Acceptable Use Policy

1. Purpose and scope

This Acceptable Use Policy (“AUP”) explains how rushes may and may not be used.

It applies to everyone who accesses or uses rushes, including account holders and people who use an account with the account holder’s permission.

It applies to all use of the Service, including:

• uploaded videos and other files;
• public and private videos;
• portfolios and profiles;
• embeds;
• review and screening links;
• titles, descriptions, subtitles and metadata;
• comments and other communications;
• account and payment activity;
• APIs and automated access; and
• any other rushes feature or infrastructure.

This AUP forms part of the rushes Terms of Service.

Account holders are responsible for ensuring that employees, contractors, collaborators and other authorised users of their account comply with this policy.

2. Permitted use

rushes is intended primarily for video hosting, filmmaking, creative work and related professional and community activity.

Permitted uses include:

• hosting and sharing your own video work;
• hosting work that you are authorised to distribute;
• creating a professional portfolio or showreel;
• embedding videos on websites and other services;
• sharing private or public screening links;
• client review and approval;
• festival and industry screening;
• collaboration between filmmakers and other creative professionals;
• commercial hosting and distribution;
• community participation; and
• other lawful uses consistent with the intended purpose of the Service.

Commercial use is permitted.

3. General legal requirement

You must use rushes in accordance with applicable law.

You must not use rushes to commit, encourage, promote, organise or facilitate criminal activity.

You must not use rushes to host, transmit or distribute material where doing so is unlawful.

A type of content or activity does not become permitted merely because it is not specifically listed in this AUP.

4. Child sexual exploitation and abuse

rushes has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation and abuse.

You must not upload, create, share, solicit, distribute, advertise, link to or facilitate access to:

• child sexual abuse material;
• sexual exploitation or abuse of a child;
• material that sexualises children;
• grooming or attempted grooming;
• sexual extortion involving a child;
• instructions or encouragement relating to child sexual exploitation; or
• other material or activity involving the sexual abuse or exploitation of children.

Where we identify material that we reasonably believe constitutes child sexual abuse material or related criminal activity, we may immediately restrict access, preserve relevant evidence and report the matter to appropriate authorities.

5. Terrorism and violent extremism

You must not use rushes to:

• encourage, prepare or facilitate acts of terrorism;
• provide operational instructions for terrorist acts;
• recruit for a proscribed terrorist organisation;
• distribute material on behalf of a proscribed organisation where prohibited by law;
• solicit funding or other support for terrorism; or
• otherwise use the Service in connection with an offence under applicable terrorism legislation.

Documentary, journalistic, historical, educational or artistic material concerning terrorism is not prohibited merely because it depicts or discusses terrorism, provided its context and use do not themselves violate this policy or applicable law.

6. Violence, threats and harassment

You must not use rushes to:

• make credible threats of violence;
• encourage or incite violence against an individual or group;
• stalk or unlawfully harass another person;
• publish material for the purpose of facilitating serious harassment or violence;
• coordinate violent attacks; or
• provide information intended to enable serious physical harm.

Documentary, fictional, journalistic and artistic depictions of violence are permitted provided they do not otherwise breach this policy.

7. Hate and incitement

You must not use rushes to promote or incite hatred, violence or unlawful discrimination against people based on protected characteristics or other characteristics protected by applicable law.

This does not prevent legitimate documentary, journalistic, historical, academic, artistic or critical discussion of hateful beliefs or organisations.

Context will be considered when assessing material under this section.

8. Suicide and self-harm

You must not use rushes to encourage, promote or provide instructions intended to facilitate suicide or serious self-harm.

Documentary, educational, journalistic, artistic and personal material discussing suicide or self-harm is permitted provided it does not encourage or facilitate harmful activity.

9. Intimate and sexual material

rushes does not permit pornographic content.

You must not upload or distribute:

• pornography;
• non-consensual intimate or sexual images;
• intimate images shared or threatened to be shared without the subject’s consent;
• sexual material created through coercion or exploitation;
• sexual deepfakes or manipulated intimate imagery distributed without lawful consent; or
• material that otherwise constitutes unlawful intimate-image abuse.

Legitimate non-pornographic artistic, documentary, educational or narrative depictions of sexuality or nudity may be permitted where lawful.

10. Fraud, deception and financial crime

You must not use rushes to:

• commit or facilitate fraud;
• operate scams;
• impersonate another person or organisation for a fraudulent purpose;
• conduct phishing;
• facilitate money laundering;
• obtain money, property, credentials or personal information through deception;
• distribute deliberately fraudulent investment or financial material; or
• otherwise facilitate financial crime.

You must not use fraudulent or stolen payment details to purchase rushes services.

Chargebacks, refunds, promotional offers or referral systems must not be deliberately manipulated or abused.

11. Drugs, weapons and unlawful goods or services

You must not use rushes to advertise, sell, supply or facilitate transactions involving goods or services where the transaction would be unlawful.

This includes, where prohibited by applicable law:

• controlled drugs;
• prohibited weapons;
• illegal firearms;
• explosives;
• stolen goods;
• counterfeit goods;
• unlawfully obtained personal information; and
• other prohibited or regulated goods.

Documentary, journalistic, fictional or educational material depicting or discussing these subjects is not prohibited merely because of its subject matter.

12. Intellectual property

You must not knowingly use rushes to infringe another person’s copyright, trademark or other intellectual-property rights.

You must have appropriate rights or permission for content you upload.

Good-faith disputes concerning ownership or licensing will be assessed on the information available to us and may be handled through our intellectual-property reporting process.

13. Privacy, confidential information and impersonation

You must not use rushes to:

• unlawfully publish another person’s private or confidential information;
• obtain or disclose personal data unlawfully;
• impersonate another person or organisation in a materially deceptive manner;
• misrepresent an account as officially representing someone else without authorisation; or
• facilitate identity theft.

Parody, satire, fiction and legitimate creative portrayal are not prohibited merely because they portray a real person, provided they are not used unlawfully or deceptively.

14. Defamation and other unlawful content

You must not knowingly use rushes to publish material that is unlawful, including defamatory material where publication is not protected by an applicable defence.

We do not ordinarily adjudicate complex private legal disputes between users and third parties. However, we may restrict material where required by law, court order or another binding legal obligation.

15. Spam and abusive communications

You must not use rushes to:

• send bulk unsolicited messages;
• operate spam campaigns;
• distribute repetitive promotional content in an abusive manner;
• manipulate comments, likes, follows, views or other engagement systems;
• use deceptive links or redirects; or
• repeatedly contact another user after being clearly asked to stop where the contact amounts to abuse or harassment.

16. Security and infrastructure misuse

You must not interfere with or attempt to compromise rushes, its infrastructure, its users or connected systems.

Prohibited activity includes:

• introducing malware, ransomware, spyware or malicious code;
• attempting unauthorised access to accounts, servers, databases or infrastructure;
• exploiting or attempting to exploit vulnerabilities for a malicious purpose;
• credential stuffing or brute-force attacks;
• denial-of-service or distributed denial-of-service attacks;
• deliberately overloading or disrupting infrastructure;
• circumventing authentication, permissions, privacy controls or security measures;
• accessing private content without authorisation;
• interfering with video access restrictions or password protection;
• probing systems in a manner that creates a security or availability risk; or
• using rushes infrastructure to attack another service or person.

If you discover a security vulnerability, you should report it to us rather than exploit it.

Good-faith security research will be considered in context, but you should obtain permission before conducting testing that could affect production systems, user data or availability.

17. Automated access and technical abuse

You must not use bots, scripts, crawlers, automated accounts or other automated systems in a manner that:

• creates unreasonable load on rushes infrastructure;
• circumvents technical restrictions;
• artificially manipulates engagement or analytics;
• mass-creates accounts;
• scrapes private or access-controlled content;
• collects personal data unlawfully; or
• interferes with normal operation of the Service.

Normal operation of authorised integrations, embeds, search engines and features expressly provided by rushes is permitted.

We may apply reasonable rate limits and other technical controls to automated activity.

18. Circumvention of access controls

You must not attempt to bypass controls placed on content by its uploader or by rushes.

This includes attempting to circumvent:

• passwords;
• privacy settings;
• unlisted or private-video restrictions;
• domain-level embed restrictions;
• account permissions;
• geographic or legal restrictions;
• download restrictions; or
• other access controls.

19. Sanctions and restricted persons

You must not use rushes where doing so would cause you or rushes.cc Ltd to breach applicable sanctions, trade restrictions or other legal prohibitions.

You must not use the Service on behalf of, or to provide prohibited services to, a person, entity or organisation where doing so would violate applicable sanctions law.

This includes sanctions and restrictions applicable to rushes.cc Ltd as a company established in the United Kingdom.

We may restrict or terminate access where reasonably necessary to comply with sanctions or other binding legal requirements.

20. High-risk use

We may restrict uses of rushes that create a material and unreasonable legal, security, financial or operational risk to the Service, our users or third parties.

We will exercise this power reasonably and proportionately.

Where practicable, we will explain the basis for a restriction and provide an opportunity to resolve the issue.

This provision does not allow us to arbitrarily restrict lawful use merely because we disagree with the views expressed in content.

21. Responsibility for other people using your account

You are responsible for use of your account by people to whom you intentionally provide access.

This may include:

• employees;
• production team members;
• contractors;
• clients;
• collaborators; and
• other authorised users.

You should provide access only to people who need it and take reasonable steps to protect account credentials.

If you believe access has been compromised, notify us promptly at support@rushes.cc.

22. Reporting violations

If you believe content or activity on rushes violates this AUP or applicable law, you can report it:

• through the Report function available on video pages where provided; or
• by emailing support@rushes.cc.

A useful report should, where possible, include:

• the URL or location of the content;
• the nature of the concern; and
• any relevant supporting information.

Reports may be made by people who do not have a rushes account.

23. Monitoring and investigation

We do not undertake to manually review every piece of content uploaded to rushes.

We may review content, account activity, reports and relevant technical information where reasonably necessary to:

• investigate suspected violations;
• respond to reports;
• protect users or third parties;
• protect the security and integrity of rushes;
• prevent fraud or misuse;
• comply with law; or
• enforce these Terms and this AUP.

We may preserve relevant information while an investigation is taking place or where required for legal, security or evidential purposes.

Our exercise of these rights does not transfer responsibility for uploaded content from the uploader to rushes.

24. Enforcement

Where we reasonably determine that this AUP has been breached, we may take action proportionate to the nature, severity and history of the violation.

Possible actions include:

• issuing a warning;
• requesting corrective action;
• limiting particular functionality;
• restricting access to content;
• removing content;
• temporarily suspending an account;
• permanently terminating an account;
• preventing creation of replacement accounts;
• preserving evidence;
• restricting access from particular technical sources; or
• reporting suspected unlawful activity to a competent authority.

Serious illegal content, active security threats, fraud, child sexual abuse material, terrorism-related offences or other urgent risks may result in immediate action without prior notice.

Where appropriate, repeated violations may result in stronger action than an isolated minor violation.

We will seek to apply this policy consistently and proportionately.

25. Legal requests and authorities

We may remove or restrict content, preserve information or disclose information where required by applicable law, a valid court order or another legally binding request.

Where we reasonably believe activity constitutes a serious criminal offence, we may refer the matter to an appropriate law-enforcement or regulatory authority.

Any disclosure of personal data will be handled in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable data-protection law.

26. Appeals

If we remove your content or restrict, suspend or terminate your account under this AUP and you believe the decision was incorrect, you may appeal.

Appeals should be sent to support@rushes.cc within 28 days and should explain:

• which decision you are appealing;
• why you believe it was incorrect; and
• any relevant supporting information.

Content may remain restricted while an appeal is considered.

We aim to review appeals within 14 working days where practicable.

27. Changes to this policy

We may update this AUP to reflect changes in law, regulation, the Service, security risks or patterns of misuse.

Where a change materially affects registered users, we will provide reasonable notice, normally by email or through rushes.

The current version of this policy will always be available on rushes.cc.

28. Contact