Terms of Service
Last Revised: May 25, 2018
(Click here to see previous version)
Welcome to the Wattpad platform, which is owned and operated by Wattpad Corp. (“Wattpad” “we” or “us”). These terms of service (which includes our Code of Conduct and our Privacy Policy) (“Terms of Service”) are a contract between you and Wattpad. By using wattpad.com (the “Site”), creating your Wattpad account and using the Site or our mobile applications to post various content to the Wattpad community, including stories you create, comments and messages, or to access and view Wattpad content or other user content (together with the Site, the “Services”), you’re agreeing to these Terms of Service. If you don’t agree to any of these terms, you can’t use the Wattpad Services.
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You Need to be 13
Wattpad Services are only for people 13 years old and over. If we learn someone under 13 is using Wattpad Services, we’ll terminate their account.
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You Need an Account
You can’t browse very much on the Site or use the Services without registering for an account. To get the most out of the Wattpad platform, you’ll need to register, choose an account name, and set a password.
You’re responsible for all the activity on your account, and for keeping your password confidential. If you share your account information with anyone, that other person may be able to take control of the account, and we may not be able to determine who is the proper account holder. We will not have any liability to you (or anyone you share your account information with) as a result of your or their actions under those circ*mstances. If you find out that someone’s used your account without your permission, you should report it at support.wattpad.com.
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Your Content is Yours
Before posting any content to Wattpad, it is important that you read our Content Guidelines. If your content does not comply with these guidelines it may be removed at any time.
You own all the rights to the content you create and post on the Wattpad Services. Of course, if the content wasn’t yours to begin with, putting it on Wattpad doesn’t make it yours. Don’t submit content you don’t hold the copyright for (unless you have permission, including to grant Wattpad all the rights outlined in these terms).
When you post content to Wattpad, we need the legal permission under applicable copyright laws to display that content to users of the Wattpad Services. Legally this means you give us a nonexclusive license to publish your content on the Wattpad Services, including anything reasonably related to publishing it (like storing, displaying, reformatting, and distributing it). You’ll need to decide how you want to license your story content to the Wattpad community. Please read our guide on Copyrights for assistance in making this decision
You’re responsible for the content you post. This means you assume all risks related to its publication and display, including someone else’s reliance on its accuracy and any claims relating to intellectual property or other legal rights.
Wattpad is a free service and to continue to make it free you understand that we enable advertising on the Services, including in connection with the display of your content or other information. We may also use your Content to promote the Services. We will never sell your content to third parties without your explicit permission.
In your use of the Services you may enter into additional terms and conditions and other agreements that alter or override these Terms of Service, such as when you enter a contest or join a special program like our Wattpad Stars. In case of any conflict or inconsistency, the terms and conditions of those additional terms and agreements would override these Terms of Service.
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Our Rights in the Services
We reserve all rights in the Sites’ and the Services look and feel, and in our content. You may not copy or adapt any portion of our code or visual design elements (including logos) without express written permission from Wattpad or as set out in this clause. Please do not use our logo or trademarks in any way that might suggest Wattpad endorses a particular product or service, or you have a business relationship with Wattpad.
Please do not alter, stretch, condense, embellish, add sparkles to, or otherwise change our logo in any way. We’re pretty proud of our logo, and we’d like to keep it as it is. Still not sure what to do with our logo? Check out our full Brand Guidelines.
Wattpad may change, terminate, or restrict access to any aspect of the Services, at any time, without notice. We can remove any content you post or submit for any reason. Wattpad may access, read, preserve, and disclose any information as we reasonably believe is necessary to (i) satisfy any applicable law, regulation, legal process or governmental request, (ii) enforce the Terms of Service, including investigation of potential violations, (iii) detect, prevent, or otherwise address fraud, security or technical issues, (iv) respond to user support requests, or (v) protect the rights, property or safety of the Services, its users and the public.
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How We Deal with Copyright Issues
Wattpad has adopted a policy toward copyright infringement on the Services in accordance with the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the “DMCA”). While our policy is based on the US law we apply this same policy globally to all jurisdictions in which our Services are available. If you’d like to submit a claim of copyright infringement, please visit our page on Reporting Copyright Infringement. Wattpad reserves the right to remove content alleged to be infringing without prior notice, at our sole discretion, and without liability to you or anyone else. In appropriate circ*mstances, we will also terminate a user’s account if the user is determined to be a repeat infringer.
We sometimes come across websites that have illegally scraped content from Wattpad. When we find these sites we do our best to have them shutdown. In order to act on behalf of our users we need to have your legal permission to do that so we ask for it here when you sign up. You authorize us to act as your agent to issue take down notices under the DMCA and/or any other similar legislation that allows for the submission of requests to Internet service providers and any other person involved in the illegal posting for the removal of infringing or allegedly infringing copyright materials that are contained in or displayed on such service providers platforms and/or services.
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Things You Should and Shouldn’t Do
Millions of people use the Wattpad platform. We expect all of them to behave responsibly and help keep this a nice place. Please review the Wattpad Code of Conduct (which is part of these Terms of Service), which is designed to ensure that everyone understands what the Wattpad community is all about and the values we treasure, to create a safe, fun and caring environment for story lovers. Without restricting what’s in the Code of Conduct, don’t do any of these things on the Services:
Don’t break the law. Don’t take any action that infringes or violates other people’s rights, violates the law, or breaches any contract or legal duty you have toward anyone.
Don’t harm anyone’s computer. Don’t distribute software viruses, or anything else (code, films, programs) designed to interfere with the proper function of any software, hardware, or equipment on the Site (whether it belongs to Wattpad or anyone else).
Don’t try and damage or disrupt Wattpad. Don’t try to interfere with the proper workings of the Services. Don’t bypass any measures we’ve put in place to secure the Services. Don’t try to damage or get unauthorized access to any system, data, password, or other information. Don’t take any action that imposes an unreasonable load on our infrastructure, or on our third-party providers. (We determine what’s reasonable.)
Don’t scrape Wattpad. Don’t use any kind of software, device or method (whether it’s manual or automated) to “crawl”, “spider” or otherwise remove any content from any part of the Site or Services. Don’t make any use of the Site, content or Services that may have the effect of competing with or displacing the market for Wattpad, the Site, or the Services.
Don’t steal any content from Wattpad without permission. Don’t change, translate, reproduce, distribute or otherwise create derivative works of any content unless you get explicit consent from the author of that content.
Don’t steal Wattpad’s valuable intellectual property. Don’t take apart or reverse engineer any aspect of the Site or Services in an effort to access things like source code, underlying ideas, or algorithms.
Don’t make any commercial use of Wattpad. Wattpad is for your personal and non-commercial use only. Don’t sell access to the Site or Services in any way. Don’t use the Site or Services for the purpose of advertising any goods or services. The only exception is that you may advertise the sale of your content in e-book or published book form on third party platforms or bookstores.
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Deleting Your Account
You can permanently delete your Wattpad account. If you close your account, it will first be deactivated and then deleted. When your account is deactivated, while it is not viewable on Wattpad, all of your comments and message board posts to the Wattpad community will remain except that they will be anonymized. For six months after deactivation it is still possible to restore your account if it was accidentally or wrongfully deactivated, including re-associating your comments and message board posts to your profile. After six months, we permanently delete your account from our systems, except that your anonymized comments and message board posts will remain on the Services.
We may suspend or terminate your account or cease providing you with all or part of the Services at any time and for any reason we deem appropriate. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you by the email address associated with your account or the next time you attempt to access your account.
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Disclaimers, Limitations of Liability and Indemnification
Each of the subsections below only applies up to the maximum extent permitted under applicable law. Some jurisdictions do not allow the disclaimer of implied warranties or the limitation of liability in contracts, and as a result the contents of this section may not apply to you. Nothing in this section is intended to limit any rights you may have which may not be lawfully limited.
No warranty. Your use of our Services and any content is solely at your own risk and discretion. They are provided to you “as is” and “as available”. That means they don’t come with any warranty of any kind, express or implied. Wattpad specifically disclaims any implied warranty of merchantability, merchantable quality, fitness for a particular purpose, availability, security, title or non-infringement, and any warranties implied by any course of dealing or performance.
Responsibility for Content. All content, whether publicly posted or privately transmitted, is the sole responsibility of the person who originated such content. We may not monitor or control the content posted via the Services and we cannot take responsibility for such content. We do not endorse, support, represent or guarantee the completeness, truthfulness, accuracy, or reliability of any content or communications posted via the Services or endorse any opinions expressed via the Services. You understand that by using the Services, you may be exposed to content that might be offensive, harmful, inaccurate or otherwise inappropriate, or in some cases, postings that have been mislabeled or are otherwise deceptive.
Release. When you use the Services, you release Wattpad from claims, damages, and demands of every kind — known or unknown, suspected or unsuspected, disclosed or undisclosed — arising out of or in any way related to (a) disputes between users, or between users and any third party relating to the use of the Services and (b) the Services.
Wattpad’s liability to you. Wattpad won’t be liable to you for any damages that arise from your use of, or in connection with, the Services and any content. This exclusion includes: (a) where the Services are hacked or unavailable, (b) all types of damages (direct, indirect, punitive, incidental, consequential, special or exemplary), whatever the type of claim or loss (breach of contract, tort (including negligence), breach of warranty, or any other claim or loss), (c) any lost profits, data or revenues, or (d) any conduct or content of other users or third parties on the Site or the Services. In no event shall Wattpad’s liability for damages be in excess of (in the aggregate) one hundred Canadian dollars ($100.00).
Your liability to Wattpad. If you do something that gets us sued, or break any of the promises you make in these Terms of Service, you shall compensate us for any liabilities, losses, claims, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees and costs) that arise from or relate to your use or misuse of the Services. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to this clause, in which case you agree that you’ll cooperate and help us in asserting any defenses.
Third party websites. The Site and Services may contain links to other websites; for instance, stories, user profiles, and other posts may link to other sites. When you access third-party websites, you do so at your own risk. We don’t control or endorse those sites.
Some of Wattpad’s features use YouTube's API (specifically using Youtube’s API to search for Youtube videos to embed in your story). By using these features, you agree to abide by YouTube's Terms of Service (https://www.youtube.com/t/terms)
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Serving Ads
We make the Services available without charge. To be able to continue to do so, we display third party advertisem*nts and promotions on or in connection with the Service. Since the advertising we provide is based upon information provided by third parties, we will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage of any sort incurred by you as a result of any advertisem*nts. Your interactions with advertisers found on or through the Service, including, without limitation, all reliance upon advertising, all commercial transactions and legal obligations associated with such advertisem*nts, are solely between you and the advertisers.
If you wish to find out more information about the practices of these third party advertisers and your choices about how your personal information may be used by them, please visit www.networkadvertising.org.
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General Terms
Changes. Our Terms of Service may change from time to time. If they do, we’ll let you know about any material changes, either by notifying you on the Site or by sending you an email. Please note that your continued use of the Services after any change means that you agree with, and consent to be bound by, the new Terms of Service. If you disagree with any changes in the Terms of Service and do not wish to be subject to the revised terms, you will need to close your account and/or stop using the Services.
Entire agreement. These Terms of Service (including any document incorporated by reference into them) are the whole agreement between Wattpad and you concerning the Services, and these Terms of Service supersede and replace any prior agreements between Wattpad and you regarding the Services.
No waiver and severability. If Wattpad doesn’t exercise or enforce a particular right or provision under these Terms of Service, that doesn’t mean we’ve waived that right or provision. If any provision of these Terms of Service is held to be invalid or unenforceable, then that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, and the remaining provisions of these Terms of Service will remain in full force and effect.
Choice of law and jurisdiction. We at Wattpad encourage you to contact us if you’re having an issue, before resorting to the courts. In the unfortunate situation where legal action does arise, these Terms of Service shall be governed by and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the Province of Ontario and the laws of Canada that apply in Ontario, without regard to principles of conflicts of laws. You agree that any dispute or claim arising out of or in connection with these Terms of Service will take place in the courts of the Province of Ontario.
Assignment. These Terms of Service are personal to you. You can’t assign them, transfer them, or sublicense them unless you get Wattpad’s prior written consent. Wattpad has the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms of Service without notice and without your consent.
