Legal Notice & Terms of Use

1. Publisher and contact

WhenJumpScare is a personal, non-commercial project operated by two individuals based in Metz, France. The operators act as non-professional publishers and choose not to publish their personal contact details. The host’s public identification appears below.

For questions, complaints, content reports, or requests to contact the publisher, email [email protected] or use our contact form.

2. Hosting

• Host: Hetzner Online GmbH
• Address: Industriestr. 25, 91710 Gunzenhausen, Germany
• Telephone: +49 (0)9831 505-0
• Website: Hetzner legal notice

The application and its database run on a VPS in Germany. Cloudflare provides the reverse proxy and CDN through which traffic to the website passes.

3. Using the service

WhenJumpScare provides community-submitted jumpscare timestamps, movie information, articles, and a watch-along timer. Browsing is free, and Google sign-in is required for contributions and profile features. Optional donations through Ko-fi do not buy access, priority moderation, or a guarantee of service.

These terms apply to use of the site and public API. Read them before creating an account or submitting content. Personal data and analytics practices are explained in the Privacy Policy.

We do not impose a separate account age threshold or independently verify age. You must follow Google’s account requirements and any applicable rules about parental permission or capacity to agree to these terms. Horror descriptions may be unsuitable for young viewers.

4. Accounts and acceptable use

Keep your Google account secure and contact us if you suspect unauthorised use. Choose a display name suitable for public attribution. You must not:

• Submit knowingly false timestamps, spam, unlawful content, harassment, or private information about others.
• Submit material you have no right to share, including unauthorised film clips or scripts.
• Attempt to access other accounts, bypass security or moderation controls, or disrupt the service.
• Overload the site or API, evade rate limits, or extract and republish the database without permission where permission is legally required.

We may reject, correct, or remove contributions and restrict accounts for abuse, unlawful activity, or violations of these terms. We may limit access where necessary to protect the service. Contact us if you believe a moderation or account decision is mistaken.

5. Contributions and permissions

Submit accurate timestamps for the version of the film you watched and describe scares in your own words. Contributions and edits are reviewed before publication. Moderators may adjust descriptions, severity, and timing or reject submissions.

You retain any rights you hold in your contributions. To the extent permission is needed, you grant the operators a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, back up, review, edit for clarity or accuracy, and publish them on WhenJumpScare and through its API. This permission covers operating and maintaining this resource; it does not authorise us to offer your contributions as a separately downloadable public dataset or sublicense them for unrelated uses.

Deleting your account leaves published timestamps on the site, credited to “Deleted user”, and the permission to keep them available continues. To request removal of specific content, contact us with its URL or movie and timestamp. Personal data erasure requests are handled under the Privacy Policy and applicable law.

6. Website, movie data, and API use

Rights in the site’s original design, articles, and other original material remain with their owners. Film posters, metadata, and third-party ratings are subject to the rights and terms of their respective sources. This product uses the TMDB API but is not endorsed or certified by TMDB. ScaryMeter ratings are attributed to ScaryMeter.

You may browse the site and call its public API reasonably for its intended lookup functions. Public API access does not grant a general licence to redistribute contribution descriptions, republish the database, sell its contents, or distribute bulk datasets. Contact us for permission for broader reuse. Nothing in these terms restricts uses permitted by law or claims exclusive rights over facts that are not protected.

7. Accuracy, timer alignment, and availability

Timestamps may be incomplete or wrong. Different cuts, streaming editions, introductory logos, frame rates, playback pauses, and timer alignment can shift a scare. Severity is subjective. The watch-along timer is a guide and cannot guarantee a warning before every scare.

The information is not a medical recommendation or assurance that a film is suitable for you. Consider your own needs and the film’s official age classification and content guidance.

We aim to keep this volunteer project useful but cannot promise uninterrupted access, complete coverage, or error-free operation. Features and API availability may change. Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or removes mandatory rights you have under applicable law.

8. External sites and donations

Links may take you to Google, TMDB, ScaryMeter, Letterboxd, Ko-fi, or other independent websites. Their own terms and privacy practices apply there. Donations are voluntary and processed externally by Ko-fi and its payment providers; questions about a donation can be sent to our contact email or raised through the relevant provider.

9. Reporting content and rights concerns

To report unlawful content, a privacy issue, or a copyright concern, contact [email protected]. Include the exact page URL, the content concerned, why you believe it is unlawful or infringes rights, and enough information for us to understand and respond. For a copyright claim, identify the protected work and your authority to act for its owner.

We will review reports and take appropriate action. You can also use this address for a request for correction or a right-of-reply request under applicable French law.

10. Applicable law and changes

French law governs these terms, subject to any mandatory protections applicable in your country. Disputes are handled by the courts competent under applicable rules; these terms do not require every visitor to bring a claim exclusively in Metz.

Updates are published here with a fixed revision date. We will draw attention to material changes on the site before applying them to future use where required. Changes do not retroactively expand the licence you granted for past contributions without any additional agreement required by law.