Terms of Service

1. Who we are

DanceDuels is operated from Lucerne, Switzerland ("DanceDuels", "we", "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") form a binding agreement between you and DanceDuels governing your access to and use of the DanceDuels mobile application and related services (the "Service"). By creating an account you confirm that you have read, understood and accept these Terms.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account and use the Service. By registering, you represent and warrant that:

• you are 16 years of age or older;
• you have the legal capacity to enter into these Terms; and
• all information you provide during registration is accurate and kept up to date.

If we learn that an account is held by a person under 16, we will suspend and delete that account.

3. Account registration

To use most features you must register an account using your name, a valid email address and a password. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials, all activity that occurs under your account, and notifying us promptly at privacy@danceduels.app of any unauthorised use.

4. The Service

DanceDuels lets you watch short dance videos in head-to-head duels and vote on all three criteria (Musicality, Skills, Expression) before advancing. As a Contender you may upload portrait dance videos between 15 and 30 seconds. Rankings are produced solely from community votes using an Elo rating system that is calculated server-side and is final. There is no jury: DanceDuels suggests which performances meet in a duel (for example by similar points and how often a video has been judged), but the outcome is decided only by community votes. DanceDuels does not guarantee any particular ranking, outcome, or level of visibility for uploaded content.

5. User-generated content & liability

DanceDuels is a hosting provider for user-generated content within the meaning of the Swiss Federal Act on Data Protection (nDSG) and Article 6 of the EU Digital Services Act (DSA). We do not pre-screen or endorse videos uploaded by Contenders. You are solely responsible for all content you upload. DanceDuels is not liable for user-uploaded content, except where liability cannot be excluded under mandatory Swiss law.

6. Music & audio rights

Users are solely responsible for ensuring they have all necessary rights to any music or audio included in uploaded videos. DanceDuels operates as a hosting platform under Swiss hosting provider liability (Art. 12 nDSG / EU DSA Art. 6) and is not liable for user-uploaded audio content. Repeated copyright violations will result in account suspension. Contact: privacy@danceduels.app.

DanceDuels uses an automated song/audio recognition service (AudD) on uploaded videos solely to support our Swiss music-rights reporting obligations (SUISA / Swissperform). This recognition process does not create, transfer, or affect any music rights — it only helps identify what was used, for reporting purposes. It does not replace your own responsibility to have the necessary rights.

DanceDuels does not acquire ownership of any third-party music or audio that may be embedded in your video, and the licence you grant us in Section 7 extends only to rights you are legally able to grant — it does not, and cannot, grant us any right in music or audio you do not own or control. If DanceDuels ever processes audio for future product or AI/ML/CV purposes as described in our Privacy Policy, that remains subject to this same limitation: only where legally permitted and only to the extent of rights actually held.

7. Content and licence

You retain ownership of your User Content and any rights you legitimately hold in it. DanceDuels does not take ownership of your video, your performance, or any music or third-party material it may contain (see Section 6). By uploading, you grant DanceDuels a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to use your User Content as reasonably necessary to operate, provide, secure, maintain, improve and support the Service, including to:

• host, store, reproduce and copy it;
• encode, transcode, compress or otherwise technically modify its format or size;
• stream, display and distribute it within the Service, including generating thumbnails or previews;
• run it in Duels, Video Rating mode, and other competition features, and compute rankings, results and other product functionality from it;
• moderate it, including reviewing, restricting, or removing it under Section 11;
• back it up and archive it — including the private archived copy described in our Privacy Policy — for service continuity, disaster recovery and preservation of competition-history media;
• analyze it technically to operate and secure the Service and to create the derived, platform-generated information described in Section 8; and
• sublicense it to the service providers described in our Privacy Policy, strictly as needed for them to provide services to us — not for those providers' own independent purposes.

This licence does not make DanceDuels an owner of your content, and it does not by itself authorize sale of your raw video, independent third-party AI training on it, or dataset licensing to outside parties — see Section 8 for how we address possible future AI/ML/computer-vision use. This content licence is a separate legal question from how we process personal data under applicable privacy law; our Privacy Policy governs that separately, and neither document substitutes for the other.

8. Derived and platform-generated information

Using the Service also generates information that DanceDuels itself creates, separate from your User Content — for example rankings, Elo/rating values, Duel and Community Rating outcomes, rivalry and head-to-head metrics, performance trends, and identity features such as Dance Signature or Judge Signature where available to you. This also includes the human judgments other users contribute about your content — Musicality, Skills and Expression votes, pairwise A/B decisions, and Community Ratings — which are platform interaction data, not your own User Content, and not automatically anonymous.

DanceDuels may create and use this derived, aggregated, statistical and analytical information to operate, secure and improve the Service, subject to applicable privacy law as described in our Privacy Policy.

DanceDuels may in the future introduce artificial-intelligence, machine-learning, computer-vision or similar technologies — for example for content or movement analysis, performance insights, model development and evaluation, research, safety/integrity/moderation technology, recommendations, or coaching-style features. This Section preserves that possibility; it does not mean such processing already occurs today, and it does not by itself authorize any specific future use. Any material new processing of personal data for such purposes remains subject to our Privacy Policy, applicable law, and any additional notice, consent, or other authorization required at that time.

9. Optional paid features

DanceDuels may offer optional paid subscriptions or in-app purchases that unlock additional features. Subscriptions are billed and managed through the Apple App Store or Google Play, and are subject to their respective terms, including auto-renewal, cancellation, and refund policies. If a subscription ends or is cancelled, the associated paid features become inaccessible, but your underlying data is not deleted and remains available if you resubscribe.

10. Uploads, performers & background persons

When you upload a video, you confirm that it is your own video and that YOU are the featured performer being evaluated. DanceDuels does not allow tagging, naming, or designating any other person as the featured performer in your upload. Other people may incidentally appear in the background — such persons are not evaluated, ranked, or featured by DanceDuels.

11. Prohibited conduct

• upload unlawful, infringing, or harmful content;
• upload or post objectionable content, including nudity or sexual content, graphic violence, hate speech, or content that bullies, demeans or discriminates against others;
• harass, threaten or abuse other users;
• attempt unauthorised access to the Service or other accounts.

Any content that sexually exploits or endangers minors is strictly prohibited and will result in immediate account termination, content removal, and mandatory reporting to relevant authorities including KOBIK (Switzerland) and NCMEC. DanceDuels has zero tolerance for such content.

DanceDuels has zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users. You can report any video using the report option on that video, report a dancer’s profile (photo, name or bio) from their profile, and block any dancer from the same place — videos of dancers you block no longer appear for you. We aim to review reports within 24 hours and remove content that violates these Terms; the responsible account may be suspended or terminated.

We may review, restrict the visibility of, or remove content, and suspend or terminate accounts, in response to violations of these Terms, abuse reports, or legitimate legal requests. Reviewing reported content does not mean we monitor all content in advance, and removal decisions do not require us to explain our internal moderation process. Where legally necessary, we may preserve evidence of a violation even after the related content or account is otherwise removed.

12. Termination

You may delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these Terms, legal requirements, or to protect other users.

Depending on your competition history, deleting your account may result in either full deletion of your account, or anonymization and deactivation of your personal profile while certain competition records are preserved for other users' legitimate competition history — see our Privacy Policy for the full explanation. We do not promise that every copy of your content is deleted immediately and everywhere the moment your account is deleted, precisely because that competition-history preservation, security logging, and legally required retention (described in our Privacy Policy) may require certain records or copies to persist for a limited, purpose-bound period.

On termination, the licence granted in Section 7 ends for new, active use of your content in the live Service, but continues only to the limited extent necessary for: backups and the private archive described in Section 5 of our Privacy Policy; legal, accounting, or regulatory obligations; and the historically relevant competition records described in this Section and our Privacy Policy. Account termination does not, by itself, grant DanceDuels any new, open-ended right to use your former content for future AI/ML/CV purposes beyond what is described in Section 8 — any such future use would follow the same notice/consent/legal-basis process described there, not a right created merely by your account ending.

13. Disclaimers & limitation of liability

The Service is provided "as is" without warranties to the fullest extent permitted by Swiss law. To the maximum extent permitted by law, DanceDuels shall not be liable for indirect or consequential damages arising from your use of the Service.

14. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by Swiss law. The exclusive place of jurisdiction is Lucerne, Switzerland, subject to mandatory consumer protections.

15. Contact

DanceDuels, Lucerne, Switzerland
privacy@danceduels.app