Privacy Policy

1. Information We Collect

a. Information you provide.

• Account: email address, display name, password (stored hashed), and, for Creators, payout and tax information collected by our payment partners.
• Tax forms (Creators outside the United States): the IRS Form W-8BEN or W-8BEN-E you sign in Studio, including your legal name (or your entity's name), country of citizenship or incorporation, permanent and mailing address, date of birth, foreign tax identification number, any tax treaty claim, and the time, IP address and browser of your signature. We store the tax identification number and the form encrypted, and show only its last four digits in Studio and to our staff. Creators in the United States give their tax information to Stripe, not to us.
• Content: videos, images, audio, text, comments, and other Contributions you upload or post.
• Communications: messages you send to support.

b. Payment information.

We use third-party payment processors (e.g., Stripe). We do not store your full payment card number. We may retain limited transaction records (e.g., amount, date, last four digits, payment/charge identifiers) to provide receipts, process refunds, and prevent fraud.

c. Information collected automatically.

• Usage & device data: IP address, browser type, device and operating system, pages viewed, Episodes watched, watch duration, referring URLs, and timestamps.
• Payer country: when you buy Coins or support a Creator, we record the country of the IP address you pay from and the issuing country of your card (reported by Stripe). We use it only to work out how much of a Creator's income comes from the United States, for tax reporting. The IP country comes from IP Geolocation by DB-IP (licensed under CC BY 4.0).
• Cookies & similar technologies: used for authentication (keeping you logged in), preferences, security, and analytics. You can control cookies through your browser settings; some features may not work without them.

2. How We Use Information

We use information to:

• provide, operate, and maintain the Service (including streaming video and unlocking Episodes with Coins);
• process payments, Coin purchases, refunds, and Creator payouts;
• create and secure your account and authenticate you;
• detect, prevent, and respond to fraud, abuse, and security incidents;
• moderate content and enforce our Terms and policies;
• analyze usage to improve and develop the Service;
• communicate with you about your account, transactions, and updates;
• send you email notifications about new paid Episodes from channels you follow (see Section 5);
• if you opt in, send you emails about new Episodes and about Cinematix news and promotions (see Section 5);
• comply with legal obligations.

3. How We Share Information

We do not sell your personal information. We share information only as follows:

• Service providers that help us operate the Service, under contract and limited to what is necessary, including: PayPal and Stripe (payments), PayPal (manual Creator payouts, sent when a Creator requests one), Bunny.net (video hosting/delivery), Cloudflare (storage/CDN), Supabase (database/auth), Vercel (hosting), and Sentry (error monitoring).
• PostHog (product analytics, session recordings and heatmaps, EU-hosted).
• Other users, where you choose to make Contributions or profile information public.
• Legal / safety: to comply with law, respond to lawful requests, enforce our Terms, or protect the rights, safety, and property of users, the public, or the Company (including reporting CSAM to the appropriate authorities).
• Business transfers: in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, subject to this Policy.

4. Data Retention

We retain personal information for as long as your account is active and as needed to provide the Service, comply with legal, tax, and accounting obligations, resolve disputes, and enforce our agreements. Certain financial/transaction records may be retained after account deletion as required by law. When you delete your account, we delete or de-identify your personal information, except where retention is required (for example, transaction ledgers may be retained in de-identified form).

Tax records. Creator tax forms (including the encrypted tax identification number), the signed copy of each form, and the related withholding records are kept until December 31 of the year of the Creator's last payout, plus four years (or of the year the form was signed, if there was no payout), because tax law requires us to keep them. We keep them for that period even if you delete your account, close your channel, or ask us to delete your information, and we delete them once it ends.

5. Your Choices & Rights

• Account: you can update or delete your account information through the Service or by contacting us.
• Marketing: we send marketing emails (new Episodes, Cinematix news and promotions) only if you have opted in. In some regions, including the United States, new accounts are opted in by default and are told so when they sign up. You can withdraw your consent at any time in Settings > Email updates, or through the unsubscribe link in any such email. Withdrawing does not affect essential account and transaction emails, which we send regardless.
• Channel notifications: following a channel signs you up for its new-paid-Episode emails; you can turn them off at any time from that channel's page or from the unsubscribe link in any such email.
• Cookies: manage via your browser.

Following a channel and email notifications. When you follow a channel, we enroll you in email notifications about that channel's new paid Episodes, sent to the email address on your account. Every one of these emails carries a one-click unsubscribe link, and you can turn the notifications off at any time from the channel's page without unfollowing. Turning them off for one channel does not affect any other channel you follow, and it does not affect essential account and transaction emails, which we send regardless.

California residents (CCPA/CPRA): you have the right to know what personal information we collect, to request access or deletion, to correct inaccurate information, and to opt out of “sale” or “sharing” of personal information. We do not sell your personal information. You may exercise these rights by contacting us at the address in Section 9; we will not discriminate against you for exercising them.

Other U.S. states: residents of states with applicable privacy laws may have similar rights; contact us to exercise them.

6. Children's Privacy

The Service is not directed to children under 13, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13 (consistent with COPPA). If you believe a child under 13 has provided us personal information, contact us and we will delete it.

7. Security

We use reasonable administrative, technical, and physical safeguards (including encryption in transit, hashed passwords, and access controls) to protect your information. No method of transmission or storage is completely secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security.

8. International Users

The Service is operated from the United States. If you access it from outside the U.S., you understand that your information will be processed in the United States, which may have different data-protection laws than your country.

9. Contact Us

Questions or requests regarding this Policy or your information:

10. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Policy from time to time. Material changes will be notified through the Service or by other reasonable means, and the “Last updated” date will be revised. Continued use after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.