Terms of Service

1. The Service

Heat Trivia ("the Service", "we", "us", "our") is an online trivia-hosting platform operated by Ikon Marketing Group LLC ("Ikon", "the Company"), a limited liability company. The Service provides weekly professionally written trivia game packs, a web-based slide presentation engine, a live scoring admin panel, a player-facing scoreboard, and a TV venue display — all delivered through heattrivia.com.

2. Who Owns What (Very Important)

The trivia game format — including but not limited to: the round structure (rounds 1–7 plus Wager 1 and Wager 2), the scoring system (0–2 points per question with one double-points "bonus" round per team, plus two 0–10 point wager rounds), the pen-and-paper grading protocol, the QR-code team registration flow with captain PIN, the Firebase-backed live scoreboard design, the question-writing style, the answer-sheet template layout, and the weekly two-pack release cadence — is the original, proprietary concept of Craig Heat and is owned exclusively by Ikon Marketing Group LLC.

Our content is not yours. All trivia questions, answers, round images, slide decks, printable answer sheets, handout materials, branding, fonts, and audio we deliver to you under the Service are the intellectual property of Ikon Marketing Group LLC and its content contributors. They are licensed to you — not sold — strictly for the purpose of hosting live trivia events at the venue(s) you host at, during the active period of your paid subscription or single-game purchase.

You may not:

1. Copy, duplicate, photograph, screenshot, or otherwise reproduce our questions, answers, images, or slide decks for any use outside of live event hosting at a venue you personally operate the game at.
2. Publish, re-host, screen-record, livestream, or distribute our games, answer sheets, or audio/video assets on any platform (including but not limited to YouTube, Twitch, TikTok, podcast feeds, or competing trivia services).
3. Use our question library, format, or scoring system to train, populate, or seed any competing trivia product, service, app, book, game, or AI model.
4. Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code, schemas, security rules, or data structures of the Service.
5. Resell, sublicense, re-sell access to, or share your account credentials with anyone else. One paid account = one authorized host.
6. Remove, obscure, or alter any copyright notice, watermark, or branding from materials we provide.
7. Operate a copycat service that imitates the distinctive look-and-feel of the Heat Trivia slide engine, player scoreboard, or TV display, whether or not you use our content.

Violation of any of the above is a material breach of this agreement and grounds for immediate termination of your subscription without refund, plus any legal and equitable remedies available to the Company — including, without limitation, injunctive relief and recovery of damages and legal fees.

3. What You Keep

Your customizations are yours. The game title you type in, your venue name, your host name, your ticker messages, your team roster, and the scoring data generated during your hosted sessions are yours. We do not claim ownership of that material. We may use anonymous, aggregated usage statistics (e.g. "average team size is 4 players") to improve the Service — never your identifiable venue, team, or player data for marketing.

4. Subscriptions & Payments

1. Monthly subscription: 59.95/month, auto-renewing, billed through Stripe. You get rolling access to the 10 most recent weekly game packs plus the full platform (slide engine, admin, live scoring, TV display, QR handouts, printable sheets). Cancel any time; access continues through the end of the paid period.
2. Single-game purchase: 23.95, one-time, billed through Stripe. Grants 14 days of hosted access to the most-recent standard game pack at the time of purchase. Not auto-renewing. Access expires at day 14; you do not get the library.
3. Specialty games: variable pricing per game as listed on the dashboard. Grants 7 days of hosted access to that specific game.
4. Refunds: Refunds are issued only for a confirmed technical failure on our service — meaning an outage, bug, or defect in Heat Trivia's platform (web app, Firebase database, scoring backend, etc.) that prevented you from hosting and that we can verify in our server logs. Refunds are not issued for:
   • problems on your side (your laptop, phone, venue's Wi-Fi, projector, TV, cellular service, router, browser extensions, outdated OS, hardware failure, etc.);
   • third-party service outages outside our control (Google, Stripe, your ISP, DNS, electric utility);
   • user error (forgot your PIN, ended the game accidentally, typed the wrong Game ID on the TV, misread the QR, etc.);
   • buyer's remorse, change of mind, or unused subscription time that was available to you;
   • violations of this agreement resulting in termination;
   • failure to read or follow the in-app documentation and host guide.
   To request a refund, email craig@heateg.com within 7 days of the affected event, include your Game ID, the date/time, and a description of what happened. We will check our logs and respond within 5 business days. If logs show the service was operating normally, the refund request will be declined.
   
   Refund amount is proportional to what was lost — one event, not your whole plan:
   • Single-game purchase affected: full refund of the purchase price ($23.95), since that purchase was specifically for one game.
   • Monthly subscription affected: one-quarter of a month's fee (roughly $14.99), reflecting the single event that was disrupted — not the full month.
   • Specialty game affected: full refund of that specialty game's price.
   • Logo upgrade: the one-time $50 upgrade is non-refundable (it's a persistent feature unlock that doesn't depend on a specific event).
   Delivered as account credit by default, applied automatically to your next invoice or game purchase. If credit isn't workable for your situation (for example, you've already cancelled and aren't coming back), tell us in your email and we'll refund back to the original payment method instead.
5. Chargebacks: Filing a chargeback without first contacting us for resolution is a breach and results in permanent account termination.

5. Referral Program

Participation in the Heat Trivia Referral Program is governed by a separate Referral Program Agreement, which you accept at signup. In short: referrers earn a fixed commission per qualifying sale, payouts hold 30 days for refund/chargeback protection, minimum payout is $25.00, and a valid W-9 must be on file. Self-referral, spam, brand-bidding, and other prohibited conduct will void commissions and may terminate participation.

6. Your Conduct as a Host

1. Host only at venues where you have authorization from the venue owner/operator.
2. Follow local laws regarding gambling, alcohol service, live entertainment, and venue licensing. Cash or prize-based trivia contests may require special licensing in your jurisdiction — that's your responsibility, not ours.
3. Moderate your live ticker/announcement messages. Do not use the Service to broadcast harassing, defamatory, sexually explicit, or illegal content to players or the venue.
4. Respect your players. Do not collect, share, or sell player data, team names, captain info, or phone numbers without consent.
5. Do not use the Service to compete with us (see Section 2).

7. Account Security

You are responsible for safeguarding your account credentials and for any activity under your account. Rate limiting and lockout protect against brute-force, but choose a strong password and don't share it. Notify us immediately at craig@heateg.com if you believe your account has been compromised.

8. Service Availability

We target 99%+ uptime but do not guarantee uninterrupted service. Firebase, Stripe, and our hosting provider occasionally have outages beyond our control. We are not liable for lost event revenue, refunds to your players, or reputational damage resulting from service outages. If your event is disrupted by a confirmed outage on our side, contact us for a prorated credit.

9. Termination

You may cancel your subscription at any time through the billing portal. We may suspend or terminate your account for material breach of these terms, fraudulent payment activity, legal request, or at our discretion with or without notice. On termination for cause, you forfeit any unused subscription time and your access to live sessions, content, and data immediately ceases. Sections 2, 3, 6, 10, 11, 12, and 13 survive termination.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, ACCURACY, OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE ERROR-FREE, SECURE, OR UNINTERRUPTED.

11. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, IKON MARKETING GROUP LLC, ITS OWNERS, OFFICERS, CONTRACTORS, AND AFFILIATES SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR LOST PROFITS, REVENUES, DATA, OR REPUTATION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, WHETHER UNDER CONTRACT, TORT, OR ANY OTHER THEORY OF LIABILITY. OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATED TO THE SERVICE SHALL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) FEES YOU PAID US IN THE TWELVE MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM, OR (B) $100 USD.

12. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Ikon Marketing Group LLC and its affiliates from any claim, liability, damage, loss, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your use of the Service, your breach of these terms, your infringement of any third-party right, or your hosted events — including claims by your players, venue, or venue's patrons.

13. Governing Law & Disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Any dispute arising under these terms shall be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Benton County, Washington. You and Ikon Marketing Group LLC waive the right to a jury trial and agree that any dispute must be brought in an individual capacity — no class actions or class arbitrations.

14. DMCA & Copyright Complaints

We respect copyright. If you believe content hosted on Heat Trivia infringes a copyright you own, send a DMCA takedown notice — in writing, signed (physical or electronic) — to our designated agent at the contact below. Your notice must include:

1. Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed.
2. Identification of the material that is allegedly infringing, with enough detail (URL, Game ID, slide index) for us to locate it.
3. Your contact information (name, address, phone, email).
4. A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner.
5. A good-faith statement that you believe the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.

On receipt of a valid notice we will remove or disable access to the claimed material and notify the host who uploaded it. Repeat infringers will have their accounts terminated.

Counter-notices follow the standard DMCA §512(g) process — the alleged infringer may submit a counter-notice identifying the material and stating under penalty of perjury that removal was a mistake or misidentification. We'll restore the content unless the original complainant files a court action within 10–14 business days.

Designated agent: Craig Heat, Ikon Marketing Group LLC — craig@heateg.com (preferred, with "DMCA" in the subject).

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced by email or in-dashboard banner at least 14 days before taking effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. The current version lives at this URL.

16. Contact

Questions, takedown requests, or legal notices: craig@heateg.com
Ikon Marketing Group LLC, on behalf of Heat Trivia