provide us with accurate information, in good faith, and you agree to keep your information updated if it changes. To create an account, you must be at least 13 years old. To purchase an experience as a user, or provide content as a creator, you must be at least 18 years old or have your parent’s permission. You are responsible for anything that occurs when anyone is signed into your account, as well as the security of the account. Please contact us immediately if you believe your account is compromised.

1.3. Abusive Conduct

To Summarise: Be responsible, respectful, and don’t violate our policies.

You are responsible for all activity on your account. If you violate our policies, we may terminate your account. Don’t do anything illegal, abusive towards others, or that abuses our site in a technical way. If you are a creator generating revenue on Story City, we may be held accountable for what you do with those funds. As a result, we also look at what you do with your funds off our platform. You can find more detailed information in this agreement. These policies cover most issues, but if you find a new and creative way to hurt Story City or our community, we may take action to prevent it.

2. All About Being a Creator

To Summarise: A creator is someone who creates content on Story City to engage with users who have purchased or are consuming this content from Story City to explore the real world physically or virtually. There are a lot of details below involving payments, fees, taxes, and restrictions that you should read in full if you are a creator.

2.2. Becoming a Creator

To become a creator, simply select the Become a Creator option on the Story City website and follow the prompts to be activated as a creator for the platform, which involves setting up a profile, payment, and tax information. When you join Story City, you become part of the Story City community. You can use the creator tools that Story City provides, showcase your creations, submit proposals for sponsored paid projects, provide updates to users who follow your Story City profile, and receive revenue from the sale of your content. On Story City, you can provide users exciting content that gives them unique experiences in locations across the world. In turn, you will receive engagement from users in information you share on your creator profile on Story City, and revenue from content that users have purchased from Story City.

2.3. Pricing & Payments

To Summarise: As a creator you make your content available on Story City, and we serve that content to each user’s account in perpetuity from the time the story was purchased or added to their library.

As a creator you choose your own price for your content from the list of options available. Prices shall be exclusive of any taxes and will be the sale price of your content on the platform. You have the right to change the sale price through your account at any time. Story City will endeavour (on a best-efforts basis) to reflect any amendments to the sale price elected by the creator within three working days from the date of change. Story City shall have the right to sell the Content in any currency and apply appropriate currency conversions and exchange rates to derive at the price in the currency for sale.

We also handle payments issues such as fraud, chargebacks, and resolution of payments disputes. To protect creators, we may block users’ payments if we believe them to be fraudulent. Sometimes activities like refunds can put your account balance into the negative. If your balance becomes negative, then we reserve the right to recover those funds from future payments. Story City shall not be liable to make payment of royalty against any sale which:

  • Has been made through fraudulent or illegal means or unlawful use of payment methods.
  • Has been refunded.
  • Is subject to credit charged by the user, for which Royalty is already paid.
  • If this Agreement has been terminated due to breach of any of its terms.
  • If there are any valid claims by a third party that the Content violates the legal rights of such party.
  • For three months after termination of the Agreement, to ensure no offsets or returns are made against sale for which royalty is payable.
  • Until payment has been received by Story City from the relevant payment processing agent.

Story City shall pay and disburse all funds at the end of each calendar month subject to the below conditions:

  • Story City shall not pay any funds until the total earned balance for disbursement reaches the minimum threshold of $100 USD after deducting charges for processing and platform fees.
  • In case the earned amount for disbursement does not reach the minimum threshold in a month, payment will be made at the end of the month in which the unpaid balance accrued has reached the minimum threshold.

We try to provide timely access to your funds, but you may occasionally experience delays in accessing your funds. We may also block or hold payments for violations of our policies or for compliance reasons, including collecting tax reporting information. When payments are delayed or blocked, we try to communicate the reason to you promptly. If you have questions about a payments block, please reach out to us.

2.4. Fees

As a creator there are two fees associated with content on Story City.

  • The first is a payment processing fee of 2.5% plus $0.05c for content experiences sold under $10, and 2.9% plus $0.30c for content experiences sold over $10.
  • The second is a platform fee which is different for individual creators, and organisations or sponsors:
    • Independent creators will have a platform fee of 30% deducted from every sale of your content and experiences on the platform off the net sale after payment processing fees have been deducted.
    • An organisation or sponsor is charged a platform fee to access organisation functionality on the platform such as: hosting free-to-user content, allowing multiple users access to an organisation’s or sponsor’s content, city wide sponsored or paid project campaigns, campaign analytics, and production and business support from the Story City team, which varies depending on the level of service you select.

You can see how much processing fees are for any revenue accumulated on your creator dashboard. Depending on your users’ locations, some banks may charge your user a foreign transaction fee for their content purchase. Story City does not control this charge, but it is typically around 3.0%.

2.5. Tax

We collect tax identification information and report this to tax authorities as legally required. You are responsible for reporting any income or withholding taxes which may be due because of payments received. We are additionally responsible for several transactional taxes across the world. These include but are not limited to VAT on payments for electronically supplied services to users in the EU, GST as an operator of an electronic distribution platform (EDP) within Australia, and state sales tax because of ‘marketplace laws’ within the United States. For the purpose of electronically supplied services, creators make a supply of those services to us, and then we supply them to the user. Applicable tax will not be taken from the sale price selected by you, but rather will be charged in addition to the sale price selected by you. Once settled, the tax amount will be automatically deducted for remittance to the applicable taxing authority. A record of the transaction tax portion of the pledge will be available on your earnings details page. As a creator on our site, it is your responsibility to provide accurate information.

2.6. Restrictions

We don’t allow creations that violate our policies. You can learn more by reading the Community Guidelines in the rest of this agreement. A summary of those rules is that we don’t allow:

  • Illegal creations.
  • Creations that are abusive towards other people.
  • Creations that use others’ intellectual property, unless you have written permission to use it, or your use is protected by fair use.
  • Creations with real people engaging in sexual acts.

We are not required to allow any particular person or group of persons to be your user. An account is tied to your creative output and cannot be sold or transferred for use by another creator.

3. Community & Content Guidelines

To Summarise: Be respectful of the people and communities on Story City. People are different. That’s what’s beautiful about the world and creativity: communities of varying types can assemble and flourish. We want Story City to be an intimate and safe platform for a diverse range of creators and their communities.

3.1 How These Guidelines Are Enforced

Please realize that Story City is a diverse community and, while you may not necessarily agree with someone’s point of view, it may not be a violation of our Community Guidelines. That said, when you see content on Story City that you feel violates our community guidelines, please take the time to report them via our reporting tool. A member of the Story City team will review the report and if our Community Guidelines have been violated, the case manager will contact the creator to let them know that they are outside these guidelines.

This is a commitment to creators. We know this is your livelihood. We invest heavily in making these decisions as fair and transparent as possible. We always want creators to feel like they have an open line of communication. So how does this translate to moderation? Our first reflex is always to try to educate creators to help them understand how a rule has been broken and how to remedy the issue. In cases where the violation is particularly bad or intentional, we may take further action such as suspending or removing their account. In the most extreme cases we may ban a creator from using Story City.

Because you are generating revenue on Story City, we may be held accountable for what you do with those funds, so we may also look at what you do with your content off our platform. As a result, when we talk about “On Story City,” it means the creations you are funding on and through Story City. When reviewing content, we look at how creations are shared, where the content and your profile is linked to and where the traffic comes from. No matter what happens, we always give creators the opportunity to appeal a decision by contacting us and sending any relevant information they believe was not considered. We may not change our minds, but we will always listen.

3.2. Be Safe, Be Respectful, Make Stuff

These Community Guidelines exist to shape and guide Story City and the growing number of creators and communities using it. This is not about building an arbitrary framework of “right” or “wrong.” It’s about making Story City a place where diverse creators and their communities feel excited, supported, and happy to exist, while still allowing for different—and sometimes even conflicting—points of view.

These guidelines summarise a thorough, thoughtful, and living internal policy that we spent time thinking about and defining with guidance from community and safety experts.

3.3. Authenticity

To Summarise: Story City is for creators who put something original out into the world. As a creator, you may not post creations that infringe on others’ intellectual property rights.

  • You can’t create fake profiles.
  • You cannot pretend to be or impersonate someone else by using the name, brand, or works of another to deceive users. We will review satire and comedy in a different way as we believe these subgenres are original creations.
  • You also can’t use Story City as a prank or to fund non-activity. For example, a creator cannot collect funds for a non-experience, such as, “This story is to fund a boycott of this particular establishment or event.” But it contains no activity.

If you want to read more about our copyright infringement policies, you can find more information in the Copyright and Trademark section in this agreement.

3.4. Bullying, Harassment, & Threats

To Summarise: We don’t allow bullying or harassment because we want Story City to feel like a safe place for our various communities. At the same time, we want people to be able to express themselves, be critical, and discuss controversial issues.

We recognize that discussing celebrities, media or other public figures can sometimes involve harsh criticism, and we believe that is an appropriate part of free debate. However, we draw the line when it comes to harassing private figures, particularly via the localisation of content in places they live, work, or frequent, or taking any action that might affect people’s physical safety, regardless of whether these people are private or public figures.

As much as we want you to be able to express yourself, we want all our users to have the right to express their opinion without feeling intimidated. Even the most difficult conversations should take place in the most respectful way. Here is how we define these behaviors.

3.4.1. Bullying & Harassment:

You cannot attempt to intimidate anyone, either directly or by using your influence over others. We treat real-life interactions more seriously than online interactions when analyzing whether a line has been crossed because it can be more threatening and lead to physical violence. When both sides engage in similar behavior, such as feuds between public figures, we are less likely to act.

3.4.2. Threats:

Anyone on Story City should be able to express their opinion in a way that doesn’t threaten another person. In this respect, we take threats of violence very seriously. Any creator or user threatening the well-being of an individual or group of people will be removed. This includes threatening behavior such as stalking or inciting others to commit violent acts.

If you are a victim of this behavior and feel that your personal safety is at risk, we suggest you contact your local law enforcement, in addition to reporting the behavior to us.

3.5. Hate Speech

To Summarise: Story City connects creators to users all over the world. We are a global platform built on promoting creativity and interesting places, which makes us a very inclusive group. Therefore, there is no room on Story City for projects funding hate speech, such as calling for violence, exclusion, or segregation. This includes serious attacks on people based on their race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, sex, gender, sexual orientation, age, disability, or serious medical conditions.

When reviewing an account for a potential hate speech violation, we consider some of the following questions:

  • Do the creations have historical or educational value? For example, we don’t allow the use of the swastika for propaganda and promoting hate, but it would be acceptable to use it in an educational video to talk about Germany under the Third Reich.
  • Is there a call for violence against someone based on a characteristic like those listed above?
  • Does the creator glorify a group that is known to support ideologies that would be classified as hate speech under this policy?
  • Is the creator using racial slurs or negative depictions of someone based on a characteristic like those listed above?

This list is not exhaustive, but we want to be transparent about how we work in the grey areas between speech and action. There can be a fine line between political comments and hate speech. If you come across what you believe to be hate speech on Story City, please take the time to report it.

3.6. 18+ Creations & Mature Themes

To Summarise: As we strive to create a community that is inclusive and diverse, we want to consider the different ages and sensitivities within our user base. We are not trying to create or reinforce arbitrary frameworks of “right” or “wrong,” but rather want to give people the choice of whether or not to view adult creations. 

To help users make these decisions, we distinguish adult content (content containing mature themes) from all-audience content by applying an 18+ flag to the former. We define “mature themes” as any audio, visual, or audiovisual creations depicting explicit sexual situations, including nudity in sexual contexts (more on nudity below). We ask creators to flag themselves as 18+ if their creations may be considered inappropriate for people under 18 years of age. We realize the exact age threshold may vary depending on where you are, but most places require a certain level of maturity to view these creations and engage in these activities. Below is a brief, non-exhaustive breakdown for guidance.

Examples of content we view as containing mature themes: 

  • Works depicting real people in the nude in sexual contexts.
  • Animations or illustrations depicting nudity in sexual contexts, and animations or illustrations featuring sexual interactions.
  • Audio content that features simulated sexual interactions.

Examples of content we won’t view as mature:

  • Works featuring nudity that is not designed to be sexually gratifying, such as photos of sculptures or paintings.
  • Works featuring nudity or sexual situations that are designed for educational purposes.
  • A stand-up comedy set featuring profanity or “adult” language.

We ask that all creators keep the public spaces on their Story City pages (meaning profile pictures, content tier descriptions, page banners, etc.) appropriate for all audiences. Content depicting mature themes must be reserved for paid for user content only so we can verify age level with payment methods. 

3.6.1. Nudity:

As mentioned above, you can post nude creations on Story City of both real and fictional subjects. Just be sure to mark content with mature themes as “User Only”, meaning it must be a paid experience where a payment method can be used to determine the age of a user, and ensure your profile is flagged as 18+ if your content will feature such themes.

As a reminder, you should never post or share nude creations of any individual under the age of 18, including yourself. As a strong commitment to child safety, we will work with law enforcement whenever we come across child exploitation material. You can read more about our pornography policy in the next section.

We understand that creators sometimes need to push the boundaries of what is acceptable to society, but we don’t allow pornography or sexual services to be funded on Story City. As a result, you cannot offer the following in your content:

  • You cannot offer items that are either sexually gratifying or intimate in nature.
  • You cannot use Story City’s payment system to fund escort activity.
  • You cannot offer an erotic webcam session to your users.

Here the question really comes down to what your users are paying for on Story City. Lastly, we understand that you may make a mix of 18+ creations and other types of creations, and that is okay with us too. We will always review your work within its context. However, if you have concerns, please let us know and we will provide you with guidance on how to maintain a dual presence.

3.6.2. Pornography & Sexual Services:

We don’t allow pornographic material or sexual services on Story City, which we define as “real people engaging in sexual acts such as masturbation or sexual intercourse on camera.”

  • You cannot use Story City to provide access to pornographic material such as giving access to a website or shared private access to pornographic creations whether on Story City or on any other platform. Pornography is defined as real people engaging in sexual acts such as masturbation or sexual intercourse on camera.

3.6.3. Offensive & Graphic Creations:

We understand that artists sometimes have to push boundaries to create thought-provoking art, so we don’t review offensive and graphic creations with strict black and white guidelines. We instead review creations in the context of the whole creator page.

However, we have zero tolerance when it comes to the glorification of sexual violence which includes bestiality, rape, and child exploitation (i.e., sexualized depiction of minors). This is true for illustrated, animated, or any other type of creations. Story City reserves the right to review and remove accounts that may violate this guideline.

It’s not okay to publish violent or gory content that’s primarily intended to be shocking, sensational, or gratuitous. If graphic content is presented in a news or documentary context, please be mindful to provide enough information to help people understand what is going on in the content. Don’t encourage others to commit specific acts of violence.

We understand that some topics on this list such as incest or rape are a little bit more complicated because these situations are, unfortunately, part of real life. As a result, when reviewing these types of creations, the Story City team will take into consideration context including personal, historical, or educational narrative. For example, survivor stories or fiction such as Lolita are allowed on Story City but must be marked as mature 18+ content.

3.6.4. Drugs, Medication, & Supplements

Sometimes people want to share their experience with struggles they faced and how they got better as a way of helping others who are struggling, and that’s more than okay. However, we don’t want creators to encourage harmful or dangerous behaviors. As a result, you cannot offer the following as an incentive or piece of an experience or content:

  • Drugs or drug paraphernalia.
  • Partial payment for drugs, medication, or supplements such as coupons, gift cards, or any incentive to purchase or obtain the categories mentioned above.
  • Medication or food supplements such as weight loss, energy boost or miracle cures.
  • Books or any other form of educational material claiming that they can help cure disease.

Note that Story City allows creations engaging or discussing alternative medicine as long as it does not put people at risk. There is a fine line, but there is a difference between “Medical research on the use of CBD oil against dementia” vs “How to cure cancer only with Yoga” and the team actively reviews creations that might fall under the second category.

3.6.5. Weapons & Explosives

We acknowledge the historic reference to and fascination with weaponry of many types from creators and communities across the world and allow content about guns and other weapons on Story City. But because we are a global company, we have some restrictions on the content for our platform. You cannot include the following in your content on Story City:

  • Offering partial payment such as coupons, gift cards, or any incentive to purchase or obtain firearms or explosives.
  • Tutorials, instructions, or demonstrations for crafting or modifying weapons, such as 3D printed designs, manufacturing firearms, and other Do-It-Yourself (DIY) creations.

3.6.6. Alcohol & Smoking

You are welcome to create content dedicated to beer tasting or making cocktails. The same is true if you want to review cigars and talk about the history of tobacco, but there are some limitations to the content you can offer on Story City. You cannot offer the following:

  • Alcohol and smoking substances such as tobacco, cigars, vapes, e-cigarette, rolling paper, and cigarettes as part of a content experience, or promotions, coupons, or other incentives to purchase them.
  • Offering kits to brew alcohol.
  • Create a driving tour involving the sampling or consumption of alcohol without clearly stating in the story description that the user must have a designated driver who will not be drinking alcohol to do this experience. And by taking part in this experience, they are acknowledging that they have an assigned designated driver for the duration of their experience.

3.7. Doxing

To Summarise: We take a strong stance against doxing, which is sharing an individual’s private information or aggregating their public information for the purpose of intimidating them through harassment.

We take this strong stance against doxing because it is used to silence or intimidate people with different viewpoints on the internet. It can cause extensive emotional trauma and can put the victim’s physical safety at risk.

The most classic form of doxing is when an individual’s private personal information is shared. This could be information such as a phone number or home address. The definition of private personal information can vary and may mean that it is simply very difficult to find.

We also consider it to be doxing when an individual’s non-private information is aggregated. For example, we would consider it doxing if someone’s profile picture was combined with their real name, all their known social media accounts, and the city they lived in.

No matter the specific information shared, we also evaluate the context around why it was shared. If it looks like this information is being shared for the purpose of making it easier for a large group to harass that individual, we are likely to consider it doxing.

When doxing takes place, we lose the ability to have conversations. Doxing isn’t speech countering speech; it is speech shutting down others’ ability to speak. It removes our ability to discuss ideas, grow as individuals and have a safe space for disagreement.

3.8. Finance & Selling

3.8.1. Finance

You are free to talk about and share content concerning financial advice, but Story City was not designed to create an investment scheme. Therefore, while you can share content and advice, you cannot offer the following:

  • Creators may not organize benefits designed to commit fraud such as a pyramid or Ponzi scheme.
  • Content that promises users a financial benefit based on following advice provided in the content such as, “If you pay $50 a month, my advice will earn you 10 times that.”

3.8.2. Multi-level Marketing & Direct Selling

Story City is not a platform to launch a direct sales business or facilitate Multi-Level Marketing (MLM). Story City is not meant to be a means to promote a direct sales business, but a place for creators to launch creative endeavors.

3.9. Raffles

Everyone loves the thrill and the idea of winning a prize which means that raffles can seem like an attractive way to win a bigger audience. However, you cannot request payment for raffles or giveaways as part of your content experience. In other words, users should not have to pay for the chance to win something. This includes lotteries, raffles or even mystery boxes if the value of the box is not guaranteed.

3.10. People Who Can’t Use Story City

To Summarise: Because Story City empowers people financially, we restrict both the types of media and projects that can be funded on Story City, and which people can and cannot receive funds through Story City. After creating a Story City account, any creator caught in the act or convicted of making credible violent threats, committing violent crimes, malicious doxing, coordinating nonviolent harm (such as fraud, money laundering and gambling), or encouraging others to do any of these activities may be banned from using Story City.

3.10.1. Politicians:

You cannot use Story City to fund your run for office or to fund the political campaigns of others. You can use Story City to raise public awareness around policies and changes that have been enacted in a neighbourhood, but these content experiences cannot be used to generate revenue on the Story City platform.

3.10.2. Criminal or Harmful Past:

Individuals who have fulfilled the terms of their sentence for past offenses may share their works on Story City. Any creator observed committing, or convicted of, making credible violent threats or acts, child abuse, malicious doxing, coordinating nonviolent harm (such as fraud, money laundering, and gambling), or encouraging others to do any of these activities, may be banned from using Story City.

3.10.3. Dangerous Organizations:

People with a direct affiliation to violent or dangerous groups (such as terrorist or cyber terrorist organizations, organized criminal groups, and violent hate groups), may be restricted from receiving funds through Story City.

Creators may discuss these groups in their content for educational, reporting, or debunking purposes. However, actively supporting these groups or their leaders through Story City may result in account removal. 

3.11. Harmful & Illegal Activities

To Summarise: We don’t allow funds to be collected for anything that facilitates harmful or illegal activities. You cannot fund creations that advocate, threaten, or show you causing harm to yourself, other people, or animals. In the same way, you cannot promote illegal activities such as property crime, distribution of illegal weapons, or drug manufacturing.

Legality is very difficult to determine because every country and state has different laws. As a result, we design our policies to make sense for a global company, not just where you are located.

3.11.1. Self-Harm:

We don’t allow any page that promotes or glorifies self-harm, such as content that encourage self-injury, suicide, or an eating disorder. If we believe there’s a credible risk the creator will harm themselves, we will work with law enforcement when needed. However, we allow creations that promote awareness such as self-harm survival stories, especially if they have educational value.

If you or someone close to you might be in danger of hurting themselves, please contact local authorities or seek help.

3.11.2. Illegal Activity:

We don’t allow content that collects money for an illegal purpose, or that encourage others to break the law. Creators may not promote illegal weapons, drug manufacturing techniques or distribution, or property crime. With that said, we review each case individually. For example, although we don’t allow creations that help organize or encourage vandalism, we do allow street art.

3.11.3. Dangerous Activities:

We ask those creators who are showcasing dangerous stunts in their content to include a clear disclaimer. We also require that this type of content be present in paid content only if they are too graphic or dangerous for a general audience.

Do not publish content that encourages others to do things that might cause them to get badly hurt, especially kids. Content showing harmful or dangerous acts may be age-restricted or removed depending on their severity.

3.11.4. Child Safety:

Story City has zero tolerance for behaviors that exploit minors such as grooming. Users actively facilitating exploitation or attempting to exploit minors in this way will be removed from Story City. We will report all users engaging in such activity to legal authorities upon removal.

3.11.5. Disinformation:

Story City will not help fund creations that engage in medical misinformation related to Covid-19, and disinformation related to propagating QAnon or Pizzagate conspiracy theories.

3.12. Spam

To Summarise: While it can be hard to grow a follower base, no one likes being spammed. Be creative and original, don’t post repetitive comments or reviews to other members of the community.

These are some of the actions we consider to be spamming, which is prohibited on Story City:

  • Don’t create follow schemes; don’t contact other creators to have a follow-for-a-follow kind of trade deal.
  • Don’t use Story City to release or link to malware or phishing schemes.
  • Don’t make misleading posts to grow your profile followers.
  • Don’t post comments on other creators’ profiles or content promoting your own profile or content.
  • Don’t send a large number of unsolicited messages outside the platform asking for support.
  • Don’t use misleading descriptions, tags, titles, or cover art in order to drive more search results and increase views.

When reviewing reports about spam, we will distinguish between commercial spam and friendly abuse such as legitimate creators spamming other creators’ pages. If we determine the spam is friendly abuse, the account will be flagged; repeat offenses will lead to full removal of the creator or user page. Commercial spamming by an account that is not a legitimate creator will be removed from Story City. In other words, be creative and original because nobody likes Spam (not the canned type).

3.13. Other Things To Note

This list is not exhaustive and might change in the future as technologies evolve and life simply happens. If you have doubts about your projects, please contact the Story City team. We are always happy to help.

3.14. Location Guidelines, Restrictions & Safety

To Summarise: You agree that your use of Story City is at your own risk, and that you will not use Story City to violate any applicable law, regulation, Event policies, or instructions as outlined in this Agreement, and you will not encourage or enable any other individual to do so. Further, you agree that in conjunction with your use of Story City you will not make available any unlawful, or inappropriate content or locations. You agree that you will not submit inaccurate, misleading, or inappropriate content, including data submissions, edits, or removal requests. The Story City platform is not intended to be medical or health devices or provide medical or health advice.

You agree that in conjunction with your use of Story City, you and your content will not harass threaten or otherwise violate the legal rights of others. You and your content will not trespass, or in any manner attempt to gain or gain access to any property or location where you and your content do not have a right or permission to be and will not otherwise engage or encourage or entice users to engage in any activity that may result in injury, death, property damage, nuisance, or liability of any kind. If you have a dispute with any third party relating to your use of Story City, you release Story City (and our officers, directors, agents, subsidiaries, joint ventures, and employees) from all claims, demands, and damages (actual and consequential) of every kind and nature, known and unknown, suspected, and unsuspected, disclosed, and undisclosed, arising out of or in any way connected with such disputes.

The Story City Team and community volunteers are not in any way responsible or liable for the location placement in your story. All aspects of your story content and its placement are your responsibility, and you may be held liable for any resulting consequences. 

These guidelines are continuously being developed with the community. Together, we review and adapt the guidelines as the world changes and the content evolves. Following these guidelines is important to protect the community and the environment in which we play. With these guidelines we aim to balance the needs and rights of the community, land managers, and the environment to ensure that Story City can be enjoyed for years to come.

We encourage you to do at least 5-10 experiences before creating your own, and while Spoiler Mode is great, getting out and doing them in the real world, as intended, is going to give you a much better sense of what’s needed to build an engaging, safe, and respectful experience yourself. The more variety you experience, the better you will understand how to create an enjoyable experience for other users.

3.14.1. Selecting Your Locations

3.14.1.1. Obey Local Laws

All local laws and land management policies apply. This refers to both the placement of the content in that location and the journey required to reach it. Do not place content chapters in a location that requires or encourages users to trespass or pass markers that prohibit access.

3.14.1.2. Get Permission

By submitting content to Story City, you agree that you have all necessary permissions from the landowner or land manager to place content at that location if it is not public land.

If we receive complaints or become aware that a story has content in inappropriate locations, even if not prohibited by law, it may be disabled or archived.

  • Public
    • Even if you are certain that locating content is permitted on a particular public property, make sure that you follow any requirements established by the landowner or land management agency before you place your content.
  • Private
    • If you have permission to place your content on private property, indicate this in the description of the story for the benefit of the reviewer and users of your story. A community volunteer may ask you to provide contact information of the person giving permission.

3.14.1.3. Must Be Accessible

  • Long term:
    • Create your content and stories to have a long life.
    • Temporary stories intended to stay active for fewer than three months must be very clearly marked in the story description.
  • Availability:
    • Content must be available most of the week.
    • If locations are subject to opening times, please make sure you state them clearly in the content for that location OR, if it is a significant part of the experience, in the story description.
    • Please remember GPS works poorly inside buildings, so for the best experience for your users make sure all locations are set outside to initially trigger (even if you are sending people inside to see something), and that you test your story to make sure the GPS easily triggers those locations in that area.
    • If entry to an area require additional tickets or payment beyond the cost of the story this must be clearly stated in the story description.
  • No contact option required:
    • If interaction with physical people (who have consented to being contacted or interacted with as part of your story content) is required, but there is a possibility that this person will not be available 24/7, there must be an alternate means of gaining interaction or information from an interaction that can be accessed if that person is not there or available. New people are hired, others leave, people get sick, don’t let your users have a bad experience because of poor luck or chance, especially if the story is paid for.

3.14.1.4. Do Not Damage Property

  • Do not damage, deface, or destroy public or private property, especially archaeological or historical sites, when you place your content.
  • Do not create content or place content in a location that requires or encourages users to damage, deface, or destroy public or private property, especially archaeological or historical sites.

3.14.1.5. Do Not Harm Plants, Animals, or Environment

Do not place content in locations that requires or encourages users will harm plant or animal life. In some areas, content may need to be hidden for certain portions of the year due to sensitivity of some species, or environmental and weather risk factors.

3.14.1.6. Stay Away From Restricted & Dangerous Areas AKA Be Safe

Do not place content in restricted, prohibited, or otherwise inappropriate locations. The Story City Team or a community volunteer may temporarily disable or permanently archive your story content if any of the following is reported (This list is not comprehensive):

  • A landowner or land manager reports the content.
  • The content is in an area that is sensitive to additional foot or vehicular traffic. Examples may include archaeological sites, historical sites, and cemeteries.
  • The content is on railroad property or right of way.
  • The location is problematic due to its proximity to a public structure. Examples include highway bridges, roads (both major and minor), transit lanes, dams, government buildings, schools, military installations, hospitals, airports, construction zones, rivers and waterways, and other areas which may be determined dangerous in the future. Use your common sense as to where it is safe for your user to stand when you are looking at your phone and not paying attention to your surroundings for extended periods of time.
  • The content placement is problematic due to potentially dangerous-to-user locations (such as cliff edges with no fencing, slick rocks near waterfalls, avalanche areas, steep hillsides etc) or its placement puts a user in an unsafe situation (in a dangerous area for a person at night, in a dark alley where someone can get mugged, in an area that is known to be unsafe for tourists, particularly tourists for expensive technology like smartphones in areas of high pickpocketing and crime etc).
  • Locations that strongly encourage or require access through restricted locations.

 3.14.2. Creator Responsibilities

3.14.2.1. Maintain All Published Stories

To keep your content, stories, and locations up-to-date, the creator must:

  • Monitor user reports for problems.
  • Provide a note on any review that flags problems when an update has been applied to fix an issue.
  • Update content if a new replacement location is selected.
  • Unpublish a story if you need time to fix reported problems and update the story description with a notice for all previous users who purchased your content to know the problem will be addressed soon. Your content can stay disabled for a reasonable amount of time – generally up to two weeks, before we will consider requests from users for refunds due to delays in fixing issues.
  • Retire and archive stories if location or content fixes cannot be made due to permanent changes to the environment and location.

Creators who do not maintain their existing content in a timely manner may temporarily or permanently lose the right to list new content on Story City.

3.14.2.2. Changes After Publication

If you make changes to your locations or content after publication, and it no longer complies with guidelines, your content may be disabled or archived.

3.15. User Accounts

To Summarise: The philosophy behind these Community Guidelines also applies to users. While we believe that creators are best at managing their content and communities there are some instances when the Story City team will review reports for users’ behavior.

Creators can report a user’s content or reviews directly. If you would like us to review the behavior of one of the users of your content, we will keep the review confidential. The Story City team reviews reports around hate speech, harassment, and solicitation very carefully and we will take action against a user account if we find that they are in clear violation of these guidelines.

Please remember that we will not share any details related to what kind of action we might have taken against a user’s account. Most importantly, if you feel unsafe because a user is stalking or harassing you, you should always try to seek the help of your local law enforcement and contact the closest cyber crime unit as they will have the most tools and means to help. Story City will work closely with law enforcement when there is an investigation and if a law enforcement agency sends us a subpoena.

This policy is part of Story City’s End User Agreement.

3.16. Story City’s Role

To Summarise: We proactively look at some content, profiles, reviews, and posts on Story City and review reported content and profiles to identify potential violations of our guidelines.

We proactively look at some content, profiles, reviews, and posts on Story City to make sure creators follow our Community Guidelines. We also investigate reports of potential violations. These investigations may take a while to resolve and may include looking at what is supported by funds received through Story City.

In most situations we will work with creators to resolve any potential violations and allow the creator to continue using Story City. Terminating accounts is not an action we take lightly and is done in only the most extreme cases. Please let us know if you see potential violations of our Community Guidelines. You can report them here.

When Story City received a content submission, note that we shall review the content and are entitled to make such modifications, corrections or editing of errors as we deem necessary based on these guidelines before making it available on our platform for sale.

We are constantly testing out new features with the goal of making Story City better. We may add or remove features, and often test features with a random subset of our community. If we believe a feature is significantly different from these terms, then we explain those differences in the test. With your permission, we may give other websites or services the ability to verify information about your Story City account or perform actions on your behalf. This permission is asked for when you connect your Story City account to these other websites or services. You can learn more in our Privacy Policy.

4. Copyright & Trademarks

To Summarise: If you do not own parts of the content, and you do not have written permission to use it or have not properly credited creative commons works as required by their associated licenses, then please respect the work of these other creators and don’t use their copyrighted works in your content on Story City.

Story City loves Creators of all types and has great admiration and appreciation for their creative contributions to the world. Story City respects the intellectual property rights granted to creative works and seeks to promote such respect by others, especially our Creators.

Story City’s policy is to terminate, in appropriate circumstances, users and Creators who are repeat infringers. We rely on Creators to fund, publish or link only to their own original content and creations on our platform and to notify us when content creations are being misused, stolen, or otherwise abused.

Intellectual property is a complex and nuanced area of law and there are legal risks involved both in sending notifications and counter-notifications. If you are not already familiar with intellectual property law, we recommend consulting with an attorney for specific advice before bringing any notifications or counter-notifications on Story City.

4.1. Copyright

The Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) provides a notice and takedown framework for potential copyright infringements. This framework allows copyright owners to bring a notification of claimed infringement for any potentially infringing works that may be hosted or located on Story City. Story City acts expeditiously to remove such works.

If a Story City Creator has potentially misused your copyrighted work, please submit a notification of claimed infringement via our contact page. Be sure to conform to the applicable notification provisions of section 512 of the Copyright Act.

If you have received a notification of claimed infringement on your Story City content, you have the option of removing the content or bringing a counter-notification by contacting us. Be sure to conform to the applicable counter notification provisions of section 512(g)(3) of the Copyright Act. All notifications of claimed infringement can either be emailed to Story City.

 4.2. Trademark

A trademark is a brand name, slogan, or logo that serves to identify a person or company’s goods or services. For example: You’re now using the Story City® platform. The Story City® trademark helps distinguish this website from other online platforms.

If you are concerned that someone may be using your trademark in a way that is likely to confuse or mislead the public, please contact us. We will review your claim and take whatever action we deem appropriate, including but not limited to removal of the violative mark from Story City.

5. Account Deletion

To Summarise: You can delete your account. We can disable your account at our discretion.

You can permanently delete your account at any time. On that page you can also see what information is deleted and what we continue to store after the account is deleted. We can terminate or suspend your account at any time at our discretion. We can also cancel any content and remove any descriptions or posts at our discretion. You may not bring a claim against us for suspending or terminating another person’s account, and you agree you will not bring such a claim. If you try to bring such a claim, you are responsible for the damages caused, including attorneys’ fees and costs. These terms remain in effect even if you no longer have an account.

5.1. Effects of Deletion & Termination of Agreement

On deletion of your account and termination of this Agreement, Story City shall cease to display or sell the content and excerpts to users. Sales made prior to deletion shall survive this termination of the Agreement. You agree to allow Story City to store purchased content by users on its servers only to allow users to access or download the same anytime.

6. Your Content, Rights Granted By You To Story City, & Rights Granted by Story City To You

To Summarise: You keep complete ownership of all content and creations, but you give us permission to use them on Story City. Make sure you have permission to use the content and creations that you offer on Story City. You may not post creations that infringe others’ intellectual property or proprietary rights. Users may not use creations posted by creators in any way not authorized by the creator.

6.1. Rights Granted By You To Story City

You keep full ownership of all content and creations that you offer on Story City, but we need licenses from you to operate Story City effectively.

By posting content and creations on Story City, you grant us a royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, sublicensable, worldwide license to use, reproduce, distribute, publicly display, publicly perform, or prepare derivative works of your content and creations for the purpose of providing and promoting your content and creations for use on the Story City platform. You give us the right to market, advertise and promote your content and for this purpose create excerpts for users to see without charge. The purpose of this license is strictly limited to allow us to provide and promote contents to the platform’s users or potential users. We will never try to steal your creations or use them in an exploitative way.

You are solely responsible for all your Content. You represent and warrant that you own all your Content, or you have all rights that are necessary to grant us the license rights in your Content under this Agreement. You also represent and warrant that neither your Content, nor your use and provision of your Content to be made available through Story City, nor any use of your Content by Story City on or off the platform will infringe, misappropriate, or violate a third party’s intellectual property rights, or rights of publicity or privacy, or result in the violation of any applicable law or regulation.

You give us the right store and make available copies of the purchased Content to the end users from our servers even after the termination of this Agreement as expanded upon below.

6.2. Rights Granted By You To The User

Users will still have access to creations they have purchased from you after you delete or archive an account or content provided they made that purchase before you deleted or archived that account or creation, and that the account or creation does not violate our content and Community Guidelines.

6.3. User’s Creations

To Summarise: You can use our copyrights or trademarks to promote your Story City content and profile but can’t use them for anything else without our permission.

Our creations are protected by copyright, trademark, and trade secret laws. Some examples of our creations are the text on the site, our logo, and our codebase. We grant you a license to use our logo and other copyrights or trademarks to promote your Story City content and profile. You may not otherwise use, reproduce, distribute, perform, publicly display, or prepare derivative works of our creations unless we give you permission in writing. Please ask if you have any questions.

7. Your Third-Party Apps

To Summarise: You may grant Story City permission to access third-party apps. You may also revoke that permission.

You may grant Story City access to your third-party accounts, such as Google, Story City, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and TikTok, for some Story City features to operate. Each time you connect your third-party account, that third-party account will present a page that describes the information that Story City can access. At any time, you can revoke Story City’s access to those accounts using the respective third party’s security settings page.

8. Indemnity

To Summarise: If we are sued because of your use of or conduct on Story City, you must help pay for it.

You will indemnify us from all losses and liabilities, including legal fees, that arise from these terms or relate to your use of Story City. We reserve the right to exclusive control over the defense of a claim covered by this clause. If we use this right, then you will help us in our defense. Your obligation to indemnify under this clause also applies to our subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents, and third-party service providers.

9. Warranty Disclaimer

To Summarise: We do our best to make sure Story City works as expected, but stuff happens.

Story City is provided “as is” and without warranty of any kind. Any warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and any other warranty is excluded to the greatest extent permitted by law. The disclaimers of warranty under this clause also apply to our subsidiaries, affiliates, and third-party service providers.

10. Limit of Liability

To Summarise: If you lose money because of using Story City, any payment to you is limited to the amount of money we have earned through your use of Story City.

To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable to you for any incidental, consequential or punitive damages arising out of these terms, or your use or attempted use of Story City. To the extent permitted by law, our liability for damages is limited to the amount of money we have earned through your use of Story City. We are specifically not liable for loss associated with returns requests and from losses caused by conflicting contractual agreements. For this clause “we” and “our” is defined to include our subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, directors, employees, agents, and third-party service providers.

11. Dispute Resolution

To Summarise: If you have a problem, please talk to us. Any disputes with us must be resolved in Edmonton, Alberta under Canadian law.

We encourage you to contact us if you have an issue. If a dispute does arise out of these terms or in relation to your use of Story City, then the dispute will be resolved in the federal or state courts located in Edmonton, Alberta. Both parties consent to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the Edmonton courts for the purpose of resolving any such dispute. Albertan law, excluding its conflict of law provisions, governs these terms, all other Story City policies, and any dispute that arises between you and Story City.

12. Everything Else

To Summarise: These terms are the final word on Story City’s policies, and we will tell you if we change them.

These terms and any referenced policies are the entire agreement between you and us and supersede all prior agreements. If any provision of these terms is held to be unenforceable, then that provision is modified to the extent necessary to enforce it. If a provision cannot be modified, it is severed from these terms, and all other provisions remain in force. If either party fails to enforce a right provided by these terms, it does not waive the ability to enforce any rights in the future.

We may sometimes make changes to these terms and policies. If we make material changes that adversely affect your rights, then we will let you know before the changes come into effect. Continuing to use Story City after a change means you accept the new terms or policies.