10 Key Protections Course Creators Must Have in Terms and Conditions for Online Courses
Want to know what you need in your terms and conditions for online courses to protect your course, business and money? These are the crucial protections all course creators need.
Publishing your very own online course is extremely exciting, and if you’re anything like me, you are researching everything you need to protect your creation and yourself. As a lawyer myself who drafts contracts for course creators like you, I am giving you the key protections you need in your terms and conditions for online courses.
I will tell you about the protective provisions necessary for terms and conditions for online courses that go beyond standard terms and conditions for a website so you know what your training course terms and conditions template should include.
After learning about the protections you need in terms and conditions for online courses, you will have everything you need to protect your course content, your business and your money.
This post is all about the important protections all terms and conditions for online courses must have for course creators.
Crucial Terms and Conditions for Online Courses
Crucial protections to have in your training course terms and conditions template
1. Prohibition to give access to others
As a course creator, you want to receive fair payment for the use of the course you worked so hard to create. So, the last thing you want is for your students to grant access to their friends for free.
Therefore, terms and conditions for online courses should include the following protections:
A non-transferable and non-sublicensable license: You provide your students with a license to access and use your course content. That license must be non-transferable and non-sublicensable, meaning your students are not permitted to give that license to someone else or provide someone else a license to use it, too.
Secrecy of account information: You must include provisions that state that the student may not share their login information with anyone else or any information that can enable someone to access their account.
2. The right to revoke access
Suppose your student does not pay you or:
charges back the money paid,
does not pay on time, or
only pays part and not the other instalments.
For those cases, terms and conditions for online courses must, of course, include the right for you to revoke or terminate their access to your course.
But, suppose your student has paid you in full but breaks any of the rules you set, such as breaking the abovementioned rules or:
infringing your intellectual property rights, like copying your course’s content,
making statements that hurt you or your brand,
making mean comments to other students in the course (if you have a (Facebook) group for your students) or
making claims against you.
For those cases, terms and conditions for online courses must also include your entitlement to either:
suspend their access from your course temporarily if the breach was not that bad and you want to give them a second chance, or
completely ban them from your course once and for all.
3. Prohibition of sharing the course content with others
Terms and conditions for online courses must also include the proper wording to prohibit your students from sharing the course content with someone else.
You may ask: “Didn’t you mention that in the first paragraph?” Well, there is a slight nuance, and therefore, it is extremely crucial that your online course agreement template includes the proper wording for both situations.
We talked about the prohibition of your students from providing access to the course, either through providing someone else with their account information, their own license, or a new license.
But your students can also share the content in your course with someone else without giving them access.
For example, they could screen record the videos within your course, or they could share a workbook or other course materials you provide within your course.
Therefore, terms and conditions for online courses must include the proper wording to prohibit those activities, too.
4. Prohibition to copy your course
Not only do you want to prohibit the, let’s say, ‘generous’ students from sharing your course (content) with their friends and family, but you also want to prohibit copycats from stealing your stuff.
Therefore, your intellectual property provisions in your terms and conditions for online courses must include the proper and crystal clear wording to prohibit your students from:
copying your course content,
recreating your course content,
using your unique methods and strategies contained in the course content, or
using your course content for commercial purposes.
5. Disclaimers for the course content
Your students buy your course because they believe you will provide value. And hopefully, most of your students will have great results after implementing everything you taught them, but that will likely not be the case for 100% of your students. Several issues may occur, like the following:
A student misinterprets some of your course content.
The student simply does not put in the work or have the capabilities to achieve the results you or other students have achieved.
Some or all of the information in the course does not work for the student or does not apply to the student. One size does not fit all.
Your course material may contain some mistakes or outdated information (which can happen, as we are all human).
Therefore, your terms and conditions for online courses must also include disclaimers stating the following:
You provide the course content on an “as is” basis.
Your course content may contain errors.
The information provided should not be construed as being professional advice.
Your students are responsible for their own results and outcomes.
You are not responsible if the student does not meet the requirements for your course.
You are not responsible if your student does not own the proper technology or have access to Wi-Fi!
6. Protection against third-party resources and websites
Your course will likely contain third-party resources, like websites of third parties or even affiliate links. However, those resources and websites may change without you even knowing.
Therefore, your terms and conditions for online courses must include provisions that exclaim any responsibility on your part for those third-party resources.
Also, if you have included affiliate links in your course content, you are obligated under advertising laws to inform your students that such links are affiliate links.
Thus, ensure your training course terms and conditions template includes (optional) wording for affiliate links if you are using them or may include them in the future.
7. Protection against non-payment
I already touched upon non-payment in my second point regarding the right to revoke or suspend access if your student does not pay you (on time).
But you want to prevent non-payment as much as possible.
Therefore, I recommend having students pay the full price upfront before getting access to the course.
However, your course may be a bit more expensive, and you want to provide students with less money to pay for the course in instalments. For that case, terms and conditions for online courses should have the proper protections in place to avoid non-payment of instalments and otherwise have the right protection mechanisms in place if that does happen, such as the following:
The students only get access to the percentage of the course they paid for.
The students gain full access, but if the next instalment is not paid on time, their access may be suspended or completely revoked WITHOUT the right to receive a refund of any payments already made.
8. Protection against (ineligible) refund requests
Speaking of refunds, your course terms and conditions template should include the proper protections against (ineligible) refund requests.
It’s your choice whether you want to offer your students refunds. The easiest option is to not provide any refunds at all, of course. But if you do want to provide your students with the chance to get a refund if they are not happy with the course, you should include detailed conditions under which they may be eligible for a refund.
I explain this in more depth in this blog post on the 11 Essentials All Course Terms and Conditions Must Have for Course Creators.
9. Protection of your reputation
Another protection that all terms and conditions for online courses should have is the protection of your reputation.
Not every student is going to be happy with the content you provide. I once saw a TikTok video of someone using a teapot as a vase for her tulips. You would think that it’s something that people would not get upset over, but there were a few people who were outraged, and those few people can be very loud.
This is just to give you some perspective and a reality check that, even if you think your course could receive no hate... Think again.
But the last thing you want is to have a few bad apples destroy your reputation or hurt your brand in any way. Therefore, it’s important that your terms and conditions for online courses include a non-disparagement clause prohibiting students from using your course content in any way that:
is offensive, defamatory, abusive, profane, hateful, vulgar, obscene, libellous, pornographic, upsetting, insulting, misleading, discriminatory, sexist, racist... all the adjectives, or
disparages or discredits you.
10. Protection of your students
If you have a Facebook group or another space where your students can come together and interact with each other, the last protection you need is protection for your students.
In that case, not only can the bad apples hurt you but also your other students, and you want to avoid that from happening or have real consequences for those bad apples if they say anything hurtful toward your other students.
Therefore, your terms and conditions for online courses should include the following protections for your students:
You are entitled to kick those bad apples out of the group or temporarily suspend them.
You are entitled to suspend or terminate their access to the entire course.
These are all the essential protections all terms and conditions for online courses need to protect course creators (and their students).
Do you need an online course agreement template?
Are you looking for an online course agreement template that contains all the protections you need?
My terms and conditions for online courses include all the protections you need (and more) so that you can have peace of mind that your course content, money and business are protected.
My training course terms and conditions template is fully customisable to your course and business needs. For example, you can choose:
if you only accept upfront payments or allow payments in instalments,
whether you allow for payment in instalments, whether students will gain full access to the course or only the (pro-rata) parts they paid for,
how long your students will have access to your course (life-long access or for a limited time?),
if you allow for refunds, and if so, under what conditions,
if your students get access to new content you add to your course or updates or not,
if your student will have access to online (Facebook) groups, and if so, what the group rules are to protect the other students, and
so much more!
You can purchase your terms and conditions for online courses on this page of my contract shop.
What you need in terms and conditions for a website
Terms and conditions for online courses contain the rules that apply to the online course specifically, not your website as a whole. Your course is part of your website (or maybe another platform), but it’s not your entire website.
Your website visitors who have not purchased the course (yet) should also abide by certain rules, and you need to:
protect the rest of your website’s (other) content,
instruct visitors on how they can use the website and, more importantly, how they may NOT use your website,
have rules on how website visitors can share your content (because you want more people to know about your website but still protect your rights are protected),
limit your liability for everything that is stated on your website,
be able to terminate anyone’s use of your website at your sole discretion,
and more!
More on what should be included in terms and conditions for a website in my next blog post!
This post was all about the protections all terms and conditions for online courses must have for creators to protect their course content, business and money.
You can get your terms and conditions for online courses on this page of my contract shop!
Want to learn more about all the key terms you need in your online course agreement template? Read this blog post on the 11 Essentials All Course Terms and Conditions Must Have for Course Creators.
Are you also selling downloadable digital products? Then, you must read this blog post on the 10 Must-Haves for All Terms and Conditions for Digital Products.
More specifically, are you selling an eBook? Then, you should read this blog post on the 11 Key Protections Your eBook Terms and Conditions Template Must Have.
