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Community Standards

The Playfair Statement

A marketplace only works when both sides of every transaction know what to expect. This is what we expect.

Last updated 9 August 2026 · 7 min read · Read alongside the Terms of Service

The Playfair Statement sets out how people are expected to behave on BentBox. Creators keep copyright in their work and grant BentBox only a non-exclusive licence to display and sell it. Buyers receive a personal, non-commercial licence to the content they purchase, and may not redistribute or resell it. Transactions and content exchange must happen on BentBox rather than off-platform. Messaging is for legitimate platform conversation, not harassment or solicitation. Every listing passes human moderation, and enforcement outcomes — from listing removal to account termination — are decided by people, proportionate to what happened.

Creators keep ownership

Uploading to BentBox does not transfer your copyright. You grant a non-exclusive licence to display and sell the work, and nothing more.

Buyers get a clear licence

A purchase is a personal, non-commercial licence unless the creator states otherwise. Redistribution and resale are not part of it.

Messaging stays on the rails

Messenger exists for transactions and legitimate platform conversation. Harassment, spam and off-platform solicitation are not permitted.

A person reviews every listing

BentBox is a curated marketplace. Listings pass human moderation before they go live, and enforcement decisions are made by people.

What this statement is, and what it is not

The Playfair Statement is the plain-language version of how BentBox expects buyers and creators to treat each other and the platform. It covers ownership, licensing, messaging, payment, prohibited conduct and enforcement. It is not a substitute for the Terms of Service, which is the binding agreement and which wins wherever the two appear to differ. Where this page summarises a term, the Terms state it in full.

BentBox has operated as a curated marketplace since 2015. Curated means a person looks at what goes on sale, and a person decides what happens when something goes wrong. That is slower than running rules through a classifier and calling the output policy, and it is deliberate: automated enforcement fails in both directions, removing legitimate work and missing genuinely harmful material that has been packaged to evade it.

1. Ownership and the licence you grant

You keep copyright in everything you upload. BentBox does not acquire ownership of creator work at any point, and does not licence it out to third parties. What you grant by listing is a non-exclusive licence for BentBox to host, display, promote and sell the work through the platform — the minimum needed for a listing to exist and a sale to complete.

Non-exclusive means exactly that: you can sell the same work elsewhere, on your own site or on another platform, at the same time. Removing a listing ends the display licence going forward. It does not retroactively cancel licences already granted to buyers who paid for the work, which is why removal is not a substitute for never having published something.

A purchase includes
  • Viewing and keeping the content for personal use
  • Downloading it to devices you control
  • Whatever broader rights the creator has explicitly granted on that listing
A purchase does not include
  • Republishing, reposting or file sharing
  • Reselling the content or access to it
  • Commercial or promotional use
  • Sharing your account so others can view it
  • Training machine learning models on it

If your work appears somewhere it should not

Report it through the Contact page with the original work identified and the infringing location described. Copyright reports are handled by the moderation team. If the infringement is a BentBox listing, it can be removed and the account actioned; if it is elsewhere, we can act on the BentBox account that leaked it where the source is identifiable.

2. Consent and documentation

Every identifiable person depicted in content sold on BentBox must be an adult who has consented to that content being published and sold. Creators must hold documentation supporting this before publication — it is a gate, not a formality to be produced later if challenged. Conventional signed model releases are accepted, as they always have been.

ProntoTag is available as an optional enhancement, not a replacement. It produces a cryptographically signed consent record bound to a ProntoID-verified identity rather than to a BentBox username, which anyone can create. The difference matters when a release is questioned years later: a paper release shows that someone signed a document, while a ProntoTag record shows that a verified individual consented at a specific time to specific terms and that the record has not been altered since. ProntoTag costs €0.99 per tag and is entirely the creator’s choice.

3. Messaging and communication

BentBox Messenger exists so buyers and creators can discuss listings, custom work and legitimate platform matters. Use it for that. Harassment, hate speech, threats, sexual pressure, unsolicited bulk messaging and continued contact after someone has asked you to stop are all prohibited, and none of them become acceptable because a transaction is involved.

Messages are not read as a matter of routine. BentBox reviews message content where there is a specific reason to — a report, an abuse or fraud signal, a payment dispute, or a legal obligation. The purpose is enforcement of these standards, not observation of ordinary conversation.

Genuine BentBox communication never asks for your password. Account passwords are stored as one-way hashes, so nobody at BentBox can read yours, which is also why nobody will ever ask for it. Any message requesting your password, pressing you to act within minutes, or asking you to move a sale off-platform to “save fees” should be reported rather than answered. See how BentBox protects your account.

4. Transactions and payments

Purchases are processed through BentBox’s payment processors, Verotel and EMerchantPay. Card details are captured and held by those processors and never by BentBox. Creators set their own prices and buyers agree to pay the listed price at the time of purchase.

Creators keep 100% of the listed price. The BentBox commission is added on top of that price and paid by the buyer — a minimum of $3 for items under 100MB and $5 at 100MB and above. Payouts run monthly by bank transfer, Paxum, Yoursafe, PayPal or gift card. Nothing is deducted from the creator’s side of a sale, which is what makes earnings reconcilable, and an account whose owner can reconcile it is an account where fraud gets noticed.

Why sales have to complete on BentBox

Using BentBox to find a buyer and then completing the sale, or exchanging content, elsewhere is prohibited under Terms of Service v5.1. This is not purely a commercial rule. An off-platform sale leaves the buyer with no payment protection and no dispute route, leaves the creator exposed to reversal fraud with no payout record to point at, and moves the exchange outside the consent, moderation and age-assurance framework that BentBox is legally obliged to maintain. Promote your work anywhere you like — complete the transaction here.

Refunds, chargebacks and dispute resolution are covered in the Terms of Service.

5. What is not allowed

The following are prohibited on BentBox. The list is not exhaustive, and conduct that is obviously contrary to the spirit of this statement will be treated as a breach even if it is not itemised here.

Illegal or non-consensual material Content depicting minors, content published without the documented consent of everyone depicted, and any material that is unlawful in its own right. This is absolute and is enforced without discretion.
Uploading work you do not have the rights to Reposting another creator’s work, scraped material, or content you licensed for a different purpose. If you cannot evidence the right to sell it, do not list it.
Taking transactions off-platform Using BentBox to find a buyer and then completing the sale, or exchanging content, elsewhere. This is addressed directly in Terms of Service v5.1.
Fraud and misrepresentation Misdescribing what a Box contains, manipulating sales or reviews, chargeback abuse, or any attempt to obtain content or funds by deception.
Impersonation Presenting yourself as another creator, another user, or as BentBox staff. Nobody at BentBox will ever ask you for your password.
Attacking the platform Circumventing access controls or payment flows, scraping at scale, distributing malware, or interfering with delivery of the service to others.
Abusive communication Harassment, hate speech, threats, sexual pressure, unsolicited bulk messaging, and repeated contact after someone has asked you to stop.

6. Enforcement and moderation

Listings pass through human review before they go live. Automated tooling assists with triage and flags likely problems, but the decision about whether something belongs on the marketplace is made by a person, and so is the decision about what happens when a rule is broken.

Outcomes are proportionate to severity and history. In ascending order they include removal of a listing, a warning, restriction of messaging or selling, suspension of payouts pending review, and termination of the account. One category sits outside that scale entirely: material that is illegal in itself is removed and reported to the relevant authorities regardless of the account’s standing, tenure or sales history, and there is no discretion applied to it.

If you believe a decision about your account or a listing was wrong, reply through the Contact page and ask for it to be looked at again. A person will review it.

7. Reporting a problem

To report a violation, use the Contact page and include the username involved, the listing or message concerned, and enough detail for the moderation team to locate it. Copyright reports should identify the original work and where its provenance can be verified.

To report a security vulnerability, email security@bentbox.co with reproduction steps rather than posting publicly, and allow a reasonable window for a fix. Details are on the security practices page.

8. Scope and limits

BentBox provides the marketplace, the payment flow, the moderation layer and the compliance framework around them. It is not a party to the creative relationship between a creator and the people they work with, and it does not warrant the conduct of individual users. Use judgement in your dealings with other people on the platform as you would anywhere else.

This statement may be updated as the platform and its legal obligations change. Material changes are reflected in the last-updated date at the top of this page, and the binding terms are always those published in the Legal Center.

Frequently asked questions

No. You keep copyright in everything you upload. What you grant BentBox is a non-exclusive licence to host, display, promote and sell the work through the platform, which is what allows a listing to appear and a sale to complete. You can continue to sell the same work elsewhere, and removing a listing ends the display licence for the future without affecting purchases already made.

A purchase grants a personal, non-commercial licence to view and keep the content, unless the creator has explicitly stated broader terms for that listing. It does not include the right to republish, resell, redistribute, share account access, or use the work commercially. Buyers who redistribute purchased content are in breach of this statement and of the Terms of Service.

Because everything that protects both sides depends on it. On-platform payment means the buyer has a payment processor and a dispute route, and the creator has a payout record and no exposure to reversal fraud. It also means the sale sits inside the consent and moderation framework that BentBox is obliged to maintain. Soliciting buyers to complete a purchase off-platform is prohibited under Terms of Service v5.1.

Messages are not read as a matter of routine. BentBox reviews message content where there is a specific reason to: a user report, an automated abuse or fraud signal, a payment dispute, or a legal obligation. The purpose of that access is enforcement of these standards, not surveillance of ordinary conversation between buyers and creators.

All of it. Creators keep 100% of the price they set. The BentBox commission is added on top of the listed price and paid by the buyer, at a minimum of $3 for items under 100MB and $5 at 100MB and above. There is no deduction from the creator’s side of the transaction.

Every identifiable person depicted must be an adult who has consented to the content being published and sold, and you must hold documentation supporting that before publication. Conventional signed model releases are accepted. ProntoTag, which binds a consent record to a verified identity rather than to a username, is available as an optional enhancement at €0.99 per tag.

Outcomes are proportionate and are decided by a person, not automatically. Depending on severity and history they range from removal of a listing, through a warning, restriction of messaging or selling, suspension of payouts, and account termination. Material that is illegal is removed and reported to the relevant authorities without regard to the account’s standing or history.

Use the Contact page, and include the username, the listing or message concerned, and enough detail to locate it. Reports about your own copyright being infringed should identify the original work and where it can be verified. Reports are reviewed by the moderation team rather than routed to an automated queue.

Standards are only worth what enforcement makes them worth

If something on BentBox does not match what this page describes — a listing, a message, a decision about your account — tell us. Reports are read by people.

Contact BentBox

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