Academy Rules

The Academy is the community around the International AI Creator Award. One annual membership carries three things: your right to enter, the storage that keeps your work online, and the certificate that proves what you won. These rules are the agreement between you and AICU Inc. for that membership.

1. Joining

• You need an AICU Sign-in account. We receive only your email, a pseudonymous id, whether you are over 18, and your country — never your date of birth or address.
• Membership runs for one year from the day payment succeeds and renews automatically until you cancel.
• If you are 13–17 you may join only with a parent or guardian's permission. Under 13 cannot join.
• A partner's nomination code grants the same membership without payment. Codes are issued to partners (GOLD 50, SILVER 10, BRONZE 1) and do not renew automatically.

2. What membership includes

• Entry. Submit to any of the ten fields for the current edition, subject to the entry rules.
• Your work page. Up to 5 GB of storage for the works tied to your entries, kept online while your membership is current.
• Credits. Everyone who worked on a piece can be listed by name and role.
• Certificate. If you are nominated or win, a verifiable record at cert.aicu.ai.
• Public vote. One vote per field, as a member of the community.

3. If your membership lapses

We do not hold your work hostage.

• Paid-only material is unpublished.
• Your preview, your credits and your certificate stay online.
• Your files are kept for 12 months so you can come back, and you can export everything at any time.
• After 12 months the stored files may be deleted. We will email you before that happens.

4. Your work stays yours

• You keep copyright. Entering grants AICU a non-exclusive licence to show the preview, your name and your credits for the purposes of running and reporting on the award.
• Selling a full version, or screening it, is opt-in and separate. We ask after nomination, on stated terms; the revenue share is presented to you in writing before anything is offered for sale.
• Only enter work you have the right to enter, and credit the people who made it with you.
• The Code of Conduct applies to every member.

5. Cancelling, refunds and changes

• Cancel at any time; membership then runs to the end of the paid year and does not renew.
• Cooling-off: if you have not yet submitted an entry or redeemed a benefit, write to award@aicu.ai within 14 days of payment and we will refund in full. Consumers in the EEA and the UK keep their statutory withdrawal rights.
• Once you have entered a work for the edition, the fee for that year is non-refundable, because the review it pays for has been performed.
• Entry fees are not refunded because an entry is not nominated or does not win.
• If we change the fee or these rules, we will tell you at least 30 days before your renewal.

6. Ending a membership

AICU may suspend or end a membership for conduct that breaches the Code of Conduct — vote manipulation, impersonation, or infringing the rights of others. Where a membership is ended for such a breach the fee is not refunded, and a violation carries a one-year exclusion. Decisions are made by AICU Inc. at its discretion and are final.

7. Legal

The seller is AICU Inc., a Delaware company. Payments are taken by Stripe in USD; card details never reach AICU. Japanese customers may be invoiced in JPY by AICU Japan K.K. Nothing here limits rights you have under the consumer law of your own country. These rules are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, except where your local consumer law says otherwise.

For customers in Japan, the disclosures required by the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions are set out in the Japanese version of this page.

AICU Award Academy · Organizer: AICU Inc. (Delaware) · Operated by AICU Japan K.K.
Code of Conduct · Privacy Notice · award@aicu.ai · Effective 2026-08-29