1. Who we are and what these Terms cover
1.1 webcam.io is operated by Knut Möller IT-Dienstleistungen, Blankeneser Chaussee 92, 22869 Schenefeld, Germany (“webcam.io”, “we”). Contact details are in our Imprint.
1.2 These Terms govern the contract between you and us for the use of the webcam.io service: hosting of webcam images, time-lapse videos, clips and widgets, and relaying of live streams (the “Service”). They apply to consumers and to business customers. A consumer is a natural person who uses the Service for purposes that are predominantly outside their trade, business or profession.
1.3 Browsing our public website requires no account and creates no contract.
1.4 Your own terms and conditions do not apply, even if we do not expressly object to them.
2. Account and conclusion of contract
2.1 The contract is concluded when you register, accept these Terms and we confirm your registration by email.
2.2 You must be at least 18 years old. If you register for a company or organisation, you confirm that you are authorised to act for it.
2.3 Provide a valid email address, keep your password secret and tell us without delay if you suspect unauthorised use of your account. You are responsible for activity in your account to the extent that you are at fault.
2.4 New accounts can use the features of the LIVE+ plan free of charge for 7 days. Afterwards the account switches automatically to the free plan. A trial never turns into a paid plan by itself.
3. The Service
3.1 The features and limits of each plan are described on our pricing page and in the documentation as they stand when you order.
3.2 “Snapshots per day” means the maximum number of images fetched from your webcams per day. Unused snapshots expire at the end of the day. The actual number can be lower because of network delays or because your camera cannot be reached.
3.3 The Service depends on your camera, your internet connection and on third-party platforms you choose (for example YouTube, Twitch, Facebook, Dropbox). We are not responsible for their availability or for changes they make.
3.4 We operate the Service with care and aim for uninterrupted availability, but we cannot guarantee it. Maintenance and incidents are published at status.webcam.io.
3.5 Images and videos are stored for the image history time of your plan and are then deleted. Live streams are relayed and not stored. We keep no backups of image and video files. Please export content you want to keep (section 12).
3.6 We develop the Service continuously. We may change features for valid reasons – in particular technical progress, security, legal requirements or changes at third-party platforms – at no extra cost to you. If a change impairs your use of the Service more than negligibly, we will inform you by email in good time beforehand, and you may terminate the contract free of charge within 30 days of the change; fees paid in advance are refunded pro rata.
3.7 Support is provided by email without guaranteed response times.
4. Plans, prices and payment
4.1 The free plan is free of charge. We may change or discontinue the free plan with three months’ notice by email.
4.2 Paid plans are sold by our reseller Paddle.com Market Limited (“Paddle”), which acts as Merchant of Record. Your purchase, including payment, invoicing, taxes and refunds, is governed by Paddle’s buyer terms. We provide the Service to you under these Terms.
4.3 Paid plans run for the billing period you choose and renew automatically for the same period until you cancel.
4.4 Price changes take effect at the earliest from the next billing period. You will be informed by email at least 30 days in advance and can cancel before the change takes effect.
4.5 If a payment fails and is not made within 7 days after a reminder, we may switch your account to the free plan.
4.6 Plan features are available as soon as Paddle has confirmed your payment.
5. Right of withdrawal for consumers
If you are a consumer, you have a statutory right to withdraw from the purchase of a paid plan within 14 days. Paddle provides the withdrawal information during checkout. You can declare your withdrawal to Paddle or without login at webcam.io/cancel; we then carry it out via Paddle. Beyond your statutory rights and unless these Terms say otherwise, payments for a billing period that has already started are not refunded.
6. Term and termination
6.1 The contract runs for an indefinite period.
6.2 You can cancel a paid plan at any time with effect from the end of the current billing period: in your dashboard or without login at webcam.io/cancel. Your account then continues on the free plan.
6.3 [Only if yearly plans exist:] If you are a consumer and your plan has renewed after an initial term of more than one month, you can cancel at any time with one month’s notice; fees paid in advance for the remaining time are refunded pro rata.
6.4 You can delete your account at any time in your profile. This ends the contract and deletes your content within hours. Deleting your account does NOT cancel a running paid plan from Paddle. Cancel your running subscription via webcam.io/subscriptions.
6.5 We may terminate a free plan with 30 days’ notice by email, and a paid plan with 30 days’ notice to the end of a billing period.
6.6 Either party may terminate without notice for good cause. Good cause for us includes in particular serious or repeated violations of sections 8 and 9.
6.7 Notices of termination can be given in text form, for example by email.
6.8 We may delete free accounts that have not been used for 12 months, after a reminder by email at least 30 days in advance.
6.9 If we terminate the contract, you have at least 30 days to export your content, unless continued hosting would be unlawful.
7. Your content and the rights you grant us
7.1 “User Content” is everything you submit to the Service: images fetched from your camera or uploaded by FTP, streams, time-lapse videos and clips rendered from them, and texts such as titles and descriptions. You keep all rights in your User Content.
7.2 You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free right to store, reproduce and process your User Content (for example to scale images, render videos and add the overlays you configure), to transmit it to the platforms you connect, and – where you set a webcam to public or embed a widget – to make it publicly available. This right exists solely for operating the Service for you and ends when you delete the content or your account. Public webcam pages show the name and website you entered. Visitors may view public content; any further use requires your consent.
7.3 You decide for each webcam whether it is public or private. Private content is accessible only to you when logged in. We access your User Content only to operate the Service, to give support at your request, to handle reports and to comply with legal obligations.
8. Your responsibilities as a camera operator
You decide what your camera records and whether it is published. You are responsible for operating it lawfully. In particular:
- make sure you have a legal basis under data protection law if persons, licence plates or other personal data can be identified, and avoid identifiability where possible through camera position, resolution or masking;
- inform the persons concerned where the law requires it, for example with signs;
- do not record neighbouring property or public space beyond what the law permits;
- observe employee data protection and co-determination rules at workplaces and construction sites;
- do not transmit audio of conversations;
- only connect cameras and streams that you own or are authorised to use;
- secure your camera (no default passwords); making a camera reachable from the internet is at your own risk.
Where your User Content contains personal data, we process it on your behalf. Our Data Processing Agreement (on request) then applies and forms part of these Terms.
9. Prohibited content
You may not use webcam.io to store, stream or publish:
- content that is illegal under German or EU law or that infringes the rights of others (copyright, trademarks, privacy and personality rights);
- images or streams from hidden cameras, or from cameras covering areas where people can reasonably expect privacy;
- images or streams showing identifiable persons without a legal basis under data protection law;
- pornographic or sexually explicit content, or other content that is only suitable for adults under German law;
- webcams or streams that you do not own or are not authorised to use.
10. Content moderation
We do not pre-screen or generally monitor User Content. We review content when we receive a report or otherwise become aware of a possible violation. Reviews are carried out manually by a person; we do not use automated tools or algorithmic decision-making for content moderation.
If content is illegal or violates these Terms, we may, depending on the severity and frequency of the violation:
- remove the content or disable public access to it (webcam page, clips, widgets),
- suspend the affected webcam or stream,
- suspend or terminate your account. Accounts are terminated only after a prior warning, unless the violation is serious.
We will inform you of any such measure by email, at the latest when it takes effect, and state our reasons. If you think a decision is wrong, reply to that email or write to contact@webcam.io; a person will review your objection. Your right to take legal action remains unaffected.
11. Reporting content
Anyone can report content at webcam.io/report. We confirm receipt, decide in a timely, diligent and objective manner, and inform the reporting person of our decision. Our contact points for authorities and users under the EU Digital Services Act are listed in the Imprint.
12. Export and deletion of your data
You can export your images and videos at any time using the download options in your profile or the automatic export to Dropbox or YouTube. When a paid plan ends, your account continues on the free plan and export remains possible; content beyond the limits of the free plan is deleted according to its image history time. When the contract ends, we delete your account data and User Content, except where the law requires us to keep data. Details are in our Privacy Policy.
13. Integrations and third-party platforms
13.1 Connecting YouTube or Dropbox is optional. Your contract with those platforms remains your own.
13.2 By using the YouTube connection you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service.
13.3 Auto-delete permanently deletes videos in your YouTube account whose title or description matches your search term. You are responsible for choosing a term that matches only the videos you want to delete.
14. Fair use of website, API and widgets
Use the API and widgets as described in the documentation. Do not circumvent plan limits or technical protection, do not access the Service with automated systems in a way that burdens it more than ordinary use, and do not resell the Service without our consent. Accounts are not transferable without our consent.
15. Our rights
The website, software, documentation and the webcam.io name and logo are protected by copyright and trademark law. You receive a simple, non-transferable right to use them for the duration of the contract to the extent needed to use the Service.
16. Liability
16.1 We are liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, and to the extent of any guarantee we have given.
16.2 In cases of slight negligence we are liable only for the breach of an essential contractual obligation, meaning an obligation whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on which you may regularly rely. Liability is then limited to the foreseeable damage typical for this type of contract.
16.3 For the free plan and the free trial, liability for slight negligence is excluded. Section 16.1 remains unaffected.
16.4 We keep no backups of image and video files (section 3.5). For the loss of such files we are liable under section 16.2 only to the extent that the loss could not have been avoided by you exporting your content regularly.
16.5 These limitations also apply in favour of our employees and agents.
16.6 Statutory warranty rights of consumers for digital products remain unaffected.
17. Indemnity
If third parties, including authorities, assert claims against us because your User Content or the operation of your camera violates their rights or the law, you indemnify us against these claims and bear the reasonable costs of our legal defence, unless you are not responsible for the violation. We will inform you without delay and give you the opportunity to defend the claim.
18. Changes to these Terms
18.1 We may change these Terms for valid reasons – in particular changes in the law or case law, new features or security requirements – provided the change does not shift the balance between our Service and your payment to your detriment.
18.2 We will inform you of the changes by email at least six weeks before they take effect. If you do not object in text form within that period, the changes are deemed accepted; we will point this out in the email. If you object, the contract continues unchanged and either party may terminate it with ordinary notice.
18.3 Changes to the core of the Service or to prices are not made under this section; sections 3.6 and 4.4 apply.
19. Final provisions
19.1 German law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. If you are a consumer habitually resident in the EU, you also enjoy the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence.
19.2 Statutory places of jurisdiction apply to consumers.
19.3 If you are a merchant, a legal entity under public law or a special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction is Hamburg, Germany.
19.4 Declarations relating to this contract can be made in text form, for example by email to contact@webcam.io.
19.5 We are neither willing nor obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.
19.6 If a provision of these Terms is or becomes invalid, the remaining provisions stay in force.
19.7 These Terms are available in English only.
