Terms of Service

1. Scope and provider

These Terms of Service apply when you access or use PAINTSESSIONS.COM, including the website, account system, multiplayer painting rooms, artwork publishing features, profiles, comments, votes, challenges, reporting tools, supporter features and related services.

PAINTSESSIONS.COM is operated by Yannick Stephan Rot. Provider details and legal contact points are available in our Legal Notice. Information about personal data processing is available in our Privacy Policy.

By creating an account, signing in, publishing content, using multiplayer features, or purchasing supporter access, you agree to these terms.

2. Definitions

Content means anything a user creates, submits, paints, publishes, uploads, names, comments on, votes on, reports, or otherwise makes available through PAINTSESSIONS.COM.

Artwork means a captured painted moment, view, section, or composition published through PAINTSESSIONS.COM as a profile item.

Public content means content that is visible in public rooms, public profiles, artwork pages, discovery pages, comments, votes, challenges, or other public areas of the platform.

Private content means content created or stored in private rooms or account areas that are not intended to be publicly visible.

Supporter means optional paid access to additional tools and features.

3. Accounts and eligibility

You need a free account to paint, save, publish artworks, comment, vote, use in-platform report controls, use supporter features and access private or account-related areas. Anyone may report unlawful or infringing content by contacting the abuse address listed below.

You must be at least 16 years old to use PAINTSESSIONS.COM, unless use is permitted by applicable law and valid parental or legal guardian consent has been obtained where required. If you are not legally allowed to enter paid contracts on your own, you may purchase Supporter access only with valid consent from a parent or legal guardian.

You are responsible for activity on your account. You must not share, sell, transfer, impersonate, or misuse accounts, usernames, profiles or authentication credentials.

4. The live world and published artworks

PAINTSESSIONS.COM is built around shared, evolving 3D spaces. Paint applied in public or shared rooms may be changed, covered, extended or affected by later activity from you or other users.

When you capture and publish a painted moment as an artwork, that published artwork becomes a profile item that can remain visible even if the original surface in the live world changes later.

When you paint in public or shared rooms, your contributions may appear together with contributions from other users. Other users may view, interact with, respond to, paint near, paint over, or capture public scenes that include your public contributions through PAINTSESSIONS.COM features.

A published artwork may include visible contributions from more than one user. Publishing an artwork through PAINTSESSIONS.COM does not give you ownership of other users' contributions or permission to commercially exploit their work outside PAINTSESSIONS.COM without their permission, unless such use is permitted by law.

Private rooms, supporter-only tools and protected paint areas give you more control while using the platform, but they do not create ownership of the underlying virtual room, level, surface or platform infrastructure.

5. User content and rights

You keep ownership of the content you create or submit, subject to any rights held by other users or third parties.

By creating, submitting, painting, publishing or otherwise making content available on PAINTSESSIONS.COM, you grant the provider operating PAINTSESSIONS.COM a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, display, resize, transcode, create thumbnails or previews, make available, moderate, backup and technically process that content as needed to operate, secure, provide, maintain and improve the platform.

Nothing in these terms transfers ownership of your content to the provider. Moral rights and other non-waivable rights remain unaffected where applicable law provides for them.

For public content, this licence also includes the right to show the content in discovery pages, profiles, artwork pages, previews, social sharing, community highlights and official PAINTSESSIONS.COM promotional materials.

Private content will not be used in public marketing unless you publish it publicly, share it through a public feature, or give separate permission.

When content is deleted from active public areas, we will stop using it for new public promotional uses, except where continued processing is necessary for backups, legal compliance, security, moderation, accounting, audit records, or legitimate platform records. Existing shares, cached copies, backups or previously published promotional materials may remain where removal is not reasonably practical.

You may share screenshots, recordings and published artworks from PAINTSESSIONS.COM for personal, portfolio, social media and non-commercial promotional purposes, provided that you respect the rights of other users and do not suggest that PAINTSESSIONS.COM endorses you or your content unless we have agreed to this.

Screenshots or recordings may contain platform assets or other users' contributions. You do not receive ownership of platform assets or other users' content merely because they appear in a screenshot, recording or artwork.

You are responsible for ensuring that your content complies with applicable law and does not infringe third-party rights, including copyright, neighbouring rights, trademark rights, personality rights, privacy rights, property rights and contractual restrictions.

6. Platform and software rights

PAINTSESSIONS.COM, including the website, software, user interface, 3D environments, tools, systems, branding, logos, visual assets and platform infrastructure, is owned by the provider or its licensors.

Subject to these terms, you receive a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to access and use PAINTSESSIONS.COM for its intended purpose. This right may be restricted or terminated in accordance with these terms and applicable law.

You must not copy, modify, reverse engineer, decompile, scrape, resell, sublicense, interfere with, or use PAINTSESSIONS.COM outside its intended functionality, unless this is expressly permitted by law.

7. Community rules

You must not use PAINTSESSIONS.COM to create, upload, publish, share, promote, or coordinate content or behaviour that is illegal, abusive, harmful, deceptive, or disruptive.

In particular, you must not publish or submit illegal content, intellectual property infringements, impersonation, harassment, threats, hate or extremist content, sexual content involving minors, privacy violations, doxxing, spam, scams, malicious code, automated abuse, attempts to bypass security or moderation, or content that primarily exists to disrupt other users or damage the platform.

You must not publish pornographic content, explicit sexual content, fetish content, graphic gore, or content primarily intended to shock, disgust or sexually arouse. Non-explicit artistic nudity may be allowed where it is lawful, clearly artistic, and not exploitative.

Challenges, rankings, votes and community features may have additional rules. We may moderate, remove, hide, disqualify or adjust submissions, votes, rankings or rewards where we believe there has been manipulation, abuse, technical exploitation, rule violation, or unfair conduct.

You must not manipulate votes, rankings, comments, reports, challenges or discovery systems, including through fake accounts, automation, coordinated abuse, or misleading behaviour.

Chat messages, usernames, room names, profile fields and other user input may be checked by technical filters and reviewed by the operator, authorized administrators, moderators, or other authorized reviewers. Filters are a support tool and do not replace your responsibility to follow these terms.

8. Reports, notices and moderation

Anyone can report artworks, comments, profiles, usernames, room names and other user-generated content through available report controls or the public report form. If the form is unavailable, reports can be sent to abuse@paintsessions.com. Rights holders and affected persons may also use these channels for takedown or infringement notices.

Reports and notices should include, where possible, the exact URL or content identifier, a description of why the content is unlawful or violates these terms, relevant evidence, contact details for follow-up, and a statement that the information provided is accurate and complete.

Reports submitted through the report form receive an electronic receipt with a reference code. Where a report includes valid electronic contact details, we inform the reporter about the outcome where required by law and where doing so is legally and practically possible.

We may refuse to process notices that are clearly abusive, manifestly unfounded, insufficiently precise, automated in bad faith, or submitted to harass users.

Reports are reviewed by the operator, authorized administrators, moderators, or other authorized reviewers. Depending on the situation, we may take no action, limit visibility, remove content, clear profile text, delete comments or artworks, restore content, add strikes, restrict supporter features, limit room access, disable accounts, disqualify challenge entries, adjust rankings, or take other action needed for safety, legal compliance or platform integrity.

When reviewing content, we aim to act carefully and proportionately, taking into account platform safety, applicable law, artistic expression, freedom of expression, privacy, intellectual property rights, and the rights of affected users.

Where required by law, we will provide information about significant moderation decisions. We may use automated or technical tools to support detection, filtering, prioritization and enforcement, but significant content or account decisions are reviewed by humans where required.

Reports must be submitted in good faith. Abusive, knowingly false, automated, or malicious reports may lead to restrictions on the reporting account.

9. Appeals and complaints

If you believe that a moderation decision, content removal, strike, restriction, disqualification, ranking adjustment, or account action was incorrect, you can contact abuse@paintsessions.com or support@paintsessions.com.

Your appeal should identify your account, the content or action concerned, and explain why you believe the decision should be changed. Appeals are reviewed free of charge. Where required by the Digital Services Act, or where we voluntarily provide an appeal process, affected users may challenge certain moderation decisions for at least six months after the relevant decision.

For communications under the Digital Services Act, including communications from authorities and users, the single point of contact is legal@paintsessions.com. Communications may be sent in English or German.

These appeal options do not limit any rights you may have to contact competent authorities, use certified out-of-court dispute settlement bodies where applicable, or bring claims before courts.

10. Supporter access and payments

PAINTSESSIONS.COM can be used with a free account. Supporter access is an optional paid upgrade that unlocks additional creative tools and platform features while active.

Prices are displayed before purchase and are shown in EUR unless stated otherwise. Where required by law, prices are shown as total prices including applicable VAT and mandatory price components. Any additional costs, if applicable, will be shown before purchase.

Supporter access usually starts after successful payment confirmation unless stated otherwise during checkout.

Monthly supporter access renews monthly through Stripe and can be canceled anytime. It remains active until the end of the paid period. The annual pass is paid once for one year of supporter access and does not renew automatically.

You can cancel monthly supporter access through the account settings, the Stripe customer portal where available, or another cancellation method provided on the platform. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period unless otherwise required by law.

If a recurring payment fails, we may retry the payment, ask you to update your payment method, or suspend supporter access until payment is completed.

Supporter features may change over time. We may add, adjust, rename, replace or remove features where needed for product development, security, performance, legal compliance or platform operation, while keeping the paid supporter offering substantially useful during the paid period.

Nothing in these terms limits statutory consumer rights relating to paid digital products, including rights relating to conformity, updates, defects, withdrawal, cancellation, termination, price reduction or refunds where such rights apply.

If supporter access expires, singleplayer saves stored in your browser are not deleted by PAINTSESSIONS.COM, unless you clear browser data. Avatar customization stays saved. Private rooms can remain manageable, and invited supporters with active access may still enter them, but you cannot enter private rooms yourself or create or extend protected paint areas until supporter access is active again.

Payments are handled by Stripe. PAINTSESSIONS.COM does not store complete payment card numbers or payment method details on its own servers. Refund requests can be sent to support@paintsessions.com and will be reviewed case by case unless mandatory law gives you additional rights.

If supporter access is terminated because of serious or repeated violations of these terms, we may refuse refunds for the remaining paid period unless mandatory law requires otherwise.

11. Consumer withdrawal and cancellation rights

If you are a consumer and purchase supporter access online, you may have a statutory right of withdrawal. The withdrawal period is generally 14 days from conclusion of the contract, unless a different rule applies.

Full withdrawal instructions, information about the consequences of withdrawal, monthly supporter cancellation information, and a model withdrawal form are available on our Withdrawal & Cancellation page.

12. Availability and browser requirements

We aim to keep PAINTSESSIONS.COM available and functional, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability. Maintenance, updates, security measures, infrastructure issues, browser limitations, network problems or force majeure events may affect access.

Features, levels, rooms, tools, visuals and technical systems may change over time. Experimental or beta features may be adjusted, limited or removed. We may limit, suspend or discontinue parts of the service where needed for safety, maintenance, security, legal compliance, performance or product changes.

Some features depend on your browser, device, graphics capabilities, internet connection, local storage settings and third-party infrastructure. PAINTSESSIONS.COM is not responsible for loss of local browser data caused by clearing browser storage, browser settings, device changes, private browsing modes, extensions, operating system behaviour or third-party software.

13. Account restrictions, deletion and termination

You may stop using PAINTSESSIONS.COM at any time and may request account deletion or anonymization as described in the Privacy Policy.

If your account is deleted or anonymized, your profile information may be removed or anonymized subject to legal retention requirements and the Privacy Policy.

Because PAINTSESSIONS.COM is a shared evolving world, paint strokes, published artworks, comments, votes, room activity, moderation records, backups and other contributions may not always be fully removable from all systems or shared scenes. Where deletion is not technically or legally practical, content may be anonymized, hidden, disconnected from your public profile, or retained only where necessary for legal, security, moderation, accounting or legitimate platform purposes.

This does not limit any statutory rights you may have under data protection law.

We may restrict, suspend, disable or terminate accounts, content, room access, supporter features or other platform access where necessary because of serious or repeated violations, legal requirements, security risks, abuse, non-payment, technical harm, or threats to users or platform integrity.

Where reasonable and legally possible, we will consider the severity, context, previous behaviour, available evidence and the impact on affected users before taking significant account action.

14. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability for intent, gross negligence, injury to life, body or health, mandatory statutory liability, or guarantees expressly given by us.

In cases of slight negligence, we are liable only for breaches of essential contractual obligations. Essential contractual obligations are obligations whose fulfilment makes proper use of the service possible and on whose compliance users may regularly rely. In such cases, liability is limited to typical and foreseeable damage.

Users remain responsible for their own content, conduct, devices, browser configuration, internet connection, backups and compliance with applicable law.

15. Governing law and dispute resolution

German law applies, without excluding mandatory consumer protection rules of the country in which you have your habitual residence where such rules apply.

The operator is not willing or obliged to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board. This does not limit complaint, appeal or out-of-court dispute settlement rights that may apply under the Digital Services Act.

16. Changes and contact

We may update these terms to reflect changes to the platform, legal requirements, security needs, payment flows, moderation processes or business operations.

For material changes that affect registered users, we will provide reasonable notice, for example by email, account notice or an in-platform message. The updated terms will apply from the stated effective date.

Changes will not retroactively affect rights that have already arisen. If a material change significantly disadvantages you during an active paid supporter period, you may have the right to cancel, receive a proportionate refund, or use another remedy required by law.

If you do not agree to updated terms, you must stop using PAINTSESSIONS.COM and may request account deletion as described in the Privacy Policy. The current version is available at https://paintsessions.com/terms.

Questions about these terms can be sent to legal@paintsessions.com. General account support can be sent to support@paintsessions.com.