A draft, not yet in force. loupe publishes this so it can be read and reviewed before it applies to anyone. Words in a [marked box] are decisions not yet made. Questions or corrections: [email protected].

Our long-term promise

You're trusting loupe with years of work and the record you've built around it. Here is what we promise in return, in plain words, and the one thing we ask of you. The terms of service say the same thing in the form that binds us.

The work is yours. Everything you put in loupe stays yours: the work, the photographs of it, and everything you write about them. We hold them so we can store them, show them and copy them the way your settings say, and for nothing else. We never sell your work or license it to anyone, and we don't use it to advertise loupe without asking you first.

It can always leave. On any plan, you can make a copy to keep from your account page: your whole record any day, and your originals once a week, with anything added since your last copy whenever you like. Your originals come back as you uploaded them, with every title, date, medium and credit written beside each one in the standard fields other software reads. Export isn't a paid feature and never will be. Work that cannot leave is work you have lent us.

What we ask of you: don't let loupe hold your only copy. loupe is where your work is shown, described and found. It isn't a backup, and it isn't the place for your masters. Keep the uncorrected scan or camera raw (the archival master) and the finished file you make from it (the production master) on your own storage. Send loupe the file to send: a full-size JPEG made from your production master, as What to keep describes. It keeps every pixel, carries your record inside it, and is a fraction of the size. Keep your masters within reach, not in a drawer: screens and file formats keep getting better, and in a few years the best file to send may be a new kind, with richer colour, made from the same master. What to keep explains which file is which and where each one belongs. For anything that lives only in loupe, especially the record you've typed there, make a copy to keep regularly and store it the way What to keep describes: on your own disk, on a second copy, and somewhere else.

Nothing goes when your plan changes. If you move to Free, or a payment fails, everything stays. If a catalogue on Free holds more than Free's space, we keep all of it for a year, or three years if you've named a steward or closed it to changes. We write to you, and to your steward, 30 days and again 7 days before anything goes, and both letters offer your whole copy to keep first.

You decide what others see and take. Nothing is public until you put it on your site, share its private link, or open your archive. Nobody downloads anything unless you allow it, gallery by gallery. Prices, the names of people pictured and your file names never appear on a public page.

Someone you choose can help look after it. Name a steward by email: someone you trust with the work. They need no account and pay nothing. We keep them in the loop, and if the day comes when you'd like them to carry it on, they can.

A finished catalogue can be closed to changes. When you're ready to stop adding to it, a catalogue can stay open and searchable, with nothing added or edited, for $50 a year per ten thousand photographs. It can be opened for work again at any time.

If loupe changes or closes. If loupe is ever going to shut down, we'll tell you at least [six months] ahead. For that whole time, everything stays online and downloadable, and we'll make a full copy of every catalogue, files and record together, ready for you or your steward to take. If loupe is sold or passes to someone else, this promise goes with it: whoever runs loupe next is bound by it, or must give you the same notice and the same copy before anything changes. [Catalogues closed to changes: confirm whether we also commit to handing one, with its archive as static files, to its steward or a named institution.]

We look inside only when we must. The person who runs loupe may open your catalogue, read only, when you ask for help, to keep loupe working, or to meet a legal obligation.

If we ever change this promise, we'll write to you at least [60 days] ahead and say exactly what's changing. We won't weaken what it says about your ownership, your export or the notice before closing.

Questions about any of this: [[email protected]]. The full terms are at loupe.pictures/terms, and privacy is at loupe.pictures/privacy.

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