Privacy Policy
Last updated July 2, 2026
Thank you for choosing to be part of our community at Falken Media (“Company”, “we”, “us”, “our”). This privacy notice covers the Indie Film Music Contest (indiefilmmusiccontest.com) and, where noted, the Indie Game Music Contest (indiegamemusiccontest.com). We are committed to protecting your personal information and your right to privacy. If you have any questions about this notice or our practices, contact us at support@indiefilmmusiccontest.com.
Table of Contents
- What Information Do We Collect?
- Use of YouTube API Services
- How Do We Use Your Information?
- Will Your Information Be Shared With Anyone?
- Do We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies?
- How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
- How Do We Keep Your Information Safe?
- What Are Your Privacy Rights?
- Children’s Privacy
- Do We Make Updates to This Notice?
- How Can You Contact Us?
1. What Information Do We Collect?
Personal information you provide to us
We collect personal information you voluntarily give us when you register for a contest, purchase an entry, submit a video, contact us, or subscribe to our newsletter. This may include:
- Name, email address, mailing/billing address
- Contest submission details (composer name or alias, video file, related metadata such as track title and category)
- Payment data. Payments are processed by Stripe and/or PayPal; we do not store full card numbers ourselves. See their privacy notices: Stripe and PayPal.
Information collected automatically
When you visit our website, we automatically collect certain technical information such as IP address, browser and device characteristics, referring URLs, and general usage data. This is used to operate the site securely, for analytics, and for advertising measurement (see the Cookies section below).
2. Use of YouTube API Services
As part of the contest submission process, participants may upload their entry video directly on our website. Depending on the submission method, the video is either hosted using our own storage infrastructure, or uploaded on our behalf to a YouTube channel that we control, using the YouTube Data API.
Where the YouTube Data API is used:
- Submitted videos are uploaded as Unlisted. They are not published to our public channel, are not searchable on YouTube, and are only accessible via a direct link that we share with our judges for evaluation purposes.
- Videos are uploaded under our own YouTube channel, not under any individual participant’s account. Participants do not need a YouTube account, do not log in with Google, and are not identifiable to judges through the video listing.
- We only use the API to upload submissions and retrieve basic technical metadata (such as processing status) about them. We do not use YouTube’s search functionality, and we do not access, collect, or store any data about other users’ YouTube activity.
- Submission videos are retained for as long as needed to run the contest, judging, and results process, and are deleted or set to private afterward unless a participant has separately agreed to public showcase use (for example, an opt-in “Demo Wall”).
Google API Services Disclosure: Our use and transfer of information received from Google APIs to any other app will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements. Our use of YouTube API Services is additionally subject to the YouTube Terms of Service, and by using the YouTube-connected features of our contest, you also acknowledge Google’s Privacy Policy.
3. How Do We Use Your Information?
We process personal information based on legitimate business interests, performance of our contract with you (running the contest you registered for), your consent, and compliance with legal obligations. We use your information to:
- Register you for a contest and manage your account and submissions
- Process payments and manage orders, refunds, and receipts
- Administer judging, feedback delivery, results, and certificates
- Send you contest-related, transactional, and (with your consent) marketing emails
- Respond to support requests
- Maintain the security of our website and prevent fraud or abuse
- Comply with legal and tax obligations
4. Will Your Information Be Shared With Anyone?
We share personal information only where necessary, with the following categories of recipients:
- Payment processors — Stripe, PayPal
- Email and marketing platform — Brevo, for newsletters and contest communications
- Hosting providers — DreamHost (IFMC), Strato (IGMC)
- Google / YouTube — for hosting of video submissions, as described above
- Analytics and advertising — Google Analytics, Meta Ads (Pixel and Conversions API), used to measure and improve our marketing
- Contest judges and contractors — solely to the extent required to review and score submissions
We do not sell your personal information to third parties.
5. Do We Use Cookies and Other Tracking Technologies?
We use cookies and similar technologies, managed through our consent tool (Borlabs Cookie), which lets you accept or decline non-essential cookies before they are set. These may include:
- Essential cookies — required for login, checkout, and basic site functionality
- Analytics cookies — Google Analytics, to understand site usage
- Advertising cookies — Meta Pixel, to measure and improve ad performance
You can change your cookie preferences at any time through the consent settings available on our website.
6. How Long Do We Keep Your Information?
We keep personal information only as long as necessary for the purposes described in this notice, or as required by law. In particular:
- Order and transaction data is retained for up to 10 years in line with German tax record-keeping obligations (GoBD), even after an account deletion request.
- All other account and personal data is deleted upon a verified deletion request, using WooCommerce’s built-in data erasure tool.
- Submission videos hosted via YouTube are handled as described in the “Use of YouTube API Services” section above.
7. How Do We Keep Your Information Safe?
We use appropriate technical and organizational measures to protect personal information, including access restrictions, credential rotation, and regular monitoring. No method of transmission or storage is 100% secure, and we cannot guarantee absolute security. If we become aware of a data breach affecting your personal information, we will notify affected users and the competent supervisory authority in accordance with GDPR requirements.
8. What Are Your Privacy Rights?
If you are located in the European Economic Area, the UK, or Switzerland, you have the right to:
- Request access to and a copy of your personal information
- Request correction or deletion of your personal information
- Restrict or object to certain processing
- Request data portability
- Withdraw consent at any time, without affecting prior lawful processing
To exercise these rights, contact us at support@indiefilmmusiccontest.com. If you believe we are processing your data unlawfully, you have the right to lodge a complaint with your local data protection authority. For Falken Media, the competent authority is:
Landesbeauftragte für Datenschutz und Informationsfreiheit Nordrhein-Westfalen (LDI NRW)
https://www.ldi.nrw.de
9. Children’s Privacy
Our contests are not directed at children under 16, and we do not knowingly collect personal information from children under that age without parental consent. If you believe a child has provided us with personal information, please contact us so we can take appropriate action.
10. Do We Make Updates to This Notice?
We may update this privacy notice from time to time. The “Last updated” date at the top will reflect the most recent revision. We encourage you to review this page periodically.
11. How Can You Contact Us?
Falken Media
Friedrich-Offermann-Str. 29
51429 Bergisch Gladbach
Germany
Personal information you disclose to us
Information automatically collected
- Log and Usage Data. Log and usage data is service-related, diagnostic, usage and performance information our servers automatically collect when you access or use our
Website and which we record in log files. Depending on how you interact with us, this log data may include your IP address, device information, browser type and settings and information about your activity in the Website (such as the date/time stamps associated with your usage, pages and files viewed, searches and other actions you take such as which features you use), device event information (such as system activity, error reports (sometimes called 'crash dumps') and hardware settings).
- Device Data. We collect device data such as information about your computer, phone, tablet or other device you use to access the
Website . Depending on the device used, this device data may include information such as your IP address (or proxy server), device and application identification numbers, location, browser type, hardware model Internet service provider and/or mobile carrier, operating system and system configuration information.
- Location Data. We collect location data such as information about your device's location, which can be either precise or imprecise. How much information we collect depends on the type and settings of the device you use to access the
Website . For example, we may use GPS and other technologies to collect geolocation data that tells us your current location (based on your IP address). You can opt out of allowing us to collect this information either by refusing access to the information or by disabling your Location setting on your device. Note however, if you choose to opt out, you may not be able to use certain aspects of the Services.
- To facilitate account creation and logon process. If you choose to link your account with us to a third-party account (such as your Google or Facebook account), we use the information you allowed us to collect from those third parties to facilitate account creation and logon process for the performance of the contract.
- To post testimonials. We post testimonials on our
Website that may contain personal information. Prior to posting a testimonial, we will obtain your consent to use your name and the content of the testimonial. If you wish to update, or delete your testimonial, please contact us at support@indiefilmmusiccontest.com and be sure to include your name, testimonial location, and contact information.
- Request feedback. We may use your information to request feedback and to contact you about your use of our
Website .
- To enable user-to-user communications. We may use your information in order to enable user-to-user communications with each user's consent.
- To manage user accounts. We may use your information for the purposes of managing our account and keeping it in working order.
- To send administrative information to you. We may use your personal information to send you product, service and new feature information and/or information about changes to our terms, conditions, and policies.
- To protect our Services. We may use your information as part of our efforts to keep our
Website safe and secure (for example, for fraud monitoring and prevention).
- To enforce our terms, conditions and policies for business purposes, to comply with legal and regulatory requirements or in connection with our contract.
- To respond to legal requests and prevent harm. If we receive a subpoena or other legal request, we may need to inspect the data we hold to determine how to respond.
- Fulfill and manage your orders. We may use your information to fulfill and manage your orders, payments, returns, and exchanges made through the
Website .
- Administer prize draws and competitions. We may use your information to administer prize draws and competitions when you elect to participate in our competitions.
- To deliver and facilitate delivery of services to the user. We may use your information to provide you with the requested service.
- To respond to user inquiries/offer support to users. We may use your information to respond to your inquiries and solve any potential issues you might have with the use of our Services.
- To send you marketing and promotional communications. We and/or our third-party marketing partners may use the personal information you send to us for our marketing purposes, if this is in accordance with your marketing preferences. For example, when expressing an interest in obtaining information about us or our
Website , subscribing to marketing or otherwise contacting us, we will collect personal information from you. You can opt-out of our marketing emails at any time (see the "WHAT ARE YOUR PRIVACY RIGHTS?" below).
- Deliver targeted advertising to you. We may use your information to develop and display personalized content and advertising (and work with third parties who do so) tailored to your interests and/or location and to measure its effectiveness.
- Consent: We may process your data if you have given us specific consent to use your personal information for a specific purpose.
- Legitimate Interests: We may process your data when it is reasonably necessary to achieve our legitimate business interests.
- Performance of a Contract: Where we have entered into a contract with you, we may process your personal information to fulfill the terms of our contract.
- Legal Obligations: We may disclose your information where we are legally required to do so in order to comply with applicable law, governmental requests, a judicial proceeding, court order, or legal process, such as in response to a court order or a subpoena (including in response to public authorities to meet national security or law enforcement requirements).
- Vital Interests: We may disclose your information where we believe it is necessary to investigate, prevent, or take action regarding potential violations of our policies, suspected fraud, situations involving potential threats to the safety of any person and illegal activities, or as evidence in litigation in which we are involved.
- Business Transfers. We may share or transfer your information in connection with, or during negotiations of, any merger, sale of company assets, financing, or acquisition of all or a portion of our business to another company.
- Vendors, Consultants and Other Third-Party Service Providers. We may share your data with third-party vendors, service providers, contractors or agents who perform services for us or on our behalf and require access to such information to do that work. Examples include: payment processing, data analysis, email delivery, hosting services, customer service and marketing efforts. We may allow selected third parties to use tracking technology on the
Website , which will enable them to collect data on our behalf about how you interact with our Website over time. This information may be used to, among other things, analyze and track data, determine the popularity of certain content, pages or features, and better understand online activity. Unless described in this notice, we do not share, sell, rent or trade any of your information with third parties for their promotional purposes. We have contracts in place with our data processors, which are designed to help safeguard your personal information. This means that they cannot do anything with your personal information unless we have instructed them to do it. They will also not share your personal information with any organization apart from us. They also commit to protect the data they hold on our behalf and to retain it for the period we instruct.
Ad Networks
Data Analytics Services
Payment Processors
Sales & Marketing Tools
Social Networks
Account Information
Log in to your account settings and update your user account.
CCPA Privacy Notice
Category | Examples | Collected |
A. Identifiers | Contact details, such as real name, alias, postal address, telephone or mobile contact number, unique personal identifier, online identifier, Internet Protocol address, email address and account name | |
B. Personal information categories listed in the California Customer Records statute | Name, contact information, education, employment, employment history and financial information | YES |
C. Protected classification characteristics under California or federal law | Gender and date of birth | |
D. Commercial information | Transaction information, purchase history, financial details and payment information | |
E. Biometric information | Fingerprints and voiceprints | |
F. Internet or other similar network activity | Browsing history, search history, online behavior, interest data, and interactions with our and other websites, applications, systems and advertisements | |
G. Geolocation data | Device location | |
H. Audio, electronic, visual, thermal, olfactory, or similar information | Images and audio, video or call recordings created in connection with our business activities | |
I. Professional or employment-related information | Business contact details in order to provide you our services at a business level, job title as well as work history and professional qualifications if you apply for a job with us | |
J. Education Information | Student records and directory information | |
K. Inferences drawn from other personal information | Inferences drawn from any of the collected personal information listed above to create a profile or summary about, for example, an individual’s preferences and characteristics |
- Receiving help through our customer support channels;
- Participation in customer surveys or contests; and
- Facilitation in the delivery of our Services and to respond to your inquiries.
- Targeting cookies/Marketing cookies
- Social media cookies
- Beacons/Pixels/Tags
- Category B. Personal information, as defined in the California Customer Records law, such as your name, contact information, education, employment, employment history and financial information.
- whether we collect and use your personal information;
- the categories of personal information that we collect;
- the purposes for which the collected personal information is used;
- whether we sell your personal information to third parties;
- the categories of personal information that we sold or disclosed for a business purpose;
- the categories of third parties to whom the personal information was sold or disclosed for a business purpose; and
- the business or commercial purpose for collecting or selling personal information.
- you may object to the processing of your personal data
- you may request correction of your personal data if it is incorrect or no longer relevant, or ask to restrict the processing of the data
- you can designate an authorized agent to make a request under the CCPA on your behalf. We may deny a request from an authorized agent that does not submit proof that they have been validly authorized to act on your behalf in accordance with the CCPA.
- you may request to opt-out from future selling of your personal information to third parties. Upon receiving a request to opt-out, we will act upon the request as soon as feasibly possible, but no later than 15 days from the date of the request submission.
COOKIES
Cookies are text files placed on your computer to collect standard Internet log information and visitor behavior information. When you visit our websites, we may collect information from you automatically through cookies or similar technology
For further information, visit allaboutcookies.org.
HOW DO WE USE COOKIES?
Our Company uses cookies in a range of ways to improve your experience on our website, including:
Keeping you signed in
Understanding how you use our website
Using Google Analytics to help us analyze how you browse our Website. The information generated by Google Analytics about your use of the website will be anonymized, then transmitted to and stored by Google on servers in the United States. On behalf of the website provider, Google will use this information for the purpose of evaluating your use of the website, compiling reports on website activity for website operators and providing other services relating to website activity and internet usage to the website provider. Google will not associate your IP address with any other data held by Google. By using this website, you consent to the processing of data about you by Google in the manner and for the purposes set out above.
WHAT TYPES OF COOKIES DO WE USE?
There are a number of different types of cookies, however, our website uses:
Functionality – The Indie Film Music Contest uses these cookies so that we recognize you on our website and remember your previously selected preferences. These could include what language you prefer and location you are in. A mix of first-party and third-party cookies are used.
Advertising – The Indie Film Music Contest uses these cookies to collect information about your visit to our website, the content you viewed, the links you followed and information about your browser, device, and your IP address. Our Company sometimes shares some limited aspects of this data with third parties for advertising purposes. We may also share online data collected through cookies with our advertising partners. This means that when you visit another website, you may be shown advertising based on your browsing patterns on our website.
HOW TO MANAGE COOKIES
You can set your browser not to accept cookies, and can remove cookies from your browser. However, in a few cases, some of our website features may not function as a result.
PRIVACY POLICIES OF OTHER WEBSITES
The Indie Film Music Contest website contains links to other websites. Our privacy policy applies only to our website, so if you click on a link to another website, you should read their privacy policy.
CHANGES TO OUR PRIVACY POLICY
Our Company keeps its privacy policy under regular review and places any updates on this web page. This privacy policy was last updated on April 7th 2021.
HOW TO CONTACT US
If you have any questions about Our Company’s privacy policy, the data we hold on you, or you would like to exercise one of your data protection rights, please do not hesitate to contact us.
Email us at: support@indiefilmmusiccontest.com
Disclaimer
Content on our homepage was created with utmost diligence. However, we are not liable for the correctness, Liability for content and currentness. We are responsible for our own content on these pages in accordance with the general acts. As a service provider, we are however not obliged to monitor submitted or stored third-party information or to investigate instances, that indicate unlawful action. Obligations to delete or block the usage of information according to the general acts remain unaffected. A liability in this respect is only possible from the date knowledge of a concrete violation is had. Once such violations are known the content will be removed immediately.
LIABILITY FOR LINKS
Our service contains links to external third party websites, whose content we cannot influence. Therefore we are not liable for this third-party content. The respective host or provider of the pages is responsible for the content of the linked web pages. The linked web pages were reviewed with respect to possible violations at the date of linking. At the date of linking unlawful content was not discernible. A permanent content surveillance of the linked web pages is not reasonable without a concrete indication of a violation. Once a violation is known the links will be removed immediately.
COPYRIGHT
Copyright Content and creations issued by us on this website are subject to German copyright law. Any duplication, processing, distribution and any other kind of usage beyond the boundaries of German copyright law, require the written consent of the author or the creator respectively. Downloads and copies of this website are allowed for private usage, commercial usage is strictly forbidden. Third party copyright is observed where content was not created by us. Notably, third-party content will be explicitly declared as such. Should, however, a copyright infringement come to your attention, please advise us accordingly. Once an infringement is known the content will be removed immediately.
DATA PROTECTION
The use of our website is, as a general rule, possible without providing personal data. Insofar as personal data (e.g. name, address or email) is levied, this takes place, as far as possible, on a voluntary basis. Such data will not be passed on to third parties without your explicit consent. We would like to point out, that any data transfer via the internet (e.g. when communicating via email) is subject to security vulnerability. It is not possible to protect data completely from third-party access. The use by third parties of our contact data, published in line with German / EU Law requirements (Impressumspflicht), to send us unsolicited advertising and information material is strictly prohibited. We reserve our rights to take legal measures in the case that unsolicited advertising materials, for instance, spam mail, are sent completeness.
Lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit. Ut elit tellus, luctus nec ullamcorper mattis, pulvinar dapibus leo.
You are currently viewing a placeholder content from X. To access the actual content, click the button below. Please note that doing so will share data with third-party providers.
More Information