Terms of Service

1. Eligibility and authority

You must be at least 18 years old to create or control a Fotarie account. If you use Fotarie for a studio, company, or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind it to these Terms. Gallery visitors and studio clients may use a gallery, packet, invoice, or related link only as authorized by the photographer or studio that shared it.

2. Accounts and security

You must provide accurate account information, keep it current, and protect your credentials. You are responsible for activity under your account and for appropriately managing access by studio members. Tell us promptly at [email protected] if you suspect unauthorized access or a security incident involving your account. You may not share credentials in a way that defeats account controls or misrepresent your identity or affiliation.

3. The service

Fotarie provides tools for photographers and studios to upload, organize, manage, share, display, and deliver galleries of photos and video. Account holders can configure gallery access and download permissions. Gallery visitors may view or download content only when and to the extent permitted by the controlling photographer or studio.

Fotarie also provides a website builder. A website you publish is served at a Fotarie web address and is accessible to anyone on the internet, so you should treat everything on it as public. Connecting your own domain name is not currently supported. You are responsible for the content you publish, and the acceptable-use and content terms below apply to it in the same way they apply to galleries.

Fotarie also provides studio tools to manage contacts and bookings, collect inquiries, build and send booking packets (including quotes, contracts, and questionnaires), collect electronic signatures, and create and send invoices with payment instructions. Packet and invoice links use unique tokens. Anyone with a link may open the corresponding page unless you change or revoke access, so distribute those links carefully. Client invoices in Fotarie are for your own billing relationship with your clients; Fotarie does not collect card payments from those clients.

Fotarie provides the technical service and is not a party to contracts, bookings, model releases, licensing arrangements, payment disputes, or other relationships between photographers, clients, gallery visitors, and photographed people. The photographer or studio is responsible for its professional services and client commitments, including the legal effect of any contract or signature collected through the service.

4. Your content and licence to Fotarie

As between you and Fotarie, you retain ownership of photos, video, text, branding, and other material you upload or submit (“Your Content”). You grant Fotarie a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, copy, store, back up, process, resize, transcode, transmit, display, and deliver Your Content only as reasonably necessary to operate, secure, support, and provide the service according to your settings and instructions. Where you publish a website, that licence extends to displaying the content you publish to the public. Where you use studio tools, that licence extends to hosting and delivering contacts, bookings, packets, questionnaires, contracts, signatures, invoices, and related PDFs according to your settings. This licence lasts while Your Content is on the service and for a reasonable period required for deletion and backup processes.

You represent and warrant that you own Your Content or have all rights, permissions, and lawful authority needed to upload, process, display, share, and permit downloads of it through Fotarie. This includes copyright, privacy, publicity, personality, model-release, and consent rights. You are especially responsible for appropriate authority and consent for images of minors, intimate or sensitive settings, health or other sensitive information, and any restricted location or event.

5. Acceptable use

You must not use Fotarie to:

• break a law, court order, contract, or another person’s rights;
• upload, share, or download content that is unlawful, infringing, exploitative, abusive, threatening, defamatory, or seriously privacy-invasive;
• exploit or endanger a child, or handle sexual imagery of minors;
• distribute malware, harmful code, spam, phishing, or fraudulent material;
• probe, scan, disrupt, overload, reverse engineer, or attempt unauthorized access to the service or another user’s gallery, website, booking packet, invoice, credentials, data, or systems;
• bypass passwords, download PINs, access tokens, permissions, storage limits, rate limits, or other technical and security controls;
• scrape or use automated means to extract content except as expressly authorized by Fotarie and the content owner; or
• impersonate another person, obscure the origin of activity, or help another person engage in prohibited conduct.

We may investigate suspected misuse and remove or restrict content or access when reasonably necessary to protect users, third parties, or the service, or to comply with law.

6. Gallery, packet, and invoice access

Photographers and studios decide whom to share galleries, booking packets, and invoices with and which access or download controls to use. Links, passwords, download PINs, and tokenized packet or invoice URLs can be forwarded by recipients, so account holders should choose and distribute them carefully. Fotarie does not guarantee that sharing controls will prevent every unauthorized copy, screenshot, or onward distribution. Gallery visitors and studio clients must respect the photographer’s stated permissions and any copyright or licence restrictions.

7. Plans, billing, and cancellation

Fotarie offers a free plan and paid plans for product features such as galleries and websites. Paid plans are billed monthly or annually in advance, in the currency shown at checkout, and renew automatically for the same interval until cancelled. Prices and what each plan includes are shown on our pricing page.

Payments for studio subscriptions are processed by Stripe, which acts as the merchant of record for your purchase. Stripe takes payment, calculates, collects, and remits applicable sales taxes, and handles chargebacks and payment disputes. Stripe’s terms apply to the payment transaction, and payment card details are provided directly to Stripe rather than to Fotarie. Client invoices you create in Fotarie are separate from your Fotarie subscription and are not processed as card payments by Fotarie or Stripe on your clients’ behalf.

You may cancel at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the period you have already paid for, and your paid features remain available until then. Fees already paid are not refunded, including for a partial period or for a period during which you did not use the service, except where a refund is required by law.

If a payment fails, your plan stays active while payment is retried. If the subscription is ultimately cancelled for non-payment, the account returns to the free plan and its limits. We may change prices or what a plan includes; changes take effect on your next renewal after we give notice, and you may cancel before then if you do not accept them.

Each plan carries limits, including the number of studio seats, total file storage, and video length and resolution. Returning to the free plan or downgrading does not delete content you have already uploaded, but new uploads are refused once a limit is reached until you free up room or move to a plan that fits.

8. Communications

You agree that we may send electronic communications necessary to provide your account and the service, including confirmation, invitation, password-reset, security, operational, and legal notices. You are responsible for keeping your email address current. Electronic notices satisfy written-notice requirements to the extent permitted by law.

Fotarie can send galleries, booking packets, invoices, and related delivery messages to recipients you enter, and those messages are sent by Fotarie on your behalf. Inquiry forms may also notify your studio when someone submits a lead. You represent that each recipient has consented to hear from you or has a relationship with you that permits the message under applicable anti-spam law, that the message relates to work you are delivering or requesting, and that you will not use these delivery features to send bulk or unsolicited marketing. You remain responsible for the recipients you enter and the content of client-facing messages you cause to be sent.

9. Third-party services and infrastructure

Fotarie relies on third-party infrastructure and services, which may include hosting, databases, storage, content delivery, email, video processing and streaming, payment processing, error monitoring, and identity providers. Their performance, networks, and availability are not fully within our control. Your use of a separate third-party service, such as choosing Google Sign-In, may also be governed by that provider’s terms and privacy policy.

10. Changes, availability, limits, and backups

We may add, change, limit, or discontinue service features and may establish or adjust reasonable technical, file, bandwidth, or storage limits. We aim to provide a reliable service, but maintenance, failures, security events, third-party outages, and other interruptions may occur. Where reasonably possible, we will provide notice of a material change that significantly reduces core service functionality.

Fotarie is a delivery and studio service, not an archival backup service. Photographers and studios must retain their original files and independent backups. Do not rely on Fotarie as the only copy of Your Content.

11. Suspension and termination

You may stop using Fotarie at any time. We may suspend or terminate access, remove content, or limit functionality if you materially breach these Terms, create security or legal risk, fail to address prohibited use, or if suspension is reasonably needed to protect the service or others. When appropriate, we will give notice and an opportunity to correct the issue. We may act immediately for urgent security, safety, legal, or abuse concerns.

On termination, your right to use the service ends. Provisions that by their nature should survive—including ownership, warranties and disclaimers, indemnity, liability limits, and dispute terms—will survive. Content deletion may be subject to reasonable processing and backup periods and any legal preservation obligations.

12. Intellectual property and feedback

Fotarie and its licensors own the service, software, design, trademarks, and related materials, excluding Your Content. These Terms do not grant you ownership of Fotarie intellectual property. If you voluntarily send suggestions or feedback, you allow us to use it without restriction or compensation, but you are not required to provide feedback.

13. Disclaimer of warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Fotarie is provided “as is” and “as available.” We disclaim all representations, warranties, and conditions, express, implied, statutory, or collateral, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, uninterrupted availability, security, accuracy, and preservation of content. We do not warrant that the service will meet every requirement or that defects or data loss will never occur. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions, so some of these terms may not apply to you.

14. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Fotarie and its suppliers will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, exemplary, punitive, or consequential damages, or for lost profits, revenue, business, goodwill, opportunities, data, or content, arising from or related to the service, even if advised that such loss was possible.

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Fotarie’s total aggregate liability for all claims arising from or related to the service or these Terms will not exceed the greater of (a) the fees you paid to Fotarie for the service during the 12 months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim and (b) CAD $100. These exclusions and limits do not apply to liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

15. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Fotarie and its operators, personnel, and service providers from third-party claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and reasonable legal fees arising from Your Content, your photography or client activities, your breach of these Terms, your violation of law or another person’s rights, or your misuse of the service. This does not require you to indemnify a party for its own fraud, wilful misconduct, or liability that cannot lawfully be indemnified.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of British Columbia and the applicable federal laws of Canada, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Subject to any mandatory consumer rights, proceedings arising from these Terms or the service must be brought in the courts of British Columbia, and you and Fotarie submit to their jurisdiction. Nothing in these Terms prevents either party from seeking urgent injunctive or protective relief where appropriate.

17. General terms

These Terms and the Privacy Policy form the agreement between you and Fotarie concerning the service. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited to the minimum extent necessary and the remaining provisions will continue. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them as part of a reorganization, financing, merger, acquisition, or sale of the business or assets. Neither party is liable for delay caused by events beyond its reasonable control, except for payment obligations.

We may update these Terms as the service or law changes. We will post updated Terms with a new effective date and provide additional notice of material changes where required. Continued use after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms. Contact [email protected] with legal, support, or copyright inquiries.