Unpinched
Contents

Terms of Service

Last updated: 17 May 2026

These terms are the agreement between you and us when you use Unpinched. They are written in plain English and they are a contract. Two related documents form part of the same agreement: our Content Standards (what we publish and what we don't) and our Privacy Notice (how we handle personal data). Where these terms touch acceptable content or personal data, they point to those documents rather than repeating them.

At a glance

Unpinched is a curated photography platform that sells limited-edition licences. Photographers keep their copyright. Buyers receive a numbered licence — registered on a public registry and invisibly watermarked — that lets them use the image under defined terms. The licence contract is between the photographer and the buyer; Unpinched facilitates the transaction, splits payment 85/15 at point of charge, and keeps the registry as the chain of provenance.

1. What these terms cover

These terms cover your use of the Unpinched website and account, the submission of photographs, and the sale and resale of edition licences. What you may do with a licensed image is governed by the specific licence (§6, §7). If you do not agree, do not use the platform. You can close your account at any time (§12).

In the event of any conflict between these terms, the Content Standards, and the Privacy Notice, these terms prevail, except in matters of personal data and data-protection rights, where the Privacy Notice prevails.

2. Who we are

Unpinched is operated by Actibility Limited, a private company registered in England.

  • Company Registration Number: 10607409
  • Registered Office: 124 City Road, London, EC1V 2NX, United Kingdom
  • Contact: [email protected]

"We" and "us" mean Actibility Limited; "you" is the person using the platform.

Unpinched is a curated photography licensing platform. Photographers submit work; we review it; accepted images are published as limited editions of one hundred individually-numbered licences.

The licence contract is between the photographer and the buyer. Unpinched is the facilitator: we introduce the parties, host the imagery, watermark every issued copy, maintain the public registry of every licence and transfer, enforce the Content Standards, and provide the technical and editorial environment in which the transaction takes place. We are not the seller of the licence. When a buyer purchases a licence, payment flows through Stripe Connect: the buyer's payment is split at the moment of charge, with Unpinched's platform fee paid to our account and the photographer's share paid directly to the photographer's connected Stripe account. We do not hold the photographer's share at any point.

This means the photographer is the counterparty to the licence and the recipient of the bulk of every sale. We facilitate, register, and enforce — we do not stand in the photographer's shoes.

3. Your account

  • One person, one account. Accounts are for individuals. Organisational, agency, and commercial-tier accounts are not offered at general sign-up; see §3.2.
  • Accurate information. Provide a working email address. Where the law requires identity verification — for payouts, tax reporting, or certain licence types — we will ask, and we cannot pay you or upgrade your tier without it.
  • Security. You are responsible for keeping your password private and for activity under your account. Manage credentials from your account dashboard. If you suspect unauthorised access, raise it through the dashboard's security flow.
  • Eligibility. You must be at least 18.

We may suspend or close an account used contrary to these terms or our Content Standards (see §9, §12).

3.1 The three names on your account

Unpinched distinguishes three names:

  • Login name (username). What you sign in with. Any unique name. Not published.
  • Copyright name. The author attribution for your work — recorded against every licence we issue, embedded in the file's EXIF/XMP metadata, and shown on the public registry. Created through the Unpinched name selector (screened against known trademarks and well-known names). Must be a personal name; studio and company names are not permitted. A copyright name cannot be changed after your first submission is accepted. Photographers who already publish under an established professional name may apply for a Verified Copyright Name before submitting — manual review and a small token fee, via [email protected].
  • Legal name. Collected when you sign the Contributor Licence Agreement; links your copyright name to an identifiable person. Not published. On request we issue a signed statement linking the two so your ownership is always provable.

A copyright name that differs from your legal name is lawful and is the default we recommend for privacy.

3.2 Organisational and commercial-tier accounts

We reserve the right to offer organisational, agency, or commercial-tier accounts in future under separately-agreed terms. Until those terms exist, only individual accounts may be opened.

4. Submitting work

When you submit a photograph you ask us to consider it for publication as a limited edition. You keep copyright. You give us the right, if we accept the work, to publish, watermark, register, and licence it on your behalf under these terms.

4.1 What you warrant on submission

For every photograph submitted, you warrant that:

  1. You are the photographer — you took the image yourself with a camera.
  2. You hold the full copyright, with no co-author or other rights-holder.
  3. The image is a photograph, not generative-AI output, and meets our Content Standards.
  4. The copyright name set on your account is yours to use, and any copyright or author field embedded in the image file is either empty or exactly matches it. Submissions whose embedded fields do not match are rejected before review.
  5. Where the image contains identifiable people, you have the lawful basis for showing them — including a model release for posed work.
  6. Where the image contains private property, restricted locations, trademarks, or copyrighted artworks in the frame, you have any necessary releases or accept that the image will be restricted to editorial use.
  7. Nothing in the image breaches a third party's intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights.

You are responsible for the consequences of a false warranty. If a third-party claim arises, you agree to cooperate and to bear the costs reasonably attributable to it.

4.2 What "accepted" means

We may accept, decline, or restrict any submission for any reason consistent with our standards and these terms. A decline is not a judgement on the work, only on its fit for Unpinched.

If we accept your image we apply an invisible per-licence watermark to every copy issued; assign a permanent identifier ("UIIID") used across the registry, URLs, and embedded metadata; publish the image after a 30-day pre-drop window (§5); and issue you licence 000, the author covenant, at no cost.

Each image is classified commercial, editorial, or editorial-sensitive based on our analysis. If you hold releases supporting a commercial classification, request manual review through your submission dashboard.

4.3 Pricing band — assessed ceiling and author choice

On acceptance, Unpinched's automated and human curation assigns a pricing-band ceiling on a five-step scale, Band A through Band E — the maximum band at which the edition may be sold. You then choose the band the edition will actually be priced at: any band from A up to the assessed ceiling (a Band-D-assessed image may be priced at A, B, C, or D, not E). Your chosen band is locked at acceptance and cannot be changed afterwards; lock-in is what makes the within-edition price escalator (§5.1) trustworthy for early buyers. Both bands are recorded on the public registry — the assessed ceiling and the band actually sold.

4.4 Submission fees (tokens)

Submitting an image costs a submission fee in tokens (§8.5). The fee scales with the band you choose, not the band we assessed — pricing lower attracts a lower submission fee even where the ceiling is higher. Per-band amounts are on the pricing page. Submission fees are non-refundable whether the submission is accepted, declined, restricted, or withdrawn during the pre-drop window.

4.5 Withdrawing during the pre-drop window

You may withdraw an accepted image at any time during the 30-day pre-drop window from your submission dashboard, without penalty. We move it to an encrypted off-grid store, remove it from the gallery, and void your author covenant. Submission fees are not refunded (§4.4). Withdrawal is irreversible without admin action. After the pre-drop window closes, withdrawal is no longer unilateral — open a post-drop withdrawal request from the edition's dashboard.

5. The edition model

Every accepted image becomes a limited edition.

  • Edition size. Exactly one hundred (100) licences per image, plus the photographer's non-saleable licence 000.
  • Individual numbering. Each licence carries a unique serial of the form UIIID/NNN (e.g. 6EB6D3DC-134A/007).
  • Invisible watermark. Every downloadable copy carries a watermark unique to the licence and holder. Undeclared use of an image is traceable to a licence number.
  • Public registry. The licence registry records the assessed ceiling band, the band the edition is sold at, every issued licence, and every transfer. It is the canonical record of who holds which licence. Transfers off the registry are not recognised.
  • Pre-drop window. No licences are sold during the 30 days after publication. The image appears in the public pre-drop registry; anyone can challenge it before commercial distribution begins (§10).
  • Sell-out and secondary market. When all 100 licences are issued, a secondary market opens. Holders may offer their licence for resale; the photographer receives a percentage of every secondary sale (§8).

5.1 Price escalator within an edition

Within an edition, the licence price rises in four fixed steps as licences sell. The base price is set by the band the edition is sold at (§4.3); the multipliers do not change:

Licences sold Price multiplier
1 – 20 1× base
21 – 50 2× base
51 – 80 4× base
81 – 100 8× base

Per-band base prices and buyer-currency equivalents are on the pricing page. The escalator structure is fixed and will not change for an edition once it has opened for sale.

6. Buying a licence

When you buy a licence, you are buying the right to use the image in the ways the licence allows. You are not buying the copyright.

6.1 What the licence grants

Subject to payment and these terms, the buyer receives a non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable right to use the image within the scope of the licence category:

  • Commercial — advertising, packaging, promotion, and other commercial use.
  • Editorial — news, documentary, educational, and similar non-commercial uses; not for selling or promoting products or services.
  • Editorial — sensitive — editorial scope with context conditions we may add.
  • Free — tracked, attributed, and requires use reporting. Not a public-domain release.

The specific terms appear on the licence document and on the registry entry. The licence is granted to the named holder. Where you buy on behalf of an organisation, you warrant authority to bind it, and the organisation becomes the holder of record.

Licence prices are denominated in pounds sterling and shown at the point of purchase. Payment for a licence is processed by Stripe under our Stripe Connect arrangement: at the moment of charge, the payment is split between the photographer's connected Stripe account (their share, see §8.1) and Unpinched's account (the platform fee). We do not receive or hold the photographer's share at any point. Tokens (§8.5) are used only for small in-platform charges such as submission fees; they are not the means of paying for a licence.

6.2 What the licence does not grant

The licence does not give you:

  • Copyright in the image — the photographer retains it.
  • The right to sub-licence to a third party.
  • The right to resell or transfer except through Unpinched's secondary market (§8).
  • Use of names, faces, trademarks, trade dress, logos, or artworks within the image where their use would require a separate release.
  • Any right to use the image as training data, input, or reference for a machine-learning or generative-AI system (§7).

All rights not expressly granted by the licence are reserved to the photographer.

6.3 The registry as proof of holding

The licence registry is the canonical record of who holds each licence. In a dispute the registry entry, together with the embedded watermark, is the evidence we and the photographer rely on.

7. What buyers may not do

These restrictions apply to every licence, regardless of category. You may not:

  1. Train AI on it. Use the image, in whole or in part, as training data, fine-tuning data, embedding input, or reference for any machine-learning or generative-AI system.
  2. Resell outside the registry. Transfer, resell, gift, or sub-licence except through Unpinched's secondary market. Off-platform transfers are not recognised.
  3. Strip the watermark. Remove, obscure, alter, or attempt to defeat the invisible watermark, embedded metadata, or any identifying mark.
  4. Scrape or bulk-extract. Automate downloads or harvesting beyond the scope of an issued licence, or hotlink in a way that bypasses the registry.
  5. Build a competing service. Use platform content to assemble a similar or competing licensing service, gallery, or stock library.
  6. Misrepresent authorship. Claim authorship, omit required attribution, or imply endorsement.
  7. Use it unlawfully. Defamatory, harassing, obscene, deceptive, or otherwise unlawful use.

Breach is material. We may revoke the licence, remove the holding from the registry, refer the matter to the photographer, and take legal action. We may also pursue platform fees lost as a result of an unrecognised off-platform transfer.

8. Revenue, payouts, fees

8.1 Primary sales

85% of the gross sale price is paid to the photographer; 15% is retained by Unpinched as the platform fee. The split is calculated on the gross sale price (what the buyer pays), before payment-processor fees. Payment-processor fees are borne by Unpinched out of its 15% share.

VAT and other taxes. The licence contract is between the photographer and the buyer (§2). The photographer is the supplier of the licence for VAT and other tax purposes. If the photographer is VAT-registered, the buyer-facing price is VAT-inclusive and the photographer is responsible for accounting for VAT on their 85% share to HMRC. If the photographer is not VAT-registered, no VAT is added to the licence supply.

Buyer's invoice for the licence. Buyers may request an invoice for any purchase from their account dashboard. Where the photographer is VAT-registered, the document issued is a full VAT invoice that satisfies HMRC's requirements for input-VAT recovery. Where the photographer is not VAT-registered, the document is a sales receipt with no VAT element — non-VAT-registered photographers are not permitted to issue VAT invoices. The photographer's VAT status is shown on the registry entry for the licence so buyers know what to expect.

Photographer's invoice for the facilitation fee. Unpinched's 15% platform fee is consideration for facilitation services supplied by Unpinched to the photographer. Unpinched is VAT-registered, so the 15% is inclusive of VAT chargeable on those facilitation services. Unpinched accounts for that VAT to HMRC. VAT-registered photographers can request a VAT invoice for the facilitation fee from their account dashboard so they can recover the input VAT.

Credits accumulate in your photographer balance and are paid out on the schedule and thresholds set out on the payouts page, subject to identity-verification and tax checks. Manage payout details, balance, and history from your account dashboard.

8.2 Secondary-market resales

Once an edition has sold out, holders may offer their licence for resale through the platform. Seller and buyer transact through us; the registry is updated and the file's watermark is re-issued to the new holder.

A resale fee of 10% is applied to each secondary-market sale. The fee is calculated as the higher of:

  • 10% of the original sale price of that licence (the price the platform first sold it for), or
  • 10% of the resale price (what the new buyer pays).

This protects the photographer's resale share when a holder sells below the original price. The 10% is split:

  • 7% to the photographer as the resale share;
  • 3% to Unpinched as the platform's resale cut.

The seller receives the remainder of the resale price after the fee. Current pricing and worked examples are on the pricing page.

Off-platform transfers (gift, sale, inheritance) are not recognised by the registry. To request a non-sale transfer, use the transfer-request form on your registry holdings page.

8.3 Refunds

Under UK consumer law you have a statutory 14-day right of withdrawal for distance contracts. Where you have not yet downloaded the licensed file, cancel within 14 days from your purchase history page for a full refund.

Where you have downloaded the file and have expressly consented at checkout to immediate performance, the digital-content exemption applies and the 14-day right does not. We make this consent explicit at checkout.

Outside the statutory window we may offer refunds at our discretion — for example, where an image is removed for breach of standards (§9) or following an upheld pre-drop contest (§10). If we cancel a sale because of fraudulent submission or an upheld contest, the buyer is refunded in full. Licence refunds are returned to the original payment method via Stripe. Where a buyer paid for any service in tokens (for example, an ancillary platform charge), the refund is returned in tokens at the rate originally debited.

8.4 Beta period

During our closed beta, licences are provisional. Each licence document carries a clear "BETA TEST — NOT A LEGAL DOCUMENT" marker; beta licences convert to full licences at the close of the beta programme, or are voided if the image is withdrawn. Beta participation is governed by the separate beta agreement where applicable.

Beta tokens. Tokens used during the closed beta are testing tokens, issued to beta participants without cost. They have no monetary value and are not refundable under any circumstances, including but not limited to:

  • voided beta licences at programme close,
  • declined submissions,
  • standards-related image removal under §9, or
  • the withdrawal of beta participation.

Beta submissions that succeed. As an incentive for beta testers, photographs submitted with beta tokens and accepted and published before programme close are made permanent at no additional cost when the platform transitions to its open-platform launch. The photographer keeps the published edition; no top-up payment is required to convert.

8.5 Tokens — the platform's unit of charge for small in-platform fees

This section describes tokens at open-platform launch and afterwards. Tokens issued during the closed beta are governed by §8.4 instead.

Unpinched uses tokens for small in-platform charges, principally submission fees (§4.4). Licence purchases — primary and secondary — are billed in pounds sterling and processed by Stripe Connect (§6.1, §8.1, §8.2), not in tokens; the amounts involved can be substantial (a late-edition Band E licence can be several hundred pounds) and they need to flow directly to the photographer at the point of payment, which the Stripe split does and the token balance cannot.

Tokens are bought in advance from your account dashboard.

  • Purchase. At the rates on the token-purchase page. Quantity discounts may apply; current tiers are on that page. Token purchases are processed by Stripe.
  • What tokens pay for. Submission fees (§4.4), the monthly access pass, appeal fees, change-request fees, and other ancillary platform charges of similar size. Tokens are not exchangeable for cash, are not a stored-value or e-money instrument, and have no value off the platform.
  • What tokens do not pay for. Licence purchases (primary or secondary). Those are paid for in pounds sterling through Stripe, with the platform fee split at the moment of charge.
  • Refunds. Submission fees are non-refundable in all cases (§4.4). Other token-paid charges are refundable only under §8.3, returned in tokens at the rate originally debited.
  • Unused tokens. Unused tokens remain in your account and do not expire in normal operation. If we wind down the token system, we will give registered holders reasonable notice and a route to spend or cash out the residual balance.
  • Balance cap. Each account may hold a maximum of 1,000 tokens at any time. If you need a higher cap for legitimate business reasons, contact support. The cap exists to prevent extreme stockpiling and to keep our liability for outstanding platform credit bounded.
  • Service costs may evolve. The per-token purchase price is intended to stay stable, but the number of tokens required for any given service may change over time as platform costs and circumstances change. We will publish the current token cost of each service at the pricing page; changes will be announced in advance where reasonably practicable. Stockpiling tokens is not a hedge against this: a large reserve may, over time, buy fewer services than it would today. Buy what you need.

Regulatory status. Tokens are an internal unit of charge for services supplied by Unpinched to its own users. They are not electronic money, not a payment service, not a financial instrument, and not an investment. You cannot redeem unspent tokens for cash at your discretion, transfer them to another user, or spend them off the platform. Because they can only be used to buy services from Unpinched, the token system sits within the limited-network exclusion at Regulation 3 of the Electronic Money Regulations 2011 and the corresponding exclusion at Regulation 38 of the Payment Services Regulations 2017. If the total value of token-funded transactions in any 12-month period approaches EUR 1,000,000, we will notify the Financial Conduct Authority as required by Regulation 3A of the Electronic Money Regulations 2011.

9. Takedown and removal

We may take an image offline where:

  • It breaches our Content Standards
  • It is the subject of an upheld pre-drop contest (§10)
  • We receive a credible legal notice (copyright, court order, personality-rights)
  • The photographer withdraws during the pre-drop window (§4.5)
  • Continued availability would expose us, the photographer, or buyers to material risk

When an image is taken offline, the per-image data is moved to an encrypted, non-public store and a reason code is recorded. Where appropriate the action is reflected on the registry.

Outstanding licences. Existing licences are not automatically revoked — the holder acquired in good faith and revocation requires a separate legal basis. In most cases the edition is retired from sale, the image is removed from the gallery and search, and existing holders are notified. Where takedown is for breach of the photographer's warranties (§4.1), we may pursue the photographer for losses, including refunds we make to buyers. Where a court order requires revocation, we comply.

10. Disputes and infringement

10.1 Reporting an image

If you believe an image breaches your copyright, publicity, or privacy rights, file a contest through the registry contest form. DMCA and equivalent statutory takedown notices are submitted via the same form.

A contest filed during the 30-day pre-drop window pauses the drop date. We review within 14 days and either uphold (image removed, photographer notified) or dismiss (drop resumes, decision recorded). A post-drop contest goes through the same channel, but the burden of proof shifts: you must show the harm is ongoing and material, that you have a direct interest, and that the claim could not reasonably have been raised earlier. If upheld post-drop, the edition is retired; existing licences are handled as in §9.

10.2 Misuse of a licence

If you believe an image is being used outside the scope of its licence, file a misuse report from the licence's registry page (Report misuse). Provide the licence number, the URL of the suspected misuse, and any evidence. The invisible watermark on every issued file allows us to identify the licence under which an unauthorised copy was first released.

10.3 The registry as evidence

The public registry is contemporaneous and timestamped, with prior states preserved in the audit log. In any dispute about who holds a licence, the registry is decisive.

11. Liability and warranties

The platform is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. We do not warrant that it will be bug-free, always available, or that every image is free of every conceivable third-party claim. Where we classify an image as commercial, we do so on the photographer's warranties and our analysis; we do not separately warrant the absence of model or property-release issues.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for:

  • Indirect, special, consequential, or punitive losses, including lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, or loss of goodwill
  • Losses from your use of an image outside the licence scope
  • Losses from circumstances outside our reasonable control

11.1 Claims arising from a photographer's breach (§4.1 warranties)

If a photographer breaches the warranties they gave on submission — for example, by falsely claiming copyright in a work that is not theirs, by failing to hold required releases, or by misrepresenting authorship — the licence contract is between that photographer and you (§2). The photographer received their share of the sale directly through Stripe Connect and is the party liable to you for that loss.

We will help where we can. Where a photographer's breach is established, we will:

  • remove the affected image and any further sales (§9);
  • update the registry to reflect the action;
  • assist in identifying the photographer to the extent we lawfully can; and
  • refund our 15% platform fee on the affected transactions as a goodwill contribution to the loss.

That refund is the limit of our financial liability for a photographer's breach. We do not indemnify buyers for the photographer's share of the sale, which we never received. Pursuing the photographer for the full sum is your right; we will support a reasonable claim with the records we hold.

11.2 Claims arising from our own act or omission

For claims that arise from Unpinched's own act or omission — for example, a failure in our moderation process, a registry error caused by us, a security incident under our control, or a misrepresentation by us — the following cap applies.

Per-claim cap. Our liability for any individual claim is capped at the greater of £100 or the platform fees we received in respect of the specific licence, edition, or transaction giving rise to the claim. Fees are net of VAT: VAT we collect on behalf of HMRC is not Unpinched income and is excluded from the cap.

Aggregate cap. In any rolling twelve-month period, our total liability across all such claims is capped at the greater of £5,000 or the total platform fees we received in that period (net of VAT).

11.3 What is not limited by these caps

Nothing in §11.1 or §11.2 limits liability for:

  • death or personal injury caused by our negligence;
  • fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation by us;
  • breach of any non-excludable statutory consumer right (including those under the Consumer Rights Act 2015);
  • any other liability that cannot be limited under English law.

If a court finds any part of §11.1 or §11.2 unenforceable, the remainder still applies.

12. Termination

How we may close an account. We may suspend or close your account, with or without notice, if you materially breach these terms or our Content Standards, if required by law, if continued operation would expose us or another user to material risk, or if the account is dormant for an extended period and we cannot reach you. We will tell you the reason unless legally prevented. Issued licences held under the account are preserved where the law and the registry require.

How you may close yours. Close your account from the account dashboard. If you are a photographer with published editions, closing does not revoke licences already issued — those continue to bind us, you, and the holders. The dashboard flow asks whether your editions should remain available or be retired and routes that decision through the appropriate review. If you are a buyer, closing does not revoke licences you hold; you will be prompted to confirm how the registry should reflect your continuing holdings.

What survives. Provisions that by their nature should survive — §4 warranties, §6–7 licence scope, §8 fees already due, §10 disputes, §11 liability, §14 governing law — survive termination.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. The "Last updated" date at the top reflects the most recent change.

  • Material changes — anything that affects the licence we grant, the fees, the refund policy, or your warranties — are notified to registered users by email at least 14 days before they take effect. After the change takes effect, continued use of the platform constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.
  • Minor or clarifying changes may be made without prior notice.
  • We keep an internal archive of every version. If you need to see the version you accepted, or the version in force at a particular date, write to [email protected] and we will provide it.

Licences already issued. Where a licence was issued under an earlier version of these terms, that version governs the licence. We do not retroactively change the scope of a granted licence — the price, the rights, and the obligations attached to a specific licence are fixed at the point of sale. Updates apply going forward, to new submissions and new purchases.

If you do not agree with a change, you may close your account before it takes effect. Licences you already hold continue to be governed by the version in force when they were issued.

14. Governing law

These terms, and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them, are governed by the law of England and Wales. Subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the consumer courts in your country of residence (where you are a consumer in another part of the UK or in the EU), the courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of these terms.

15. Contact and channels

Use the channel that matches your enquiry — it is the fastest route to resolution.

If anything on this page is unclear, write to [email protected] before you sign up, submit work, or buy a licence. That mailbox is the human safety net.