Legal & Terms

1.1 Acceptance. By creating an account or using Storage Link Media (the "Service"), you accept these Terms of Service and the policies referenced below. If you do not accept these terms, you must not use the Service.

1.2 Account responsibility. You are responsible for safeguarding your access credentials, for all activity carried out under your account, and for ensuring that any team members or clients you grant access to also comply with these terms.

1.3 Subscription, billing and cancellation. Subscriptions renew automatically each billing cycle. All charges are processed and settled in South African Rand (ZAR) through our third-party payment processor; any amounts displayed in USD, GBP, or EUR elsewhere in the platform or on this page are approximate reference conversions only. Your bank's prevailing exchange rate and any foreign-transaction fees imposed by your card issuer will determine the final amount debited from your account. Tier upgrades and 500 GB boosters take effect immediately upon successful payment. Downgrades only take effect at the end of the current paid period. Subscription changes are limited to once every 30 days. We do not offer partial refunds for mid-cycle cancellations; access continues until the final day of the paid period. Accounts on an active promotional code are exempt from billing during the promotional period.

1.3a Free 7-day trial and R5 card authorization. All three standard plans - Freelancer, Professional, and Enterprise - include a free 7-day trial. To start a trial, you must register valid billing details. The platform processes an initial R5 card authorization hold through our third-party tokenized payment processor purely to verify your card and protect Storage Link Media against fraud and spam. That R5 charge is immediately voided/refunded by the platform; you are not billed during the 7-day trial. The returned billing token is securely stored against your account so that, if you do not cancel before the trial ends on Day 7, the monthly subscription for your active tier is automatically billed after the 7-day trial window. Payment-processor credentials and tokens are held server-side only and are never exposed to the browser.

1.3b Cancelling during the 7-day trial. If you click Cancel Subscription at any point on or before Day 7, the trial timeline is immediately halted, the payment processor is instructed to cancel the recurring token, and your account is marked as trial cancelled. You will never be billed for that trial. Once cancelled, a strict 5-day read-only grace period begins so you can download or remove your files before automated permanent deletion.

1.3c Custom Integration Plan exemption. The Custom Plan completely bypasses the automated trial, R5 card authorization, and tokenized payment flow. To configure a Custom corporate account, contact support@storagelinkmedia.com. Billing, term length, and storage allocation for Custom accounts are negotiated individually and provisioned manually by an administrator.

1.4 500 GB booster cap. The 500 GB booster is strictly capped at two purchases per account for the lifetime of the account. The platform will block any attempt to purchase a third booster and advise upgrading to the next tier.

1.5 Service availability. We aim to maintain high availability, but the Service is provided on an "as available" basis. Planned maintenance, infrastructure events, or third-party outages may temporarily affect access.

1.6 Changes. We may update these terms from time to time. Continued use of the Service after changes are published constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

5.1 Zero-billing during active promotions. Accounts that are on an active promotional code are not billed for the duration of the promotional period. No credit card or payment instrument is required to maintain access while the promotion is valid.

5.2 Single-use and non-transferable. Promotional codes are strictly single-use and tied to the account that redeems them. They may not be sold, transferred, shared, or reused. Any attempt to circumvent this restriction may result in immediate suspension or termination of the associated account.

5.3 Cancellation and data grace periods. Trial cancellations are immediate and carry a strict 5-day read-only grace period to download or remove files. Paid plan cancellations keep the account fully active until the paid billing cycle expires; only then does the 30-day grace period begin, preserving files so the user can download assets or re-instate the subscription. Account deletion requests and promotional expiries follow the separate 30-day grace policy described in Section 8 unless a stricter trial-cancellation rule applies.

5.4 Conversion to paid plans. At or before the end of a promotional period, you will be invited to select a paid subscription plan and provide a valid payment method. Failure to convert does not extend the promotional period or the grace period.

5.5 Audit and tracking. All promotional code redemptions, activations, and expiry events are logged for administrative and fraud-prevention purposes. Platform administrators may review this history to verify compliance with promotional terms.

6.1 Auth email pipeline. The Service sends transactional and authentication-related emails from notify.storagelinkmedia.com. These include, but are not limited to, signup confirmations, password resets, magic-link logins, email-change verifications, and team invitations.

6.2 Delivery and reliability. While we use enterprise-grade email infrastructure, delivery depends on third-party mail providers and recipient mail-server policies. We do not guarantee instantaneous or universal inbox delivery. Users are responsible for ensuring their mail servers and spam filters do not block emails from notify.storagelinkmedia.com.

6.3 Consent to transactional emails. By creating an account, you consent to receiving transactional emails essential to the operation and security of your account. You may not opt out of authentication or security-related messages while your account remains active.

6.4 Unsubscribe and suppression. Marketing or non-essential communications may include unsubscribe links. Unsubscribing from marketing emails does not affect the delivery of transactional or authentication emails. Persistent delivery failures or explicit unsubscribe requests may result in the suppression of the associated email address for non-critical communications.

7.1 Workspace model. Every account is provisioned with a single workspace owned by the registering user (the "Owner"). The Owner may invite additional members up to the seat allowance of their subscription plan. All workspace storage, assets, and folders are owned by the workspace, not by individual members.

7.2 Seat allowances per plan. Seat counts are enforced automatically at the platform level and may not be exceeded under any circumstance. Totals below include the workspace Owner:

• Freelancer: 1 seat total (solo workspace, Owner only, no teammates may be invited).
• Professional: 4 seats total (Owner + up to 3 invited members).
• Enterprise: 6 seats total (Owner + up to 5 invited members).
• Enterprise Custom: 9 seats total (Owner + up to 8 invited members); bespoke seat counts available on request and subject to a custom quote.

7.3 Invitations. Workspace invitations are sent by email from notify.storagelinkmedia.com, are locked to the recipient's email address, and expire 48 hours after they are issued. Invitation links are single-use and may not be forwarded or shared. Owners are limited to a maximum of 10 invitations per 24-hour rolling window for fraud-prevention purposes.

7.4 Member access & removal. Invited members gain access to the workspace's projects, folders, and shared media at the role granted to them. The Owner may revoke pending invitations or remove active members at any time, with effect from the moment of removal. Removed members immediately lose all access to workspace content.

7.5 Plan changes & seat reductions. Upgrading your plan automatically increases the seat allowance and takes effect immediately. Downgrading to a plan with fewer seats takes effect at the end of the current paid period. If the active member count exceeds the new plan's allowance, the Owner must remove members down to the new limit before the downgrade takes effect, otherwise the platform will block new invitations until usage is brought back within the allowance.

7.6 Single-device security policy. Storage Link Media enforces a strict one-device-per-user policy for all workspace members. The first browser used to sign in registers as that member's device. Switching devices requires resetting the device binding from account settings or via Owner/administrator action.

7.7 Owner responsibility. The Owner is solely responsible for the conduct of all members of their workspace, including compliance with these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, and the security obligations set out above. Violations by any member may result in enforcement action against the entire workspace.

8.1 How termination is triggered. Termination begins the moment you tick the in-app termination policy checkbox in Account Settings → Account Deletion and press Request Account Deletion. A timestamp is written to your profile and a 30-day countdown starts immediately. The same date is logged in the platform's administrative cancellation tracker.

8.2 The 30-day grace window. For 30 consecutive calendar days from the request, your account remains in a "scheduled for deletion" state. During this window you may:

• Sign in normally and continue to download or export any files you wish to retain.
• Press Restore My Account at any time from the same dialog to cancel the deletion and resume full service - no penalty, no questions.
• Receive in-app reminders as the purge date approaches.

8.3 What gets permanently deleted at day 30. Once the 30-day window elapses an automated background job runs and irreversibly destroys, without further notice:

• Every uploaded asset (photos, videos, drone footage, vault files) on every connected object-storage provider used by the platform.
• Every project, folder, client record, share link, watermark, and approval history.
• Every team membership, pending invitation, registered device, and notification.
• All billing records, transaction history, support tickets, feedback submissions, and audit logs tied to the account.
• The authentication record itself - the email address becomes available for fresh registration.

8.4 Termination of agreement. Confirming deletion also terminates the contractual agreement between you and Storage Link Media with immediate effect at day 30. From that point you are no longer a user of the Service, no further invoices will be issued, no refunds will be paid for unused subscription days, and any active promotional code attached to the account is voided.

8.5 No liability after termination. Storage Link Media is expressly not responsible for any of the following consequences of you pressing the deletion button:

• Loss of any file, project, share link, or revision history that you did not export within the 30-day window.
• Broken external share links that clients, agencies, or third parties were relying on.
• Loss of revenue, contracts, deliverables, or client relationships that depended on continued platform access.
• Inability to recover, reconstruct, or audit historical billing, watermark, or approval data after purge.
• Any downstream effect on team members who lose access when the workspace is destroyed.

You accept that the 30-day grace window is sufficient notice and opportunity to export, transfer, or back up anything you need, and that pressing the deletion button is your sole and informed choice.

8.6 Mandatory acknowledgement. The platform will not accept a deletion request unless the termination-policy checkbox is ticked. This is a deliberate safeguard. Support staff cannot bypass it on your behalf and cannot stop the purge after day 30 - only the Restore My Account button, pressed by you within the 30-day window, can reverse the request.

8.7 Grace-window differences. Direct account deletion requests, promotional expiries, and paid-plan cancellations after the paid period ends follow the 30-day grace window. Trial cancellations are separate: they terminate the trial immediately and follow a strict 5-day read-only grace window before purge.

8.8 Administrative oversight. The 30-day countdown is enforced by an automated, audited system job. Storage Link Media administrators can view (but cannot extend) pending deletions for fraud-prevention and compliance purposes only.

9.1 Inclusion. SAM (Storage Arrangement Manager) is an AI-powered in-app assistant provided as part of every paid Storage Link Media subscription at no additional base cost.

9.2 Activation. SAM activates automatically the day your 7-day free trial concludes and your subscription becomes active. SAM is intentionally disabled during the trial period.

9.3 Fair-use allowance. Each subscription tier includes a monthly SAM message allowance: approximately 100 messages on Freelancer, 400 on Professional, and 1,500 on Enterprise. Enterprise Custom allowances are negotiated separately. The monthly allowance resets at the start of each billing cycle and does not roll over.

9.4 Top-up packs. Once your monthly allowance is reached, you may purchase optional top-up packs (currently R79 for 200 additional messages) to continue using SAM. Top-up message credits never expire while your account remains active. Top-up packs are non-refundable once any portion has been consumed and are not refunded on account cancellation or downgrade. Top-up packs are billed in ZAR; non-ZAR amounts shown are approximate.

9.5 Best-effort guidance. SAM provides best-effort guidance only. It does not perform actions on your account, cannot access other users' data, and may occasionally produce incorrect or incomplete answers. You are responsible for verifying any step SAM describes before acting on it. Storage Link Media is not liable for decisions made or actions taken solely on the basis of SAM's responses.

9.6 Acceptable use. The Acceptable Use Policy in section 2 applies to SAM in full. Attempts to extract platform secrets, jailbreak safety rules, or use SAM to harm other users or the Service may result in suspension of SAM access without refund.

10.1 Responsible Party. Storage Link Media is the Responsible Party (as defined in the Protection of Personal Information Act, 4 of 2013 - "POPIA") in respect of personal information processed through the Service. Our designated Information Officer can be reached at privacy@storagelinkmedia.com.

10.2 Personal information we collect. We collect only what is necessary to operate the Service: (a) account data (name, email address, password hash, profile details you choose to provide); (b) billing data (the tokenized payment reference returned by our payment processor - we do not store full card numbers); (c) content you upload (media files, project metadata, client records you create); (d) operational data (IP address, device fingerprint, browser user-agent, timestamps, audit logs) used for security, fraud-prevention, and abuse detection; (e) communications you send to support.

10.3 Purpose and lawful basis. Personal information is processed to: deliver and secure the Service, authenticate your account, bill your subscription, send transactional and security emails, comply with legal obligations, detect and prevent fraud or abuse, and respond to your support requests. Where applicable the lawful basis is contractual necessity, your consent, our legitimate interests, or compliance with a legal obligation.

10.4 Sub-processors and international transfers. To operate the Service we rely on a small number of carefully selected third-party sub-processors, including: a cloud application hosting and database provider (hosted in the European Union), an enterprise object-storage provider (for media files), a tokenized South African payment processor (for subscription billing only), a transactional email delivery provider, and an AI inference provider (for the SAM assistant). Each sub-processor is bound by a written data-processing agreement and is engaged under appropriate safeguards for any cross-border transfer permitted under section 72 of POPIA. The current list of sub-processors is available on request from privacy@storagelinkmedia.com.

10.5 Retention. We retain personal information only for as long as the account is active, plus the grace and audit periods described in Section 8. After the 30-day deletion grace window elapses, account data and uploaded content are permanently and irreversibly destroyed. Anonymised, aggregated operational metrics may be retained indefinitely for capacity and abuse-prevention purposes.

10.6 Your rights as a Data Subject. Under POPIA you have the right to: (a) be notified that your information is being collected; (b) request confirmation of, and access to, your personal information held by us; (c) request correction or deletion of inaccurate, irrelevant, excessive, out-of-date, or unlawfully obtained information; (d) object to processing; (e) lodge a complaint with the Information Regulator of South Africa (inforegulator.org.za). Most of these rights can be exercised directly from Profile → Account in the application; for anything not self-service, email privacy@storagelinkmedia.com and we will respond within 30 days.

10.7 Security safeguards. We implement appropriate, reasonable technical and organisational safeguards as required by section 19 of POPIA, including encryption in transit and at rest, least-privilege access controls, audit logging, automated malware screening of uploads, and continuous monitoring. No safeguard is infallible; the limitation of liability in Section 4 applies in full to any security incident.

10.8 Breach notification. If we become aware of a security compromise that, in our reasonable assessment, has caused or is likely to cause harm to a data subject, we will notify the Information Regulator and the affected users as soon as reasonably possible after the compromise has been confirmed, in line with section 22 of POPIA. Routine, unsuccessful attack attempts and contained events that do not meet the harm threshold are not individually notified.

10.9 Children. The Service is not directed at, and may not be used by, persons under 18. We do not knowingly collect personal information of children. Any account suspected of belonging to a minor will be suspended pending verification.

10.10 No sale of personal information. We do not sell, rent, or trade personal information or uploaded content. Your content is not used to train third-party AI models.

11.1 Indemnity by you. You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Storage Link Media, its owners, directors, employees, contractors, and sub-processors from and against any and all claims, demands, actions, liabilities, losses, damages, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees on an attorney-and-own-client scale) arising out of or in connection with: (a) any content you upload, store, share, transmit, or generate through the Service, including any allegation that such content infringes intellectual-property rights, violates the right to privacy, is defamatory, or is otherwise unlawful; (b) any invoice you issue, payment you collect, deliverable you provide, or commercial dispute with your own client; (c) any breach by you of these Terms or the Acceptable Use Policy; (d) any unauthorised access to the Service made possible by your failure to safeguard your credentials; (e) any taxes, levies, or duties payable on income you earn through your use of the Service.

11.2 Cooperation. We will notify you in writing of any claim covered by this indemnity, and you will at our election either (i) assume sole defence and settlement of the claim using legal counsel reasonably acceptable to us, or (ii) reimburse us for the cost of defending the claim ourselves. No settlement that imposes any obligation on Storage Link Media (other than payment of money fully covered by your indemnity) may be entered into without our prior written consent.

12.1 Document-generation tool only. The in-app invoicing module generates professional billing documents (invoices, quotes, credit notes, and recurring invoice schedules) in PDF form and provides a public share link for delivery to your client. Every document type produced by the module is treated as an "invoice" for the purposes of this Section 12 and is governed by the same disclaimer. Storage Link Media does not process, hold, escrow, settle, reconcile, refund, or guarantee any payment described on a document you create. All money owed in respect of a document is owed directly by your client to you, and is settled exclusively by Electronic Funds Transfer (EFT) or any other bilateral arrangement you make with your client outside of the Service.

12.2 No financial-services licence. Storage Link Media is not a bank, payment institution, money-remittance service, or registered financial services provider. We do not hold a Financial Services Provider licence under the Financial Advisory and Intermediary Services Act, and the Service is not, and must not be represented to your clients as, a payment gateway.

12.3 Accuracy of invoice content. You are solely responsible for the accuracy of every field on an invoice, including line-item descriptions, quantities, unit prices, VAT treatment, banking details, and reference numbers. The platform snapshots your banking details and client information at the moment the invoice is issued; you must verify the snapshot is correct before sending the link to your client.

12.4 Tax, VAT and cross-border tax obligations. You are solely responsible for determining what tax, VAT, GST, sales tax, withholding tax, levy or duty applies to each invoice you issue, for any registration required with the South African Revenue Service (SARS) or with the revenue authority of any other country in which you, your business, or your client is resident or operating, for charging the correct rate, and for filing and paying any tax owed. Storage Link Media operates from the Republic of South Africa and provides only an invoice document-generation tool. We do not provide tax advice, do not act as a withholding agent, do not file returns on your behalf, and do not assess or remit tax in any jurisdiction - South African or foreign. Where you invoice a client outside South Africa, or where you are yourself resident outside South Africa, full responsibility for compliance with the tax laws of that jurisdiction (including any foreign VAT/GST registration, reverse-charge mechanism, e-services regime, withholding obligation, customs declaration, or transfer-pricing rule) rests entirely with you. Storage Link Media accepts no liability whatsoever for any tax, penalty, interest, assessment, audit, or allegation of tax evasion, under-declaration, or non-compliance brought against you by SARS or by any foreign tax authority in connection with invoices you generate through the Service.

12.5 Disputes with your clients. Any dispute between you and a client regarding non-payment, late payment, partial payment, refund, deliverable scope, or invoice cancellation is strictly between you and that client. Storage Link Media is not a party to that dispute and will not adjudicate, mediate, or enforce payment on your behalf.

12.6 We do not collect or process card details. The invoicing module never asks you for, never stores, and never transmits payment-card numbers, CVVs, or expiry dates belonging to you or to your clients. Card-based subscription payments owed by you to Storage Link Media for use of the Service are handled exclusively by our regulated payment processor, PayFast (Pty) Ltd, and the card data is held under PayFast's PCI-DSS-compliant environment. Storage Link Media has no technical means to debit a card, raise a chargeback, issue a card refund, or otherwise move funds on your or your client's card account.

12.7 Banking details are stored for your own invoice rendering only. The bank name, account holder, account number, branch code, SWIFT/BIC, and reference hint you enter under Invoicing → Settings → Banking details are stored against your own profile for the sole purpose of pre-filling them onto invoice documents that you issue to your clients. These details remain your property. We do not use them to debit your account, settle funds, share them with third parties, sell them, or surface them publicly outside of the invoice share link you generate and choose to send. Operators may access the underlying database row only for support, backup, abuse investigation, or where compelled by law.

12.8 One-time acknowledgement on first use. Before you may save banking details or generate an invoice, the platform requires a one-time, on-record acknowledgement of this Section 12. The acknowledgement is recorded against your profile with the timestamp and clause version, and is reproducible to you on request and to the platform administrator for compliance purposes. If we materially revise this Section 12 we will request a fresh acknowledgement before continued use of the invoicing module.

12.9 Opt-out fail-safe. Acceptance of this Section 12 is entirely voluntary. If you do not wish to agree, you may decline the acknowledgement prompt at any time. Declining (or simply not completing) the acknowledgement automatically locks the entire invoicing module for your account - the Invoicing area becomes inaccessible, no invoice documents may be generated, no banking details may be saved, and no client records may be created through the invoicing module - until such time as you choose to return to the acknowledgement prompt and agree. The lock is enforced both in the user interface and at the server-side. No other area of the Service is affected by declining, and the rest of your account (storage, sharing, projects, team) continues to operate normally. This fail-safe exists to ensure that no banking detail or invoice is ever stored or generated for a user who has not given on-record consent to Section 12.

12.10 Multi-currency invoicing. The invoicing module supports issuing documents in any of the currencies the platform makes available (currently ZAR, USD, EUR, GBP, AUD, NZD, and CAD). Each saved client may carry a preferred currency, and new documents for that client will default to it as a convenience. You remain solely responsible for choosing the correct currency for each document and for the accuracy of every amount stated, including the relationship between the document currency and your own banking arrangements. Storage Link Media does not perform any foreign-exchange conversion, does not snapshot or apply any FX rate, and makes no representation about the equivalent value of an amount in any other currency. Totals shown in dashboard reports are grouped strictly by currency and are never automatically converted or summed across currencies.

12.11 Void, audit trail, and reissue. Once issued, a document is preserved on your account for audit purposes and cannot be silently removed. You may void a document by recording a reason; the original is retained in your audit trail with its void status, void timestamp, and reason, and may be reissued as a fresh, separately numbered replacement document. Voided documents remain available to you for download and to administrators for compliance, support, and abuse-investigation purposes. You are responsible for ensuring that any voided or reissued document is communicated correctly to your client, and that your own bookkeeping reflects the void and any subsequent reissue.

13.1 Respect for intellectual property. Storage Link Media respects intellectual-property rights and expects all users to do the same. Uploading, sharing, or distributing content that infringes the copyright, trademark, design, performer's rights, or any other intellectual-property right of a third party is a direct breach of the Acceptable Use Policy.

13.2 How to file a takedown notice. If you are the lawful rights holder (or authorised agent) of content you believe is being hosted on the Service in breach of your rights, send a written notice to abuse@storagelinkmedia.com that includes: (a) your full name, postal address, telephone number, and email address; (b) sufficient identification of the work claimed to have been infringed; (c) the specific public URL(s) or share link(s) of the allegedly infringing material on the Service; (d) a good-faith statement that the use is not authorised; (e) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorised to act on the rights holder's behalf; (f) your physical or electronic signature.

13.3 Our response. On receipt of a valid notice we will act expeditiously to disable access to the identified material and notify the uploading account. We may, at our sole discretion, suspend or terminate the offending account, especially in the case of repeat infringers.

13.4 Counter-notice. A user whose content has been removed may submit a counter-notice to the same address, providing identification of the removed material, a good-faith statement that the removal was the result of mistake or misidentification, and consent to the jurisdiction of the South African courts. We will share the counter-notice with the complainant; if no court process is initiated within a reasonable period we may, at our sole discretion, restore the material.

13.5 Repeat-infringer policy. Accounts that receive multiple substantiated infringement notices will be permanently terminated under Section 2 (Acceptable Use Policy), without refund and without recourse.

13.6 Other abuse. Reports of malware, phishing, CSAM, harassment, or other AUP violations should also be sent to abuse@storagelinkmedia.com. Suspected CSAM will be reported to the South African Police Service Family Violence, Child Protection and Sexual Offences (FCS) Unit without prior notice to the uploader.

14.1 Governing law. These Terms and any dispute, claim, or matter arising out of or in connection with them or their subject matter (including non-contractual disputes) are governed exclusively by the laws of the Republic of South Africa.

14.2 Jurisdiction. The parties consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the competent courts of the Republic of South Africa to settle any dispute, save that Storage Link Media reserves the right to bring proceedings against you in any other jurisdiction in which you reside or carry on business in order to protect its intellectual property or its users.

14.3 Informal resolution first. Before initiating any formal proceedings, the parties will use good-faith efforts to resolve the dispute by sending a written notice to support@storagelinkmedia.com describing the dispute and the desired resolution, and engaging in at least one written exchange over a period of no less than 30 days.

14.4 Class-action waiver. To the maximum extent permitted by law, you agree that any dispute will be brought in your individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in any purported class, consolidated, or representative proceeding.

14.5 Force majeure. Storage Link Media is not liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including acts of God, war, civil unrest, pandemic, load-shedding or grid failure, internet backbone outages, sub-processor outages, governmental action, or denial-of-service attack.

14.6 Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid, illegal, or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect. The invalid provision will be deemed modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it valid, legal, and enforceable while preserving its original intent.

14.7 No waiver, entire agreement. Failure to enforce any right under these Terms is not a waiver of that right. These Terms (together with the Privacy Policy in Section 10 and the policies referenced within) constitute the entire agreement between you and Storage Link Media in respect of the Service and supersede any prior agreement, representation, or understanding.

14.8 Assignment. You may not assign or transfer your account or any rights under these Terms without our prior written consent. Storage Link Media may assign its rights and obligations to an affiliate or to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of substantially all of its assets.