CanonBoard — Board Participation Terms

• Ideas aren't owned. Submitting one here doesn't make it secret, and it doesn't create any special relationship between you and the creator or us.
• The creator may already be working on the same idea, or something like it. That's expected and it's allowed.
• If your idea gets canonized, you're credited through the Board. That's the reward — not payment, not ownership, not a stake in the finished work.
• The creator decides what gets canonized and how it's used. Always their call.
• By submitting, you're giving permission for your idea to be used, and you're agreeing not to bring a claim later based on that use.
• You must be 18 or older to submit to a Board.

A submission is anything you contribute to a Board: a pitch card, an idea, a suggestion, a vote, or a comment. Submissions are directional ideas, not finished work — a beat, a turn, a “what if,” not a screenplay.

You must be at least 18 years old to submit to a Board. You can hold a CanonBoard account and browse Boards in read-only form at 16, but contributing ideas — because it involves granting a license and waiving claims, as described below — requires being 18 or older.

When you submit, you're doing it voluntarily and publicly within the Board. You're not disclosing a secret, and nothing about submitting creates a confidential, fiduciary, or agency relationship between you and the creator or between you and CanonBoard. Don't submit anything you intend to keep private or protected — a Board is the wrong place for it.

Creators develop their own worlds. It is entirely possible — and completely permitted — that a creator is already working on an idea identical or similar to yours, or develops one later, with no connection to your submission. You agree that a resemblance between your submission and anything a creator makes, releases, or profits from is not, by itself, evidence that your submission was used, and is not a basis for any claim.

When you submit, you grant the creator and CanonBoard a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use, adapt, reproduce, and build on your submission — in the story, in related works, and in anything that follows from them — without payment, attribution beyond the Board's credit system, or further permission. You keep whatever rights you have in your own underlying idea; you're granting the freedom to use it, not signing it away.

If a creator canonizes your submission, you receive credit through the Board's attribution system. That credit is the whole reward. Submitting does not entitle you to payment, royalties, ownership, a profit share, or any stake in the story or its success — now or ever. Canonization is not a purchase and not a promise of anything beyond credit.

To the fullest extent the law allows, you waive and agree not to bring any claim against the creator or CanonBoard arising from the use of your submission — including claims for idea misappropriation, breach of implied or express contract, unjust enrichment, or failure to compensate. You acknowledge you're submitting with full knowledge of these terms and without any expectation of payment or ownership.

You confirm that what you submit is yours to submit — that it doesn't infringe anyone else's copyright, contract, or other rights, and isn't something you're barred from sharing. You're responsible for your own submissions. If a submission of yours creates a problem, that's on you, not the creator or us — see the indemnification section of our Terms of Service.

Creators have sole and final control over their Boards: what gets canonized, what gets ignored, what gets removed. There's no obligation to canonize anything, to explain a decision, or to use submissions in any particular order or way. A leading vote count is not a promise of canonization.

Don't submit anything illegal, infringing, harassing, or off-limits under our Terms of Service. Don't manipulate votes, run multiple accounts, or game the Board. We can remove submissions and suspend Board access for violations, following the same approach as the rest of our Terms.

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Virginia, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, consistent with our Terms of Service.

We may update these terms. If they change materially, we'll show you the current version and ask you to agree again before your next submission. The version you agreed to is the version that governs the submissions you made under it.

contact@canonboard.com for anything in this document.