Copyright, DMCA and User Content Policy

This Policy forms part of the Terms of Service (Sections 8 and 9) and the Acceptable Use Policy (Section 3A). It says who owns what on the Service, what licence each side gives, how to complain about content, and what we are legally bound to do if certain content ever appears.

1. What content exists on the Service

EdgeQuote holds very little content, and almost none of it is public. Being precise about that is the foundation of everything below.

Nothing a Homeowner supplies is ever published. The only user-supplied content that reaches the public is a Contractor's own business name and logo, displayed on that Contractor's own estimator.

2. Our content and brand

We own the Service: the software and its source code, the visual design, the estimator templates, the default price sheets and question wording, the "EdgeQuote" and "Beyond the Edge" names, logos and marks, and every document under /legal. They are protected by copyright, trademark and trade-secret law in the United States (17 U.S.C. §101 et seq.; 15 U.S.C. §1051 et seq.) and, under the Berne Convention, in every country in scope.

Contractors receive the limited licence in Terms Section 9 and nothing more. In particular: you may not copy the estimator's design or question logic to build a competing product; you may not remove the "Powered by EdgeQuote" attribution where your plan requires it; and you may use our name and logo only to say, truthfully, that your estimator runs on EdgeQuote. Any feedback you give us may be used without payment or attribution (Terms, Section 2).

3. Contractor content

You own it. Your business name, logo, price sheet, question edits, notes and any other material you enter remain yours.

You license it to us, worldwide, non-exclusively and royalty-free, to host, store, copy, resize, transmit, display and back up that content for the purpose of operating the Service for you, for as long as it is on the Service and for the retention period after that set out in the Privacy Policy. This licence exists because we cannot show your logo on your estimator, email a lead to you, or keep a backup without copying your content; it is not a licence to use your content for anything else. We will not use your name or logo in our own marketing without your separate written consent (Terms, Section 9).

You promise that you own or have the right to use everything you upload; that your logo is yours; that your price sheet and question wording are not copied from a competitor or from any material you do not have a licence to; and that nothing you upload contains anyone else's confidential information or personal data you have no right to share.

4. Homeowner content

Homeowners have no contract with us. The Homeowner Privacy Notice tells them, before they submit, that their answers and any photographs go to the Contractor whose estimator they used, for that project.

• Homeowners keep whatever rights they have in their photographs.
• By uploading a photograph, a Homeowner permits us to store it and show it to that Contractor, and permits that Contractor to use it to assess and quote that project. Nothing more is implied.
• A Contractor may not reuse a Homeowner's photograph in marketing, on a website, or for any other project without the Homeowner's separate, explicit permission.
• Homeowners are asked to photograph only their own property and not to include other people, documents, or vehicle registration plates. There is no automatic redaction; the Contractor must not keep or use an image that shows a third party who has not agreed.
• Photographs are deleted with the lead they belong to, on the schedule in the Privacy Policy. Photographs uploaded but never attached to a submitted lead are purged within hours.

5. Copyright complaints — notice and takedown

We respond to copyright complaints under the notice-and-takedown procedure of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. §512, and we apply the same procedure to complaints from anywhere.

Designated agent. Sebastien Vautier, Beyond the Edge Studio, 4375 N Las Vegas Blvd, Suite 7, PMB 5028, Las Vegas, NV 89115, USA · +1 323-287-4274 · sebastien@beyondtheedgestudio.com. [Registration with the US Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent Directory is pending (owner action, dmca.copyright.gov, USD 6). Until it is complete, safe harbour under §512(c) is not available, and these details must match the registration exactly. NOTES FOR YOUR LAWYER, note 1, gives the steps.]

A valid notice (17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3)) must contain, in writing:

1. a physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorised to act for them;
2. identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed (or a representative list if there are several);
3. identification of the material claimed to be infringing and where it is on the Service, with enough detail for us to find it (for example, the Contractor's business name and the address of their estimator, since almost nothing on the Service has a public address);
4. the complainant's name, address, telephone number and email address;
5. a statement that the complainant has a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and
6. a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that the complainant is the owner or authorised to act for the owner.

Send it to the designated agent by email with "DMCA" in the subject line. A notice missing items 2, 3 or 4 will be answered with a request to complete it; we will not act on a notice that lacks them.

What we do. On receiving a valid notice we act expeditiously: we remove or disable access to the material, usually within two business days, tell the Contractor who uploaded it what was removed and why, and send them a copy of the notice. We do not judge the merits of the complaint at this stage.

Counter-notice (17 U.S.C. §512(g)). If the Contractor believes the material was removed by mistake or misidentification, they may send the designated agent a counter-notice containing: their signature; identification of the removed material and where it was; a statement under penalty of perjury that they have a good-faith belief it was removed by mistake or misidentification; their name, address and telephone number; and a statement that they consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for their address (or, if outside the US, for any district in which we may be found) and will accept service from the complainant. We forward it to the complainant. Unless the complainant tells us within 10 business days that they have filed a court action to restrain the Contractor, we restore the material 10 to 14 business days after receiving the counter-notice.

False claims. Anyone who knowingly and materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, is liable for the resulting damages, including our costs (17 U.S.C. §512(f)).

Repeat infringers (17 U.S.C. §512(i)). We keep a record of every valid notice against each account. An account that receives two valid, uncontested notices within 12 months [PROPOSED DEFAULT] is terminated, and we may terminate sooner where infringement is flagrant. We do not restore terminated accounts.

6. Child sexual abuse material — our legal duty, in plain language

Banning this material in our terms is not the same as reporting it, and reporting it is the law. EdgeQuote stores photographs uploaded by members of the public and is therefore a "provider" under 18 U.S.C. §2258A. That statute imposes the following duties on us, in the United States, whatever our terms say:

• Duty to report. If we obtain actual knowledge of apparent child sexual abuse material on the Service (for example, because a Contractor reports a photograph, or a member of staff sees one while handling a support request), we must report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) through its CyberTipline as soon as reasonably possible. Knowingly and wilfully failing to report is a federal offence, punishable by substantial fines that increase for a repeat failure.
• Duty to preserve. Once a report is made, we must preserve the reported material and the information in the report for one year (extended from 90 days by the REPORT Act of 2024), in a way that keeps it secure and limits access, so that law enforcement can obtain it.
• Protection for reporting. Providers acting in good faith to comply are protected from civil and criminal liability for the report itself (18 U.S.C. §2258B).
• No duty to search. The statute does not require us to monitor or scan for such material (§2258A(f)), and we do not scan photographs. The duty arises on knowledge.

What we will actually do if it ever happens (this is the internal procedure; it exists so that no one has to improvise on the worst day):

1. Do not delete the image and do not forward it to anyone. Deleting it destroys evidence; forwarding it is itself distribution. Do not copy it to a personal device or email.
2. Restrict access at once. Disable the lead's photograph from the Contractor's dashboard so that no one else views it, without deleting the stored record.
3. Report to NCMEC via the CyberTipline (report.cybertip.org). A provider must first register as an Electronic Service Provider with NCMEC to submit reports; [PLACEHOLDER — register in advance so that this is not the first step on the day; proposed default: register before public launch]. Include what the statute asks for: the material, the account and upload details (hashed IP, timestamps, the Contractor account it was uploaded to), and how we became aware of it.
4. Preserve the material, the lead record, the upload metadata and a copy of the report for one year, in a restricted location, and write down where.
5. Terminate the uploading party's access. Where the uploader was a Homeowner rather than the Contractor, tell the Contractor only what they need to know, and only after the report is made.
6. Do not tip off the uploader before reporting.
7. Cooperate with any law-enforcement request, and keep a dated written record of every step.
8. Take legal advice the same day. Viewing the material to confirm what it is and to make the report is permitted for that purpose only.

In the EU, there is no equivalent general reporting duty on a hosting provider today, but the Digital Services Act Art. 18 requires a provider that becomes aware of information giving rise to a suspicion of a criminal offence involving a threat to a person's life or safety to inform the competent law-enforcement authorities promptly. We would make the NCMEC report and inform the relevant national authority as well.

7. Our position on third-party content (US Section 230, and the FOSTA carve-out)

Content supplied by Contractors and Homeowners is information provided by another information content provider. We host it, transmit it to the Contractor it was meant for, and display it to that Contractor; we do not create it, edit it, or select it. That is the position that keeps us within the protection of 47 U.S.C. §230(c)(1) for claims that treat us as the publisher of what a user supplied. Section 230(c)(2) separately protects our right to remove or restrict content we consider objectionable in good faith, which is why this Policy and the Acceptable Use Policy say we may remove content, never that we review it all.

Section 230 does not protect us from: federal criminal law (which is why Section 6 exists); intellectual-property claims (which is why Section 5 exists); or claims under the FOSTA-SESTA carve-out, 47 U.S.C. §230(e)(5), for conduct that promotes or facilitates prostitution or sex trafficking. The Service has no feature that could be used for that, and the Acceptable Use Policy prohibits it outright, but the carve-out applies regardless of our terms.

One honest caveat, for the lawyer. The estimate range itself is computed by our software from the Contractor's price sheet and the Homeowner's answers. If a Homeowner ever sued over a range, we would argue that the range is a mechanical output of two users' inputs; a court could see it as content we materially contributed to. Section 1 of the Disclaimers is drafted with that in mind.

8. Notice and action in the EU and the UK

For content that is illegal under EU or member-state law, the EU Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065) applies to us as a hosting service. We are exempt from liability for user content so long as we have no actual knowledge of illegal content and act expeditiously to remove it once we do (Art. 6). Anyone may notify us of illegal content by email using the elements in Section 5 (the DSA Art. 16 elements are the same in substance: why the content is illegal, where it is, the notifier's name and email, and a good-faith statement). We tell the notifier what we decided and we give the affected Contractor a statement of reasons (Art. 17). The full procedure, and why we are a hosting service and not an "online platform", is in the Platform Rules.

In France, a formal notification under the Loi pour la confiance dans l'économie numérique (art. 6-I-5) must also include the date, the notifier's identity, a description and precise location of the content, the legal reasons, and a copy of the correspondence sent to the author asking for removal (or why that was impossible). A notice with those elements is treated as giving us knowledge.

In the UK, the same hosting defence exists under the Electronic Commerce (EC Directive) Regulations 2002, reg. 19, and the Online Safety Act 2023 is addressed in the Platform Rules.

9. Trademark and other complaints

Trademark. If you believe a Contractor's business name or logo on the Service infringes your registered mark, email the designated agent with "Trademark" in the subject line, the registration number and jurisdiction of your mark, the goods or services it covers, the Contractor's business name and estimator address, and why you believe there is infringement. We may ask the Contractor for their position before acting, because business names in the trades are often shared honestly across regions. We remove content that is clearly infringing and we terminate accounts that repeatedly infringe.

Privacy and image rights. If you appear in a photograph on the Service without your agreement, or your property or documents do, tell us and we will remove the image and tell the Contractor to delete any copy. In France the right to one's image (Code civil art. 9) and in the US state publicity and privacy rights apply; we do not wait for a court to act on a plausible complaint.

Defamation and other claims. We are not the author of a Contractor's notes or a Homeowner's answers, and in the US we are not treated as their publisher (Section 7). We will nonetheless remove content that is plainly unlawful, and we comply with court orders.

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NOTES FOR YOUR LAWYER

1. Register the DMCA agent before publication. Steps: (i) create an account at the US Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent Directory (copyright.gov/dmca-directory); (ii) register the service provider ("Beyond the Edge Studio", with alternate names "EdgeQuote" and the domain); (iii) enter the agent's name, address, telephone and email; (iv) pay the fee (USD 6 per designation at the date of drafting); (v) diarise the three-year renewal, because a lapsed registration loses the safe harbour; (vi) copy the registered details, verbatim, into Section 5. Safe harbour under §512(c) also requires that the provider "not receive a financial benefit directly attributable to the infringing activity" where it has the right and ability to control it; a flat subscription that does not vary with content should satisfy that. Confirm.
2. Repeat-infringer default (two uncontested notices in 12 months) is proposed, not decided. §512(i) requires a policy that is "reasonably implemented"; the number matters less than actually applying it and keeping records. Confirm.
3. NCMEC registration. Section 6 proposes registering with NCMEC as an Electronic Service Provider before launch so that a report can be filed without delay. Confirm that EdgeQuote is a "provider" within §2258A (our reading: yes, as a remote computing service that stores user-uploaded images), confirm the current penalty figures and preservation period under the REPORT Act of 2024, and confirm that step 2 (restricting access without deleting) satisfies the preservation duty.
4. Section 230 and the estimate range. Section 7 flags that the range is computed by us from users' inputs. Under the Roommates.com line of authority, immunity is lost for content a provider "materially contributes" to. Assess whether an arithmetic output from a user's own price sheet is such a contribution; the Disclaimers are drafted so that the answer matters less than it might.
5. EU: hosting service, not online platform. The DSA's heavier obligations attach to "online platforms", which disseminate user content to the public. Nothing a Homeowner supplies is public, and a Contractor's business name and logo on their own estimator are the Contractor's own advertising, not dissemination of third-party content in the DSA sense. Confirm the characterisation; the Platform Rules depend on it.
6. French LCEN formalities (Section 8) are stricter than the DMCA: a notice must include a copy of the request sent to the author. Contractors' details are not public, so a notifier cannot contact the author; the alternative wording "or why that was impossible" reflects the statute's own exception. Confirm.
7. Homeowner photographs and French image rights. Section 4 tells Homeowners not to include third parties; the Homeowner Privacy Notice says the same. Confirm that is a sufficient control, given that the Contractor, not we, decides what to do with a photograph after delivery.
8. Blank facts. The designated agent's details and the NCMEC registration are placeholders.

WHAT THIS DOES NOT COVER

• Copyright in a Contractor's own website on which the estimator is embedded.
• Disputes between a Contractor and a Homeowner about the use of a photograph after delivery, other than the rule in Section 4.
• Patent matters.
• Content on the BTE studio website, which has its own terms.
• Any obligation of a Contractor under their own country's law to report illegal content they receive.