Creator Terms — Pixel Grove Coloring

This is a draft. These are the terms we intend to offer every artist. They bind nobody yet: they take effect for you only when you and Nate-Land Studios LLC both sign a pack agreement that refers to them. If the pack agreement and this page disagree, the pack agreement wins.

The short version: your art stays yours. We get a narrow license to turn it into puzzles inside Pixel Grove, and nothing else. We don't train AI on it, sell it or reproduce it. You get your name and logo on the pack and half of what the stores pay on it, every quarter. We decide what goes into the app and can take anything out at any time. Neither of us disparages the other, and disputes go to arbitration.

"We" and "us" mean Nate-Land Studios LLC, a Texas limited liability company, which makes Pixel Grove Coloring (the "app"). "You" means the artist or studio named in the pack agreement. "Your art" means the pictures you send us for a pack. A "pack" is a set of your pictures sold together in the app.

1. Your art stays yours

You keep the copyright and every other right in your art. Nothing here transfers ownership to us, and nothing here is a work made for hire.
The license you give us is non-exclusive. You can sell, license, publish or post the same art anywhere else, including in other apps.
We won't claim to be the author of your art, and we won't register any right in it.

2. What you let us do

You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive license, for as long as your pack is in the app, to do only these things:

Make puzzles from your art. That means resizing each picture onto a grid of squares and reducing it to a small set of colors, at the sizes the app offers.
Distribute those puzzles inside the app, through the App Store, Google Play and any other store the app is sold in.
Show your pack to sell it: in the app's store listings, on pixelgrove.app, and in posts and ads for the app or your pack. Tell us to stop using a particular picture in marketing and we'll stop within 14 days.
Keep your original files privately, only to build and rebuild the puzzles.

One part of the license outlasts the pack: people who bought your pack keep it, and can download it again, after it stops being sold. The stores require this, and we wouldn't take a paid pack away from a family anyway.

3. What we will never do

No AI training. We won't use your art, or the puzzles made from it, to train, tune or test any machine-learning or generative AI model, and we won't give or sell it to anyone for that purpose.
No selling it on. We won't sell, sublicense or give your art to anyone else, except the stores and service providers that deliver the app, and only for that.
No other products. No prints, merchandise, books or other apps without a separate written agreement with you.
No original files in the app. The app contains only the puzzle versions of your art (at most 200 squares across) and a small low-resolution thumbnail. Your original files are never shipped to players.
No changes beyond the puzzle. We won't redraw, recolor or combine your art with anything else, apart from the conversion in section 2 and cropping for thumbnails and marketing.

Ask us to delete your original files and we'll do it within 30 days, once your pack is out of the app.

4. Credit and branding

Your pack carries the name you choose (your own or your studio's) and your logo wherever the pack is shown in the app. You keep every right in your name and logo; we use them only to credit you.
You name the pack and choose its cover picture, subject to our review.
We list your name and a link of your choice on pixelgrove.app. Because the app is in the Kids Category, links that leave the app stay behind a parental gate.
When your pack launches we give you two codes to share: a referral code for the app that gives a free month of the Grove Pass subscription, and a code for a discount on your pack. The referral code carries no payment to you; it exists to make the app easy for your audience to try. We choose the size of the discount with you. The stores limit how many codes can be active at once, so a code may run for a limited time. Your share of a discounted sale is 50% of net receipts on that sale, as in section 8.
You may say publicly that your art is in Pixel Grove and use the app's name and screenshots of your own pack to do so.

5. What goes into the app is our decision

Every picture is reviewed before it ships. We may decline any picture or any pack.
We may remove a picture or a whole pack from the app at any time, for any reason or for no reason, with or without notice. We'll tell you when we do.
You see your pack before players do, as proof images and in a private test build of the app, and you approve it before it ships. We won't publish a picture of yours that you haven't approved.
Any art style is welcome. We convert it to work in the app.
Every picture has to be suitable for young children, free of text, logos and real people, and free of anything that belongs to someone else.
We don't promise to publish a pack, to keep it in the app, to promote it, or that it will sell.

6. You can leave too

You can withdraw a pack at any time by emailing us. We'll take it off sale within 30 days. People who already bought it keep it (section 2), and we still pay you for every sale made before it came down.

7. What you promise us

You made the art, or you hold all the rights needed to license it to us.
It doesn't copy or infringe anyone else's work, trademark, likeness or privacy.
You haven't given anyone an exclusive right that conflicts with this license.
If one of these promises turns out to be untrue and someone makes a claim against us because of it, you'll cover our reasonable costs of dealing with that claim.

8. Money

Your share is 50% of net receipts from sales of your pack. "Net receipts" means the money the stores actually pay us for your pack: the price paid, minus the store's commission, sales taxes and VAT, refunds and chargebacks.
You set the price, chosen from the price points the stores offer. We may run a sale on your pack, or issue a discount code for it, only with your agreement.
Your pack is sold on its own. It isn't part of the Grove Pass subscription, so your share is never a slice of a pool.
We pay quarterly. Within 45 days after the end of each calendar quarter we send you a statement (units sold, what the stores paid, your share) and your payment.
The minimum payment is US $50. If we owe you less than that at the end of a quarter, the balance carries into the next quarter. Nothing expires.
When a pack comes out or this agreement ends, we pay everything we owe you in the next quarterly payment, whatever the amount.
Payments are in US dollars by bank transfer or PayPal. We need a completed IRS Form W-9 (or W-8BEN if you're outside the United States) before the first payment. You're responsible for your own taxes.
If a store claws back money for a refund after we've paid you, we deduct your share of it from a later payment.
You can ask once a year to see the store reports behind your statements.

9. Neither of us disparages the other

While your pack is in the app and for two years afterward, you won't make false or disparaging public statements about Pixel Grove, Nate-Land Studios LLC or the people behind it, and we won't make them about you or your work. This doesn't stop either of us from giving an honest opinion in good faith, telling the truth when the law requires it, reporting something to a regulator, or saying anything else the law protects.

10. Disputes go to arbitration

Talk first. If either of us has a complaint, we email the other and try in good faith to settle it for 30 days.
Then binding arbitration. Any dispute we can't settle is decided by one arbitrator under the Commercial Arbitration Rules of the American Arbitration Association, in English, by video or in Texas. The arbitrator's decision is final and can be entered in any court.
Individual claims only. No class actions and no jury trial. Each of us brings claims only on our own behalf.
Two exceptions. Either of us may use small-claims court for a claim that fits there, and either of us may ask a court for an order to stop misuse of our intellectual property. That includes you stopping misuse of your art.
Texas law governs these terms.

11. Limits

Neither of us is liable to the other for lost profits or indirect damages. Apart from money we owe you under section 8, your promise in section 7 and any breach of section 3, each side's total liability is limited to the amount we paid you in the 12 months before the claim.

12. Ending and changing these terms

Either of us can end the agreement at any time by email. Sections 2 (buyers keep what they bought), 3, 7, 8, 9, 10 and 11 continue afterward.
You're an independent creator, not our employee, partner or agent.
If we change these terms, we email you at least 30 days before the change applies to you. If you don't like the change, withdraw your pack and the old terms apply through the end.

Contact

Questions about these terms: [email protected]. Ready to send art? Start here.