General Terms and Conditions

Table of contents

1. Scope of application
2. Conclusion of contract
3. Right of withdrawal
4. Prices and payment terms
5. Terms of delivery and dispatch
6. Intellectual Property, Recordings & License
7. Contract duration and termination of contract for subscription contracts
8. Retention of title
9. Liability for defects (guarantee)
10. Redemption of promotional vouchers
11. Redemption of gift vouchers
12. Applicable law
13. Alternative dispute resolution
14. SMS Terms (Text Messages)

1) Scope of application

1.1 These General Terms and Conditions (hereinafter referred to as “GTC”) of Morales Violin Education GmbH (Brand: The Violinacademy), registered in the commercial register of the Local Court of Cologne (Amtsgericht Köln) under HRB 127050, with its registered office in Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, represented by its Managing Director Antoine Morales (hereinafter referred to as “Seller”), apply to all contracts for the delivery of goods, digital content and subscriptions that a consumer or entrepreneur (hereinafter referred to as “Customer”) concludes with the Seller with regard to the products and services displayed by the Seller in its online shop. Individual lessons, trial lessons, or concert engagements with Antoine Morales are not covered by these GTC, unless expressly agreed otherwise. The inclusion of the Customer’s own terms and conditions is hereby rejected, unless otherwise agreed.

Priority of individual agreements

In the event of contradictions between these terms and conditions and individual contracts, the provisions of the respective individual contract shall take precedence.

1.2 These GTC shall apply accordingly to contracts for the delivery of digital content, unless otherwise expressly provided for.

1.3 These GTC shall apply accordingly to contracts for the delivery of vouchers, unless otherwise expressly provided for.

1.4 A consumer within the meaning of these GTC is any natural person who enters into a legal transaction for purposes that can predominantly be attributed neither to their commercial nor their self-employed professional activity. An entrepreneur within the meaning of these GTC is a natural or legal person or a partnership with legal capacity that acts in the exercise of its commercial or self-employed professional activity when entering into a legal transaction.

1.5 Digital content within the meaning of these GTC is all data not stored on a physical data carrier that is produced in digital form and provided by the seller with the granting of certain rights of use, which are regulated in more detail in these GTC.

1.6 Depending on the product description provided by the seller, the subject of the contract may be both the purchase of goods by way of a one-time delivery and the purchase of goods by way of a permanent delivery (hereinafter referred to as a ‘subscription contract’). In the case of a subscription contract, the seller is obliged to deliver the contractually owed goods to the customer for the duration of the agreed contract term at the contractually owed time intervals.

2) Conclusion of contract

2.1 The product descriptions contained in the seller’s online shop do not constitute binding offers on the part of the seller, but serve to enable the customer to submit a binding offer.

2.2 The customer can submit the offer using the online order form integrated into the seller’s online shop. After placing the selected goods in the virtual shopping basket and going through the electronic ordering process, the customer submits a legally binding offer of a contract in relation to the goods contained in the shopping basket by clicking the button that concludes the ordering process. The customer can also submit the offer to the seller by email.

2.3 The seller can accept the customer’s offer within five days,

• by sending the customer a written order confirmation or an order confirmation in text form (fax or e-mail), whereby the receipt of the order confirmation by the customer is decisive, or
• by delivering the ordered goods to the customer, whereby the receipt of the goods by the customer is decisive, or
• by requesting payment from the customer after the order has been placed.

If several of the above alternatives apply, the contract shall be concluded at the point in time at which one of the above alternatives occurs first. The period for accepting the offer begins on the day after the customer sends the offer and ends at the end of the fifth day following the sending of the offer. If the seller does not accept the customer’s offer within the aforementioned period, this shall be deemed a rejection of the offer, with the consequence that the customer is no longer bound by his declaration of intent.

2.4 If you select the ‘PayPal Express’ payment method, the payment will be processed by the payment service provider PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg (hereinafter: ‘PayPal’), subject to the PayPal terms of use, available at https://www.paypal. com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full or – if the customer does not have a PayPal account – subject to the conditions for payments without a PayPal account, which can be viewed at https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/privacywax-full. If the customer selects ‘PayPal Express’ as the payment method during the online ordering process, he also issues a payment order to PayPal by clicking the button that concludes the ordering process. In this case, the seller hereby declares acceptance of the customer’s offer at the point in time at which the customer initiates the payment process by clicking the button that concludes the ordering process.

2.5 When an offer is made using the seller’s online order form, the text of the contract is stored by the seller and sent to the customer in writing (e.g. by email, fax or letter) together with these terms and conditions after the customer has sent his order.

2.6 Before the binding submission of the order via the seller’s online order form, the customer can identify possible input errors by carefully reading the information displayed on the screen. An effective technical means of better identifying input errors can be the browser’s enlargement function, which is used to enlarge the display on the screen. During the electronic ordering process, the customer can correct his entries using the usual keyboard and mouse functions until he clicks on the button concluding the ordering process.

2.7 The contract may be concluded in German or English.

2.8 As a rule, order processing and contact take place by e-mail and automated order processing. The customer must ensure that the e-mail address provided by him for the order process is correct so that e-mails sent by the seller can be received at this address. In particular, when using SPAM filters, the customer must ensure that all e-mails sent by the seller or by third parties commissioned by the seller to process the order can be delivered.

3) Right of cancellation

3.1 Consumers are generally entitled to a right of cancellation.

3.2 Further information on the right of cancellation can be found in the seller’s cancellation policy.

4) Prices and payment terms

4.1 Unless otherwise stated in the Seller’s product description, the prices quoted are total prices and include statutory value added tax (VAT), where applicable, in accordance with German law. Any additional delivery and shipping costs will be indicated separately in the respective product description.

4.2 For deliveries to countries outside the European Union, additional costs may be incurred in individual cases for which the seller is not responsible and which are to be borne by the customer. These include, for example, costs for the transfer of money by credit institutions (e.g. transfer fees, exchange rate fees) or import duties or taxes (e.g. customs duties). Such costs may also be incurred in relation to the transfer of funds if delivery is not made to a country outside the European Union, but the customer makes the payment from a country outside the European Union.

4.3 The payment option(s) will be communicated to the customer in the seller’s online shop.

4.4 If payment is made using a payment method offered by PayPal, the payment will be processed by the payment service provider PayPal (Europe) S.à r.l. et Cie, S.C.A., 22-24 Boulevard Royal, L-2449 Luxembourg (hereinafter referred to as ‘PayPal’), subject to the PayPal terms of use, available at https://www.paypal. com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/useragreement-full or – if the customer does not have a PayPal account – subject to the conditions for payments without a PayPal account, which can be viewed at https://www.paypal.com/de/webapps/mpp/ua/privacywax-full.

5) Delivery and shipping conditions

5.1 The delivery of goods takes place via the dispatch route to the delivery address provided by the customer, unless otherwise agreed. The delivery address provided in the seller’s order processing is decisive for the processing of the transaction. Deviating from this, if the payment method PayPal is selected, the delivery address stored by the customer at PayPal at the time of payment is decisive.

5.2 If the transport company returns the shipped goods to the seller because delivery to the customer was not possible, the customer bears the costs for the unsuccessful shipment. This does not apply if the customer effectively exercises his right of cancellation, if he is not responsible for the circumstance that led to the impossibility of delivery, or if he was temporarily prevented from accepting the offered service, unless the seller had given him a reasonable period of notice of the service.

5.3 In the case of collection by the customer, the seller shall first inform the customer by e-mail that the goods ordered by him are ready for collection. After receiving this e-mail, the customer can pick up the goods at the seller’s premises by arrangement with the seller. In this case, no shipping costs will be charged.

5.4 Digital content is provided to the customer exclusively in electronic form and cannot be downloaded. Access is only possible via the seller’s platform as part of a subscription. Certain PDF documents can be downloaded depending on availability. The sharing, publication or reproduction of the provided PDF documents and other content is prohibited and intended solely for the personal use of the customer.

5.5 Vouchers are provided to the customer as follows:

– by email

6) Intellectual Property, Recordings & License

 6.1 Definitions. “Materials” means all content, works, and services provided by or on behalf of the Seller in connection with the program, in any format now known or later developed, including without limitation lessons (live or recorded), videos/replays, checklists, music scores (including interactive scores), exercises, feedback, analyses, practice plans, and any session Recordings (audio/video/screen) and related annotations or metadata. “Recordings” means any fixation created by the Seller of sessions, meetings, lessons, concerts, or the Customer’s performance, including edits and overlays.

6.2 Ownership. All right, title, and interest in and to the Materials and Recordings are and remain with the Seller or its licensors. No ownership is transferred.

6.3 License. Subject to full payment and compliance with these GTC, the Customer is granted a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable license to access and use the Materials solely for private study. Streaming Materials may be accessed only via the Seller’s platform; local copies may not be created except where the Seller expressly enables a download (e.g., certain PDFs). Copyright notices and watermarks must be retained.

6.4 Student performance vs. Recording. The Customer retains rights in their underlying musical performance; the Seller exclusively owns the Recordings and their production/editing. Copies of Recordings supplied to the Customer may be used only for private study. The Seller will not publish identifiable Recordings of the Customer without the Customer’s separate consent.

6.5 Prohibited uses (without prior written consent). The Customer must not:
(a) copy, reproduce, distribute, share, post, publish, publicly perform, broadcast, lend, sell, rent, sublicense, or otherwise make the Materials or Recordings available to third parties;
(b) use them to teach/tutor others or to create a competing course/service;
(c) remove or alter notices, watermarks, or access controls;
(d) circumvent DRM/encryption, scrape/rip/mass-download, or use automated tools to extract content, transcripts, captions, timing, or metadata;
(e) create derivative works other than personal study notes; or
(f) use the Materials/Recordings (including transcripts/metadata) for text and data mining or AI/ML training. The Seller expressly opts out of text-and-data-mining exceptions under applicable EU law.
(g) upload, input, submit, or otherwise provide the Materials or Recordings (or any part of them) to any AI/model/service for analysis or processing—even for personal use—including for summarization, Q&A, translation, transcription, accompaniment, practice feedback, training or fine-tuning (e.g., ChatGPT, Claude, Gemini, Copilot, or similar), even if the service claims uploads are private or not used for training.

6.6 Access & termination. Access credentials are personal and must not be shared. Upon termination or expiry of access, streaming rights end immediately. Any items the Seller expressly allowed to be downloaded may be retained only for private study and remain subject to these restrictions.

6.7 Third-party materials. Where Materials include third-party content, such content remains the property of its owners and is licensed only to the extent expressly permitted by those owners.

6.8 Enforcement. Unauthorized use may cause irreparable harm. The Seller may seek injunctive relief and damages and take reasonable measures (including access suspension) to protect its rights, to the extent permitted by law.

7) Contract duration and termination of subscription contracts

7.1 Subscription contracts shall initially be concluded for a minimum term of one year. After expiry of this minimum term, the contract shall be automatically extended for an indefinite period and may be terminated by the customer on a monthly basis.

7.2 Termination during the instalment payment period of the first year is not possible. The instalment payment must be completed in full before the contract can be terminated.

7.3 The right to extraordinary termination for good cause remains unaffected. Good cause exists if, taking into account all the circumstances of the individual case and weighing the interests of both parties, the terminating party cannot reasonably be expected to continue the contractual relationship.

7.4 Terminations must be made in writing or in text form (e.g. by email).

8) Retention of title

If the seller provides advance performance, he retains ownership of the delivered goods until the purchase price owed has been paid in full.

9) Liability for defects (guarantee)

9.1 If the purchased item is defective, the provisions of the statutory liability for defects shall apply.

9.2 The customer is asked to complain to the deliverer about goods delivered with obvious transport damage and to inform the seller of this. If the customer does not comply with this, this has no effect on his statutory or contractual claims for defects.

10) Redemption of promotional vouchers

10.1 Vouchers that are issued free of charge by the seller as part of a promotion with a specific validity period and that cannot be purchased by the customer (hereinafter referred to as ‘promotional vouchers’) can only be redeemed in the seller’s online shop and only within the specified period.

10.2 Individual products may be excluded from the voucher promotion if the content of the promotional voucher indicates a corresponding restriction.

10.3 Promotional vouchers can only be redeemed before the order process is completed. Subsequent offsetting is not possible.

10.4 Only one promotional voucher can be redeemed per order.

10.5 The value of the goods must at least correspond to the amount of the promotional voucher. Any remaining credit will not be refunded by the seller.

10.6 If the value of the promotional voucher is insufficient to cover the order, one of the other payment methods offered by the seller can be selected to settle the difference.

10.7 The credit balance of a promotional voucher will not be paid out in cash and does not bear interest.

10.8 The promotional voucher will not be refunded if the customer returns the goods paid for in full or in part with the promotional voucher within the scope of his statutory right of cancellation.

10.9 The promotional voucher is intended for use only by the person named on it. Transfer of the promotional voucher to third parties is excluded. The seller is entitled, but not obliged, to check the material eligibility of the respective voucher holder.

11) Redemption of gift vouchers

11.1 Vouchers that can be purchased through the seller’s online store (hereinafter ‘gift vouchers’) can only be redeemed in the seller’s online store, unless otherwise stated on the voucher.

11.2 Gift vouchers and remaining credit balances on gift vouchers are redeemable up to the end of the third year following the year of the voucher purchase. Remaining credit balances shall be credited to the customer up to the expiry date.

11.3 Gift vouchers can only be redeemed before the order process is completed. Subsequent offsetting is not possible.

11.4 Only one gift voucher can be redeemed per order.

11.5 Gift vouchers can only be used for the purchase of goods and not for the purchase of further gift vouchers.

11.6 If the value of the gift voucher is insufficient to cover the order, one of the other payment methods offered by the seller can be chosen to settle the difference.

11.7 The balance of a gift voucher will not be paid out in cash and does not bear interest.

11.8 The gift voucher is intended for use only by the person named on it. Transfer of the gift voucher to third parties is excluded. The seller is entitled, but not obliged, to check the material eligibility of the respective voucher holder.

12) Applicable law

All legal relationships between the parties shall be governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the laws on the international sale of movable goods. For consumers, this choice of law shall only apply insofar as the protection granted by mandatory provisions of the law of the country in which the consumer has his or her habitual residence is not withdrawn.

13) Alternative dispute resolution

The Seller is neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

14) SMS Terms (Text Messages)

14.1 If you explicitly opt in to receive SMS from The Violinacademy, we may send text messages such as appointment reminders and 1:1 follow-up/support messages related to your inquiry, registration, or enrollment. Message frequency varies. Msg & data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for assistance. Consent to receive SMS is not a condition of purchase. We do not sell your phone number and we do not share it with third parties for their marketing. We may use service providers to deliver SMS messages.

Cancellation policy and cancellation form

Customers have a right of cancellation under the following conditions, whereby a customer is any natural person who enters into a transaction for purposes that can be attributed primarily neither to their commercial nor their independent professional activity:

Cancellation policy

Right of cancellation

You have the right to cancel this contract without giving any reason.

For contracts for the delivery of goods, the cancellation period is 14 days from the day on which you or a third party named by you, who is not the carrier, took possession of the last goods.

For contracts for the delivery of data that is not on a physical data carrier and is produced and provided in digital form (digital content), the cancellation period is 14 days from the date of conclusion of the contract.

To exercise your right of cancellation, you must inform us (Morales Violin Education GmbH, Giselbertstraße 14, 51429 Bergisch Gladbach, Germany, email: [email protected]), by means of a clear statement (e.g. a letter sent by post or email), of your decision to cancel this contract. You may use the attached model cancellation form for this purpose, but this is not mandatory.

To meet the cancellation deadline, it is sufficient for you to send your communication concerning your exercise of the right of cancellation before the cancellation period has expired.

Consequences of cancellation

If you cancel this contract, we shall reimburse to you all payments received from you, including delivery costs (with the exception of additional costs resulting from your choice of a type of delivery other than the least expensive standard delivery offered by us), without undue delay and at the latest within fourteen days from the day on which we receive notice of your cancellation of this contract. We will carry out such reimbursement using the same means of payment as you used for the initial transaction, unless expressly agreed otherwise with you; in no event will you incur any fees as a result of such reimbursement.

In the case of contracts for the delivery of goods, we may withhold reimbursement until we have received the goods back or until you have supplied evidence of having sent back the goods, whichever is the earliest.

You must send back the goods or hand them over to us without undue delay and in any event not later than fourteen days from the day on which you communicate your cancellation of this contract to us. The deadline is met if you send back the goods before the period of fourteen days has expired.

You will bear the direct cost of returning the goods.

You are only liable for any diminished value of the goods resulting from handling other than what is necessary to establish the nature, characteristics and functioning of the goods.

Exclusion or premature expiry of the right of cancellation

The right of cancellation expires prematurely in the case of contracts for the delivery of sealed audio or sealed video recordings or sealed computer software if the seal has been removed after delivery.

The right of cancellation expires prematurely in the case of contracts for the delivery of digital content not supplied on a tangible medium if we have begun performance of the contract after you have expressly agreed that we may begin performance of the contract before the expiry of the cancellation period and you have confirmed your knowledge that, by giving your consent, you lose your right of cancellation once performance of the contract has begun.

General information on returning goods

1. Please avoid damaging or contaminating the goods. Please return the goods to us in their original packaging with all accessories and all packaging components. Use protective outer packaging if necessary. If you no longer have the original packaging, please use suitable packaging to ensure adequate protection against transport damage.
2. Please do not return the goods to us freight collect.
3. Please note that the above points 1–2 are not a prerequisite for the effective exercise of the right of cancellation.

Cancellation form

If you wish to cancel the contract, please fill out this form and send it back to us.

To:
Morales Violin Education GmbH
Giselbertstraße 14
51429 Bergisch Gladbach
Germany
Email: [email protected]

I/we () hereby cancel the contract concluded by me/us () for the purchase of the following goods () / the provision of the following service ()

Ordered on () ____________ / received on () __________________

Name of consumer(s)

Address of consumer(s)

Signature of consumer(s) (only if this form is notified on paper)

Date