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Terms of Service

Last updated: 13 September 2026

These terms are the agreement between you and Toy Syndicate. They cover every part of the service — your account, the catalog, your collection, the community, trades between members, and what we store in your browser. By accessing or using Toy Syndicate you agree to them. If you do not agree, you must stop using the service.

1. Who we are, and what Toy Syndicate is

Toy Syndicate is a platform for designer toy collectors. It hosts a community-maintained catalog of releases, lets you record what you own and what you are looking for, and gives collectors ways to find and talk to each other. In these terms, “Toy Syndicate”, “we” and “us” mean the operator of this service, and “you” means you as a user of it.

We are an independent project. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of any toy artist, maker, brand, or retailer named anywhere in the catalog, unless a page says so explicitly.

2. Agreement, and changes to these terms

These terms, together with the Privacy Policy and any additional terms presented to you for a specific feature, form the entire agreement between you and us about the service, and replace anything said before.

We may update these terms. Material changes will be reflected by the “last updated” date above and, where the change is significant, announced in the changelog or in the app. Continuing to use Toy Syndicate after a change means you accept it; if you do not, stop using the service and delete your account. Where we have recorded your acceptance of a specific set of terms — as we do for Plastic Handshake — a material change to those terms will be put to you again.

3. Eligibility, and your account

Toy Syndicate is for adults. You must be at least 18 years old to use it, and people under 18 are not permitted to use or register for the service. By using Toy Syndicate you confirm that you meet that requirement. If the age of majority where you live is higher than 18, you must have reached it instead. We may suspend or close any account where we reasonably believe the age requirement is not met, and we may ask for confirmation of age before restoring it.

You are responsible for everything that happens under your account and for keeping your credentials secure. Keep one account per person unless we have agreed otherwise, do not share or transfer your account, and tell us promptly if you suspect unauthorised use. We are not liable for loss arising from someone else using your account.

Handles are unique and allocated on a first-come basis, with two exceptions: handles matching artists and makers in our catalog are reserved so they can be claimed by the people they belong to, and we may reclaim or change a handle that impersonates someone, infringes a trade mark, is obscene, or is being squatted. Changing your handle is subject to a cooling-off period between changes.

4. Your representations

By using Toy Syndicate you represent and warrant that: the information you give us is true, accurate, and current, and you will keep it that way; you are at least 18 years old, are not a minor in the place where you live, and have the legal capacity to agree to these terms; you will not access the service by automated or non-human means except through an interface we publish for that purpose; you will not use the service for any unlawful or unauthorised purpose; and your use will not breach any law or regulation that applies to you.

If you give us information that is untrue, inaccurate, or incomplete, we may suspend or terminate your account and refuse any current or future use of the service.

5. Acceptable use and prohibited activities

Keep it a good place for collectors. You agree not to:

• Post unlawful, infringing, hateful, harassing, defamatory, obscene, or deliberately misleading content, or content that violates anyone’s privacy or publicity rights.
• Deliberately submit false catalog or glossary data, or vandalise entries.
• Inflate contribution points, referrals, follows, or any other counter by artificial means.
• Systematically retrieve, scrape, harvest, or bulk-download data or content from the service — by any means, manual or automated — to build, train, or contribute to any collection, compilation, database, directory, dataset, or model, without our prior written permission. The catalog is the product of years of community work; this restriction is one of the main things these terms exist to protect.
• Use robots, spiders, scrapers, data-mining tools, or any automated system to access the service, except a standard search engine crawling pages we have made publicly indexable, and except through any interface we publish for that purpose and within any limits we set on it.
• Overload, probe, interfere with, or disrupt the service or the networks it runs on, or circumvent, disable, or interfere with any security or access-control feature.
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any part of the service, except where applicable law expressly permits it.
• Remove or obscure any copyright, trade mark, or other proprietary notice.
• Collect usernames, email addresses, or other member information for unsolicited messaging, or create accounts by automated means or under false pretences.
• Impersonate anyone, or misrepresent your affiliation with an artist, maker, or brand.
• Use the service to advertise, spam, or solicit outside the features built for it, or to harass, abuse, or harm another person.
• Use the service, or anything obtained from it, to compete with us or as part of any revenue-generating endeavour that we have not approved.
• Sell, rent, or otherwise transfer your account or profile.
• Circumvent a block, suspension, or any access control — including by opening a new account to do so.

A breach of this section is a material breach of these terms, and your right to use the service ends immediately.

6. Your content, and the permission you give us

You keep ownership of what you upload — your photos, your posts, your profile, your collection data. You are responsible for it.

So that the service can work, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, fully paid, sublicensable licence to host, store, reproduce, adapt (for example, resizing and converting images to efficient formats), publish, and display your content within Toy Syndicate, and to show content you have chosen to make public to other people, including outside the site where a page is publicly indexable. This licence exists so that we can operate, promote, and improve the service, and it lasts as long as you keep the content on the service. It ends when you remove the content — except for copies retained in backups for a limited period, for material already shared with others, and for the categories described in section 26.

You warrant that your content is yours or that you have all rights necessary to grant this licence, and that it does not breach anyone else’s rights or any law. To the extent the law allows, you waive any moral rights you have in content you post, so that we can crop, resize, reformat, and lay it out as the service requires.

We do not sell your content, and we do not licence it to third parties for their own purposes.

7. Feedback and suggestions

If you send us a suggestion, feature request, bug report, idea, or other feedback — through the feature board, the Contact page, or anywhere else — you agree that we may use it freely, for any purpose, without obligation, attribution, confidentiality, or payment to you. Feedback is not confidential, and sending it does not create any relationship between us beyond these terms. You keep the right to use your own idea yourself; you simply cannot stop us from acting on it.

8. The catalog and community contributions

The catalog is a shared, community-verified record. Additions, edits, submissions, and correction requests you contribute are reviewed by moderators and may be modified, merged, reverted, re-categorised, or rejected to keep the record accurate.

Factual catalog data — names, editions, sizes, materials, dates, and the relationships between them — is not owned by any single contributor, and once accepted it becomes part of the shared record. You agree that your accepted contributions may be kept, corrected, and redistributed as part of the catalog indefinitely, including after you stop using the service or delete your account.

The catalog is offered for reference only. It is assembled from many sources and from community input, and it contains errors. Nothing in it is an authentication, a valuation, an appraisal, a grading, or a confirmation that an item is genuine, and retail prices shown are historical reference figures rather than current values. Do not rely on it to decide what something is worth or whether it is real.

9. Your collection, wishlist, and photos

What you record as owned or wanted is yours to manage, and you control how much of it other people can see in Settings — including whether your profile is public at all and whether an estimated collection value is shown. Display photos you upload can be tagged to catalog releases, which makes them discoverable from those pages when the photo is public.

Please do not upload photos you did not take or do not have permission to use, and remember that a photo of a shelf can show more than the shelf.

10. The Feed, comments, and direct messages

Posts, comments, reactions, hashtags, and mentions are community features. Anything you post publicly can be seen by other members, quoted, and responded to. Posts marked as official come from Toy Syndicate staff accounts.

Direct messages are private between their participants, in the sense that other members cannot read them. They are not end-to-end encrypted: they are stored on our infrastructure, and we may access them where we genuinely need to — to investigate a report, to comply with a legal obligation, or to protect someone from harm. Do not use messages for anything you would not want retained.

You can block another member. Blocking hides you from each other across posts, comments, and messages, and prevents either of you following the other; unblocking does not restore a follow.

11. Glossary and articles

The glossary is a public, community-maintained reference and its entries are indexable by search engines. Entries you write are contributions in the sense of section 8. Articles published by Toy Syndicate are ours; you may quote and link to them, but not republish them wholesale.

12. Plastic Handshake (member-to-member trades)

A Plastic Handshake is a direct trade between two members. Toy Syndicate shows each of you what the other owns that you are looking for, lets you each mark what you would be willing to trade, records the trade you both agree to, and updates your collection records on this site to reflect it. Before you can accept, propose, or agree to a handshake, we ask you to read and accept the terms in this section, and we record that acceptance against your account.

We are not a party to your trade. Toy Syndicate is not a buyer, seller, agent, broker, escrow, or intermediary in a Plastic Handshake, and any agreement you reach is between you and the other member alone. We do not take custody of, pack, ship, insure, inspect, grade, authenticate, appraise, or value any item. Condition, authenticity, completeness, delivery, postage, import duties, taxes, insurance, and any money or other consideration that changes hands are entirely for you and the other member to agree and arrange between yourselves.

Completing a handshake changes records, not possession. When both members accept, we move the agreed releases between your collection records on the service. This is a bookkeeping change within Toy Syndicate and is not a shipment, a transfer of title, a delivery, or evidence that either of you has performed. Whether the physical items actually change hands is a matter between the two of you.

You are responsible for what you trade. You must own the items you offer and be legally entitled to part with them. You must not trade counterfeit, stolen, recalled, or unlawfully imported goods, or anything you are prohibited from transferring. You are responsible for complying with the laws that apply to you, including any customs, consumer, and tax obligations arising from a trade.

Disputes, and what we can and cannot do. We do not mediate, arbitrate, or adjudicate disputes arising from a Plastic Handshake, and a completed handshake is a record of what you agreed rather than something we can reverse. To the fullest extent permitted by law, Toy Syndicate is not liable for any loss, damage, non-delivery, misdescription, non-payment, fraud, or other harm arising out of a trade between members, and section 31 applies to any such claim. If another member fails to honour a handshake you may report them to us through the Contact page; we may act on their account, but we cannot recover an item or a payment on your behalf.

Availability. Plastic Handshake is offered as part of the service and may be changed, limited to certain members, suspended, or withdrawn at any time under sections 17 and 27.

13. Marketplace, listings, and orders

Buying and selling features are not open at the time of writing. If and when they are, any transaction is between the participating members, and the principles in section 12 apply to it as well: we are not a party to the sale, and we do not guarantee items, payments, or shipments unless a page expressly says we do. Any additional terms for payments, fees, refunds, or seller obligations will be presented before you can use those features, and will apply in addition to these terms.

14. Contribution points and rewards

Contribution points recognise work that improves the catalog and the community. They have no cash value, are not property, cannot be bought, sold, or transferred, and confer no legal entitlement. Points are awarded for accepted contributions and may be corrected, reduced, capped, or removed — including retrospectively — where a contribution is reverted, where an award was made in error, or where activity looks designed to farm them. We may change or end the programme at any time.

15. Referrals and invitations

You may invite other collectors, and where a referral is credited we record who introduced whom. Referral attribution depends on optional browser storage and only works if you have consented to it (section 18). Do not spam invitations, create accounts to refer yourself, or offer anything in exchange for a signup on our behalf.

16. Notifications and email

We send in-app notifications about activity that concerns you, and service email about your account — things like confirming your address, resetting your password, and important changes to the service. You can adjust what you receive in Settings, but you cannot opt out of essential service email while you have an account.

17. Beta features

Some features are released to a limited group first, or run behind a switch that turns them on for staff, for named testers, or for everyone. A feature you can see today may not be available tomorrow, and a feature someone else has may not be available to you. Features marked as beta or preview are provided for evaluation, may be incomplete or unstable, may change substantially, and may be withdrawn without notice.

18. Cookies, browser storage, and your consent

Toy Syndicate stores some information in your browser. On your first visit we ask you to choose, and you can change your mind at any time from Cookie settings in the sidebar menu — withdrawing consent is as easy as giving it. We record your choice, when you made it, and which version of the notice you were shown.

Necessary — always on. Your sign-in session, and the preferences you have set yourself, such as page size, card style, feed filter, and theme. This is stored in your browser’s local storage rather than in cookies sent to us, and it cannot be switched off: without it you would be signed out on every click and your preferences would not survive a page load. The record of your cookie choice is itself part of this category.

Optional — only with your consent. Three things, and nothing else:

• Referral attribution — a referral or invitation code, so that whoever introduced you is credited.
• Usage measurement — an anonymous session identifier and a record of which pages are visited, so we can see what the site is actually used for.
• Microsoft Clarity, when enabled — a third-party service that builds heatmaps and can replay how a page was used, including clicks, scrolling, and mouse movement. This is the only feature on the site that sets cookies in the ordinary sense: two of them, _clck and _clsk, set by Clarity rather than by us. Data collected this way leaves our infrastructure and is processed by Microsoft under their terms.

If you decline, none of the above happens, no cookie is set at all, and the service works normally. We do not use advertising trackers, we do not sell personal information, and we do not build advertising profiles.

Search terms are never recorded without analytics consent, and are never recorded as you type — only searches you actually submit, together with how many results they returned, and only if you have consented and your browser is not sending a Do Not Track signal. They are deleted after 90 days.

Withdrawing consent stops the optional processing from that moment and clears the identifiers involved; it does not undo measurement already recorded. What we do with all of this, and your rights over it, are set out in the Privacy Policy.

19. Privacy

How we collect, use, store, and share personal information is described in the Privacy Policy, which forms part of these terms. Account data, catalog data, and uploaded images are stored with our infrastructure providers, which means your data is transmitted to and stored on their systems, including outside the country where you live.

20. Intellectual property

The Toy Syndicate name, logo, design, interface, software, and the compilation and arrangement of the catalog are ours or our licensors’, and are protected by copyright, trade mark, and other laws. Subject to these terms, we grant you a personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and use the service, and to download or print portions of it for your own personal, non-commercial use. Everything not expressly granted is reserved.

The catalog contains names, images, and descriptions of products designed and produced by other people; those remain the property of their respective owners, and their appearance here is for identification and reference in a collector’s catalog.

21. Copyright complaints, takedowns, and repeat infringers

We respect other people’s rights and expect our members to do the same. If you own rights in something on Toy Syndicate and believe it has been used without permission, tell us through the Contact page, choosing the “Partnership & Verification” topic, and include: a way to identify the work you say is infringed; enough detail to find the material on our service, such as a link; your contact details; a statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorised by the rights holder or the law; a statement that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorised to act for them; and your signature, physical or electronic.

We remove or restrict material when a complaint is substantiated, and we tell the member whose content it was. If you believe your content was removed in error, you may send us a counter-notice through the same route, identifying the material and where it appeared, stating under penalty of perjury that you believe in good faith it was removed as a result of a mistake or misidentification, and giving your contact details and consent to the jurisdiction of the appropriate court. We may restore the material if the complainant does not pursue the matter.

Repeat infringers. We may limit, suspend, or terminate the account of any member who is the subject of repeated or egregious infringement complaints. We review complaints case by case and decide in our reasonable discretion.

For trade mark and other intellectual property complaints, use the same route with enough detail to identify the right you rely on, such as a registration number and jurisdiction.

22. Automated and machine-generated content

Parts of the catalog are produced or assisted by automated systems — image descriptions and alt text, some derived fields, similarity and recommendation suggestions, and background clean-up tasks. This material can be wrong, and it is offered on the same reference basis as the rest of the catalog (section 8). Where we publish an interface for other services to read public catalog data, use of it is subject to these terms and to any rate limits we apply, and we may change or withdraw it at any time.

23. Third-party links and services

The service contains links to other websites, and relies on third-party providers for hosting, storage, images, email, and measurement. We do not control third-party sites or services, we do not endorse them, and we are not responsible for their content, products, policies, or practices. Following a link is at your own risk, and any dealing you have with a third party is between you and them. Check their terms and privacy policies before you use them.

24. Moderation, and our right to monitor

We have the right, but not the obligation, to monitor the service for breaches of these terms, to investigate reports, to refuse, restrict, edit, re-categorise, move, or remove any content, in whole or in part, at our reasonable discretion and without notice, and to take legal action where appropriate. We also have the right to manage the service to protect our rights and property and to keep it working properly, including by removing files that are excessively large or otherwise burdensome.

Nothing in this section makes us responsible for content posted by members, and our choosing to moderate some content does not mean we have reviewed any of it.

25. Suspension and termination

These terms remain in force while you use the service. We may, at our reasonable discretion and without notice or liability, deny access, remove content, revert contributions, limit features, or suspend or terminate your account — including for breach of these terms, for conduct that creates risk for other members, or for anything that exposes us to legal liability. Where it is reasonable to do so we will tell you why, and you can respond through the Contact page.

If we terminate or suspend your account, you must not register another one under your own name, a false name, or the name of any third party. You may stop using the service at any time. Sections that by their nature should survive termination — including sections 6, 7, 8, 14, 20, 22, 23, and 28 to 35 — continue to apply afterwards.

26. Deleting your account

You can permanently delete your account from Settings. It cannot be undone, your sign-in stops working immediately, and your handle is released.

Deleted for good: your collection and wishlist, display photos, saved addresses, notifications, price alerts, badges, contribution points, follows and blocks, and your name, photo, bio, and location.

Kept, and shown as “Deleted member”: your posts, comments, and reactions, your catalog and glossary contributions, and messages you have sent — so that conversations other collectors took part in stay readable and the shared catalog keeps its history. You agree to this when you contribute, and it is why section 8 describes accepted contributions as part of the shared record.

27. Availability, changes, and corrections

We may change, modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the service — including any content in it — at any time, without notice and without liability to you. We are under no obligation to update anything.

We cannot guarantee the service will be available at all times. Hardware, software, and network problems happen, and we may need to perform maintenance, which can cause interruptions, delays, or errors. We are not liable for any loss or inconvenience caused by downtime or by your inability to access or use the service, and nothing in these terms obliges us to maintain or support it.

The service may contain typographical errors, inaccuracies, or omissions — in catalog entries, descriptions, prices, images, and elsewhere. We may correct them, and change or update information, at any time and without notice.

28. Data retention, backups, and loss

We keep data for as long as we need it to run the service and as described in the Privacy Policy, and we take backups for operational and security purposes. We do not guarantee that any content you post will be retained, and we have no liability to you if it is lost, deleted, corrupted, or unavailable. You are responsible for keeping your own copies of anything you care about — including your photos and any record of your collection you would not want to rebuild.

29. Export controls and sanctions

You are responsible for complying with export, import, and sanctions laws that apply to you. You must not use the service to arrange a transfer of items or funds to, or to deal with, any person, entity, or country subject to trade restrictions, sanctions, or embargoes under applicable law. We may suspend or cancel any account or activity we believe may breach those laws or expose us to legal risk, and may report suspected breaches to the authorities.

30. Disclaimers

The service is provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis, and your use of it is at your sole risk. To the fullest extent permitted by law we disclaim all warranties, conditions, and representations, express or implied, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted or error-free operation.

Without limiting that, we make no warranty and accept no responsibility for: errors, mistakes, or inaccuracies in any content, including catalog data, prices, images, and machine-generated descriptions; personal injury or property damage of any kind arising from your use of the service; unauthorised access to or use of our servers or any information stored on them; interruption or cessation of the service; bugs, viruses, or harmful code transmitted through the service by any third party; any loss or damage arising from content posted by another member; or the conduct of any member, whether online or offline.

We do not vet, endorse, or vouch for members, their content, or the items they claim to own, and we are not a party to and do not monitor any transaction or trade between members. Use your own judgement, and exercise caution.

31. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, neither Toy Syndicate nor its operators, staff, contractors, or suppliers will be liable to you or to anyone else for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, lost revenue, lost data, lost items, loss of goodwill, or lost opportunities, arising from or connected with these terms or your use of the service — including anything arising from a trade or transaction between members — even if we have been advised of the possibility of such damages.

Our total aggregate liability for all claims arising in any twelve-month period is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us during that period and one hundred Canadian dollars (CAD $100).

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by law, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. If you deal with us as a consumer, your mandatory rights under the consumer protection law where you live are unaffected, and some of the exclusions above may not apply to you.

32. Time limit for claims

If you use Toy Syndicate other than as a consumer — that is, for business purposes — any claim arising out of or relating to these terms or the service must be brought within one year of the date the cause of action arose, and is otherwise permanently barred. If you use the service as a consumer, the limitation period set by the law where you live applies instead, and this section does not shorten it.

33. Indemnity

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Toy Syndicate and its operators, staff, and contractors from and against any claim, demand, loss, damage, liability, and reasonable cost — including legal fees — arising out of: content you post or contribute; your use of the service; your breach of these terms or of your representations in them; your breach of any third party’s rights, including intellectual property rights; or any trade, transaction, or dealing you enter into with another member.

We may, at our own expense, assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter you are required to indemnify us for, and you agree to cooperate with us in that defence. You will not settle any such matter without our prior written consent.

34. Disputes and governing law

Talk to us first. If you have a dispute with us, contact us through the Contact page and give us a description of it. Both of us agree to try in good faith to resolve it informally for at least thirty days before starting formal proceedings. Most things are quicker to resolve directly.

These terms, and any dispute arising out of them or out of your use of Toy Syndicate, are governed by the laws of the Province of Ontario and the federal laws of Canada that apply in it, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. You and we agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Ontario.

If you use Toy Syndicate other than as a consumer, any dispute that informal negotiation does not resolve will be settled by final and binding arbitration under the Arbitration Act, 1991 (Ontario), before a single arbitrator, in Ontario, in English; each of us agrees to bring claims only individually, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, or representative proceeding, and the arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any representative proceeding. This paragraph does not apply to claims for injunctive relief to protect intellectual property.

If you are a consumer, the arbitration and class-action paragraph above does not apply to you. Your rights under the Consumer Protection Act, 2002 (Ontario) — including your right to go to court and to participate in a class proceeding — and under the consumer protection law of the country or province where you live are unaffected, and where that law guarantees you the right to bring proceedings where you live, you keep it.

35. General

Electronic communications. Using the service, emailing us, and completing forms are electronic communications. You consent to receive communications from us electronically, and you agree that electronic records, agreements, notices, and signatures satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing or signed, to the extent the law allows.

Assignment. We may assign or transfer these terms, in whole or in part, including to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. You may not assign or transfer them, or your account, without our prior written consent.

Severability. If any provision is held unenforceable, it is severed or narrowed to the minimum extent necessary, and the rest of these terms remain in force.

No waiver. If we do not enforce a provision, that is not a waiver of it or of any other provision.

No partnership. Nothing in these terms creates a partnership, joint venture, employment, or agency relationship between us.

Events outside our control. We are not liable for any failure or delay caused by something beyond our reasonable control, including network or provider outages, power failures, natural events, labour disputes, and acts of government.

Language. These terms are drawn up in English, and the English version governs. Les parties ont exigé que ce contrat soit rédigé en anglais.

36. Contact

Questions about these terms, or a complaint about the service? Reach us through the Contact page. For anything about your data, choose the “Account & Privacy” topic; for catalog errors, “Catalog Correction”; for rights, takedowns, and trade mark complaints, “Partnership & Verification”.