The Terms, the Privacy Policy and the two role agreements
FilmScorecard has two public documents everybody agrees to: the Terms of Use
at /terms and the Privacy Policy at /privacy. Anyone can read them, with
or without an account. When an account is created, the person creating it ticks
one box to agree to both, and that agreement is recorded with the account.
Two more apply to one role each: the Judge Code of Conduct at
/code-of-conduct, which every judge agrees to, and the Festival Host
Agreement at /host-agreement, which every organization that runs festivals
agrees to through one of its owners. Both are public too. When and how each is
agreed to is in
The Judge Code of Conduct and the Festival Host Agreement.
This page is a map of the documents and a description of the boxes. It is not a summary of what the documents say: read them.
Where they are
Terms and Privacy are the middle two of the four small links, Help · Terms · Privacy · Contact, that sit in the footer of the home page and of the Festivals, Judges and Creators pages, under every log-in and sign-up screen, under the judge profile set-up screens, at the bottom of the left navigation on your organization's and your judging screens, and in the footer under each other. The full list of places is in Contacting us. Or type the address.
Both documents are also linked from the agreement box itself, described below. The Terms are also linked from the box you tick on Stripe's checkout page when you get Creator Pro: see Getting Pro.
The two role agreements are not in that strip. They are linked from the Terms — under the Host responsibilities, Judge conduct, Payments and Ending an account sections — and from every box that asks you to agree to one. Or type the address.
The Privacy Policy is also linked from the cookie notice at the top of every page, which opens it at its Cookies section. See The cookie notice.
The cookie notice
The first time a browser opens any FilmScorecard page — the home page, a log-in screen, your festival's or your judging screens, a filmmaker's public page, a scorecard — a thin strip across the very top reads:
FilmScorecard uses only essential cookies, to keep you signed in and remember your choices. Privacy Policy OK
- Privacy Policy opens the policy at its Cookies section.
- OK hides the strip at once, and that browser does not show it again for a year. Another browser, a private window or cleared cookies shows it again.
- There is nothing to accept or refuse. The notice only tells you what is already true. Until you press OK it stays on every page you open.
- It lies over the top edge of the page, covering the page's own top bar until you press OK, but never a dialog. It appears a moment after the page itself, and it is never printed.
- On a phone the message wraps, and OK sits on its own line under it.
If your browser blocks cookies, OK hides the strip only until you reload or come back, because there is nowhere to remember it.
How each document reads
Each page has the same top bar as the Festivals, Judges and Creators pages: the FilmScorecard logo, which takes you to the home page; Festivals, Judges and Creators; and Log in. On a phone the three page links are hidden, and the logo and Log in stay. Below the top bar is the document in a single reading column, and at the bottom is the home page's white footer.
The document opens with its title and one line in small monospace type:
Effective 2026-10-15
That date is the version. One date covers both documents, it changes when the text changes substantively, and it is what is recorded against your account when you agree (see below). Today both documents read Effective 2026-10-15. The two role agreements carry dates of their own — see When an agreement changes.
Every section has an address of its own, so you can link straight to one:
/terms#payments opens the Terms with the payments section at the top of the
window. An address that names a section that does not exist simply opens the
document at the top.
If you are logged in, the pages look exactly the same, and you are not sent anywhere else. Pressing Log in in the top bar while logged in takes you to your own home screen rather than the log-in form, which is what that button always does.
The Privacy Policy
| Section | Address | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| What this policy covers | /privacy#overview | Who the policy is about: the people with accounts (hosts, staff, judges) and the people without them whose details a festival brings in (submitters). |
| Information from account holders | /privacy#account-holders | What is collected to create and run an account, what a judge's profile holds, what a host's festival set-up holds, and what is recorded as you use the platform — including the changes made to submission records, so a festival can see who changed what. |
| Information about submitters | /privacy#submitters | What arrives when a festival brings its submissions in, either by importing a CSV export or by connecting its FilmFreeway account — including, where the export or the FilmFreeway account carries them, personal details such as date of birth, gender, pronouns and postal address, which only the festival's staff can see and judges never do — that the festival controls it, and why a submitter should ask the festival first. And what the festival's staff can see about a submitter: whether each email the festival sent them through the platform was delivered, delayed, bounced or marked as spam, with the reason for a bounce; when they opened their scorecard or submission page, and which of the festival's emails they came from; and what they did there — signing in with the code, starting a checkout, unlocking the full scorecard, sending feedback on it, creating or turning off a share link, saving a share card, saving changes to the submission, and saving it to an account, with that account's email address. |
| Blind judging and a judge's identity | /privacy#judging | What judges can and cannot see of each other, what a judge's identity is used for, and that a released scorecard does not name its judges. |
| Payments | /privacy#payments | Stripe, and that card details never reach FilmScorecard. And Creator Pro: a filmmaker who buys it pays on a page hosted by Stripe, which keeps the card and billing address it needs to charge the plan and work out tax; FilmScorecard records the plan, its status and dates, and Stripe's references to it. See Creator Pro. |
| How the platform is used | /privacy#platform-use | What FilmScorecard records about how submitters use the scorecard page, the submission page and the page that asks for their code: how long a page is in view, which sections are opened, the steps of a checkout reached, whether a promo code was accepted, which fields a form refused, whether a poster upload worked, when something on a page fails, and the kind of device — phone, tablet or desktop. It never holds an IP address, a browser's full details, anything typed into a field, keystrokes or mouse movement. It is tied to the submission (and to the submitter's account when they are signed in), read only by FilmScorecard, never shown to a festival or any third party, and never sold, and it is deleted after 25 months — sooner if the submission is deleted. |
| Who processes the information | /privacy#processors | The services the platform runs on, by name — and Cloudflare, whose Turnstile person check on the beta registration form, the contact form and the contact form on filmmaker pages reads signals from your browser and sees your IP address. |
| How long information is kept | /privacy#retention | What is kept for as long as what, including the record of how the platform is used (25 months) and messages sent through the contact form. |
| Cookies | /privacy#cookies | The four cookies the platform needs to work — the fourth remembers that a visitor has entered a filmmaker's page password, for that page only — and three more that remember your choices: that you chose Not now when a scorecard offered to keep it in an account (for that scorecard, until you close your browser), the last project you opened (for a year), and that you pressed OK on the cookie notice (for a year). There are no analytics or advertising cookies and no third-party tracking. It also says how a filmmaker's public page counts its views, visitors, link clicks and video plays per day, and where its visitors came from: to count each visitor once a day without a cookie, the page combines the visitor's IP address and browser with a random value that is replaced every day and then deleted, and keeps only the scrambled result, for that day only. No IP address is stored and nothing is placed on the visitor's device. Where a visitor came from is kept as a website's name only, such as Instagram, never the page or link. Visits by the filmmaker, and by people signed in as staff or judges at a festival the film was entered in, are not counted. And it says that a message sent through a filmmaker's page is stored and emailed to that filmmaker. See The cookie notice and The public film page. |
| Your choices | /privacy#your-rights | Seeing, correcting and removing your information, and who to ask. |
| How to contact us | /privacy#contact | The contact form and the support address. |
The Terms of Use
| Section | Address | What it covers |
|---|---|---|
| The agreement | /terms#agreement | Who is agreeing to what, including on behalf of an organization. |
| Accounts and the beta | /terms#accounts | Who may hold an account — festival hosts, festival staff, judges and filmmakers — the private beta, and your responsibility for what happens under your account. |
| Host responsibilities | /terms#host-responsibilities | What a festival takes on when it imports other people's submissions, and for the prices, refunds and taxes on what it sells or pays — and that every organization also accepts the Festival Host Agreement, linked under it. It also says that FilmScorecard uses data about how the platform is used, such as how submitters use their scorecard and submission pages, only to run and improve the platform, and that this data is never sold and never shown to another festival. |
| Judge conduct | /terms#judge-conduct | Blind judging, confidentiality, not contacting submitters, conflicts of interest, and that every score and every word of feedback must be a person's own — and that every judge also accepts the Judge Code of Conduct, linked under it. |
| Scorecard access and refunds | /terms#scorecards | Releasing a scorecard free or for a price, and what a full refund, a partial refund and a lost dispute each do to access. |
| Creator Pro | /terms#creator-pro | The paid plan for one project: that it adds the Pro tools listed when you get Pro, its two prices in US dollars with tax included, that it renews automatically until you cancel, the one free 30-day trial per account and the email 7 days before it ends, cancelling — Pro stays on to the end of the paid period, with no refund for part of one — switching between monthly and yearly, what happens when a renewal payment fails, that nothing is deleted when Pro ends, and price changes. The checkout's Terms box links here. See Creator Pro. |
| Payments, platform fees and split payments | /terms#payments | Stripe, the platform fee on scorecard sales and what happens to it on a refund, and that a festival pays its judges itself: the platform does not transfer, hold or guarantee judge pay. It used to say the platform moved judge pay, which was never true; that sentence is gone. |
| Acceptable use | /terms#acceptable-use | What you must not do with the platform, including automated scoring or feedback. |
| Your content | /terms#content | Whose content is whose. |
| FilmFreeway data | /terms#filmfreeway-data | What happens to a festival's FilmFreeway key, and the data read with it, once the festival connects its FilmFreeway account: what they are used for, keeping them confidential, telling the festival about a breach, and deleting them when it asks. Step 3 (Start syncing) of the setup dialog on Settings → FilmFreeway links here, and Start syncing records who connected, when, and the Terms' effective date at that moment. See Connecting FilmFreeway. |
| Ending an account | /terms#termination | Leaving, being suspended, and what stays behind with a festival. Both role agreements are linked under it. |
| Liability | /terms#liability | What the platform does and does not answer for. |
| Changes to these terms | /terms#changes | What happens to the effective date, what is recorded with your account, and how you will hear about a material change. |
Agreeing to them when an account is created
Every screen that can create an account carries the same box, just above its button:
I agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy
Terms of Use and Privacy Policy in that sentence are links, and each opens in a new tab so you do not lose the form you are filling in. Clicking a link does not tick the box; the box is ticked by clicking the box itself, or the words around the links.
The box is on:
| Screen | Where the box sits | Guide |
|---|---|---|
| The registration form at the foot of the Festivals, Judges or Creators page | After the last question, above the form's button: Request beta access, Request judge access or Request creator access | Requesting beta access |
The sign-up screen (/signup), in both its ordinary and its invited versions | Below the role cards, or below the email address when the cards are not shown | Creating an account |
The host sign-up screen (/host/signup) | Below the email address | Creating a host account |
It is not on the log-in screen, the Check your email screen, or the One question left screen, and Resend code never shows it again: none of those creates an account. Apart from the one line described next, logging in never asks you to agree to anything.
Keep it, on a scorecard: a line instead of a box
Keep it, on a filmmaker's scorecard, can create an account with no form to fill in, so there is no box to tick. Instead, the Check your email screen that follows carries one line under the code boxes:
By entering the code, you agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy.
The two names are links that open in a new tab, like the box's. The line is there whether the code is making an account or logging into one that already exists, so the screen never says which. See Keep it, on a scorecard, needs no sign-up at all.
If you leave it unticked
You get one sentence, directly under the box, and nothing else happens:
You need to agree to the Terms of Use and Privacy Policy to continue.
- On the sign-up screens it is in amber. No code is emailed, you are not moved to the Check your email screen, and nothing about the address is checked or recorded. On the ordinary sign-up screen Create account is greyed out until you choose a role card; it is not greyed out for the box, so the sentence appears when you press the button.
- On the registration forms it is in red, like those forms' other field messages. Nothing is stored and no email is sent.
Tick the box and press the button again. Everything else you typed is still there.
What is recorded, and when
Agreeing records two things with your account: the moment you agreed, and the effective date of the documents you agreed to (the date on the Effective line). Nothing else is recorded; in particular, no copy of the text is kept with your account, because the text is public and its version is its date.
When it is recorded depends on which way your account is made:
| How your account is made | When the agreement is recorded |
|---|---|
A sign-up screen (/signup or /host/signup) | The moment you press Create account or Email me a code with the box ticked. That first press is what creates the account; entering the code afterwards activates it, and Resend code changes nothing about the record. |
| Approval of a beta request | On your request, the moment you send the registration form with the box ticked. Sending a form again while the request is still waiting records the agreement afresh, with the date of the re-send. When a person approves the request and your account is made, the record is copied onto the account. |
| An invitation | The invited version of the sign-up screen, exactly as the first row. |
| Keep it, on a scorecard | The moment you press Keep it, when no account holds the submission's address: that press is what creates the account, and entering the code activates it. When an account already holds the address, nothing is recorded, as for any log-in. |
Ticking the Terms box on Stripe's checkout page, when you get Creator Pro, does not change this record. That box is part of Stripe's page, and your account keeps the date it already has.
The record cannot be changed through FilmScorecard, by you or by anyone else, including the people who run the platform. There is no screen that shows it to you either. If you need to know what is on file, ask through the contact form.
Accounts that predate the box
Accounts created before the box existed carry no record of agreement. They are not asked to agree when they next log in, and nothing on them is held back because of it. The Terms themselves say that using the platform means accepting them; the box is how a new account says so explicitly.
Using a sign-up screen with an address that already has an account does not add a record to it either: the code logs you into the account you have, and the agreement is only ever recorded when an account is created.
When the documents change
The Effective date at the top of both documents moves. Your account keeps the date you agreed to, so the record says which version you accepted. Nothing on FilmScorecard asks you to agree again after a change; how you are told about a material change is set out in Changes to these terms. An account that agreed to an earlier date keeps that date — none of the 2026-10-01, 2026-10-10, 2026-10-13 and 2026-10-15 changes reset anyone's record.
The Judge Code of Conduct and the Festival Host Agreement
Two documents, each binding one role, each agreed to with one tick box:
| Document | Address | Who agrees | What it is about |
|---|---|---|---|
| Judge Code of Conduct | /code-of-conduct | Every judge, for themselves — once, across every festival they judge for. | What judging on FilmScorecard asks of a person: judging blind, keeping what you see confidential, declaring conflicts, writing your own scores and feedback, keeping your commitments — and that pay is between you and the festival: FilmScorecard does not pay judges. |
| Festival Host Agreement | /host-agreement | Every organization that runs festivals, through one of its owners, on the organization's behalf. | What running festivals on FilmScorecard commits an organization to: the festival alone pays its judges, FilmScorecard does not, and a festival that does not pay its judges what it agreed can be suspended or banned — as well as scorecard sales, platform fees and ending the agreement. |
Both pages look and work like the Terms: the same top bar, an Effective date under the title, and a heading per section with an address of its own.
The tick box
Everywhere either document is agreed to, it is the same box, just above the button that does the work:
I agree to the Judge Code of Conduct
or
I agree to the Festival Host Agreement
The document's name is a link, and it opens in a new tab so you do not lose what you were doing. The box is part of that button's press: pressing the button with it unticked does nothing but put one sentence under it — "You need to agree to the Judge Code of Conduct to continue." or "You need to agree to the Festival Host Agreement to continue."
When a judge agrees
A judge agrees in the same press as the thing that puts them on a panel:
| The press | Guide |
|---|---|
| Accept invitation, on the page an invitation email opens | Your judging invitation |
| Accept invitation, from the Invitations tab of the inbox | Your invitations |
| Submit application, on an open call | Applying to an open call |
| Accept these rates, answering a festival's counter | When the festival replies with different rates |
Declining, blocking a festival and withdrawing never ask for it.
A judge who already has a place, and has not agreed to the current version, meets a confirm page instead of their judging screens. Whatever judging screen they open — their judging home, the scoring screen, the inbox, open calls, earnings — the page they get is headed Judge Code of Conduct, with the box and a Confirm button and nothing else to press. Confirming (the button reads Confirming... while it works) records the agreement and the screen they asked for appears in its place, at the same address.
- Two places are let straight through: their own account settings, and the application form on an open call, whose own Submit carries the box.
- Taking a film and filing a scorecard are refused until the judge has agreed — so a judge holding a film when a new version arrives agrees first, then carries on. What happens to a hold meanwhile follows the usual rules — see One film at a time.
- If the save fails, the page says "That could not be saved. Try again." and nothing changes.
When an organization agrees
A new organization agrees as it is created. The form that creates it carries the Festival Host Agreement box — see Setting up your festival.
An organization that has not agreed to the current version is asked through its owners. The next time an active owner opens any of the organization's screens, they get a confirm page instead: the organization's name above the heading Festival Host Agreement, the box, and Confirm. There is no way around it from there — no navigation, no other screen — and confirming brings up the screen they asked for, at the same address.
- One owner is enough. The agreement is the organization's, so once any active owner confirms, every other owner opens the organization's screens as normal and is never asked.
- Only active owners are asked. Org admins, members, a suspended owner and FilmScorecard's own staff are not shown the confirm page; they see the banner below instead.
- Judges are never asked for it. The judge portal is not an organization screen, and nothing a judge does waits on it.
Until an owner agrees
Everybody else at the organization sees one quiet line along the top of every organization screen:
Running festivals is paused until an owner of Riverside Collective accepts the Festival Host Agreement.
It cannot be dismissed. It goes away by itself once an owner confirms.
Reading and setting up still work — every screen opens, settings save, submissions import, judges' scorecards are filed and reviewed. What is refused is running a festival, each with that same sentence:
- opening judging — see Opening judging;
- every way of putting a judge on a panel or asking one to join — inviting from the roster or the Judges directory, bulk invitations, resending an invitation, and accepting a judge request, one at a time or in bulk;
- every scorecard release — a whole season's, one submission's, and the release-ready card on the season's dashboard.
A season that releases its scorecards on its own schedule still releases them — when judging closes, when selections are announced, or as submissions are approved; those releases are not held back.
When an agreement changes
Each agreement carries its own Effective date, and that date is its version. Today both read Effective 2026-10-08.
- A change that matters gets a new date, and everybody it binds is asked again, through the same boxes and confirm pages above — judges on their next visit to a judging screen, organizations through their owners.
- Agreeing to an older version does not count once a newer one exists.
- A correction that does not change the meaning keeps the date, and asks nobody anything.
What is recorded is the date you agreed and the version you agreed to: per person for the Code of Conduct, and per organization for the Host Agreement, together with the owner who confirmed it. No copy of the text is kept, because the text is public and its version is its date.
Related guides
- Contacting us — the third link in the strip, and the form behind it.
- What the festival sees of your visits — the Privacy Policy's submitter sections, from the filmmaker's side of their scorecard and submission pages.
- Requesting beta access — the three registration forms, each with the box as its last question.
- Creating an account — the two sign-up screens, and the invited version that goes around the beta.
- Log-in problems — every message the log-in and sign-up screens can show, this one included.
- Setting up your festival — the form that creates an organization, and its Festival Host Agreement box.
- Your judging invitation and Applying to an open call — the two ways onto a panel, each carrying the Judge Code of Conduct box.