Terms of Service - Content Owners
Open Television Network is an open network. We encourage you to distribute your content through as many channels as you can to maximize your return. We expect that Open Television Network will be able to bring you a paying audience. Here's what we can do for you, and what you need to do to establish your merchant account.
You need to host your content and to enter details about yourself and your content in the Open Television Network system. We have some suggestions on Encoding and Hosting, but it's your decision on how you do it. We've also got some suggestions on Securing your Content's URLs, which we recommend in the Protecting Content article.
We have some Content Owner video how-to demos available so you can see the whole process, from opening an account to embedding a Channel feed on your website.
Once you open your merchant account with us you fill out the details of your content and add it to the system. You can add content to Channel-feeds or sell single items from your website. As the system expands we'll build tools for viewers to build custom feeds across all content providers, increasing the potential for sales outside of your network.
You set the price you want for each item of content, but be realistic - it's more profitable to sell 10,000 or 20,000 shows at 10c each than 200 shows at 99c. You will also need to balance pricing against the cost of other ways people can get their shows and movies.
We provide the network and index of content. Most importantly, we provide the means for you to get paid for content downloaded using the same simple systems as podcasting. In fact the underlying technology in both cases is RSS. Open Television Network Channel feeds are standard RSS 2.0 and should work in all podcast-capable software (subject to the specifics of support for specific types of media). We test with Apple's iTunes and Participatory Culture Foundation's Miro.
Open Television Network receives 15% of the price you set for your content when content is sold.
We pay you on, or before, the 14th day of the month following the month of sale of the content. We pay you regardless of whether we've received payment from customers or not. Payments will be made by check or direct deposit if the balance owing exceeds $20, otherwise the blance will be crried over to the next monthly cycle.
Additional Terms of Service for Content Owners
- You must own the right to publish the content and receive payment for it. We cannot have material in the system that is not properly licensed and cleared. If we get a valid DMCA takedown notice that the content a merchant has added to the network isn't really theirs to profit from, we will take down the content as required. If the claim is proven to be true and a merchant has added content to Open Television Network that they didn't have clear rights to, we will remove the content and will counsel the merchant. A second instance appears like carelessness and we will have to cancel that merchant account and delete the entries from the network.
- Enter the metadata about your content honestly and accurately - particularly the descriptions of content that people are going to rely on to determine if it's what they'd like to watch. Our viewers can make informed decisions if we provide them with accurate information to base their decision on. It will be better for your content's earning ability in the long run to have accurate information, particularly once we work out how to let viewers add their tags or reviews.
- No Pornography. You know it if you make it. We allow you to tag content as sexually explicit, if it is relevant to the story, but no further. If we get complaints about inaccurately described content, we will take it up with you and request a viewing. Based on the viewing of the disputed content and consultation we reserve the right to have specific items of content be removed (or modified if that's possible).
From time to time we will need to revise these terms as we add new features or circumstances cahnge. We'll give you reasonable notice and a clear method for feedback and comment.
In this section we have attempted to describe the Terms of Service for Merchants in simple language. You should read the comprehensive legal version here before creating agreeing to the Terms of Service when creating a Merchant account.