Terms of Use

Scope of Application and General Provisions

1. These Terms of Use (hereinafter referred to as "ToU") apply to the provision and use of Pitch’s cross-platform Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) for collaboratively creating, editing, and sharing presentations (hereinafter referred to as "Software", substantiated in Section 3.2) by Pitch Software GmbH, Joachimstraße 7, 10119 Berlin (hereinafter referred to as "Pitch"). Free services offered by Pitch address both consumers (Verbraucher) pursuant to Section 13 German Civil Code, and businesses (Unternehmer) pursuant to Section 14 German Civil Code. Paid Plans (as defined in Section 3.2) are offered exclusively to companies or persons that legally qualify as entrepreneurs (Unternehmer) (the respective customer hereinafter referred to as "Customer", together with Pitch the "Parties").

2. For the avoidance of doubt: The Customer is a consumer (Verbraucher) insofar as the purpose of the subscribed services is predominantly outside his trade, business or profession. On the other hand, an entrepreneur (Unternehmer) is any natural or legal person or partnership with a legal personality who or which, when concluding the Contract, acts in the exercise of its trade, business or profession.

3. Deviations from these ToU shall only be considered agreed if they have expressly been confirmed in writing by Pitch. In particular, the mere omission of an objection by Pitch against any general terms and conditions of the Customer shall not cause such terms and conditions to be considered agreed. This shall also apply if Pitch performs Services unconditionally upon knowledge of opposing terms and conditions of the Customer or terms and conditions diverging from these ToU.

4. For important reasons, in particular in the event of changes to statutory provisions, judicial precedents, the Software or market conditions, Pitch may notify the Customer of amendments to these ToU. The amended ToU shall be deemed to have been agreed if the Customer has not objected to the amendment within one month upon receipt of the notification and Pitch has explicitly notified the Customer of this consequence. Regardless of the foregoing, changes to the scope of the Contractual Service (Umfang der geschuldeten Leistungen) require the express consent of the Customer.

Conclusion of Contract

1. To access the Service, the Customer must first select a supported login method to start the signup process. Subsequently, by checking the respective boxes, the Customer accepts the then current versions of Pitch’s ToU, privacy policy (https://pitch.com/privacy-policy), and data processing agreement (https://pitch.com/dpa). By clicking the corresponding button and proceeding with the sign up process, the Customer accepts Pitch's offer to conclude a contract (the "Contract") including these ToU. Upon completion of the signup process, a workspace is created to which the Customer can invite other users (each user a "Workspace Member") to collaborate on presentations.

2. In subscribing to a Paid Plan, the Customer, acting as a Admin or Workspace Owner, guarantees that they act in the capacity as entrepreneur (Unternehmer) pursuant to Section 14 German Civil Code (Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch, BGB) and warrant that they are legally authorized to represent the entity they are acting on behalf of and bind the entity to these Terms of Use.

Scope of Services

1. The Software is a cross-platform SaaS application for collaboratively creating, editing, and sharing presentations (the "Contract Purpose"). The provision of the Software shall hereinafter be referred to as the "Service".

2. Pitch may offer free plans (each a "Free Plan") and paid plans (each a "Paid Plan") for the subscription to the Service. The individually agreed scope of Service of the Contract between the Customer and Pitch shall be based on the respective Free Plan or Paid Plan as described on the Pricing Page and selected by the Customer (such selected plan the "Plan"). The Service owed by Pitch according to the contractually agreed scope of Service shall hereinafter be referred to as "Contractual Services"; the term "Software" shall only include those parts of the Software which are covered by the contractually agreed scope of services.

3. Pitch reserves the right to remove certain features from the Free Plans at its own discretion.

4. Upon completion of the signup process, the Customer may add and remove other users to the workspace. On a Free Plan, adding additional users is free of charge. On a Paid Plan, adding additional users may incur cost as per the Pricing Page. Each paying user in a workspace is referred to as a "Paid Seat".

5. The Customer may upgrade from a Free Plan to a Paid Plan, or switch to a more comprehensive Paid Plan at any time; in this case, from the time of the switch the details concerning the scope of services, remuneration, etc. of the new Plan stated on the Pricing Page shall apply. A switch to a cheaper Plan is only permissible with the consent of Pitch or if the notice period specified in these ToU or on the Pricing Page is observed.

6. The Customer may at any time decrease or increase the number of Paid Seats. Decreasing or increasing the number of Paid Seats does not affect the term or terminability of the Customer’s Plan. In case of increase, the cost for each increase is subject to the provisions of the applicable Pricing Page and is calculated on a pro-rated basis under consideration of the billing period of the Customer’s Plan. In case of decrease, the compensation owed by the Customer under his Plan proportionately decreases with effect as of the next billing period of his Plan.

Use of the Software by the Customer

1. The Software is used by means of telecommunications via the browser or a stand-alone application.

2. The Customer may only use the access to the Software itself and for the contractually agreed purpose.

3. The Customer undertakes to take appropriate security precautions to ensure that access to the Software is not used by unauthorised persons. Such security precautions include in particular the use of a secure password, not sharing user credentials with other individuals and Workspaces.

4. The Customer may only enter data, texts, pictures and other content (including custom fonts) into the Software

   1. that comply with applicable law;

   2. that do not infringe third party rights; and

   3. to the entering of which the Customer is legally entitled without any restrictions.

   The Customer agrees that Pitch may process the content uploaded by the Customer for the purposes of this Contract, in particular store such content and make it available for retrieval.

   Pitch is entitled to delete content uploaded by the Customer if reasonable grounds exist for Pitch to assume that the content was not entered into the Software in compliance with the provisions of these ToU.

5. Content included in the Software, in particular pictures, graphics and/or fonts, may only be used for the purposes of this Contract.

6. The Customer agrees not to upload, transmit, support, incite, promote or otherwise make available any content that is or could reasonably be viewed as unlawful, racist, hostile, violent, discriminatory (including relating to race, religion, sex, sexual orientation, age, disability, ancestry or national origin), harmful, harassing, defamatory, vulgar, obscene or otherwise objectionable or which contains software viruses or any other computer code, files or programs designed to interrupt, destroy or limit the functionality of any computer software or hardware or telecommunications equipment.

7. The Customer indemnifies and holds Pitch harmless from all claims by third parties (in particular from claims arising out of breach of copyright, competition, trademark or data protection law) that are asserted against Pitch in connection with the Customer’s use of the Software insofar as such claims do not result from wilful or grossly negligent behaviour of Pitch or its legal representatives or agents (gesetzliche Vertreter oder Erfüllungsgehilfen). This indemnification obligation comprises the reimbursement for appropriate costs that Pitch incurred in the course of asserting or defending its legal rights in this context.

Availability

1. Pitch shall not be responsible for establishing and maintaining the data link between the Customer's IT systems and the Transfer Point. "Transfer Point" shall mean the router exit of the Pitch data centre or its subcontractor's data centre through whose server the Software is operated. Pitch is not responsible for malfunctions beyond the Transfer Point. The Customer is responsible for the procurement and maintenance of the necessary hardware and connections to public telecommunications networks. The costs of setting up the online connection and maintaining it on the Customer's side shall be borne by the Customer. Pitch is not liable for the security, confidentiality or integrity of the data communication, which is conducted via third party communication networks. Pitch is also not liable for malfunctions in data transmission caused by technical errors or configuration problems on the part of the Customer.

2. The Software availability owed by Pitch depends on the Plan chosen by the Customer and is specified on the Pricing Page. If the Pricing Page does not contain any regulations, the following applies: If the Customer has chosen a Free Plan, Pitch does not owe any availability. If the Customer has chosen a Paid Plan, Pitch shall owe an Availability of at least 99% in the Contract's yearly average.

3. Pitch strives to provide the Customer with the best possible customer experience. However, contractually, Pitch does not owe the comprehensive error-free operation and usability of the Software. Pitch only owes that the Customer can use the Software for the Contract Purpose at the level of Availability as set out in Section 5.2. "Availability" means that the Customer can access and use the main features of the Software. Times during which the Software is not available due to an error or other reasons are considered "Downtime".

4. For determining the Availability, such Downtime is not taken into account

   1. in which the Software cannot be reached due to technical or other problems for which Pitch is not responsible (force majeure, third-party fault, errors in the IT systems of the Customer or the third party service providers acting on his behalf, etc.);

   2. which is due to a breach of the Customer's obligation to cooperate, in particular to a delayed or incomplete transmission of an error message; or

   3. which is used for normal maintenance work of up to five hours a month.

Software Operation and Changes

1. Pitch intends to use state-of-the-art technology and shall be entitled to regularly carry out or introduce updates, new versions or upgrades of the Software (hereinafter referred to uniformly as “Updates”) in order to adapt the Software to new technical or commercial requirements, to implement new features, or to make changes to existing features in order to improve the Software.

2. If and insofar as the suitability of the Software for the Contract Purpose is materially impaired by an Update (such an Update a “Material Change”), Pitch shall inform the Customer in text form of the introduction of the Material Change at least four weeks prior to it becoming effective (a “Change Notice”). If the Customer does not object to the Material Change within two weeks after receipt of the Change Notice in text form (the “Objection Notice”), the Material Change shall become an integral component of the Contract. With each Change Notice, Pitch shall inform the Customer of the Customer’s rights pursuant to this Section 6.2, in particular: (i) the objection right, (ii) the period foreseen for objection and (iii) the legal consequences of not declaring an objection to the Material Change in time.

3. If the Customer objects to the Material Change, Pitch shall further provide the Software for use to the Customer without the Material Change unless this is impossible for technical or organizational reasons or Pitch cannot reasonably be expected to do so. In the latter case, the Customer is entitled to terminate the Contract extraordinarily for good cause within four weeks (the “Exercise Period”). If the Customer does not make use of its termination right, the Material Change shall become an integral component of the Contract. The Exercise Period shall commence as soon as Pitch has informed the Customer in text form of (i) the non-continuability of the Contract without the Material Change, (ii) the Customer’s extraordinary termination right and (iii) the legal consequences of the expiry of the Exercise Period.

Publication of Content on pitch.com and on Custom Domains

1. The Customer may have the option to make presentations created by the Customer, including data, text, pictures and other content (the "Customer Content"), publicly accessible via the pitch.com platform (the "pitch.com Platform").

2. The Customer may only publish Customer Content on the pitch.com Platform

   1. that complies with applicable law;

   2. that does not infringe third party rights; and

   3. to the publishing of which the Customer is legally entitled without any restrictions.

   The Customer agrees that Pitch may process the Customer Content for the purposes of this Contract, in particular store such content and make it accessible via the pitch.com Platform.

   Pitch does not review the Customer Content before publishing. Pitch is entitled to delete content published by the Customer if reasonable grounds exist for Pitch to assume that the content was not published in compliance with the provisions of these ToU.

3. The provisions in Section 4.6 and 4.7 apply to the publication of Customer Content on the pitch.com Platform and the display of presentations on a custom domain accordingly.

4. Pitch enables the Customer to display presentations on a custom domain, which the Customer is solely responsible for managing. Pitch acts solely as a technical provider and does not control, monitor, or endorse the content displayed on the custom domain.

5. The use of Pitch's custom domain services is subject to the policies of Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (https://icann.org⁠) (“ICANN”). The Customer agrees to comply with ICANN’s requirements, standards, policies, procedures, and practices.

6. The renewal of the custom domain is the Customer's responsibility and Pitch cannot be held liable for an unavailable or cancelled custom domain.

7. Pitch is not liable for any information or content displayed on the Customer's custom domain. The Customer is obliged to notify Pitch about any potential illegal content on the custom domain. Upon receiving a valid notification of illegal content, Pitch will review such a claim and may, at its discretion, without further notice restrict access to the custom domain until the issue is resolved.

8. The Customer is solely responsible for ensuring that all content displayed on their custom domain complies with applicable laws. If the Customer becomes aware of any illegal content on their domain, they must promptly notify Pitch and take immediate steps to remove or correct the content.

Compensation and Terms of Payment

1. The compensation for the use of the Software by the Customer and the respective terms of payment shall be based on the Pricing Page shown to the Customer in the purchase flow, available at app.pitch.com/app/pricing/. The Contract is governed by the current version of the Pricing Page at the time the Contract is concluded or the switch to a more comprehensive Paid Plan or the upgrade from a Free Plan to a Paid Plan according to Section 3.5 is performed (in the applicable version of the "Pricing Page"). In case of renewal of a Paid Plan according to Section 17.2, the version of the pricing page applicable to the Customer does not change but remains the same, unless a price change has been introduced according to 8.4..

2. All fees and prices indicated by Pitch are net prices without taxes (e.g. VAT), non-cancelable and non-refundable. The Customer shall be responsible for payment of all taxes and any related interest and/or penalties resulting from any payments made hereunder. The payment period depends on the Paid Plan chosen by the Customer and as set out on the Pricing Page. If the Pricing Page does not contain any provisions on the payment period, the compensation is to be paid monthly in advance upon receipt of the respective invoice issued by Pitch. Invoices are sent by Pitch to the Customer via email.

3. The available payment options are detailed on the Pricing Page. If the Pricing Page does not contain any provisions on the payment options, payments can be made via credit card.

4. Pitch is entitled to adjust its net prices to compensate personnel cost or other cost increases annually in an appropriate amount. Pitch will announce these price adjustments and the effective date of the price adjustments to the customer in text form. The price adjustments shall not apply to the periods the Customer has already paid for. If the price increase is more than 5% of the previous price, the Customer may object to this net price increase within a period of two weeks from notification. A change in the price resulting from a change in the scope of features or the number of employees to be administered shall not be deemed a price adjustment within the meaning of this section 8.4.

Warranty for Material and Legal Defects

1. Pitch warrants that the Software corresponds to the agreed scope of Service when used in accordance with the Contract and that it is not encumbered with material or legal defects ("Defects") which more than insignificantly impair the suitability of the Software for the Contract Purpose. Immaterial deviations shall not be considered as Defects.

2. The Customer shall be obliged to communicate any Defect to Pitch immediately upon appearance. Pitch shall remedy any duly notified Defects appearing in the Software within a reasonable period of time.

Liability

1. The no-fault based liability pursuant to Section 536a(1) German Civil Code for Defects in the Software existing at the time of contracting shall be excluded, unless the Defect relates to a feature of the Software essential for the Contract Purpose.

2. Pitch is liable for damages if arising from (i) willful misconduct or gross negligence of Pitch or its legal representatives or agents (gesetzliche Vertreter oder Erfüllungsgehilfen), (ii) negligent violation of a material contractual duty (Kardinalpflichten) by Pitch or its legal representatives or agents, however, limited to typical damages which are foreseeable at the time of the conclusion of the Contract or (iii) negligence of Pitch or its legal representatives or agents in a way causing injury to life, body or health, or (iv) any compulsory statutory liability of Pitch or its legal representatives or agents. Material contractual duties (Kardinalspflichten) are duties the fulfillment of which is a prerequisite for proper execution of the Contract or the breach of which endangers attainment of the Contract Purpose and the observance of which the Customer must regularly rely on.

3. Any contributory negligence on the part of the Customer shall be taken into account. In particular, Pitch shall only be liable for the recovery of data if the Customer has taken all necessary and reasonable data backup precautions and ensured that the data can be recovered at reasonable cost from data material kept in machine-readable form.

4. This liability arrangement is conclusive. It shall apply with respect to all damage compensation claims, irrespective of their legal ground, particularly also with respect to pre-contractual claims or collateral contractual claims. This liability arrangement shall also apply in favor of legal representatives and agents of Pitch if claims are asserted directly against them.

5. The Customer is obliged to immediately notify any damage pursuant to the above liability provisions to Pitch in text form or to have such damage documented by Pitch, so that Pitch is informed as early as possible and can possibly still mitigate the damage together with the Customer.

Non-contractual Use, Damages

1. For each case in which a Contractual Service is used unauthorisedly under the responsibility of the Customer, the Customer shall pay damages in the amount of the compensation that would have been due for the contractual use under the minimum contract period applicable to this Service. The Customer reserves the right to prove that the Customer is not responsible for the unauthorised use or that there is no damage or considerably less damage.

2. Pitch remains entitled to claim further damages.

Limitation of Claims

1. Claims of the Customer based on the breach of any duty not consisting of a Defect become time-barred, except in the event of intention or gross negligence, within one year from beginning of the limitation period. This shall not apply if the damage in question incurred by the Customer consists in personal injury. Claims for personal injury become statute-barred within the statutory limitation period.

2. Any rescission of contract or reduction of payments shall be invalid if the claim to performance or subsequent performance of the Customer has become time-barred.

Copyright and License

1. The Software is protected by copyright. Pitch represents that the general operation of the Software is permitted by law, does not violate any statutes, regulations or directives and, in particular, does not infringe on any third party rights. Pitch undertakes to indemnify the Customer against legitimate third party claims due to the operation of the Software and to compensate the Customer for any damage incurred in this context (including reasonable costs of legal defense) in accordance with Section 10.

2. The Customer shall have the non-transferrable, non-exclusive right, temporally restricted to the term of the Contract, to use the Service via the Internet for the contractual purpose agreed under the Contract. The Customer shall not obtain any rights beyond this. In particular, the Customer is not entitled to make the Software accessible to third Parties or to use them in any other way outside the purpose of the Contract. In particular, the Customer has to refrain from copying, decompiling, reverse engineering or editing the Service beyond the Contract Purpose.

3. The Software includes open source software provided by third parties (see list here).

Feedback

The Customer agrees that Pitch may freely use, exploit and further develop any feedback provided by the Customer.

Purchase of Rights to Third Party Content

1. The Service may include the possibility of the Customer to acquire the right to use, reproduce, copy or disseminate content (e.g. pictures or videos) owned or licensed by third parties (“Third Party Content”). In this case, Pitch acts as a reseller of the entity or person owning or licensing the Third Party Content.

2. The compensation, payment conditions and other provisions regarding the purchase of Third Party Content by the Customer via the Software as well as the scope of the rights of use shall be governed by the provisions contained on the Pricing Page applicable at the time of the respective purchase. If the Pricing Page contains no provisions, the Parties will conclude a separate agreement thereon.

Set-off, Reduction, Retention

1. The Customer shall only have a right of set-off, reduction and/or retention against Pitch if its counterclaim has been legally established, undisputed or acknowledged by Pitch.

2. Furthermore, the Customer may only exercise a right of retention if the counterclaim is based on the same contractual relationship.

3. The Customer's right to reclaim remuneration not actually owed shall remain unaffected by the limitation of Section 16.1.

Term and Termination

1. The term of the Contract and terminability shall be governed by the provisions of the Pricing Page on the Plan chosen by the Customer. If the Pricing Page does not contain any information on the term or terminability of a Free Plan, such Plan shall run for an indefinite period and may be terminated by either party with immediate effect.

2. If the Pricing Page does not contain any information on the term or terminability of a Paid Plan, such Plan shall run for one month and may be terminated by either party with effect as of the end of the month. If the Paid Plan is not terminated, it is automatically renewed for one further month; for such renewed period, the provisions of the Pricing Page applicable to the Customer at renewal date shall apply.

3. The Parties’ statutory right to extraordinary termination remains unaffected. An important reason is present for the other contracting party in particular if:

   1. one of the Parties seriously breaches its obligations under the Contract and the other Party can no longer reasonably be expected to abide by the Contract;

   2. the Customer is more than one (1) month in arrears with the payment of due fees or other remuneration, even after the expiry of a reasonable period set by Pitch to remedy the situation;

   3. insolvency proceedings are applied for, instituted or dismissed in respect of all or part of the assets of a Party;

   4. one of the Parties has a reason for insolvency within the meaning of Sections 17-19 Insolvency Statute (Insolvenzordnung, "InsO"); or

   5. the financial circumstances of a Party deteriorate to such an extent that proper performance of the Contract can no longer be expected, even if there is no reason for insolvency within the meaning of Sections 17-19 InsO.

4. Each termination must be made by declaration in text form. If the Contract is canceled or terminated by any party, any unused credits will expire immediately and can neither be refunded nor used for a future Contract.

Secrecy

1. The Parties undertake to maintain temporally unlimited secrecy regarding all confidential information which they will obtain or have already obtained in the context of the contractual relation and not to disclose or otherwise use such information, unless necessary to perform the Contract. Confidential information are all information and documents of the Parties labeled as confidential or to be considered confidential based on the circumstances, particularly information concerning operating routines, business relations, further business or trade secrets, know-how, all work results, the business model of Pitch, as well as features to which Customers may have early access for testing purposes.

2. Exempt from this obligation shall be confidential information:

   1. that can be demonstrated to have already been known to the other Party upon initiation of the Contract or become known thereafter through third Parties without any breach of a confidentiality agreement, of statutory provisions, or of administrative orders;

   2. that was known to the general public, unless this was due to a breach of this Contract;

   3. that had to be disclosed based on statutory obligations on the order of a court or authority. As permissible and feasible, the Party obliged to disclosure shall inform the other Party in such event in advance, providing it with the opportunity to take action against the disclosure.

3. Any disclosure of confidential information to third Parties shall require the express written approval of the other Party, unless otherwise expressly agreed.

4. The Parties shall ensure through suitable contractual arrangements that the employees and contractors working for them shall also, without temporal restriction, refrain from individual use or disclosure of confidential information. The Parties shall only disclose to employees or contractors confidential information to the extent such employees or contractors need to know the information for the fulfillment of the Contract.

5. The Customer consents for Pitch to disclose the collaboration between Pitch and the Customer in marketing materials for marketing purposes and in this connection also use the company logo of the Customer. The Customer may revoke this consent pursuant to this Section 18.5 at any time by declaration in text form (e.g. via e-mail to privacy@pitch.io).

Data Protection

1. Pitch treats the Customer's personal data in accordance with data protection standards and specifications.

2. Pitch acts as a data processor within the meaning of Art. 28 GDPR vis-à-vis such customers that feed personal data (personenbezogene Daten) of their customers into the Software. As part of the online registration process, the Parties conclude a data processing agreement pursuant to Art. 28 GDPR. A completion of the online registration process is not possible without the conclusion of the data processing agreement.

Final Provisions

1. The following only applies to customers which legally qualify as businesses (Unternehmer) pursuant to Section 14 German Civil Code: Should individual provisions of the Contract of use or other contractual documents be or become invalid or unenforceable in whole or in part or should they not contain a necessary provision, this shall not affect the validity of the remaining provisions. In place of the invalid or unenforceable provision or to fill the loophole, the legally admissible provision shall be deemed to have been agreed retroactively which corresponds as closely as possible to what the Parties would have wished or would have been agreed in spirit and purpose by the Parties if they had considered the invalidity or unenforceability of the provision in question or the loophole.

2. If these ToU refer to a written form or notification, the sending of an e-mail shall also suffice respectively.

3. The Contract and the other contract documents are subject to the law of the Federal Republic of Germany to the exclusion of the German conflict of laws principles and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Statutory provisions on the restriction of choice of law and the applicability of mandatory law in particular of the place where a customer which legally qualifies as consumer (Verbraucher) pursuant to Section 13 German Civil Code has its habitual residence (gewöhnlicher Aufenthalt) remain unaffected.

4. Vis-à-vis customers that qualify as merchant (Kaufmann), legal entity under public law (juristische Person des öffentlichen Rechts) or separate fund under public law (öffentlich-rechtliches Sondervermögen), for all disputes arising from or in connection with the Contract or the ToU, including their validity, the District Court of Berlin (Landgericht Berlin) shall have exclusive jurisdiction to the extent permitted by law.

5. The European Commission provides a platform for an online settlement of disputes which can be accessed under https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr/. Pitch is neither obliged to take part in alternative dispute resolutions before a consumer dispute settlement commission nor will it do so voluntarily.