These are the terms that apply when you submit photos and details of an instrument to Vii for a free identification assessment. Please read them before you submit.
Vii (violinidentification.org) is a Payton Violins project. Payton Violins is a violin shop at Payton Violins, 250 N Goodman St, Suite 1/A, Rochester, NY 14607. When these terms say "we," "us," or "Vii," they mean Payton Violins operating Vii.
Through the submission form, you send us photographs of an instrument along with whatever details you provide about it — your contact information, what you know or believe about its maker and age, its condition, measurements, label text, and any history or provenance you're aware of.
When you submit, you're telling us two things: that you own the instrument in the photos, or you have permission from whoever does to share them with us; and that the information you've given us is accurate to the best of your knowledge. We rely on both of those when we review your submission.
In exchange for our free assessment, you grant Payton Violins/Vii a non-exclusive, perpetual, worldwide, royalty-free license to use the photos and information you submit for:
This license includes the right to crop, adjust, or otherwise edit your photos for these purposes. It's non-exclusive — you keep your copyright in your own photos and can do whatever you like with them yourself; you're simply also letting us use them.
The assessment we send you is our informed opinion, based only on the photographs and information you provide — we have not held or examined your instrument in person. It is not a formal appraisal, a certificate of authenticity, or a valuation, and it isn't a substitute for one. See our appraisal guide for what a formal appraisal actually involves and when you need one.
As part of our review, we may check stolen-instrument registries and share relevant submission details with law enforcement. We may not notify you first.
You can ask us at any time to remove your personal details and stop displaying your photos — write to us at info@paytonviolins.com and we'll take care of it. We want to be honest about one limit, though: if your submission has already been used to train or fine-tune an AI/ML model, we can't undo that training after the fact. We can stop using new submissions going forward and remove what's publicly displayed, but we can't reach back into a model that's already been trained.
We may update these terms from time to time. A new version applies only to submissions made after it takes effect — it doesn't reach back and change the terms an earlier submission was made under. If we make a material change that should apply to a submission you already made, we'll ask you to consent again before we rely on it.
Questions about these terms? Reach us at info@paytonviolins.com or (585) 325-7250, or by mail at Payton Violins, 250 N Goodman St, Suite 1/A, Rochester, NY 14607.
Version 2026-09-26 · effective September 26, 2026. See also our Privacy Policy.