Expert agreement

This agreement is between Canonset, Inc., a Delaware corporation, 10239 Northeast 26th Street, Bellevue, WA 98004 ("Canonset", "we", "us"), and the individual who accepts it ("you"). You accept it by selecting "I agree" on canonset.com (the "Platform"), and we record the version and the time. It covers every task, review, trial, training session and other work you do for Canonset (the "Services").

1. Our relationship

1.1 Independent contractor. You are an independent contractor, not an employee, partner or agent of Canonset. You receive no salary, benefits, workers' compensation or unemployment insurance from Canonset except where a law requires it regardless of this agreement.

1.2 Your business, your choices. You decide whether, when, where and how much to work. You choose which projects to join and which tasks to take, and you may decline any of them. There are no minimum hours and no schedule. We don't guarantee any amount of work. You use your own computer, internet connection and tools.

1.3 Not exclusive. You may work for others, including other data companies, as long as you keep to sections 6 and 7.

1.4 Taxes. You are responsible for your own taxes, licenses and insurance. We don't withhold taxes from your pay unless the law requires it (for example backup withholding when tax details are missing). Before your first payout you give us a Form W-9 (collected through our payment provider). We issue a Form 1099-NEC when the law requires one.

1.5 No authority to bind us. You won't make commitments for Canonset or say you are its employee.

1.6 Eligibility. You confirm that you are at least 18; that you live in the United States and will perform all Services from within the United States; that you may lawfully work as a contractor in the United States; and that you are not a person with whom US law forbids us to deal (for example, a person on a US sanctions list). You keep your US state up to date on your profile and tell us before you move. We may pause your access while you live in a state where we don't engage experts.

1.7 You do the work yourself. You perform the Services personally. You don't subcontract, delegate or share your account, and nobody else works under your name.

2. How work happens

2.1 Projects and instructions. Each project shows its instructions, its pay and any extra terms before you join it. Your work must follow the instructions.

2.2 What we check. We judge the work, not you as a person. Every deliverable is reviewed. We also use known-answer tasks and automatic signals about the work itself: the time it took, how much text was pasted rather than typed, similarity to other answers, writing patterns typical of AI tools, and automated tests of code. Where a client allows it, an AI model gives our reviewers a second opinion. We don't record your screen, keystrokes, camera, microphone or location. A signal is not a verdict: a person reviews the work before we act on it.

2.3 Revisions and rejection. A reviewer may accept a deliverable, return it to you once or more with notes, or reject it with a reason. You may revise a returned deliverable or leave it.

3. Pay

3.1 Rates. Each project states its pay before you join: an amount per accepted deliverable, or an hourly rate for the time the Platform measures on each deliverable, with a cap per deliverable. Paid trials have a fixed fee. Reviews pay the project's reviewer rate. Training or calibration time that a project asks of you is paid at the project's rate. A rate change applies only to work you start after we announce it.

3.2 When work earns pay.

• Hourly projects: we pay the measured time on every deliverable you submit, whether we accept it, return it or reject it, unless we reject it because it breaks section 5 or 6, or because it isn't a genuine attempt at the task (for example empty, unrelated or copied work).
• Per-deliverable projects and trials: we pay for each accepted deliverable. You get the chance to revise a returned deliverable. A deliverable rejected after review earns nothing.

3.3 Payment. Payday is every Monday: we pay, through our payment provider, all pay earned by the end of the previous Sunday (11:59 pm Pacific time). In any case we pay no later than 30 days after the work is accepted (per-deliverable) or submitted (hourly). The Platform records each piece of work as you submit it, so you don't send invoices. Keep your payout details current; your own bank's fees are yours.

3.4 Questions about pay. Tell us within 60 days of a payout if you think it is wrong, and we'll review it in good faith.

3.5 Expenses. We don't reimburse expenses unless we agree in writing beforehand.

3.6 Referral bonuses follow the terms shown on the Platform when you refer someone.

3.7 Repayment. If we later confirm that paid work broke section 5 or 6, we may deduct the amount paid for that work from future payouts or ask you to repay it.

4. Who owns the work

4.1 Assignment. You hereby assign to Canonset all right, title and interest worldwide in everything you create in performing the Services, including answers, tasks, problem statements, code, tests, rubrics, environments, ratings, comments and trial work ("Work Product"), together with all intellectual property rights in it. The assignment takes effect as each piece of Work Product is created. Where the law doesn't allow a right to be assigned, you grant Canonset an exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable and sublicensable license to it.

4.2 Moral rights. To the extent the law allows, you waive, and agree not to assert, any moral rights or rights of attribution or integrity in Work Product.

4.3 Material you already own. Don't put anything into Work Product that you don't own or aren't free to license. If you include something you made before (a helper function, say), you grant Canonset and its clients a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, transferable license to use, change and distribute it as part of the Work Product.

4.4 No third-party or copyleft material. Don't include third-party material unless the task allows it. Never include code or text under a copyleft license (such as the GPL, AGPL, LGPL, MPL, EPL or a Creative Commons ShareAlike license). Where a task allows permissively licensed open-source code, or you adapt any outside material a task allows, name its source and license in your notes.

4.5 Further steps. You'll sign any document reasonably needed to confirm or record Canonset's rights, during and after this agreement. If you don't within 14 days of our written request, you appoint Canonset as your attorney-in-fact solely to sign those documents for you.

4.6 Publication. Canonset may deliver Work Product to clients and may publish Work Product from trials and from Canonset's own projects, for example as public samples or benchmarks. We identify you only by a pseudonym unless you choose to be credited by name. Client-project work is published only when the client allows it.

4.7 What you may say. You may describe your role in general terms, for example on a résumé ("expert, AI training data, coding"), without client names, project details or Work Product.

5. Original work

5.1 Your own work. You create Work Product yourself. Don't use any AI tool (chatbots, code assistants or autocomplete, AI writing, grammar or translation tools) to write, rewrite, check or translate any part of it, unless a project's instructions allow a specific tool for a specific step.

5.2 No copying. Don't copy from other sources, other experts or earlier answers unless the task allows it. You may consult reference material (documentation, textbooks, standards) and use your own words.

5.3 Policy. Our original-work policy (canonset.com/policies/original-work) is part of this agreement.

5.4 Breaches. A confirmed breach of this section means the work is unpaid and your access ends.

6. Confidentiality and data handling

6.1 Confidential Information means non-public information you receive or create through the Services, including: clients' identities where you learn them; project instructions, prompts, model outputs, rubrics, guidelines, known answers and data; Work Product; other experts' information; and Canonset's pricing, plans, methods and Platform internals.

6.2 Your duties. Use Confidential Information only to perform the Services. Don't disclose it to anyone. Protect it with at least reasonable care and follow the rules in Exhibit A.

6.3 Exceptions. This section doesn't cover information that is public through no fault of yours, that you knew before without a duty of confidentiality, or that you receive lawfully from someone else without such a duty. You may disclose information when the law requires it, after telling us first where the law allows.

6.4 How long. Your duties continue after this agreement ends: for trade secrets, for as long as they remain trade secrets; for other Confidential Information, for five years after the agreement ends.

6.5 At the end. When this agreement ends, or when we ask, delete any Confidential Information you still have and confirm it in writing if we ask.

6.6 Your rights to report. Nothing in this agreement stops you from reporting a possible violation of law to a government agency, filing a charge or complaint, or discussing or disclosing information about unlawful acts in the workplace (such as harassment, discrimination, wage-and-hour violations or retaliation) or any other conduct you reasonably believe is unlawful. Under 18 U.S.C. § 1833(b), you are not liable under any trade-secret law for disclosing a trade secret (a) in confidence to a federal, state or local government official, or to an attorney, solely to report or investigate a suspected violation of law, or (b) in a complaint or other document filed under seal in a lawsuit or other proceeding. If you sue for retaliation for reporting a suspected violation of law, you may disclose the trade secret to your attorney and use it in the proceeding if you file documents containing it under seal and don't otherwise disclose it except under a court order.

6.7 Project terms. A client project may add terms, such as a project-specific NDA, a background check or extra security rules. We show them to you before you join that project, and by joining you agree to follow them. The client of a project is an intended third-party beneficiary of sections 4 to 6 for its own Work Product and Confidential Information.

7. Conflicts and your other obligations

7.1 Prior agreements. You confirm that performing the Services does not break any agreement with, or duty to, a current or former employer or client, such as an invention-assignment, confidentiality, non-competition or moonlighting rule. You do the work on your own time and with your own equipment and accounts, never with an employer's devices, accounts, paid tools, confidential information or working time. If your employer's business relates to AI or AI training data, you confirm that you have its written permission, or that its agreements and the law don't give it rights in Work Product.

7.2 Project conflicts. Before joining a client project, you confirm on the Platform that you have no conflict of interest, for example that you don't work for that client or for a company that competes with it in building AI models. Tell us right away if that changes.

7.3 Others' secrets. Never bring, use or disclose anyone else's confidential information or trade secrets in the Services.

8. Identity, background checks and screening

8.1 Identity. You agree to verify your identity when we ask: on a short video call where you show a government ID to a person on our team, nothing recorded, or, where we offer it and you give separate written consent, through an automated check. We may ask again before you join a client project, or when your account or payout details change; new work pauses until you've verified. What we keep is in our privacy notice.

8.2 Background checks. Some projects require a background check. Before ordering one we give you a separate disclosure and ask for your written authorization, as the Fair Credit Reporting Act requires. You may decline; you then can't join that project.

8.3 Screening. We may check your name against US government restricted-party lists.

9. Ending this agreement

9.1 Either of us may end this agreement at any time by notice through the Platform or by email. We may also remove you from a project, or pause or close your access, for any lawful reason, including quality or a breach. We pay for all work that has earned pay under section 3 up to that point.

9.2 Sections 3 (for pay already earned), 4, 5.4, 6, 7, 10, 11 and 12 continue after this agreement ends.

10. Promises and responsibility

10.1 Your promises. Work Product is your original work under section 5, doesn't infringe anyone's rights, and the information you give us about yourself is true.

10.2 Responsibility for intentional breaches. You'll cover Canonset's reasonable losses, including reasonable legal fees, caused by a third-party claim that results from your intentional breach of sections 4 to 7.

10.3 Limit on Canonset's liability. Apart from paying you what you've earned under section 3, Canonset's total liability to you under this agreement is limited to the greater of $1,000 or the amount we paid you in the 12 months before the claim, except where the law doesn't allow that limit.

11. Disputes

11.1 Talk first. Before starting a claim, write to legal@canonset.com (or we write to your account email) describing the issue, and we both try for 30 days to resolve it.

11.2 Arbitration. Any dispute between you and Canonset about this agreement or the Services, including whether you were properly classified as a contractor, is resolved by binding arbitration under the Federal Arbitration Act, on an individual basis, administered by the American Arbitration Association under its rules that apply. The arbitration takes place in the county where you live, or by video if we both agree. Canonset pays all filing, administration and arbitrator fees beyond the amount you would pay to file a lawsuit in court. The arbitrator may award the same remedies a court could award to an individual.

11.3 Exceptions. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and either of us may ask a court for an injunction to protect intellectual property or Confidential Information. Nothing here stops you from filing a charge with a government agency.

11.4 No class actions. Claims may be brought only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in a class, collective or representative action, to the extent the law allows.

11.5 Opting out. You may opt out of section 11.2 and 11.4 within 30 days after you first accept this agreement by emailing legal@canonset.com with your name and the words "I opt out of arbitration". Opting out doesn't affect anything else.

12. General

12.1 Law. Washington law governs this agreement, except that the Federal Arbitration Act governs section 11. Nothing here takes away a protection that the law of the state where you live gives you and that can't be waived by contract.

12.2 Whole agreement. This agreement, the project terms you accept and the policies it names are the whole agreement between us about the Services and replace any earlier ones on the same subject.

12.3 Changes. We may update this agreement by giving you at least 30 days' notice by email or on the Platform. Material changes need your acceptance on the Platform before you take new work. Changes never apply to work you've already submitted or to a dispute that has already arisen.

12.4 Assignment. We may transfer this agreement to a successor in a merger, acquisition or sale of our business. You may not transfer it.

12.5 Notices. We send notices to your account email. You send notices to legal@canonset.com.

12.6 Other terms. If any part of this agreement can't be enforced, the rest still applies, and that part is enforced as far as the law allows. Not enforcing a term is not a waiver of it. Headings are for convenience only. Electronic acceptance has the same effect as a signature.

12.7 Contract details (for state freelance-worker laws): the parties' names and mailing addresses are those above and in your payout details; the services, their value and the rate and method of pay are shown on each project before you join it; payment dates are in section 3.3; and the Platform records the work you submit, so no separate list is needed to be paid.

Exhibit A: Data-handling rules

1. Work only inside the Platform. Don't download, screenshot, photograph, copy or write down task material, and never put it in personal files, emails, chats or shared documents.
2. Never paste Confidential Information into any outside tool or service, including AI tools, translators, grammar checkers and browser extensions.
3. Don't discuss projects, clients or tasks in public or with anyone outside Canonset, including on social media, forums and chat groups.
4. Work on a computer you control, with full-disk encryption on, a screen lock, and an operating system that still gets security updates. Don't let anyone else use your account or see your screen while you work.
5. Use two-factor sign-in (a passkey or an authenticator app) whenever a project asks for it.
6. Don't try to find out who a client is, and never contact a client directly about a project.
7. If a task contains personal information, use it only for that task and never try to identify the people in it.
8. Report a suspected leak, a lost device or unusual account activity to security@canonset.com within 24 hours.
9. Once a year, when the Platform asks, re-read these rules and confirm that you follow them.