Terms, Refunds, Privacy and Community Rules

Seed the Earth (the “service”) is run by SeedTheEarth, EM Block, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700091, West Bengal. (“we”, “us”). By creating an account, holding pixels or paying for them, you agree to these Terms, the Refund and Cancellation Policy, the Privacy Policy and the Community Rules on this page. If you do not agree, please do not use the service.

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter into a binding contract under Indian law to create an account or make a payment.

Seed the Earth is a shared online canvas of 1,000 by 1,000 pixels. People choose pixels on it and display their own artwork there, under a username, for everyone to see. It is a creative project and an online display service.

When your payment is confirmed, we give you a personal, limited, non-transferable licence to display and change your own artwork at the pixel coordinates you chose, linked to your account, for as long as the service operates and you follow these Terms. On the site we call this “planting” and call the pixels “yours”; this clause is what those words mean.

Planting pixels does not give you, and we do not sell:

• land, real estate, property or any physical thing;
• a share, security, deposit, investment, token, cryptocurrency or anything with a promised or expected financial return;
• a stored balance, wallet or anything that can be exchanged for money;
• any right to resell, rent, trade, gift or transfer the pixels to another person;
• any promise that the canvas, or your place on it, will gain value, attract visitors or exist for ever.

Levels, ranks, founder numbers, being watered or featured, and leaderboard positions shown on the site are for fun and recognition only. They carry no prize, reward or monetary value, and cannot be transferred.

• You sign up with an email address and a password. Keep your password to yourself; you are responsible for what is done with your account.
• You are given a random username, which is public. You can change it up to three times. A username someone has used is not given to anyone else.
• We may change a username that impersonates another person or organisation, or that breaks the Community Rules.
• One person should not operate accounts in order to get around limits on the service.

• Selecting “Hold these pixels” reserves them for you for a short, stated time (10 minutes, extended to 15 once payment has started). A hold is free and is not a purchase. If it runs out, the pixels become available to others.
• To keep the canvas fair, we limit how many pixels one person can hold at a time and how often holds can be left to lapse.
• One purchase can be up to ₹5,00,000 (10,000 pixels). A larger artwork is held as several areas, each paid for separately. Your bank or payment method may have a lower limit of its own.
• The price is ₹50 per pixel. The total is shown before you pay and is the full amount charged: we add no fees or taxes at payment. Prices may change for future purchases; a change never affects pixels you have already planted.
• Payments are handled by Razorpay, a payment service provider. You enter your card, UPI or bank details in Razorpay’s window, not on our site, and we never receive or store them. Razorpay’s own terms apply to the payment.
• Your pixels are planted when Razorpay confirms that the payment has been received in full. If a payment is received but the pixels cannot be given to you, the Refund and Cancellation Policy applies.

• You keep all rights you have in the artwork and titles you put on the canvas.
• You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, reproduce and display that artwork and title as part of the canvas and in showing the canvas to others (for example in previews and screenshots of the service), for as long as it is on the canvas and for a reasonable period afterwards in backups.
• You confirm that the artwork is your own or that you have the right to use it, and that it does not break the Community Rules or any law.
• If you upload an image, it is converted into pixels for your area. The original file is not kept, and information stored inside it (such as location or camera details) is discarded.
• Everything you plant is public. You can change your artwork and its title at any time at no cost.
• You can add a story to any piece (bigger pieces have room for a longer one, up to 2,000 characters), and up to four links to any piece. Stories and links are public. A link must go to a page you have the right to promote and that follows the Community Rules. We do not check, endorse or take responsibility for pages that other people link to; you open them at your own choice.
• Every piece has its own page that can be shared. The share buttons are ordinary links: nothing is sent to a social network unless you choose one.

• Any signed-in person can report a piece. We do not tell the person who planted a piece who reported it.
• A piece that has received a very large number of reports may be shown blurred to everyone until a moderator has looked at it.
• A moderator may hide a piece that breaks the Community Rules. A hidden piece is not shown to the public. Its pixels stay with your account, you are told the reason, and you can change the piece and ask for another look (up to three times for one piece).
• We may suspend or close an account for serious or repeated breaches.
• Hiding a piece, or suspending an account, for breaking these Terms does not entitle you to a refund.

If the full amount paid for a set of pixels is returned to you, whether by us or by your bank after a dispute or chargeback, the licence for those pixels ends. They are removed from your account and become available to others.

• The software, design, name and logo of Seed the Earth belong to us or our licensors. These Terms do not give you any right in them.
• You must not misuse the service: for example by trying to access other people’s accounts, interfering with how it runs, automating holds or sign-ups, or using it to do anything unlawful.
• We work to keep the service available and correct, but we provide it “as is”. We may change, pause or improve features, and we do not promise that it will be uninterrupted or free of errors.
• If we decide to close the service, we will give at least 30 days’ notice on the site, and by email where we can, and will explain what happens to planted pixels.

Nothing in these Terms limits any right you have as a consumer under Indian law, including the Consumer Protection Act, 2019, that cannot lawfully be limited. Subject to that, and to the fullest extent the law allows:

• we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, business, reputation or expected benefit;
• our total liability to you for any claim connected with the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose.

You agree to compensate us for reasonable losses and costs we incur because artwork or other content you put on the service infringes someone else’s rights or breaks the law.

You can stop using the service at any time, and you can ask us to delete your account by writing to support@seedtheearth.in. When an account is deleted, its pixels are released and its artwork is removed from the canvas. Deleting an account does not entitle you to a refund.

We may update these Terms. The date at the top shows when they last changed. For a change that significantly affects your rights, we will give at least 15 days’ notice on the site before it takes effect. Continuing to use the service after that means you accept the change.

These Terms are governed by the laws of India. Please contact our Grievance Officer first; most problems can be resolved that way. Subject to any right you have to approach a consumer forum, the courts at KOLKATA have exclusive jurisdiction.

Planting pixels is a digital service that is delivered at once: your artwork appears on the canvas within moments of your payment being confirmed. Nothing is shipped. All prices are in Indian rupees and are the full amount you pay.

A hold costs nothing. You can release it at any time before paying, or simply let it run out. Closing the payment window without paying charges you nothing.

You do not need to ask. We refund the full amount, to the method you paid with, when:

• your payment was received but the pixels could not be given to you, for example because the hold had ended by the time the payment arrived;
• the amount taken was not the amount shown to you;
• you were charged more than once for the same order.

We never give you different pixels in place of the ones you chose. These refunds are made by our team and are started within 7 working days. Your bank or payment app may then take a further 5 to 7 working days to show the money. You can follow the status under “Your payments” in your profile.

Because the service is delivered immediately and your artwork is public at once, a completed purchase cannot be cancelled or refunded for a change of mind. You can change your artwork and its title as often as you like, free of charge.

If you believe a completed purchase went wrong for a reason not covered above, write to us and we will look at it. Where we agree to a refund, or a refund is made after a payment dispute, the pixels are removed from your account as described in the Terms.

If money left your account but the payment shows as failed, it was not received by us. Your bank or Razorpay normally returns it automatically within 5 to 7 working days. If it does not arrive, write to us with the date and amount and we will help trace it.

A piece that is hidden, or an account that is suspended, for breaking the Terms or the Community Rules is not refunded.

Write to support@seedtheearth.in from the email address on your account, with your username and the date and amount of the payment. We acknowledge refund requests within 2 working days.

SeedTheEarth, EM Block, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700091, West Bengal., decides how and why your personal information is used on Seed the Earth. This policy is written to meet the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023 and the Information Technology Act, 2000 and its rules.

• Email address. To create your account, let you sign in and contact you about your account or a payment. It is private: no other user ever sees it.
• Password. We store only a one-way scrambled form of it (an Argon2id hash). We cannot read your password, and nobody at Seed the Earth will ever ask you for it.
• Username. Given to you at random when you sign up; it is not made from your email address. It is public.
• Profile details you choose to add (a short bio, a location, links). Optional. Shown to signed-in users.
• Your artwork, its title, any story and links you add to it, and where it is on the canvas. Public. This is the purpose of the service.
• Pieces you water. When you “water” a piece to say you like it, we keep a record of that so it counts once. Only the total is shown; nobody, including the piece’s owner, is shown who watered it.
• Views and link clicks. We count how many times a piece is opened and how many times its links are followed, and show those two numbers to the person who planted it. We do not record who looked or who clicked.
• Payment records. The amount, the date, the status, Razorpay’s reference for the order and payment, and the time you agreed to these terms. We do not receive or store your card number, UPI ID, bank details or the phone number you give Razorpay.
• A record of actions on your account (signing in, holding and planting pixels, changing your profile or username, reports and appeals you make). To keep the service secure, resolve disputes and investigate abuse.
• Technical information. Your IP address is used for a short time to limit abuse (for example repeated sign-in attempts), is held in memory for up to half an hour so that one visit to a piece is counted once, and may appear in server logs kept by our hosting provider.

If you upload an image, it is converted to pixels and then discarded; we do not keep the original or the information stored inside it. We do not collect your contacts, your precise location or any government identity number.

• Everyone: your username, your pixel face (drawn from your username), your artwork and titles, the story and links you add to a piece, where your pixels are, your place on the leaderboard, and your founder number if you have one. Anyone can find your pieces and your username through search.
• Signed-in users: also your bio, location and links if you added them, the date you joined, and how many pixels and pieces you have.
• Moderators: also the username of a person who reported a piece, and the notes on reports and appeals. Moderators do not see email addresses.
• Nobody else: your email address, your payment history and your account activity are visible only to you and to the small number of our staff who need them to run the service.

We use your information with your consent, given when you create an account and when you pay, and for the purposes you have asked for: running your account, displaying your artwork and taking your payment. We also use it where the law permits or requires, for example to keep tax and transaction records, to prevent fraud and abuse, and to respond to lawful requests.

• Razorpay, to take your payment. Razorpay collects your payment details directly from you and handles them under its own privacy policy.
• Hosting and infrastructure providers that run our servers and database on our behalf and under our instructions, including Vercel, which serves the site and counts page views for us.
• Authorities, when we are legally required to, or to protect someone’s safety or our legal rights.

We do not sell your personal information, and we do not share it with advertisers.

We use one cookie, and it is essential: it keeps you signed in. Page scripts cannot read it. We also keep a few items in your browser’s own storage:

• a note that this browser has signed in before, so we do not check on every page;
• the drawing you are working on in the studio;
• your choice of whether your pixels are outlined on the canvas;
• your choice of whether a sound plays when you plant.

We count page views with Vercel Web Analytics, which sets no cookie and does not identify you: it records which page was opened, the country, and the kind of device and browser. We do not use advertising or analytics cookies and we do not track you across other sites. When you pay, Razorpay’s window may set its own cookies under its policy.

• Account and profile information: for as long as your account exists.
• When you ask us to delete your account: your profile and artwork are removed and your email address is erased within 30 days.
• Payment and transaction records: for as long as tax and accounting laws require (currently up to eight years), even after an account is deleted.
• Security and audit records: for as long as needed to investigate abuse and resolve disputes, with identifying details removed where possible.

Connections to the service are encrypted. Passwords are stored only as hashes. Sign-in sessions are stored in scrambled form and expire. Access to personal information is limited to staff who need it, and important actions are recorded. No system is perfectly secure; if a breach affects your personal information we will tell you and the Data Protection Board of India as the law requires.

You can:

• see the information we hold about you (most of it is in your profile, including your payments and account activity);
• correct it (your profile and username can be changed there; write to us for your email address);
• ask us to delete your account and erase your personal information;
• withdraw your consent, which means closing your account, since we cannot run it without the information above;
• name another person to exercise these rights for you if you die or become unable to;
• complain to us, and if you are not satisfied, to the Data Protection Board of India.

To use any of these rights, write to support@seedtheearth.in from the email address on your account. We reply within the time the law requires and in any case within 30 days.

Seed the Earth is not for anyone under 18. We do not knowingly collect information from children. If you believe a child has created an account, tell us and we will remove it.

Your information may be processed on servers located outside your state or outside India by the providers named above, as the law permits. We may update this policy; the date at the top shows when it last changed, and we will give notice on the site of any significant change.

Your own artwork: drawings, pixel art, your name or logo, a photo you have the right to use. Everyone, of every age and background, can see the canvas.

Do not plant, in artwork, titles, usernames, bios or links, anything that:

• is illegal in India, or encourages or helps anyone to break the law;
• is hateful, or insults or threatens people because of their religion, caste, race, ethnicity, sex, gender, sexual orientation, disability or origin;
• is sexual, pornographic or obscene, or sexualises or endangers children in any way;
• harasses, bullies, threatens or defames a person, or invades their privacy, including by showing their personal details or image without consent;
• copies someone else’s artwork, logo, trademark or other protected work without permission;
• pretends to be another person, brand, organisation or public authority, or is otherwise meant to deceive;
• promotes gambling, betting, tobacco, drugs, weapons, or scams and get-rich-quick schemes;
• promotes violence, terrorism or self-harm;
• threatens the unity, integrity, defence, security or sovereignty of India, friendly relations with other countries, or public order;
• misuses a national flag, emblem or other protected symbol;
• contains or links to malware, phishing or anything meant to damage a device or steal information.

Open the piece on the canvas and choose “Report this piece”. Reports go to our moderators, and we do not tell the other person who reported them. For anything urgent or unlawful, or if you are not a user, write to our Grievance Officer below.

It may be hidden from the public. The person who planted it is told why and can fix it and ask for another look. Serious or repeated breaches can lead to an account being suspended or closed.

For help with your account, a payment or a refund, or to use your privacy rights, write to support@seedtheearth.in. We aim to reply within 2 working days.

SeedTheEarth
EM Block, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700091, West Bengal.

In line with the Information Technology Act, 2000 and its rules, the Consumer Protection (E-Commerce) Rules, 2020 and the Digital Personal Data Protection Act, 2023, complaints about content on the canvas, about a purchase or about your personal information can be sent to:

Jhon, Grievance Officer
grievance@seedtheearth.in
EM Block, Sector V, Salt Lake, Kolkata 700091, West Bengal.

Please include your name, how to reach you, and enough detail for us to find what you are writing about (for example the coordinates of a piece, or the date and amount of a payment). We acknowledge every complaint within 24 hours and resolve it within 15 days. Complaints about content that exposes a person’s private body or shows them in a sexual act are acted on within 24 hours.