General Terms and Conditions (T&C)
of 80seconds e.U., Triester Straße 16-20/3/33, 2334 Vösendorf (As of: May 2026)
§ 1 Scope and Fundamentals
(1) These General Terms and Conditions (T&C) apply to all contracts for services in the fields of video production, animation, and online marketing between 80seconds e.U., Triester Straße 16–20/3/33, 2334 Vösendorf, Austria (hereinafter "Agency"), and its clients (hereinafter "Client").
(2) These T&C apply exclusively to contracts with entrepreneurs within the meaning of the Austrian Consumer Protection Act (KSchG). Contracts with consumers are expressly excluded from the scope of application of these T&C.
(3) Deviating, conflicting, or supplementary terms and conditions of the Client shall only become part of the contract if the Agency expressly agrees to their validity in text form (e.g., via email).
(4) These T&C shall also apply to all future contracts and business relationships with the Client without requiring any renewed express inclusion.
§ 2 Conclusion of Contract and Scope of Services
(1) The offers of the Agency are non-binding and subject to change. They represent an invitation for the Client to submit an offer.
(2) A contract is only concluded upon acceptance of the Client's offer by the Agency in text form or by execution of the service. Text form includes, in particular, simple email as well as digital or scanned signatures.
(3) The specific scope of services and the respective deadlines are set forth in the Agency's offer.
(4) Verbal collateral agreements, additions, or amendments to the contract during an ongoing project require text form (e.g., simple email or messenger message) by an authorized representative of the Agency to be effective.
(5) The Agency owes the professional creation of the contractual works according to the accepted standards of the trade. A specific economic or promotional success, in particular guaranteed reach, click, conversion, or sales figures, is expressly not owed.
§ 3 Performance of Services and Cooperation of the Client
(1) The Agency shall perform its services in a timely manner. Deadlines shall be extended reasonably in the event of delays caused by a lack of or insufficient cooperation by the Client, as well as in the event of unpredictable events beyond the Agency's control (force majeure). Force majeure includes, without limitation, natural disasters, pandemics, war, strikes, official orders, cyberattacks, and prolonged failures of essential third-party infrastructure (e.g., cloud services, internet providers, AI interfaces) that cannot be compensated for by reasonable measures.
(2) The Agency is entitled to engage subcontractors for the performance of the contract. No contractual relationship shall be established between the Client and the subcontractors.
(3) The Client is obligated to provide all information and data required for the performance of services within 14 days. If these are not delivered in a timely manner, the Agency is entitled, after issuing a reminder in text form setting a grace period of 7 calendar days, to optionally:
a) extend the agreed delivery dates in accordance with the delay,
b) pause the project and invoice the services rendered up to that point, or
c) withdraw from the contract if the delay exceeds 7 calendar days after the expiration of the grace period and demand either the actual expenses incurred or 50% of the remaining order value as liquidated damages.
(4) Delivered services must be reviewed and approved or rejected by the Client in text form within 14 calendar days. If no feedback is provided by the Client in text form within the specified period, the services shall be deemed approved, provided that the Agency expressly informed the Client of this deadline and the legal consequence of the fruitless expiration of the deadline (deemed acceptance) upon transmission of the service.
(5) Services of the Agency are not transferable without its prior consent in text form.
(6) The Agency is entitled to use the Client and the respective project as a reference for its own promotion. For this purpose, the Client grants the Agency the non-exclusive, geographically and chronologically unrestricted right to use the Client's name and logo as well as the project description in media, on the website, in social media, and in sales materials until the Client revokes this consent in text form. Online references (website, social media) shall be removed or anonymized within 30 days of receipt of the revocation. References already used in physical materials (print, pitch decks, showreels, stored offline versions of third parties) as well as in third-party media already published shall remain unaffected by the revocation.
(7) The Client guarantees that all materials provided by them (e.g., texts, images, videos) are free of third-party rights and do not violate applicable laws. The Client shall fully indemnify and hold the Agency harmless from any third-party claims arising from the use of these materials.
(8) Three consolidated feedback or correction loops are included in the agreed price per production phase (in particular script, storyboard, animation/editing). A correction loop comprises a summarized feedback submission from the Client in text form per phase. Additional loops, changes after a phase has been approved, or fundamental content direction changes shall be billed separately based on the Agency's standard hourly rates applicable at the time of execution (unless otherwise agreed in the offer). The Agency shall inform the Client of the estimated effort before commencing such additional services.
§ 4 Prices and Payment Terms
(1) All prices are net prices excluding statutory value-added tax (VAT).
(2) Unless otherwise specified in the offer, invoicing is structured as follows:
a) 50% of the order value as a deposit upon placement of the order,
b) 50% after acceptance or deemed approval pursuant to § 3 (4) or at the latest 4 weeks after the last agreed partial delivery, provided the delay is not caused by the Agency.
For orders with a volume below € 2,500.00 net, the Agency is entitled to invoice 100% in advance. For orders above € 15,000.00 net, a three-stage payment plan (e.g., 40 / 30 / 30) may be agreed upon.
(3) Invoices are due for payment within 14 days from the invoice date without deductions.
(4) External costs (e.g., duties, licensing fees, third-party services) will be charged separately. These costs will be presented to the Client in advance for approval (also in text form or via email). If approval by the Client is delayed, the agreed service deadlines of the Agency shall be extended accordingly.
(5) In the event of default in payment by the Client, statutory default interest for business transactions in the amount of 9.2 percentage points above the base interest rate shall be deemed agreed. The Client is additionally obligated to reimburse all necessary and appropriate costs of extrajudicial legal enforcement, in particular the costs of a collection agency or a lawyer.
(6) If the Client withdraws from the contract without good cause, the Agency is entitled to demand the following liquidated cancellation fees:
a) Prior to the start of performance: 30% of the order value,
b) After commencement and up to approval of the script: 50% of the order value,
c) After approval of the script and up to approval of the storyboard: 70% of the order value,
d) After approval of the storyboard: 90% of the order value.
Partial services already rendered and accepted shall be invoiced in full.
§ 5 Copyright and Usage Rights
(1) Upon full payment of the agreed fee, the Agency grants the Client the geographically, chronologically, and content-wise unrestricted, exclusive usage rights to the final contractual works (e.g., finished video, final animation, final design). The right to independently edit, modify, or redesign the final work by the Client or third parties is expressly excluded, unless otherwise agreed upon in advance in text form.
(2) Expressly excluded from the exclusivity pursuant to Paragraph 1 are standard templates, software components, pre-existing animation templates, effects, or program elements used or introduced by the Agency. The Client receives a non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use these elements within the scope of and as an integral part of the final work. All other rights to raw materials, concepts, scripts, working files, drafts, and internal know-how remain fully with the Agency. The Client is not permitted to make these working materials available to third parties or to use them independently unless separately agreed upon in text form. Excepted from this are the final contractual works themselves and their specific contents, such as the final script.
(3) Upon separate request of the Client and against separate remuneration, working files (e.g., After Effects project files, open editing projects) may be transferred within the scope of a separate buy-out. The amount of remuneration shall be agreed upon on a case-by-case basis.
(4) The Client is entitled to name the Agency as the author in an appropriate form upon public distribution of the works. There is no obligation to name the author. The Agency reserves the right to identify the works within the scope of its own reference usage pursuant to § 3 (6).
(5) All rights to the created works remain with the Agency until full payment has been received.
§ 6 Warranty and Liability
(1) The Agency is liable for property and financial damages only in cases of intent or gross negligence. Liability for slight negligence is fully excluded, with the exception of personal injury (injury to life, body, or health).
(2) In the event that a full exclusion of liability for slight negligence should be legally ineffective, the Agency's liability for slight negligence shall be limited in amount to the respective order value, up to a maximum of € 10,000.00. Liability for lost profits, indirect damages, consequential damages, loss of data, or damages from business interruption is excluded within the scope of slight negligence in any case.
(3) The Agency is not liable for damages caused by content, materials, or information provided by the Client.
§ 7 Use of AI Tools and Protection against AI Training
(1) The Agency is entitled to use AI-supported tools (e.g., for image generation, voiceover, translation, asset creation) in the creation of the works. Upon request of the Client, the Agency shall disclose the essential tools used.
(2) The Agency ensures that the commercial usage rights to components created by means of AI can be transferred to the Client to the extent possible under applicable law. A guarantee for the copyright protectability of AI-generated components cannot be assumed under current law. The Agency is not liable for violations of trademarks, copyrights, or other third-party rights caused by the use of AI tools unless the Agency is guilty of gross negligence or intent regarding the detectability of such a rights violation during selection, prompting, or verification of results. The burden of proving gross negligence or intent lies with the Client.
(3) The Client is not entitled to use the contractual works or parts thereof to train AI models (e.g., LLMs, image generators) or to make them available to third parties for this purpose. Any deviating use requires a separate agreement in text form and separate remuneration.
§ 8 Personal Rights, Stock Materials and Third-Party Content
(1) If the Client provides materials depicting individuals (e.g., employee photos, interview recordings), the Client guarantees that all necessary consents (model releases) and image rights pursuant to § 78 UrhG (Austrian Copyright Act) have been obtained.
(2) For live-action film productions by the Agency, the Agency obtains the required releases on-site, provided that this is contractually agreed.
(3) The Agency uses exclusively properly licensed stock materials (images, music, footage, fonts) within the scope of standard online and digital licenses of the respective providers. Broader usage rights (e.g., TV or cinema broadcast, large-scale physical reproduction, or chronologically/geographically extended special licenses) must be ordered and paid for separately by the Client. The respective standard license terms will be disclosed to the Client upon request upon handover of the final work.
§ 9 Retention of Project Data
(1) The Agency stores the final work and central project files for a period of 24 months after project completion. Any archiving beyond this period may be agreed upon against separate remuneration.
(2) The Client is obligated to create their own backup copies of the final works. The Agency does not assume a recovery guarantee beyond the retention period.
§ 10 Confidentiality
(1) Both parties undertake to keep strictly confidential all information marked as confidential that becomes known to them within the scope of the business relationship.
(2) This confidentiality obligation shall continue to exist even after termination of the contractual relationship.
§ 11 Data Protection
(1) Both parties undertake to comply with the provisions of the GDPR, the Austrian Data Protection Act (DSG), and all applicable data protection regulations.
(2) The Agency processes personal data of the Client only within the scope of the contract. Details on data processing can be viewed in the Agency's privacy policy at https://80seconds.io/datenschutz/.
(3) The Client ensures that they have taken all necessary data protection measures to enable data processing by the Agency.
§ 12 Final Provisions
(1) Austrian law applies, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG) and international conflict of law rules.
(2) The exclusive venue for all disputes arising out of or in connection with the contractual relationship shall be the court with subject-matter jurisdiction for 2334 Vösendorf (depending on the value in dispute, the District Court of Mödling or the Regional Court of Wiener Neustadt), provided that the Client is an entrepreneur.
(3) Should individual provisions of these T&C be or become invalid, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. In place of the invalid provision, a provision that closest matches the economic purpose of the invalid provision shall apply. The same applies in the case of contractual gaps.
(4) Prior to invoking the ordinary courts, both parties undertake in the event of disputes arising out of or in connection with this contract—expressly excepting pure payment claims (lawsuits for payment) by the Agency and proceedings for provisional legal protection (in particular temporary injunctions)—to first initiate an extrajudicial mediation procedure with a registered mediator in Vienna. The costs of the mediation shall be borne equally by the parties. The legal path to the ordinary courts only opens if the mediation remains unsuccessful after 30 days, is terminated, or if a party refuses to participate.