ResearchBounties
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Terms of Service

Effective July 7, 2026

Research Bounties is operated by Snizyx Software LLC ("Snizyx", "we", "us", or "our"). These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your access to and use of researchbounties.com and related services (together, the "Service"). By creating an account, pledging, submitting research, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

These Terms incorporate our Privacy Policy and Living-Subjects Policy by reference.

1. Eligibility and accounts

  • You must be at least 18 years old and able to form a binding contract. If you use the Service for an organization, you represent that you are authorized to bind it.
  • Accounts and sign-in are handled by our authentication provider, Clerk. Keep your credentials secure; you are responsible for activity under your account. Provide accurate information and keep it current. Use one account unless we permit otherwise.
  • You must be authorized to use any payment method you add to the Service.
  • You consent to receive notices and communications about the Service electronically — including reminders, review deadlines, and payout notices — at the email address linked to your account.

2. What the Service is

Research Bounties is a marketplace where art owners and enthusiasts ("Requesters") pool monetary pledges toward research about deceased or historical artists, and researchers, historians, and archivists ("Researchers") submit sourced biographies and provenance research. Each artist has one page, and pledges join a shared pot (a "bounty").

We are a neutral venue. The research engagement is between Requesters and Researchers. Snizyx is not the author, an employer, an agent, or a partner of any user, is not a party to the research agreement between users, and does not perform, commission, verify, or endorse the research. We provide payment handling, a review-and-dispute process, publication, and moderation as accommodations, not as a guarantor of any research or user.

3. Pledges, holds, review, and capture

You control if and when you pay. This section describes exactly how and when your card is charged, and by pledging you expressly authorize the charges described here. We will never charge you more than your pledge amount.

  • Pledging saves your payment method through Stripe and charges you nothing at that time.
  • You may withdraw a pledge at any time before a hold is placed on it; once withdrawn, no charge will occur.
  • The minimum pledge is $10 and the maximum is $2,500. All amounts are in US dollars.
  • When a Researcher submits research on an artist you have pledged to, Stripe places a temporary authorization hold on your card for your pledge amount. Card holds generally expire in about 7 days.
  • You then have 5 days to approve, request one revision, or dispute. We send reminder emails on days 2 and 4.
    • Approve — your pledge is captured (charged) and the research is accepted.
    • Request a revision — you may request one revision. The hold is released, and if the Researcher resubmits, a new hold and a new 5-day review window begin. After a revision, your options are to approve or dispute.
    • Dispute — a moderator reviews the research, your reasons, and the Researcher's response, and may direct full payment, partial payment, or release of the hold.
  • If you do not respond within 5 days, your pledge is automatically captured and the research is deemed accepted. You expressly authorize this automatic capture when you pledge. It exists so that finished, delivered work is reliably paid.
  • Post-capture grievance. If your pledge was captured automatically (by silence) and you believe that was wrong, you may raise a grievance within 7 days of the capture; moderators may refund in whole or in part at their reasonable discretion.
  • Disputes and escrow. If a dispute is unresolved as the authorization hold nears expiry, we capture the pledge and hold the captured funds (through our payment processor) pending resolution, so that no one benefits by stalling and funds are not lost to hold expiry. If the dispute resolves in your favor, the capture is refunded in full; otherwise the funds are paid out as described in Section 4.
  • Pools and multiple submissions. Pledges to an artist form one pot. A submission may be made by co-Researchers with declared payout shares. When more than one submission competes in a round, captured pledges are allocated among accepted submissions, and moderators may rule on allocation. Each Requester's review and payment is independent of other Requesters.
  • You remain responsible for authorized amounts. If a capture fails because your payment method is expired, cancelled, or has insufficient funds, you remain liable for the authorized amount for research you did not timely decline. We may retry, charge another method you have on file, or pursue collection, and repeated failed captures are a breach of these Terms.
  • Research shown to you before payment is confidential. Full research is disclosed to you for review before it is captured and published. Until it is published, you may not copy, share, or use it outside the review process. Pledging only to read unpublished research, or misusing it, is a breach of these Terms and infringes the Researcher's copyright.

4. Fees and payouts

  • The Service is free to join and to pledge.
  • When research is accepted and pledges are captured, Researchers receive 80% of the captured pledges allocated to their submission, and Snizyx retains a 20% success fee that is inclusive of payment-processing costs.
  • Payouts are made through Stripe Connect. To receive payouts, a Researcher must create a Stripe Connect account, complete Stripe's identity verification, and accept Stripe's applicable agreements.
  • At launch, payouts are available only to Researchers in supported payout locations: the United States, United Kingdom, European Economic Area, Switzerland, and Canada. If we cannot verify your identity, or you are outside a supported location, we cannot pay you; unclaimed or unverifiable funds are held and, where required, returned to the Requester or handled under applicable unclaimed-property law.
  • Where a submission has multiple co-Researchers, payouts follow their declared shares. Snizyx is not responsible for disagreements among co-Researchers.
  • Payout timing depends on Stripe and typically completes within a few business days of settlement; we do not guarantee exact timing.
  • Researchers are independent contractors, not employees of Snizyx or of Requesters, and are solely responsible for their own taxes. We or Stripe may collect tax information and issue tax forms as required by law.
  • All payments are processed by Stripe; your use of payment features is also subject to Stripe's terms and privacy policy.
  • Where research is later found to be fraudulent, plagiarized, or otherwise in breach, Researchers authorize us to reverse or reclaim the related payout, including through their Stripe balance, and we may offset amounts you owe us against funds we hold for you.

5. Refunds and chargebacks

Because you are not charged until research is delivered and your review window runs, most refund questions are resolved through the on-platform review and dispute process in Section 3, which is the fastest route to a refund where one is due. Refunds occur when you request a revision (the hold is released), when a dispute resolves in your favor (captured funds are refunded in full), or when a moderator grants a post-capture grievance.

You keep any legal right to dispute a charge with your card issuer. However, filing a card chargeback in bad faith — in particular after receiving the substantive value of research, or instead of using the on-platform process — is a breach of these Terms. For a chargeback on a charge you authorized, we may present evidence of your authorization and the delivered research, recover any related Researcher payout, revoke pledging privileges, suspend or terminate your account, and recover the disputed amount and related costs.

6. Publication and intellectual property

  • License on capture. When any payment for a submission is captured, the submitting Researcher(s) grant Snizyx a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, reproduce, publish, display, distribute, excerpt, translate, and format the submitted research on and in connection with the Service, with attribution to the Researcher(s). Because paid research becomes part of a permanent public record that art owners rely on, this license survives account deletion; we may remove personal information but may keep the published research available with credit.
  • Researchers retain copyright and authorship credit in their work, subject to the license above.
  • Unpaid submissions remain the Researcher's property. For unpaid submissions you grant us only the limited license needed to store and process the submission for review and dispute handling and to display the teaser you provide; we do not publish the full text of unpaid submissions.
  • Your warranties. By submitting research you represent that it is your original work (or work you have the right to submit), that it does not infringe or misappropriate anyone's rights, and that your sources are accurately represented.
  • Service content and scraping. The Service, its software, and its compilation and design are owned by Snizyx or its licensors. Except for using the Service as intended and viewing public pages, you may not copy, scrape, crawl, or systematically extract content; use bots or automated means to access or harvest content; use content (including published research) to train machine-learning models or to build a competing or derivative database or service; or remove attribution. Published research remains the Researcher's copyrighted work; public visibility is not a license to reproduce it in bulk.
  • Copyright complaints. If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, contact us at dabh@snizyx.com; we will respond, including by removing infringing material and terminating repeat infringers.

7. Research standards; no authentication or guarantee

Research must be submitted in good faith, be the Researcher's original work, cite verifiable sources, and comply with these Terms and the Living-Subjects Policy. Plagiarism, fabrication, invented or misrepresented sources, and passing off unsourced or machine-generated text as sourced research are prohibited, and are grounds for removal, payout reversal, and account termination.

The Service provides informational research only. Biographies and provenance research are not authentication, appraisal, certification of authenticity, valuation, title opinion, or legal advice, and confer no guarantee of accuracy, authenticity, attribution, provenance, valuation, or title. Do not rely on research from the Service as the basis for buying, selling, insuring, or valuing any artwork; consult qualified professionals. Attribution of works to an artist, and any conclusion about authenticity, is inherently uncertain, and we make no guarantee about it. Your primary remedy for unsatisfactory research is the review, revision, and dispute process in Section 3.

8. Living subjects

Research requests and submissions about living or possibly-living people are prohibited. By posting a request you represent that the subject is documented deceased or otherwise historical as defined in the Living-Subjects Policy. Misrepresenting a living person as deceased to place a request, and publishing private information about any living person, are serious violations. The Living-Subjects Policy is part of these Terms.

9. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

  • harass, threaten, defame, stalk, or dox anyone, or publish private personal information (such as home addresses, contact details, or workplaces) of any living person;
  • submit plagiarized, fabricated, or infringing research, or misrepresent your sources or authorship;
  • dispute in bad faith, file frivolous or repeated disputes, or file card chargebacks to avoid paying for research you received;
  • fail to pay authorized amounts, or manipulate the review window to obtain research without paying;
  • place requests about living or possibly-living people, or misrepresent a subject's death or historical status;
  • scrape, crawl, or bulk-copy the Service or its content, access it by automated means except as we expressly permit, or use content to train models or build a competing service;
  • while a bounty is active, or for 12 months after you connect with someone through the Service, solicit or arrange off-platform payment for research that originated here in order to avoid the success fee, or otherwise circumvent our fees;
  • create multiple or fake accounts, impersonate others, engage in self-dealing or wash transactions, or manipulate pledges, disputes, or reputation;
  • probe, disrupt, or breach the security or integrity of the Service, or use it for any unlawful purpose.

10. Moderation and enforcement

Using reasonable discretion and consistent with the fair review-and-dispute process described above, we may remove or hide content, refuse or reverse transactions, capture and hold funds pending resolution, withhold or reverse payouts obtained through fraud, plagiarism, or breach, suspend or terminate accounts, revoke pledging or payout privileges, and take other steps we reasonably consider appropriate to enforce these Terms and protect users. Repeatedly losing disputes as a Requester, or disputing in bad faith, may result in loss of pledging privileges. Individual research disputes are decided by moderators as described in Section 3. You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time from your settings; accounts with active review cycles or pending payouts must resolve them first, and published paid research remains available as licensed in Section 6.

11. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect and how we use it, and is part of these Terms.

12. Disclaimers

The Service and all content are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and any warranty as to the accuracy, authenticity, or reliability of research. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free. Some warranties cannot be disclaimed under applicable law; those are limited to the narrowest scope and shortest period permitted.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Snizyx and its owners, employees, and service providers will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or loss arising from reliance on research, even if advised of the possibility. Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the total success fees Snizyx actually retained in connection with your transactions during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US$100. Nothing in these Terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including liability for fraud or willful misconduct.

14. Indemnification

You will indemnify and hold harmless Snizyx and its owners, employees, and service providers from claims, damages, and reasonable costs (including attorneys' fees) arising out of your content, your use of the Service, your violation of these Terms or of law, or your infringement of anyone's rights.

15. Dispute resolution and governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Wyoming and the federal laws of the United States, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Before filing any claim, you agree to first contact us at dabh@snizyx.com and try in good faith to resolve it informally for 30 days. Any claim that is not resolved must be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in the State of Wyoming, and you consent to their jurisdiction. To the extent permitted by law, any claim must be brought within one year after it arises. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms deprives you of the protections of mandatory law in your place of residence that cannot be waived by agreement.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. For material changes we will take reasonable steps to notify you, such as posting a notice on the Service or emailing you, and we will update the date above. Changes are not retroactive. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms; if you do not agree, stop using the Service.

17. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Living-Subjects Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Snizyx about the Service. If any provision is held unenforceable, it will be limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest stays in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them to an affiliate or successor. We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control. These Terms create no agency, partnership, employment, or joint venture between you and Snizyx. Because the research engagement is between users, you release Snizyx from claims arising out of disputes between users, except for our own obligations under these Terms. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination survive.

Questions about these Terms may be sent to dabh@snizyx.com.