Terms of Service

These terms are an agreement between you and Purple Hardstone LLC ("StrokeTale", "we", "us"). They cover the StrokeTale website, web app and mobile apps (the "Service"). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, and our AI disclosure. Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle data.

1. Who can use StrokeTale

• You must be 18 or older.
• If you use StrokeTale for a company, school or other organisation, you confirm you may accept these terms for it, and "you" includes that organisation.
• StrokeTale is not made for children. Don't create accounts for students, and don't upload students' personal information unless your school has authorised it in writing.

2. Your account

• Give us a real email address and keep your password safe. You are responsible for what happens in your account.
• Tell us at once if you think someone else has used it: support@stroketale.com.
• One person per account. Don't share or sell accounts.

3. What StrokeTale does

StrokeTale turns your topic, text or documents into whiteboard-style explainer videos. It uses AI to write scripts, draw pictures, narrate, and (on some plans) show an AI presenter. AI can be wrong. Check every video before you publish it.

We may change, add or remove features. If we remove a paid feature you are paying for, we will tell you first. Section 7.6 covers presenters that our providers retire.

4. Plans, credits and payments

4.1 Credits

• Rendering and some AI features use credits. Plans include a monthly credit allowance, and you can buy extra credit packs.
• The price in credits is shown before you start. Editing a scene does not charge a full new video.
• What an action costs in credits can change over time. The price shown before you start is the one you pay.
• Monthly credits reset each month and do not roll over. We use them first, then the credits you bought.
• Credits you buy do not expire. They stay in your account for as long as it is open. If we ever change this, the change will apply only to credits bought after it.
• Credits we give you for free (for example promotions or a goodwill gesture from support) can't be refunded.
• Credits are for use in StrokeTale only. They are not money. You can't transfer or resell them, and you can't exchange them for cash except as section 4.2, section 4.4, section 11 or the law allows. [ATTORNEY: confirm credits are not gift certificates or stored value, including any right to cash out a small balance.]

4.2 Refunds

• Work that fails. If an export or other paid job fails on our side, or you cancel an export before it finishes, we return the credits automatically. If only part of a job could be made, we return the credits for the part that wasn't. Credits go back to the balance they came from.
• Work that arrives broken. If a finished video is unusable because of a fault on our side, tell us and we will return its credits.
• Unused credits: 14 days. Within 14 days of buying a pack, you can get your money back for the credits in that pack you have not used. Email support@stroketale.com from your account's address. You get the price you paid per credit, plus any tax paid on that amount, on your original payment method, and we send it within 14 days of your request. If you bought more than one pack, used credits count against the oldest pack first.
• After 14 days, credits you bought can't be refunded, but they do not expire.
• Billing mistakes. If you were charged twice, charged the wrong amount, charged without your permission, or paid and got no credits, tell us at support@stroketale.com within 90 days and we will put it right.
• If we close the Service or end your account without cause, we refund the credits you bought and have not used, whenever you bought them.
• This does not limit any refund right you have by law. For example, EU and UK consumers have the rights in section 4.4.
• Purchases made through Apple's App Store or Google Play follow Apple's or Google's refund process, and their credits do not expire either.

4.3 Prices and taxes

• Prices may change. A new price applies only to purchases made after the change. For a plan that renews, the new price applies from the next renewal, and we tell you at least 30 days before it.
• Prices exclude taxes unless shown otherwise.
• Payments on the web are processed by Stripe. We do not store your card number.

4.4 EU and UK consumers

If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, you can withdraw from a purchase within 14 days of making it, without giving a reason.

• When you buy credits, you ask us to start at once, so you can use them straight away.
• To withdraw, use "Withdraw from contract here" on your account page or email support@stroketale.com.
• We refund the credits you have not used. You pay for the credits you used before you withdrew, at the price you paid per credit.
• Once you have used all the credits in a pack, you can no longer withdraw from that purchase.

[ATTORNEY: confirm this section for the EU and UK, the pre-purchase request and acknowledgment, the withdrawal notice and model form. The button and checkout wording are not built yet.]

4.5 Bank disputes

• Please contact us first: support@stroketale.com. We can usually fix a problem sooner than your bank can. This does not limit your right to dispute a charge.
• While a dispute is open, we may hold the credits from that purchase. If the payment is reversed, we remove the credits that are left from it.
• We may suspend an account where disputes look fraudulent.

4.6 Plans that renew

[If subscriptions launch. ATTORNEY: check against ROSCA and state auto-renewal laws, and the UK and EU subscription rules.]

• A plan renews automatically at the price and interval shown until you cancel. We ask for your clear agreement to that before the first charge.
• You can cancel at any time in Settings. The plan stays active to the end of the paid period, and you are not charged again.
• We don't refund part of a paid period. There is one exception: if you ask within 14 days of a charge and have used none of the monthly credits it gave you, we refund that charge.
• When a plan ends, its monthly credits stop. Credits you bought stay in your account.

5. Your content

5.1 What you own

"Your content" means what you put into StrokeTale (topics, text, documents, music, logos, edits) and the videos and other outputs made for you ("outputs"). As between you and us:

• you keep all rights in your input;
• we give you all the rights we have in your outputs, subject to section 7 (presenters) and section 6 (our assets).

5.2 Licence you give us

You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, copy, process, transmit and display your content only to run, secure and support the Service for you. That includes sending it to the AI providers listed in our Privacy Policy.

• We do not use your content to train AI models.
• We do not show your videos publicly unless you ask us to, for example through a share link.
• The licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies kept in backups for a limited time.

5.3 Your promises

You promise that:

• you have the rights to everything you upload, including music, logos, fonts and documents;
• your content and the way you use your outputs follow the law and our Acceptable Use Policy;
• you will review outputs before publishing them and are responsible for the claims they make.

5.4 About AI outputs

• AI outputs may not be protected by copyright in some countries. Your own script, edits and arrangement are the parts most likely to be protected. We do not promise that you can register or enforce copyright in an output.
• Outputs are not exclusive. Other users may get similar pictures, voices or presenters.

6. Our service and assets

• The Service, our software, templates, icons, drawn and painted presenters, hand sprites, fonts, music beds and brand belong to us or our licensors.
• You may use them only as part of videos you make with StrokeTale. You may not extract them and use them separately (for example as a logo, a character in another tool, or a stock asset), resell them, or use them to train an AI model.
• Don't copy, reverse engineer or scrape the Service, and don't use it to build a competing product.

7. AI presenters

7.1 What presenters are

StrokeTale offers three kinds of presenters:

• drawn presenters: fictional characters drawn by our engine;
• painted presenters: fictional people painted by an AI image model;
• realistic presenters: AI-generated video of licensed stock avatars from Microsoft Azure. Some of these avatars are based on real actors who licensed their likeness to Microsoft.

You cannot upload your own face, photo or voice to make a presenter.

7.2 Labels you must keep

• Videos with a realistic presenter always show the label "AI-generated presenter", and carry provenance data (Content Credentials and file metadata) that says the video was made with AI.
• You must not remove, cover, crop out, blur or alter the label or the provenance data, or ask anyone else to.
• Painted and drawn presenters carry the label as described in our AI disclosure.

7.3 Your duties when you publish

When you publish a video with a realistic presenter, you must:

• turn on the platform's AI or synthetic-content label where the platform offers one (for example YouTube, TikTok, Instagram and Facebook);
• follow any law that requires you to disclose AI-generated people, including in ads.

7.4 What presenters must never do

You must follow the presenter rules in our Acceptable Use Policy. In short, never use a presenter to:

• pretend to be a real person, or speak for a person or organisation without permission;
• give a customer review, testimonial or personal experience;
• claim to be a doctor, lawyer, financial adviser or other expert;
• deliver political, election, social-issue or government messages.

7.5 Rights in presenters

• Using a presenter does not give you any right in the presenter's face, voice, name or likeness, or in the actor behind a realistic presenter.
• You may use and publish videos that include a presenter, including commercially and in ads, only within these terms and the Acceptable Use Policy. For realistic presenters, your rights are limited to the rights Microsoft gives us.
• Other customers use the same presenters. You may not use a presenter as your brand's logo or mascot, or register it as a trademark.

7.6 When a presenter is retired

• Microsoft may retire a realistic presenter, for example when an actor's licence ends. We will try to tell you at least 30 days before.
• After that date you can't render new clips with that presenter. Clips and videos you already made stay in your projects.
• You may keep using videos already made, unless we tell you that Microsoft or the rights holder requires them to be withdrawn. In that case:
  • you must stop new distribution;
  • you must remove the videos from channels you control within [14] days of our notice, and stop any ads using them;
  • we will help you re-render with another presenter at no credit cost. If that can't be done, we return the credits you spent on those clips.
• [ATTORNEY: confirm.]

7.7 Our right to act

We may refuse to generate, may block, remove or disable sharing of, any presenter video that we reasonably believe breaks these terms, the law, or our providers' rules. We may also suspend presenter access or your account. Where we can, we will tell you why and let you appeal.

8. Acceptable use

Use of the Service must follow our Acceptable Use Policy, which is part of these terms.

9. Reporting and takedowns

• To report a video made with StrokeTale, use "Report" in the app or on the share page, or email support@stroketale.com.
• For copyright complaints, send a notice to our designated agent at support@stroketale.com [ATTORNEY: DMCA agent registration and the full notice and counter-notice text].
• We may remove content and end the accounts of repeat infringers.

10. Third-party services

• StrokeTale relies on providers, including Anthropic, OpenAI, Microsoft Azure, Stripe and Fly.io.
• Their outages or rule changes can affect the Service.
• When you post to YouTube, TikTok, Meta or other platforms, their terms apply between you and them.

11. Ending your account

• You can delete your account at any time in Settings. This deletes your projects and files, as described in the Privacy Policy. Unused credits are lost, so ask for any refund under section 4.2 first.
• We may suspend or end your account if you break these terms, if the law requires it, or if your use risks harm to others or to the Service. We will give notice where we reasonably can.
• If we end your account without cause, we will refund unused purchased credits.
• If we end your account because you broke these terms, unused credits are lost, unless the law says otherwise. [ATTORNEY: confirm for consumers.]
• Sections 5.3, 5.4, 6, 7.5, 7.6, 12 to 16 survive the end of the account.

12. Indemnity

You will defend and indemnify Purple Hardstone LLC and its people against claims, losses and costs (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

• your content;
• your videos and how you publish or advertise with them, including the claims they make;
• your breach of these terms or the law.

[ATTORNEY: consumer carve-outs where the law limits indemnities from consumers.]

13. Disclaimers

• The Service and outputs are provided "as is".
• AI outputs can be inaccurate, incomplete, offensive or similar to other content. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a purpose, accuracy and non-infringement.
• Nothing in a video is professional advice.

14. Limits on liability

To the fullest extent the law allows:

• we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill;
• our total liability for all claims is limited to the greater of (a) what you paid us in the 12 months before the claim, or (b) US$100.

These limits do not apply where the law does not allow them, for example for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud.

15. Governing law and disputes

[ATTORNEY: governing law, venue, informal-resolution period, arbitration and class-action waiver (if any), small-claims carve-out, and EU/UK consumer rights to sue at home.]

16. Changes and general terms

• We may update these terms. For material changes we will tell you by email or in the app at least 30 days before they apply, except where a change is needed for legal reasons or to stop abuse.
• If you keep using the Service after a change takes effect, you accept it. If you don't agree, you can delete your account.
• If part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest still applies.
• You may not transfer these terms. We may transfer them with our business.
• These terms, the Acceptable Use Policy and the documents they link to are the whole agreement between us about the Service.

17. Contact

Purple Hardstone LLC, [postal address]

• Support: support@stroketale.com
• Abuse reports: support@stroketale.com
• Legal and copyright: support@stroketale.com