Creator Publishing Agreement

This Creator Publishing Agreement (“Agreement”) governs your use of ilmVault's creator platform — the tools, dashboard, and distribution infrastructure that allow authors and publishers (“Creators”) to publish, sell, and distribute digital books to ilmVault readers.

By creating a creator account, submitting books for publication, or accessing the Creator Portal, you agree to be bound by this Agreement in addition to ilmVault's general Terms of Service and Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the creator platform.

The short version: You keep full ownership of everything you publish. We take a platform commission on sales. You are responsible for ensuring your content is lawful, original, and properly rights-cleared. We can remove content or suspend accounts that violate these terms.

To create a creator account you must:

• Be at least 18 years of age (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction, whichever is higher).
• Provide accurate and complete information about yourself or your organisation during sign-up.
• Have the legal authority to enter into this Agreement — either on your own behalf or on behalf of the entity you represent.
• Maintain valid payment information so that revenue payouts can be processed.
• Comply with all applicable local, national, and international laws.

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your creator account credentials. You must notify us immediately at [email protected] if you suspect any unauthorised access to your account.

You retain ownership

You retain full copyright and all intellectual property rights in the books and materials you publish on ilmVault. This Agreement does not transfer any ownership rights to ilmVault.

Licence you grant to ilmVault

By publishing content on ilmVault, you grant ilmVault a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to:

• Store, host, and serve your content to readers who have legitimately purchased or accessed it.
• Display your book cover, title, author name, description, and sample pages in the ilmVault Store and in promotional materials.
• Process your book content through ilmVault's AI systems (vector indexing, RAG) to power reading features for purchasers of your book.
• Create excerpts or previews of up to 10% of a book's content for store listings and promotional purposes.
• Reproduce and distribute your book to readers who have purchased it, in the formats supported by the platform (EPUB, PDF).

This licence is limited to the purposes described above. ilmVault will not sublicence your content to third parties or use it to train AI models.

Warranties you make

By publishing content you represent and warrant that:

• You are the original author or have obtained all necessary rights and permissions to publish the content on ilmVault.
• The content does not infringe any third party's copyright, trademark, privacy, or other intellectual property rights.
• You have obtained any necessary releases or permissions for any real persons, organisations, or proprietary material depicted.
• Publication on ilmVault does not violate any existing exclusivity agreements or publishing contracts you may have.

ilmVault is a reading platform for curious minds. The following content is strictly prohibited:

• Content that depicts or promotes child sexual abuse material (CSAM) in any form.
• Content that incites violence, hatred, or discrimination against any individual or group based on protected characteristics.
• Malware, deceptive content, or content designed to deceive readers about its nature or authorship.
• Content that violates any applicable law, including defamatory, fraudulent, or obscene material.
• Plagiarised content or content that infringes third-party intellectual property rights.
• AI-generated content that is misrepresented as human-authored without disclosure.

We review all submissions before publication. We reserve the right to reject, remove, or de-list any content at our discretion, with or without prior notice, if we determine it violates these guidelines or is otherwise harmful to readers or to ilmVault's reputation.

Commission structure

ilmVault takes a platform commission on all sales processed through the Store. The current commission rates are published on the Creator Pricing page and may be updated with 30 days' notice.

Payout schedule

Earnings are paid out on a monthly basis, subject to a minimum payout threshold. Payments are processed via Stripe Connect. You must complete Stripe's identity verification requirements to receive payouts.

Taxes

You are solely responsible for determining and paying all taxes applicable to your earnings from ilmVault, including income tax, VAT, GST, or sales tax. ilmVault will provide earnings reports and, where legally required, applicable tax forms (e.g. 1099-K for US creators). We do not provide tax advice.

Chargebacks & refunds

In cases of reader chargebacks or refunds approved by ilmVault under our reader refund policy, the corresponding amount will be deducted from your next payout. Excessive chargeback rates may result in account review.

Subject to this Agreement, ilmVault grants you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and use the Creator Portal, publishing tools, and analytics dashboard for the purpose of publishing and managing your content on ilmVault.

You may not: reverse-engineer, scrape, or attempt to extract data from ilmVault systems; use automated tools to upload content or interact with the platform outside of officially supported integrations; or resell or sublicence access to the Creator Portal to third parties.

ilmVault processes published book content through AI systems to provide features to readers who have purchased the book. This includes:

• Vector indexing — chunking and embedding book content into a vector database to power semantic search and the AI reading coach.
• Summary and insight generation — producing summaries, key ideas, and coaching responses based on book passages when readers interact with the AI coach.
• Recall cards — generating review questions from book content to support reader retention.

This AI processing is covered by the platform licence you grant in the “Content & rights” section above. ilmVault does not use your published content to train foundational AI models. Processing is done on a per-reader, per-book basis and is only accessible to verified purchasers.

All creator accounts are subject to review and approval by the ilmVault team. We may request additional information about you, your organisation, or the content you intend to publish as part of this review.

We reserve the right to approve or reject any creator application at our discretion, without being required to provide a reason. Approval of an application does not guarantee that all submitted content will be approved for publication.

By you

You may close your creator account at any time by contacting [email protected]. Upon closure, your books will be de-listed from the Store. Books already purchased by readers will remain accessible to those readers. Any outstanding earnings above the minimum payout threshold will be disbursed in the next payout cycle.

By ilmVault

We may suspend or permanently terminate your creator account, and remove your content from the Store, if you:

• Violate any provision of this Agreement or the general Terms of Service.
• Publish content that infringes third-party rights or violates applicable law.
• Engage in fraudulent activity, including manipulating reviews, sales data, or payout information.
• Receive a valid DMCA takedown notice or equivalent that we are required to honour.
• Pose a legal, reputational, or security risk to ilmVault or its users.

Where feasible, we will provide advance notice and an opportunity to cure the violation before termination. In cases of serious or repeated violations, we may act immediately without notice.

The ilmVault creator platform is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the platform will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any particular sales volume will be achieved.

ilmVault does not guarantee any minimum earnings or reader reach for published content. Sales performance depends on many factors outside our control, including reader demand, content quality, and market conditions.

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, ilmVault's total liability to you for any claim arising out of or relating to this Agreement shall not exceed the greater of: (a) the total platform commissions paid by ilmVault to you in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) $100 USD.

In no event shall ilmVault be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages — including lost profits, lost data, or loss of goodwill — even if advised of the possibility of such damages.

We may update this Agreement from time to time. We will notify you of material changes by email (to the address associated with your creator account) at least 30 days before the change takes effect. The updated “last updated” date at the top of this page will reflect any changes.

Continued use of the creator platform after the effective date of a change constitutes your acceptance of the updated Agreement. If you do not agree with a change, you must close your creator account before the effective date.

For questions about this Agreement, publishing support, or account matters: