DMCA / IP & Designated Agent Policy

This DMCA / Intellectual Property and Designated Agent Policy (this "Policy") explains how Velum AI operator [to be configured] ("we," "us," "our," or the "Company"), operator of the website https://velum.ai and the associated creator portal (together, the "Service"), responds to claims of copyright infringement and related intellectual-property and likeness complaints under the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512 (the "DMCA"), and under related law. This Policy is incorporated into and forms part of our Terms of Service.

The Service lets adult (18+) content creators upload photographs of themselves so that we can train a per-creator artificial-intelligence likeness model (a "digital clone" or LoRA) and generate new images and video of that same, consenting creator's own verified likeness, which the creator then distributes and sells on adult platforms. Because of this design, the intellectual-property and likeness disputes we encounter generally fall into two categories: (a) ordinary copyright complaints about photographs, video, or other works, and (b) complaints that a person's name, image, voice, or likeness is being used without authorization. This Policy addresses both, and points to the faster non-copyright channels where those apply.

We honor properly submitted DMCA notices, we act quickly on credible reports that someone's likeness is being misused, and we equally protect our users against false, mistaken, or abusive takedown demands. This document is an operational policy, not legal advice; if you are unsure of your rights or obligations, consult an attorney.

"Work" means any copyrightable material, including photographs, videos, images, text, audio, or software.

"Copyright owner" or "rights holder" means the owner of an exclusive right under copyright in a Work, or a person authorized to act on that owner's behalf. "Complainant" means any person who submits a notice under this Policy.

"Uploader" or "Subscriber" means the creator or account holder who uploaded, generated, or is otherwise responsible for the material identified in a notice.

"Designated Agent" means the agent we have registered with the U.S. Copyright Office to receive DMCA notifications, identified in Section 4.

"Likeness" means an individual's recognizable name, image, physical appearance, or (where protected by law) voice. "Digital replica" means a computer-generated, AI-assisted, or otherwise synthetic representation of a real person's likeness or voice. "NCII" means non-consensual intimate imagery, including authentic and AI-generated ("deepfake") intimate imagery published without the depicted person's consent.

"Business day" means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday, or U.S. federal public holiday.

We require every creator to certify, before the Service is activated, that they are the individual depicted in the uploaded photographs and that they own or control all rights necessary to upload those photographs and to authorize the creation of a digital clone from them. The Service may be used to clone only your own verified likeness. Requesting, uploading, training on, or generating the likeness of any other real person is strictly prohibited and is grounds for immediate termination and, where warranted, referral to authorities.

Because we act as the producer of the intimate content generated on the platform (including for purposes of the recordkeeping obligations under 18 U.S.C. §§ 2257–2257A), we maintain government-ID and age-verification records and signed consents establishing that the person depicted is an adult who consented to both the creation and the publication of content built from their likeness. These records let us resolve most copyright and right-of-publicity disputes quickly and reliably.

Nothing in this Policy limits our right to remove or disable any content, or to suspend or terminate any account, at our discretion where we believe our Terms of Service, applicable law, or the rights of a third party have been violated.

We have designated and registered an agent with the U.S. Copyright Office to receive notifications of claimed copyright infringement. All DMCA takedown notices and counter-notifications should be sent to our Designated Agent using the contact details below.

Designated Copyright Agent: «[TO BE SET: full name and/or title of the DMCA Designated Agent, e.g., 'Copyright Agent, Velum AI operator [to be configured]']».

Mailing address: «[TO BE SET: physical street address in the United States registered with the U.S. Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent Directory]».

Email: «[TO BE SET: dedicated DMCA email address registered with the U.S. Copyright Office]». Telephone: «[TO BE SET: telephone number registered with the U.S. Copyright Office]».

U.S. Copyright Office DMCA Designated Agent registration: «[TO BE SET: Copyright Office Directory registration/entry reference and effective date]».

This channel is for copyright and other intellectual-property or likeness matters only. General support, billing questions, and other correspondence should be sent to Support contact pending configuration. Notices misdirected to the wrong channel may be delayed and may not be treated as effective on the date received.

If you are a copyright owner or authorized agent and you believe a Work has been copied and made available through the Service in a way that constitutes infringement, you may submit a written takedown notice to our Designated Agent. To be effective under 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(3), your notice must include substantially all of the following six elements.

(1) A physical or electronic signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the owner of the exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

(2) Identification of the copyrighted Work claimed to have been infringed, or, if multiple Works are covered by a single notice, a representative list of those Works.

(3) Identification of the material that is claimed to be infringing or to be the subject of infringing activity, and information reasonably sufficient to permit us to locate the material — for example, the specific URL(s), file name(s), or page(s) on the Service where it appears.

(4) Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you, such as your full name, mailing address, telephone number, and email address.

(5) A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

(6) A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and — under penalty of perjury — that you are the copyright owner or are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.

A notice that fails to substantially comply with all of these elements may not be treated as effective and may not, by itself, give rise to our obligation to act; however, if a notice is defective only as to elements (2), (3), or (4), we will take reasonable steps to contact you or otherwise obtain the missing information.

Send your notice to the Designated Agent identified in Section 4. Email to the registered DMCA address is the fastest method and is strongly preferred; postal mail is also accepted.

You may write your notice in English or Spanish. Please include enough detail — especially exact URLs or clear identifiers — for us to locate the material without guesswork, and keep a copy for your records.

Before you send a notice, please consider whether the use might be authorized, licensed, or permitted by law (for example, fair use). Section 10 explains the legal consequences of knowingly submitting a false notice.

Upon receiving a notice that substantially complies with Section 5, we will act expeditiously to remove or disable access to the material identified in the notice.

We will take reasonable steps to notify the affected Uploader that the material has been removed or disabled, and we will provide the Uploader with a copy of the takedown notice (which may include the identity and contact information you provided) so that they may submit a counter-notification if they choose. If you wish certain personal details to be redacted before we forward the notice, tell us in the notice; we cannot, however, remove information the Uploader is legally entitled to receive.

We will record the notice for purposes of our repeat-infringer policy (Section 11). We may, but are not obligated to, provide you with a status update. Removing or disabling material in response to a notice is not an admission of liability and does not waive any defense, including that the notice was defective or that the use was lawful.

If you are an Uploader and your material was removed or disabled as a result of a takedown notice, and you believe the removal was the result of a mistake or misidentification of the material, you may submit a written counter-notification to our Designated Agent.

To be effective under 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(3), your counter-notification must include substantially all of the following: (A) your physical or electronic signature; (B) identification of the material that was removed or disabled and the location at which it appeared before it was removed or disabled; (C) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief that the material was removed or disabled as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material; and (D) your name, address, and telephone number, together with a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the U.S. Federal District Court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, for any judicial district in which we may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person who submitted the original notice or that person's agent.

Do not submit a counter-notification for material you are not entitled to restore — for example, material that depicts a person other than yourself, or intimate content published without the depicted person's consent. Such counter-notices will be rejected and may lead to account termination and referral to authorities. Note that the DMCA counter-notice process addresses copyright only; it does not restore material that was removed for right-of-publicity, NCII, or other non-copyright reasons (see Sections 12–14).

If we receive a valid counter-notification, we will promptly forward a copy to the Complainant who submitted the original notice and inform them that we may restore the removed material.

Unless the Complainant notifies our Designated Agent, within the statutory period, that they have filed a court action seeking a court order to restrain the Uploader from engaging in the allegedly infringing activity, we will restore or re-enable access to the removed material in not less than ten (10) and not more than fourteen (14) business days following our receipt of the counter-notification, consistent with 17 U.S.C. § 512(g)(2).

We may decline to restore material that independently violates our Terms of Service or applicable law, regardless of the counter-notification.

Both takedown notices and counter-notifications are made under penalty of perjury. Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that material was removed or disabled by mistake or misidentification, may be liable for damages — including costs and attorneys' fees — incurred by the alleged infringer, the copyright owner, the owner's agent, or us, as a result of our reliance on the misrepresentation.

Do not use the DMCA process to remove content you do not hold rights in, to silence lawful speech, or to harass another user. Misuse of this process may also violate our Terms of Service and result in account termination.

Consistent with 17 U.S.C. § 512(i), we have adopted and reasonably implement a policy providing for the termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the accounts of Subscribers and account holders who are repeat infringers.

As a general guideline, a Subscriber who is the subject of two (2) or more separate, valid, and unrebutted infringement notices may have their account terminated, and we may terminate at an earlier point where circumstances warrant. We weigh the totality of the circumstances, including whether notices were withdrawn or successfully rebutted by counter-notification.

Independently of the repeat-infringer count, we may immediately and permanently terminate any account for a single egregious violation — including uploading, training on, or generating the likeness of a person other than the verified account holder; any non-consensual intimate imagery; or any content that sexualizes a minor. Terminated users are prohibited from opening or controlling new accounts, and we may take technical and legal measures to enforce that prohibition.

Independently of copyright, individuals have rights in their name, image, likeness, and — in a growing number of jurisdictions — voice, under state right-of-publicity, privacy, and unfair-competition laws. These rights exist even when the complaining person does not own any copyright in the underlying material, so a right-of-publicity or likeness complaint is not the same as a DMCA copyright notice.

Because our Service is built to clone only the consenting creator's own verified likeness, unauthorized use of a third party's likeness should be rare. If, however, you believe your name, image, or likeness is being used on or generated by the Service without your authorization, contact our Designated Agent (Section 4) or Support contact pending configuration. Please provide enough information to identify yourself, describe the likeness at issue, and point us to where it appears.

We will review such reports promptly. Because we hold identity-verification and consent records for every creator, we can quickly determine whether the person depicted is the consenting account holder. If the likeness belongs to someone who did not consent, we will remove the content, suspend or terminate the responsible account, preserve relevant evidence, and, where appropriate, refer the matter to law enforcement.

We recognize the rapidly developing legal framework governing AI-generated "digital replicas." At the U.S. federal level, the proposed NO FAKES Act would create a nationwide right against the unauthorized creation and distribution of AI-generated replicas of a person's voice or visual likeness, together with a notice-and-takedown mechanism modeled on the DMCA. A number of U.S. states already regulate digital replicas, synthetic media, and deepfakes. This Policy will be updated to reflect the NO FAKES Act's specific notice requirements and safe-harbor conditions if and when it becomes law.

Regardless of the current status of any particular statute, our standing rule is that no one may use the Service to create or distribute a digital replica of any real person other than the consenting, verified creator depicting themselves. To support responsible use, generated content may carry AI-provenance signals or labeling indicating that it is AI-generated. Reports that a digital replica of a person has been created or used without that person's consent are handled under Sections 12 and 14, on an expedited basis.

Separately from and in addition to the copyright process, the U.S. TAKE IT DOWN Act requires covered platforms to establish a process to remove non-consensual intimate imagery — including authentic imagery and AI-generated or "deepfake" intimate imagery ("NCII") — within forty-eight (48) hours of receiving a valid removal request from the identifiable depicted individual or that individual's authorized representative, and to make reasonable efforts to identify and remove identical copies.

If you are depicted in intimate content on the Service that you did not consent to have created or published, you do not need to file a DMCA notice and you do not need to own any copyright. Contact us at Support contact pending configuration or our Designated Agent with information reasonably sufficient to identify you, to identify the content and where it appears, and a statement that you did not consent to its publication. We provide an expedited path for these requests and will act within the statutory 48-hour window, remove the reported content, take account action against the responsible user, and make reasonable efforts to remove known copies.

We maintain a zero-tolerance policy toward any content that sexualizes a minor. Any apparent child sexual abuse material (CSAM) is removed immediately, preserved as required by law, and reported to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and to appropriate authorities. This category is never subject to the ordinary counter-notification or restoration process.

For complaints that do not involve copyright — such as trademark, trade-dress, patent, or other intellectual-property claims — contact our Designated Agent (Section 4) or Support contact pending configuration.

Please include: your name and contact information; a description of the right you claim and, where applicable, the registration number(s) and jurisdiction(s); identification of the allegedly infringing material and where it appears on the Service; and a good-faith statement that the use is unauthorized. We evaluate non-copyright complaints case by case and take appropriate action, which may include removal, account restrictions, or requesting further information.

Creators and members of the public can report suspected likeness misuse quickly. From within your account you can use the in-product reporting option where available, or write to Support contact pending configuration or our Designated Agent.

Tell us who you are, what likeness is being misused, and where it appears. Because every creator on the Service is identity- and age-verified and has signed create-and-publish consents, we can verify a report against our records with confidence. Depending on the outcome, we may suspend further generation from the affected model, remove the content, terminate the offending account, preserve evidence for legal proceedings, and notify authorities.

Consistent with 17 U.S.C. § 512(i), we accommodate and do not interfere with standard technical measures used by copyright owners to identify or protect their Works, where such measures are available on reasonable and non-discriminatory terms and do not impose substantial costs or burdens on the Service.

After we remove or disable material, we may retain copies of the removed material, the associated notices and counter-notices, and related logs for compliance, dispute-resolution, and legal-hold purposes, even though the material is no longer publicly accessible. Retention and destruction of biometric and identity-verification data associated with a report are governed by our Privacy Policy and applicable biometric-privacy law (including, where applicable, GDPR Article 9 and U.S. state biometric statutes), which specify retention limits and secure-destruction timelines.

We expect all notices and counter-notices to be submitted in good faith. We may decline to act on, request clarification of, or consolidate notices that are incomplete, duplicative, automated at scale without meaningful human review, or that appear designed to harass a user or suppress lawful content. A pattern of bad-faith or materially false submissions may result in our refusing further notices from the sender and, for account holders, in termination.

We may share complete notices and counter-notices — including the contact information they contain — with the affected user, and, where legally required or appropriate, with law enforcement or a court. We may include statistics about notices, with personal data redacted, in any transparency reporting we choose to publish.

For users and rights holders in the European Union, the European Economic Area, and the United Kingdom, notice-and-action mechanisms under the EU Digital Services Act (DSA) and equivalent national laws are available in addition to the DMCA process. You may submit intellectual-property and illegal-content notices using the same contacts identified in Section 4, and we will handle them in accordance with the applicable EU/UK requirements.

EU/EEA representative for data-protection purposes (GDPR Article 27): «[TO BE SET: name and EU address of the Company's Article 27 representative]». United Kingdom representative (UK GDPR Article 27): «[TO BE SET: name and UK address of the Company's UK representative]».

Personal data contained in notices and counter-notices is processed in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable data-protection law. Data described in a notice may be stored and processed in the United States.

This Policy and any dispute arising out of it are governed by the laws of the State of «[TO BE SET: governing-law U.S. state]» and applicable U.S. federal law, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer-protection or data-protection rights you may have under the law of your place of residence. The DMCA counter-notification jurisdiction described in Section 8 is fixed by statute and is not altered by this clause.

We may update this Policy from time to time; the current version is identified by the "last updated" date shown with it. Continued use of the Service after an update constitutes acceptance of the revised Policy.

Questions about this Policy, or notices under it, should be directed to our Designated Agent (Section 4) for copyright and IP matters, or to Support contact pending configuration for all other matters. This Policy is operated by Velum AI operator [to be configured] in connection with https://velum.ai.