Terms of Service

1. Acceptance & eligibility

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a binding agreement between you and authAspect ("we", "us"). By creating an account or using the service you agree to them. You must be at least 18 and able to form a binding contract. If you accept on behalf of an organisation, you represent you have authority to bind it.

2. The service

authAspect provides software that embeds invisible provenance credentials into your creative work, records provenance in a registry, resolves marks (via qr-x.co), hosts a verified page, and helps discover your work online. We grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable right to use the service under these Terms.

3. Accounts

Provide accurate information, keep your credentials secure, and take responsibility for all activity under your account. Tell us promptly of any unauthorised use. We may refuse, suspend, or reclaim usernames.

4. Your content & ownership

You retain all rights to the work you protect. We claim no ownership of your content. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence solely to host, process, and transmit your content as needed to provide the service (embed credentials, operate the registry, resolve marks, display your verified page) and as you direct. You represent and warrant that you own or have all rights necessary to protect and publish the work and that it does not infringe or violate any third party's rights or any law.

5. Acceptable use

You must not, and must not permit anyone to:

• upload, protect, or distribute unlawful content — with zero tolerance for child sexual abuse material (CSAM), which we remove and report to authorities and relevant hotlines;
• claim ownership of, register, or impersonate work or a person that is not yours;
• infringe intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, or other rights;
• upload malware, or abuse, overload, probe, or reverse-engineer the service;
• misuse the Guardian network, submit false reports, harass, or stalk;
• use the service to violate any applicable law or third-party terms.

Lawful adult content is permitted, but you must comply with all applicable laws, including age-verification and record-keeping obligations (such as 18 U.S.C. §2257 where it applies) — those obligations are yours. authAspect does not host, sell, distribute, or monetise adult media; we protect your files and return them to you, and store only provenance records (hashes, claims, timestamps).

6. Copyright & takedowns (DMCA)

We respect intellectual-property rights. If you believe content resolved through or hosted by our service infringes your copyright, send a notice with the elements required by the DMCA (identification of the work and material, your contact details, a good-faith statement, a statement under penalty of perjury, and your signature) to dmca@authaspect.com / [designated agent — TBD]. We may remove or disable access to allegedly infringing material and terminate repeat infringers, and we will forward counter-notices as the DMCA provides.

7. Agencies & delegation

You may authorise an agency or team member to act on your behalf as a revocable delegate. You remain the owner and root of your keys, content, and identity, and may revoke a delegate at any time. You are responsible for your delegates' actions, and delegates must comply with these Terms.

8. Plans, billing & refunds

Some features require a paid subscription. Paid plans are sold and processed by Polar as our Merchant-of-Record; Polar is the seller of record for your purchase, and its terms and policies also apply to the transaction. Fees, currency, billing cycle, taxes, and any free tier or trial are shown at checkout. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled; you can cancel anytime and cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period. Fees are non-refundable except where required by law or expressly stated. [Refund / trial / dunning specifics — TBD.]

9. Beta features & changes to the service

We may offer beta or experimental features "as is," and we may change, suspend, or discontinue features. We'll try to give reasonable notice of material adverse changes.

10. Provenance is evidence, not a verdict

A verification result or a "verified" page is technical evidence about a file's provenance. It is not a legal determination of ownership, authorship, authenticity, or infringement, and must not be relied on as one. You are responsible for your own legal claims and actions.

11. Durable, not unbreakable

Our credentials are designed to be durable and to survive common sharing, re-encoding, screenshotting, and compression. They are not unbreakable: sufficiently aggressive editing, cropping, transcoding, or manipulation can degrade or remove them. We do not guarantee that your work cannot be copied, that a credential survives every transformation, or that all uses of your work will be detected.

12. Our intellectual property & feedback

The service, software, and our marks are owned by us and our licensors and are protected by law; these Terms grant you no rights in them beyond use of the service. If you send feedback or suggestions, you grant us a perpetual, royalty-free licence to use them without obligation.

13. Disclaimers

14. Limitation of liability

15. Indemnification

You will indemnify and hold us harmless from claims and costs arising out of your content, your use of the service, or your breach of these Terms or of any law or third-party right, to the extent permitted by law.

16. Termination

You may stop using the service and close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access for breach of these Terms (including §5–§6) or to protect the service or others. On termination your right to use the service ends; registry records and blockchain anchors persist to preserve provenance (see the Privacy Policy). Sections that by their nature should survive will survive.

17. Disputes & governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of [jurisdiction — TBD], without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. [Dispute-resolution mechanism — e.g. informal resolution first, then binding arbitration and a class-action waiver, or the courts of a chosen venue — to be selected by counsel and clearly disclosed here.] Nothing limits rights you have under mandatory local law.

18. General

These Terms (with the Privacy Policy and any order or plan terms) are the entire agreement between us. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a term is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them to an affiliate or successor. We may provide notices to you by email or in-app. Questions: legal@authaspect.com.