Creator Collaboration Terms

These terms govern the collaboration between the operator of the Hero of the Book website and a content creator — an influencer, an author of UGC videos, or anyone else who creates content for the operator or presents its product to their audience.

They are a framework. Exactly what you are to create, what we may use the content for, for how long and what you receive in return is set out in the specific agreement — in the summary you received by link and approved together with these terms. Where the framework and the specific agreement differ, the specific agreement prevails.

1. Who offers the collaboration

• Name: Lukáš Kantor, a self-employed person doing business under the Trade Licensing Act
• Company ID: 03177009, VAT ID: CZ9109235410
• Registered address: Milíkov 244, 739 81 Milíkov
• Contact e-mail: contact@heroofthebook.nz

(hereinafter the "operator"). A person who has accepted a specific agreement is hereinafter referred to as the "creator".

These terms concern exclusively the relationship between the operator and the creator. The purchase of goods is governed by the terms and conditions — the creator is not the operator's representative and must not promise or arrange anything in its name.

The collaboration is independent of both the affiliate and the credit programme. Commissions and credit from referrals continue to run their own course and the reward from this collaboration does not count towards them — and vice versa.

2. How the collaboration comes about

The operator sends the creator a link to a specific agreement. It sets out the brief, the scope of use of the content, the duration of the licence, the reward and any further conditions. The creator fills in their details, approves the agreement by clicking a button, and the contract is thereby concluded.

Approval by clicking a button is a valid conclusion of a contract. The law leaves the choice of form to the parties (Section 559 of the Civil Code, Act No. 89/2012 Coll.), and under Section 562(1) the written form is preserved even electronically, provided that the means used allow the content to be recorded and the acting person to be identified. The operator therefore stores, as at the moment of acceptance, the full wording that the creator had in front of them, together with the date, time and IP address; the link is unique and is delivered to the creator's e-mail address. The operator promptly sends the creator a confirmation of the collaboration in PDF with the same wording.

A specific agreement may be changed only by agreement of both parties — the operator sends the change in the same way and the creator accepts it in the same way.

If the creator brings their own contract and the operator signs it, that contract applies; these terms then govern only what it does not address.

3. Who may collaborate

A creator may be a natural or legal person over 18 years of age with full legal capacity.

If the creator is under 18 years of age, the specific agreement is accepted by their legal guardian and the link is sent to the guardian's e-mail address. A minor has capacity only for legal acts appropriate to the intellectual and volitional maturity of minors of their age (Section 31 of the Civil Code), and granting a licence in return for consideration is not among them. The legal guardian is responsible for fulfilling the obligations under these terms just as if they had assumed them themselves.

A monetary reward is paid exclusively against an invoice, that is, only to a creator holding a business registration number (a Company ID in the Czech Republic, or its local equivalent elsewhere). Without one, barter, credit or free goods are possible — but not money.

4. What the creator is to create

The brief, the number and format of the deliverables, the channels and the deadline are determined by the specific agreement.

Unless the specific agreement provides otherwise, the creator is not obliged to publish the deliverable — they create it and hand it over. Where an obligation to publish is agreed, it is stated in the agreement together with the deadline and the channel.

The creator creates the content in their own way. The operator specifies what is to be communicated, not how the creator is to speak; it does not prescribe working hours or place of work, and the creator is not its employee.

The operator may comment on the deliverable in writing once, if it conflicts with the brief, with legal regulations or with the rules under Art. 5 and 6. The creator has a reasonable period for making changes, at least 5 working days.

5. Labelling of advertising

Every deliverable for which the creator receives a reward must be clearly and comprehensibly labelled as advertising or a paid partnership, at the very start of the message and regardless of whether the reward is money, goods, credit or anything else. The label must be legible without clicking "more" and must not be hidden among other tags.

This is not a formality: paid promotion presented as a personal opinion misleads the audience about who stands behind it. In New Zealand that is misleading conduct under section 9 of the Fair Trading Act 1986 and a false representation of sponsorship or endorsement under section 13(e) and (f) of that Act, and the Advertising Standards Authority's codes require an advertisement to be obviously identifiable as such. The trader placing the advertising — that is, the operator — is liable for unlabelled advertising as well; the labelling requirement is therefore an instruction from the trader placing the advertising and breaching it is a material breach of these terms.

Advertising must be recognisable as advertising. In New Zealand the rule comes from the Fair Trading Act 1986: section 9 prohibits conduct in trade that is misleading or deceptive or likely to mislead or deceive, and section 13(e) and (f) prohibit a false or misleading representation that goods or services have any sponsorship, approval or endorsement, or that a person has any sponsorship, approval or affiliation. A post that hides the fact that it was paid for misleads in exactly that way, even if every sentence in it is true. The Advertising Standards Authority's codes, which bind advertisers and media in New Zealand, require the same: an advertisement, including influencer content, must be obviously identifiable as an advertisement in the publication itself, not only in a profile description or behind a link. Advertising aimed at children is held to a stricter standard under the ASA's Children and Young People's Advertising Code, and we do not want any promotion addressed to children at all.

For commercial messages sent by e-mail, SMS or instant message, the Unsolicited Electronic Messages Act 2007 applies. Section 9 prohibits sending a commercial electronic message without the recipient's consent, and the burden of proving consent is on the sender (section 9(3)); section 10 requires accurate sender information and section 11 a functional unsubscribe facility, and an unsubscribe request must be honoured within 5 working days. Civil penalties under section 45 reach NZD 200,000 for an individual and NZD 500,000 for an organisation, and the Act is enforced by the Department of Internal Affairs. Bulk unsolicited messages are not permitted under this cooperation in any case.

The creator must further:

• present the product truthfully and in line with the information stated on the operator's website; not to promise features, prices, deadlines or guarantees that the operator does not provide,
• label as a paid partnership any further messages about the product published during the collaboration, where they follow from the reward,
• observe the rules of the platform on which they publish.

6. What the message must not say

In the deliverable or in related messages, the creator must not:

• urge children to buy, or to ask adults to buy for them ("tell your mum to buy it for you"). Advertising aimed at children is held to a stricter standard under the Advertising Standards Authority's Children and Young People's Advertising Code, and in this cooperation it is forbidden in any case,
• present a paid partnership as a spontaneous recommendation, or pretend not to be acting for purposes relating to their business (misleading conduct under section 9 of the Fair Trading Act 1986),
• state fabricated reviews or ratings, or claim that a product has been tried by someone who has not tried it (a false or misleading representation under section 13 of the Fair Trading Act 1986),
• attribute to the product healing, therapeutic or developmental-diagnostic effects, or associate it with resolving a child's health or psychological difficulties,
• compare the product with competitors by name, disparage other manufacturers or use third-party trade marks,
• state prices, discounts, delivery times and parameters that do not correspond to the current state of the operator's website,
• publish the personal data of third parties (a name, school, address, or the contents of another customer's order),
• place the deliverable alongside unlawful content, adult content, hateful, violent or discriminatory content.

The specific agreement may extend this list.

7. Licence to the content

The creator grants the operator a licence to use the content created (photographs, video, audio, text) pursuant to Section 2358 et seq. of the Civil Code.

The licence is:

• non-exclusive — the creator may continue to use the content themselves and may also grant it to another person,
• unlimited in territory,
• granted for the period stated in the specific agreement; where none is stated, for 6 months from acceptance,
• for consideration — the reward under Art. 9 also includes the reward for the licence; no separate payment is due for it.

The scope of use is stated in the specific agreement and has three levels:

• the creator's own channels — the operator merely shares the content and links to it,
• the operator's channels — social media profiles, the website, the online shop, the newsletter, printed materials,
• paid advertising — Meta, Google, Sklik and other advertising systems, including paid promotion of a post on the creator's profile.

The operator may shorten the content, add subtitles, a logo, a price or music, and combine it with other works to the extent usual for advertising messages. It must not alter the content in a way that reduces the value of the work or changes its meaning (Section 2375(2) of the Civil Code).

The operator may assign the licence or grant a sub-licence to persons who produce and deploy advertising for it (an agency, an advertising system, a printing house), to the extent to which the licence belongs to the operator itself.

Once the licence ends, the operator will stop using the content and will withdraw it from its channels and from advertising systems, no later than 10 working days after the licence ends. Copies and materials already produced in printed form are not withdrawn, and archive copies kept to evidence compliance with legal obligations are not deleted.

8. Likeness, voice and children

If a person appears in the deliverable, the creator also grants consent to the taking and dissemination of their likeness and of a recording of their voice pursuant to Sections 84 and 85 of the Civil Code, to the same extent and for the same period as the licence under Art. 7.

If children appear in the deliverable:

• in the case of the creator's own children, consent is granted by the creator as their legal guardian; by accepting the specific agreement they confirm that they are entitled to grant it,
• in the case of other people's children, the creator must evidence the consent of their legal guardian, in writing or electronically, stating the guardian's name and contact details. Until the consent is evidenced, the operator will not use the content in paid advertising.

Consent may be revoked at any time — even if it was given for a fixed period (Section 87(1) of the Civil Code). This right cannot be excluded by these terms and the operator does not exclude it. It is sufficient to send the revocation to the contact e-mail address; the operator will withdraw the content from its channels and from advertising systems within 5 working days of delivery of the revocation. If the creator revokes consent without reasonable grounds at a time when the operator is lawfully using it, the creator shall compensate the operator for the damage thereby caused (Section 87(2)) — typically the cost of advertising already produced or paid for.

Revocation of consent does not affect the reward for content that has been delivered; that remains the creator's.

9. Reward

The reward is determined by the specific agreement, item by item, including where it consists of goods or credit. For each item, a monetary value in the currency of the agreement is stated; for goods, their selling price is stated, that is, the price at which they are offered to anyone else. The reward includes the reward for creating the content, for the licence under Art. 7 and for the consent under Art. 8.

The reward may take the form of:

• free goods or services (a book, a further copy, a canvas print, an audiobook, gift add-ons) — the operator will supply these after acceptance of the agreement, unless the parties agree otherwise,
• credit towards a future purchase — this is added to the creator's account and is governed by the rules for drawing credit; it is not paid out in money,
• money — only against an invoice under Art. 3. The creator issues the invoice after handing over the deliverable; the payment period is 14 days from its delivery, unless agreed otherwise. If the creator is not a tax resident of the Czech Republic, the operator may withhold tax from the reward under Art. 10.

If the creator does not deliver the agreed deliverable, no reward is due and the creator shall return any goods already supplied or pay their selling price. Where goods have been supplied which by their nature cannot be returned (a personalized book bearing a child's name), the operator does not require their return — only the monetary part is settled.

The creator's costs (travel, props, editing) are included in the reward unless the specific agreement provides otherwise.

10. Taxes

The creator settles their own tax obligations arising from the reward, unless stated otherwise below.

If the creator is a tax resident of the Czech Republic, the operator withholds no tax from the reward and files no report on the creator's behalf.

If the creator is not a tax resident of the Czech Republic, the monetary reward for the licence under Art. 7 is income from sources within the territory of the Czech Republic (Section 22(1)(g), point 2 of Act No. 586/1992 Coll., on Income Taxes) and the operator, as the payer of the tax, is obliged to withhold tax from it at the special rate under Section 36 of the same Act. An international double taxation treaty takes precedence over the Act (Section 37 of the same Act); the operator will apply the rate under such a treaty if the creator provides a certificate of tax residence issued for the period in which the reward is paid out. The certificate must be provided before the payment — afterwards the operator can no longer refund the tax withheld and the creator must claim it from the tax administrator themselves. The operator will issue the creator a certificate of the tax withheld.

A reward for permission to use a work or an artistic performance is a royalty from a Czech source under Section 22(1)(g)(2) of Act No. 586/1992 Coll., on income taxes, because the operator who pays it is established in the Czech Republic. The operator withholds Czech withholding tax under Section 36 of that Act, as a rule 15 %.

The double taxation agreement between the Czech Republic and New Zealand (published as No. 75/2008 Sb. m. s., signed in Prague on 26 October 2007, in force since 29 August 2008) prevails over the Act under its Section 37 and reduces the rate: Article 12(2) of the agreement caps tax in the source state at 10 % of the gross amount of the royalty. There is no zero rate for royalties in this agreement, so 10 % is the floor. The reduced rate can be applied only if you supply, before payment, a certificate of tax residence issued by Inland Revenue and a declaration that you are the beneficial owner of the income; otherwise the operator must withhold 15 %. The tax withheld is confirmed to you in writing. The reward remains your income in New Zealand and you declare it there; New Zealand gives you credit for the Czech tax withheld under the Income Tax Act 2007 and the agreement. A non-monetary reward (goods, credit) counts at its normal market price, which is why its value is stated in the individual arrangement.

As regards sales taxes: for Czech value added tax the place of supply of the licence to the operator is the Czech Republic (Section 9(1) of Act No. 235/2004 Coll., on value added tax), so you invoice without Czech tax and the operator self-assesses it. For New Zealand GST, a service supplied to a non-resident who is outside New Zealand when the service is performed is zero-rated under section 11A(1)(k) of the Goods and Services Tax Act 1985. If you are registered for GST you therefore charge 0 %; if your taxable supplies stay under NZD 60,000 in 12 months you need not register at all (section 51(1) of that Act).

11. Representations of the creator

The creator represents that:

• they are the author of the deliverable or hold all rights to it necessary to grant the licence to the extent set out in Art. 7,
• for the music, fonts, footage and other third-party elements used in the deliverable they hold a licence which also covers use in paid advertising (the ordinary music licence within a social media mobile app usually does not cover it),
• they have the consent of all persons appearing in the deliverable,
• the deliverable does not infringe the rights of third parties or any legal regulations.

If any of these representations proves to be untrue, the creator shall compensate the operator for the harm thereby caused — including the cost of withdrawing the advertising and of settling a third party's claim.

12. Exclusivity

Only where it is agreed in the specific agreement does the creator undertake not to promote competing products, that is, personalized children's books from other manufacturers, for the duration of the collaboration. Where this is not agreed, the creator is not restricted in this way.

This undertaking concerns promotion; it does not create an exclusive licence under Art. 7 and does not prevent the creator from continuing to use their own content.

13. Duration and termination

The collaboration lasts until the obligations of both parties have been fulfilled. The period of the licence and of the consent continues to run even after the collaboration ends, for the periods under Art. 7 and 8.

Either party may terminate the collaboration in writing or by e-mail until the deliverable has been handed over; deliverables already handed over are settled under Art. 9.

If the creator materially breaches these terms — in particular by failing to publish the advertising label under Art. 5 or by breaching Art. 6 — the operator may terminate the collaboration with immediate effect, withdraw from the licence and demand the return of the reward or a proportionate part of it. In such a case the operator does not enforce publication of the deliverable; any agreed obligation to publish lapses.

Termination of the collaboration does not affect Art. 8 (revocation of consent), Art. 11 (representations) and Art. 14 (personal data).

14. Personal data protection

The operator processes the creator's name, e-mail address, telephone number, links to profiles, address, registration number and bank details, the content of the specific agreement and the deliverables handed over, as a controller. The legal basis is performance of a contract under Art. 6(1)(b) GDPR and compliance with legal obligations under point (c), and, in the case of published content, the legitimate interest in promoting its own offering under point (f).

The operator retains the data on acceptance of the agreement (date, time, IP address and the wording the creator saw) for the duration of the licence and thereafter for the limitation period — it is the only evidence of what was agreed.

If children appear in the deliverable, the operator processes their likeness on the basis of consent under Sections 84 and 85 of the Civil Code; this may be revoked at any time under Art. 8.

The operator retains data about the creator for the duration of the collaboration and thereafter for the period of limitation of the rights arising from it; documents relating to the reward for the period laid down by tax and accounting regulations.

The creator has the right of access to their data, to its rectification and erasure, to restriction of processing and to portability, and the right to object to processing based on legitimate interest. These rights may be exercised at contact@heroofthebook.nz. Erasure does not extend to data which the operator must retain under legal regulations or for the establishment and defence of legal claims — in particular the wording of the agreement, the evidence of its acceptance and the documents relating to the reward.

If the creator is not satisfied with the operator's conduct, they may lodge a complaint with a supervisory authority. Under Article 77(1) of the GDPR the creator chooses the authority — the one in the Member State of their habitual residence, of their place of work, or of the place where the alleged infringement occurred; the European Data Protection Board keeps the list. The operator's lead authority is the Office for Personal Data Protection (Úřad pro ochranu osobních údajů, Pplk. Sochora 27, 170 00 Praha 7, Czech Republic, uoou.gov.cz), which is competent for cross-border cases under Articles 55 and 56 of the GDPR. A creator living in New Zealand may also complain to the Office of the Privacy Commissioner (privacy.org.nz, 0800 803 909) under section 70 of the Privacy Act 2020, which applies to the operator because it carries on business in New Zealand (section 4(1)(b) of that Act).

15. Liability

The operator does not guarantee any reach, number of views or number of orders, and is not liable for a platform's decision to restrict or remove a deliverable.

The creator is responsible for the content they publish and for the compliance of their message with legal regulations and with Art. 5 and 6 of these terms.

16. Final provisions

The relationship is governed by the law of the Czech Republic. If the creator is a consumer with their habitual residence in another country, the choice of Czech law does not deprive them of the protection afforded by the mandatory provisions of the law of their own country (Article 6(2) of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008).

The creator is not an employee, commercial agent or business associate of the operator, and no employment relationship arises between them.

If any provision of these terms is invalid or ineffective, this does not affect the validity of the remaining provisions.

The current wording of these terms is always available on this page. Please send any questions to contact@heroofthebook.nz.