Author's agreement

When you sign up to become an author or instructor on the Grinfer platform, you agree to abide by these Author's agreement ("Agreement"). This Agreement cover details about cooperation with the Grinfer B.V. ( “Grinfer”, “we”, “us” “our”) relevant to author and instructor are incorporated by reference into our Terms of Use, the general terms that govern your use of our Services. Any capitalized terms that aren't defined in these Terms are defined as specified in the Terms of Use.

As an author or instructor, you are contracting directly with Grinfer B.V. (Kamer241, Keizersgracht 241, 1016 EA Amsterdam, The Netherlands).

This Agreement is a part of the Terms of Use, the main document that regulates your use of Grinfer. When you post your course and/or start offering consultations on Grinfer, you agree to abide by this Agreement.

Rules of Conduct 

1. You respect every member of the Grinfer community and will not allow any form of offensive or discriminating behavior on the platform. If you face or witness attempts of such behavior, you should immediately let us know by contacting our Support Team  support@grinfer.com.

2. You honor every learner enrolled and every person willing to book a consultation with you. You will not limit any learner from taking your course or any person from taking a consultation with you for any discriminatory reasons.

3. You confirm that you have the required skills, knowledge, and expertise to provide the courses and/or consultations you offer through Grinfer and you ensure a quality of service that corresponds with the standards of your industry and instruction services in general and you are responsible for the high quality of service you provide to your learners.

4. As an author or instructor, you are responsible for all content that you post, including lectures, exercises, assignments, resources, answers, course landing page content, and announcements (Content).

5. You will not publish any type of content that offends the Grinfer's community or any of its members. We reserve the right to modify or delete any content or courses or even terminate accounts involved in copyright infringement or any form of offensive behavior.

You will not use any third-party trademarks, copyright-protected content, or any content that somehow infringes third-party intellectual property rights. To use that type of content you must obtain permission from the owner.

1. You agree at all times to conduct yourself in a professional manner and in compliance with all applicable laws.

2. You will not prevent other instructors or authors from offering their courses or services and you will not use any other unfair competition tactics and actions to get benefit by stopping other specialists from working on Grinfer.

3. Authors or instructors don't have a direct contractual relationship with learners, so the only information you'll receive about learners is what is provided to you through the Services. You agree that you will not use the data you receive for any purpose other than providing your services to those learners on the Grinfer, and that you won't solicit additional personal data or store learner’s personal data outside the Grinfer. You will indemnify Grinfer against any claims arising from your use of the learner’s personal data.

4. You and we agree that no joint venture, partnership, employment, contractor, or agency relationship exists between us.

We reserve the right to remove courses, suspend payouts, and/or ban authors or instructors for any reason at any time, without prior notice, including in cases where:

1. An author or instructor profile or course does not comply with our policies or legal terms (including the Terms of Use).

2. A course falls below our quality standards or has a negative impact on the learners' experience.

3. Authors or instructors engage in behavior that might reflect unfavorably on Grinfer or bring Grinfer into public disrepute, contempt, scandal, or ridicule.

4. Or as determined by Grinfer in its sole discretion.

You acknowledge and warrant that:

1. You own or have the necessary licenses, rights, consents, permissions, and authority to authorize Grinfer to use your Content as specified in this Agreement and the Terms of Use.

2. You have the required qualifications, credentials, and expertise (including education, training, knowledge, and skill sets) to teach and offer the services that you offer through your Content and use of the Services.

3. Your Content will not infringe or misappropriate any third party's intellectual property rights.

4. The course you are publishing must match the course description.

5. You will respond to learners within 24 hours of their request.

Marketing campaigns

Grinfer has the right to conduct promotions and marketing campaigns (including experimental ones) without prior notice to the instructors, including, but not limited to, loyalty programs, incentive programs, inclusion in the overall subscription, other promotions, including public distribution of promo codes, which may result in a unilateral change in the price for learners, as well as changes in the actual price of any course and therefore payments to authors.

All actual and planned promotions, marketing campaigns, terms of loyalty programs, incentive programs, and conditions for applying promotional codes can be reviewed in the Grinfer's Blog by clicking on the link  blog.grinfer.com

The author’s courses are automatically recognized as participating in the promo activity if the author has not refused to participate.

The author has the right to refuse to participate in marketing campaigns, including loyalty programs, incentive programs, promotions, including the application of the applying promotional codes to their courses. In order to refuse to participate, the author must send an email containing an explicit refusal to participate in marketing companies to  support@grinfer.com. In this case, within 2 business days, the courses of this Author will be excluded from participation in marketing campaigns and promotional codes will not be applied to them. The author agrees that within 2 working days after receiving the email by Grinfer (until the author’s courses are completely excluded from the participation in marketing campaigns), the author’s courses can still be bought by users as courses participating in marketing campaigns and promotional codes can be applied to them.

Payouts to Authors for their courses that participated in promo activities are based on the actual amount of money received for the course (the cost for which the course was sold with applied discount) and taking into account the level of payout of each Author (see Authors agreement).

Grinfer's marketing campaigns, with conditions, including the duration, an indication of the courses participating in the promotion and other conditions are indicated on Grinfer's blog  blog.grinfer.com.

You warrant that you will not:

1. Post or provide any inappropriate, offensive, racist, hateful, sexist, pornographic, false, misleading, incorrect, infringing, defamatory or libelous content or information.

2. Use the Services for business other than providing tutoring, teaching, and instructional services to learners.

3. Engage in any activity that would require us to obtain licenses from or pay royalties to any third party, including the need to pay royalties for the public performance of a musical work or sound recording.

Content Ownership and Publicity

1. You are the owner of your content. But you give us the right to sell on Grinfer.com, use and dispose of your content for purposes of promotion on social media networks and internet resources in general around the world.

2. You grant Grinfer the rights detailed in this Agreement and the Terms of Use to offer and market.

3. You give us the right to sell on Grinfer.com, and transmit sublicense to learners on Grinfer.com, market, and otherwise use your courses (including content) for promotional purposes anywhere. You also give us a right to use your profile information (name, job title, professional description, images) for marketing, promotion, demonstration, and selling purposes. We may record all or any part of your Content for quality control and for delivering, marketing, promoting, demonstrating, or operating the Services.

4. You can modify or delete content in your course (in whole or in part) at any time.

Grinfer's right to sublicense the rights in this section will terminate with respect to new users 90 days after the Content's removal. However,

1. rights given to learners before the Content's removal will continue in accordance with the terms of those licenses (including any grants of lifetime access)

2. You understand that, if you teach a course and/or consult, your learners can leave reviews about your courses and/or consulting services. We are not responsible for any opinions of users or any loss or damage (including potential) caused by these reviews.

Consultations

1. If you want to provide consultations on Grinfer, you need to indicate this on the schedule page in your account by using a toggle button and then adjust the schedule by filling in the relevant information. 

2. For learners, to send a booking request, Grinfer requires a 100% prepayment from the learner to ensure the payment of the consultation.

3. Instructor is obliged:

• To process a new consultation request no later than 72 hours after receiving the request by approving or declining it.

• To start the consultation on time and conduct it in full accordance with the schedule.

4. The instructor has the right:

• To use 5 minutes to prepare for the current consultation while conducting a session of a minimum length (30 minutes).

• To use 10 minutes to prepare for the current consultation while conducting a session lasting 1 hour or more.

• To end the consultation according to the schedule.

5. The instructor has the right to cancel the confirmed consultation at any time before the scheduled start of the consultation. In this case, the instructor will be charged a 4%  processing fee of the total payment made by the learner for this consultation. This fee will be automatically debited from the instructor's account on Grinfer.

If the instructor did not show up at the consultation or was late for more than 5 minutes, the learner may be fully or partially refunded. In this case, the instructor may be charged a 4% processing fee of the total payment made by the learner for consultation (in case of a full refund).

If the instructor’s account on Grinfer does not have the necessary amount, it will be withheld immediately after the funds are credited to his account on Grinfer.

6. We will notify instructors about new requests and status changes via email and notifications on Grinfer.

7. The instructor will receive payments only for completed consultations in case there were no refunds. The payment is transferred at the end of the consultation and the amount is calculated according to the level of payment (see Author’s Agreement / Payments). The level of payment is estimated at the time of transfer in accordance with the rules established in our Terms of Use, Author’s Agreement, etc.

8. Payments for consultations are carried out in accordance with the general rules of payouts described in our Terms of Use, Author’s Agreement, etc

9. Grinfer reserve the right to hide any author and instructor profile on the Grinfer marketplace for any reason at any time (for example in case if the profile does not comply with Grinfer policies or legal terms).

Subscription

Subscription
As a subscription, the Instructor (Author) provides learners with full access to all existing and future courses and articles. All Instructor’s (Author’s) courses and articles, in addition to the existing distribution methods, will be available for distribution via Subscription.

Subscription сontent includes all existing and future courses of the Instructor (Author) (together with updates) published on Grinfer, as well as paid articles in Grinfer’s blog (existing and future ones with updates) (here and after - Subscription Content). Subscription means that the Learner can purchase access to the Instructor's (Author’s) existing Subscription Content for a certain period of time (1 week, 1 month, 1 year).

All plans come with a 3-day free trial. At the expiration of the free trial period, the amount for the Subscription will be automatically debited from the Learner's account.

To disable access to his courses (and articles) by Subscription, the Instructor (Author) must write to mail: support@grinfer.com, with a request to exclude their courses (and articles) from access by Subscription, and only after Grinfer approves this, the courses (and articles) can be excluded.
In this case, the ability to purchase access to courses (and articles) created by this Instructor (Author) will be stopped. Access to the courses (and articles) created by the Instructor (Author) (and the right to use them) acquired by the Learners until the Subscription is terminated will operate on the same terms (which were valid during the Subscription). In this case, the Subscription will be available for the Learners until they cancel the purchased Subscription on their own initiative.

Payments and Refunds

All the information regarding payments, refunds, and payouts can be found in the Terms of Use in the Payments and Refunds section.

Deleting Your Account

1. It’s your choice to delete your account with its content at any time. To terminate your account, please contact our Support Team at  support@grinfer.com. We’ll take reasonable actions to make the remaining payouts before deleting your account. You agree that all learners who purchased your courses will keep access to your courses for a term of life despite the deletion of your account.

2. We reserve the right to remove courses, and/or ban instructors for any reason at any time, without prior notice and delay payouts due to a strong reason.

Pricing

Price Setting

When creating a course, you will be prompted to select a base price ("Base Price") for your course from a list of available price tiers.

You give us permission to share your courses for free with our employees, with selected partners, and in cases where we need to restore access accounts who have previously purchased your courses. You understand that you will not receive compensation in these cases.

Transaction Taxes

If a learner purchases a product or service in a country that requires Grinfer to remit national, state, or local sales or use taxes, value-added taxes (VAT), or other similar transaction taxes ("Transaction Taxes"), under applicable law, we will collect and remit those Transaction Taxes to the competent tax authorities for those sales. We may increase the sale price at our discretion where we determine that such taxes may be due or either reduce your payment by the amount of tax, at our discretion. For purchases through mobile applications, applicable Transaction Taxes are collected by the mobile platform.

Payments

Income

When a learner purchases your course, we calculate the gross amount of the sale as the amount actually received by Grinfer from the learner ("Amount"). From this, we subtract any Transaction Taxes, any mobile platform fees applied to mobile application sales, any amounts paid to third parties to calculate the net amount of the sale ("Net Amount").

Unless otherwise specified your revenue share for separately sold courses will be 60% of the Net Amount less any applicable deductions, such as learner refunds. If we change this payment rate, we will provide you 15 days' notice using prominent means, such as via email or by posting a notice through our Services.

Grinfer makes all authors' and Instructors' payments in the local currency specified in Receiving Payments paragraph, regardless of the currency with which the sale was made. We will assume transaction processing fees, excluding foreign currency conversion fees and wiring fees, directly charged by your bank.

General rules for calculating your % are described below.

Instructor Subscription Payments:

Your monthly share of the royalty pool will be calculated based on the watch time in minutes across all your lessons available by subscriptions.

On a monthly basis, Grinfer distributes 40% of the revenue coming from all subscription plans for the reported month. This 40% is shared between the instructors according to the time that users spent watching their courses. Please note that the time users spend on free courses is not taken into account. The specifics of the distribution calculation are subject to change from time to time.

Instructor Course Payments

E.g. You made $7500 in May on selling courses on a marketplace. You get:

• 60% out of the first $999,99: $999,99 x 60% = $599.99 

• 65% of the $1000-4 999,99 amount: $4000 x 65% = $2600

• 70% out of everything you earned over $5000: $2500 x 70% = $1750

Your total revenue from courses sold on the marketplace in May = $4949,99
NOTE: Any following month starts with the % of revenue share that equals the previous month’s biggest percentage you achieved.
E.g. You ended May with the highest revenue share % of 70%. In June, your revenue share starts with 70% no matter what sum of money you make.
Example 1 If in May you earned $7 500 and in June you made $2,000, your payouts for June are: $2000 x 70% = $1400
Example 2 If in May you earned $7500 and in June you made $10,500, your payouts for June are:
$9 999,99 x 70% = $6 999,99 plus $500 x 75% = 375. Your total in June will be $7374,99
If the author’s percentage of payout calculated, based on the money made within that current month, is less than in the previous month, the author is starting the following month with the relevant percentage of the payout based on the earnings of the previous month.
E.g. You ended May with the highest organic revenue share of 70%. You started June with 70% of organic revenue share but only made $2,000, in July your starting revenue share is 65%.

Instructor Consultation Payments:

For instructors, who provide consultations, Grinfer offers a gross amount calculation based on the fixed fee equal to 60%. It means you receive 60% revenue for each consultation you successfully completed.

E.g. Your hourly rate is $10 and you complete 2-hour consultation. You get: 

• $10 x 2h x 60% = $12

Receiving Payments

To receive your monthly payment, you must own a valid bank account or correct and valid PayPal account and keep us informed of the correct email associated with your account. Here is the list of the countries and currencies supported for payouts via bank account:

*- only personal bank account types supported, for the details please see the link (https://transferwise.com/help/11/getting-started/2571907/what-currencies-do-you-support).

Make sure that the account you use for payouts is open in one of the indicated countries and in the corresponding currency supported by this country.

To see the list of countries and currencies supported for payouts via PayPal, please click on the link: https://developer.paypal.com/docs/payouts/reference/country-and-currency-codes/.
To receive payments via PayPal, you must have a PayPal account that conforms to the requirements of PayPal **. When you choose a PayPal payment, all transaction processing fees will be made at the expense of the Author or the Instructor.

You must also provide any identifying information or tax documentation if required. You agree that we and mentioned above services (PayPal, payment systems, banking organizations) have the right to withhold appropriate taxes from your payments. We reserve the right to withhold payments or impose other reasonable measures if we do not receive proper identifying information or tax documentation from you. You understand and agree that you are ultimately responsible for any taxes on your income.

As an author or instructor, you are responsible for determining whether you are eligible to be paid by Grinfer. We reserve the right not to pay out funds in the event of identified fraud, violations of intellectual property rights, or other violations of the law.

Depending on the applicable revenue share model:

1. Grinfer works on a NET 40 basis where the starting day for the NET 40 payment is the last calendar day of the month. Payouts are made on the 10th of each month for the earnings made in the previous month.
   E.g.: If you have earned 1000 USD in May, you will receive your money on the 10th of July.

Also, the Authors and Instructors give their consent to the fact that if his Net Amount for the reporting period or the amount payable to him is less than 100 USD, then deferred payment will apply to it, and in this case, the payment is postponed to the next month. If the Author or the Instructor wants to make a payment amounting to less than 100 USD to him, then he must inform Grinfer by sending a letter with this request to  support@grinfer.com, and in this case, the payment will be made within the terms established by the general rule contained in this Agreement, but all transaction processing fees, excluding foreign currency conversion fees and wiring fees, will be made at the expense of the Author or the Instructor.

** - https://www.paypal.com/us/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full

Referral Program for Authors

You can participate in the Grinfer Referral Program for Authors.
To do this, you need to bring new customers who will purchase any of the Grinfer subscription plans, subject to additional terms and conditions.
You will earn $15 in commission for each new customer who purchases any of Grinfer subscription plans after a free trial. Referrals have 30 days from using your link to purchase any subscription in order to qualify you for the commission.

In addition, we give Authors and Instructors the possibility to create a referral link for their separately sold courses in their dashboard. From this sale, the Author or Instructor will receive a payout of 96% after we track an end-user purchase of a course sold separately from a system subscription through this link. The amount of these links is not limited.

Refunds

You acknowledge and agree that learners have the right to receive a refund, as detailed in the Terms of Use. Authors or instructors will not receive any revenue from transactions for which a refund has been granted under the Terms of Use.

If a learner asks for a refund after we have paid the relevant author or instructor payment, we may:

1. deduct the amount of the refund from the next payment sent to the author or instructor.

2. where no further payments are due to the author or instructor or the payments are insufficient to cover the refunded amounts, require the author or instructor to refund any amounts refunded to learners for the author's courses or consultations.

Miscellaneous

You warrant that you aren't restricted from using the Services under U.S. sanctions or export laws (as an individual or as an officer, director, or controlling shareholder of any entity on whose behalf you use the Services). If you become subject to such a restriction while you are subject to these Instructor Terms, you will notify us within 24 hours, and we will have the right to terminate any further obligations to you, effective immediately and with no further liability to you. You will not use the Services to conduct or facilitate any transaction with any other individual or entity subject to such a restriction.

Authors or instructors must not:

1. use our trademarks in a misleading or disparaging way;

2. use our trademarks in a way that implies that we endorse, sponsor, or approve of your courses or services;

3. use our trademarks in a way that violates applicable law or in connection with an obscene, indecent, or unlawful topic or material.

You warrant that you aren't restricted from using the Services under The Netherlands sanctions or export laws (as an individual or as an officer, director, or controlling shareholder of any entity on whose behalf you use the Services). If you become subject to such a restriction while you are subject to this Agreement, you will notify Grinfer within 24 hours, and we will have the right to terminate any further obligations to you, effective immediately and with no further liability to you (but without prejudice to your outstanding obligations to Grinfer). You will not use the Services to conduct or facilitate any transaction with any other individual or entity subject to such a restriction. You may not remove, export, or allow the export or re-export of the Services (or any product thereof, including technical data) in violation of any restrictions, laws, or regulations of any applicable country.

Updating this Agreement

From time to time, we may update this Agreement to clarify our practices or to reflect new or different practices (such as when we add new features), and Grinfer reserves the right in its sole discretion to modify and/or make changes to this Agreement at any time. If we make any material change, we will notify you using prominent means such as by email specified in your account or by posting a notice through our Services. Modifications will become effective on the day they are posted unless stated otherwise.

Your continued use of our Services after changes become effective shall mean that you accept those changes. Any revised Agreement shall supersede all previous Agreements.

How to Contact Us

Please contact our Support Team at  support@grinfer.com  or Kamer241, Keizersgracht 241, 1016 EA Amsterdam, The Netherlands.