Terms of Service

1. Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using the Ember Legacy mobile application, website, and all related features and services (together, the “Service”), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service (“Terms”). If you do not agree to these Terms, please do not use the Service.

These Terms incorporate our Privacy Policy by reference. Please review it to understand how we collect, use, and protect your information.

Consent to electronic communications: By creating an account, you consent to receive electronic communications from us (e.g., email, in-app notifications) related to your account, the Service, and updates to these Terms. You may opt out of non-essential communications at any time in your account Settings.

2. Definitions

• “Service” means the Ember Legacy mobile application, website, and all related features and services.
• “User Content” means any content you create, upload, or share through the Service, including voice recordings, photos, videos, handwritten note scans, written stories, and messages.
• “AI-Assisted Content” means content generated or enhanced by artificial intelligence within the Service, including transcriptions, message suggestions, content descriptions, search indexes, prompt inspiration, and media edits or compilations.
• “Family Group” means a group of linked accounts that you create or join to share stories and messages.
• “Recipient” means a person you designate to receive your stories, messages, or other User Content.
• “Account Holder” means the person who creates and maintains an Ember account.

3. Eligibility and Account Registration

You must be at least 13 years old to create an Ember account. If you are between 13 and 17 years old, you must have the consent of a parent or legal guardian to use the Service. Parents and guardians are responsible for managing minor accounts within their Family Group.

You agree to provide accurate and complete information when creating your account. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your login credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account. Please notify us immediately at support@emberlegacy.ai if you suspect unauthorized access to your account.

4. Your Content — Ownership and Rights

You own your content. Ember Legacy does not claim ownership of any User Content you create or upload through the Service.

License to operate the Service: By using the Service, you grant Ember Legacy a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, process, display, and transmit your User Content solely for the purpose of operating and providing the Service. This includes creating temporary copies necessary for AI processing (transcription and message suggestions), which are not retained by Ember or its AI providers after processing is complete.

What this license does not include:

• We never sell your content or use it for advertising
• We never use your content to train AI or machine learning models
• We never share your content with anyone you haven’t chosen to share it with
• AI never generates synthetic voices or images of people

Shared content: When you share a story or message with a Recipient, the received copy belongs to that Recipient permanently, except where removal is required by applicable law or a valid court order. If you later delete your account, content already received by Recipients is not affected.

License termination: This license ends when you delete your content or account, except for (a) content already shared with Recipients, and (b) backup copies which are purged within 90 days of deletion.

5. AI-Assisted Features

Ember uses artificial intelligence to assist with the following functions:

• Transcription: Voice recordings and audio from videos are automatically processed by a third-party AI service to generate text transcriptions. Transcriptions may contain errors; you are responsible for reviewing transcriptions before sharing.
• Message suggestions: When you request help composing a message, AI uses your content’s transcription and any text you provide to generate a draft. You review, edit, and approve any suggestion before it is sent. AI-assisted message composition is always optional.
• Content recognition: AI may analyze photos and videos to recognize objects, scenes, and context to assist with message suggestions, search, and content organization.
• Search and discovery: AI extracts metadata from your content to enable semantic search across your stories and media.
• Personalization: AI may suggest prompts, story ideas, or creative inspiration based on your content and usage patterns.
• Creative tools: AI may assist with editing, compiling, and combining your photos, audio recordings, and videos. All AI-generated edits require your review and approval before sharing.

AI assists only. It never generates voice recordings that sound like a person, never creates images of people, and never sends messages or shares content on your behalf without your explicit approval. Your content is not used to train general-purpose AI models. Our agreements with AI providers prohibit them from using your content for model training.

6. Family Sharing and Recipient Rights

Account Holders control Family Group membership and determine which content is shared with which members. Access controls restrict each account to its own data by default.

Content shared within a Family Group is visible only to designated members. Stories and messages received by a Recipient belong to that Recipient permanently. Removing a member from a Family Group or deleting the sender’s account does not delete content already received by Recipients.

7. Acceptable Use

You agree to use the Service for personal and family purposes only. You agree not to:

• Upload content that infringes on the intellectual property rights of others
• Upload content that is unlawful, threatening, abusive, harassing, or harmful
• Upload content that exploits minors in any way
• Impersonate any person or entity
• Interfere with, disrupt, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to any part of the Service
• Use automated systems or bots to access the Service
• Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any part of the Service
• Use the Service for commercial purposes unrelated to personal family preservation

You represent that you have the right to share all content you upload, including appropriate consent from individuals depicted in photos, videos, or recordings. You are responsible for complying with all applicable laws regarding recording and wiretapping in your jurisdiction.

8. Subscriptions and Payments

Some features of the Service require a paid subscription. Payments are processed by our third-party payment processor, and by subscribing you agree to their applicable terms of service.

• Subscriptions automatically renew unless cancelled before the renewal date
• We will provide at least 30 days notice before any price changes take effect
• You may cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings

Refunds: If you are dissatisfied with the Service, you may request a refund within 14 days of your initial subscription purchase. Refund requests for renewal periods are handled on a case-by-case basis. To request a refund, contact support@emberlegacy.ai. Refunds for subscriptions purchased through the Apple App Store or Google Play Store are subject to the respective platform’s refund policies.

Content protection on payment lapse: If your subscription lapses, your content remains accessible for download and export for at least 90 days before any content removal. We will notify you by email before taking any action on your account due to payment issues.

9. Data Portability and Export

You can export all of your data at any time, at no cost. Exports include your original media files (recordings, photos, videos), transcriptions, written stories, handwritten note scans, and account data in standard formats.

Your data is yours. We will never hold your content hostage or charge a fee for data export.

Data integrity: While we take reasonable measures to protect the integrity of your content, no digital storage system is infallible. We recommend periodically exporting your data and maintaining your own backup copies of irreplaceable content.

10. Account Deletion and Termination

By you: You can delete your account at any time through Settings or by contacting support@emberlegacy.ai.

• 60-day grace period: After you request deletion, your account is deactivated but recoverable for 60 days. You can reactivate during this period and recover all your data.
• After 60 days: Deletion is permanent. All personal data and content is removed from our systems.
• Backup purge: Backup copies are purged within 90 days of final deletion.
• Shared content: Content already received by Recipients is not affected by your account deletion—it belongs to them.

By Ember Legacy: We may suspend or terminate your account for material violations of these Terms. Except in cases of severe violations (such as uploading content that exploits minors), we will provide notice and a reasonable opportunity to address the issue before termination.

Inactive accounts: If your account is inactive for 24 months, we will send you an email notification. If there is no response within 60 days, your account may be scheduled for deletion with the standard 60-day grace period described above.

11. Intellectual Property

The Ember Legacy name, logo, and branding are trademarks of Ember Legacy, Inc. The design, code, and features of the Service are the intellectual property of Ember Legacy, Inc. You may not copy, modify, or distribute any part of the Service without our written consent.

DMCA Copyright Infringement Notices: If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, you may submit a notice under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) to our designated agent. Your notice must include:

• A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or authorized representative
• Identification of the copyrighted work claimed to be infringed
• Identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with information sufficient for us to locate it
• Your contact information (address, phone number, and email)
• A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law
• A statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on behalf of the owner

Designated Agent: Ember Legacy, Inc., Attn: DMCA Agent, Email: support@emberlegacy.ai

Counter-notices: If you believe your content was removed in error, you may submit a counter-notice with your contact information, identification of the removed material, a statement under penalty of perjury that the removal was a mistake, and consent to jurisdiction of the federal court in your district. We will forward counter-notices to the original complainant.

Repeat infringers: We will terminate accounts of users who are repeat copyright infringers in appropriate circumstances.

12. Third-Party Services

The Service integrates with third-party providers for cloud infrastructure, AI processing, payment processing, error monitoring, and app distribution. These providers are governed by their own terms of service and privacy policies. A current list of our service providers is available upon request by contacting support@emberlegacy.ai.

Ember Legacy is not responsible for the practices or policies of third-party services. Any links to external websites or services are provided for convenience and do not constitute endorsement.

App Store terms: If you downloaded the Ember Legacy app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store, you acknowledge that these Terms are between you and Ember Legacy, not Apple or Google. Apple and Google have no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the app. In the event of a failure to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple or Google for a refund of the purchase price (if any); to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple and Google have no other warranty obligation with respect to the app. Apple and Google are not responsible for addressing any claims relating to the app or your use of it. Apple and Google are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.

13. Disclaimers

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available” without warranties of any kind, either express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement.

• We do not guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or completely secure
• AI-generated transcriptions and message suggestions may contain errors and should be reviewed before sharing
• We are not responsible for content uploaded by other members of your Family Group
• The Service is designed for the long term, but we cannot guarantee perpetual availability

14. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Ember Legacy, Inc. shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service, including but not limited to loss of data, loss of profits, or personal injury.

Our total aggregate liability for any claims arising from or related to the Service shall not exceed the greater of (a) the total amount you paid to Ember Legacy in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or (b) one hundred dollars ($100).

Exceptions: Nothing in this section limits liability for (a) gross negligence or willful misconduct by Ember Legacy, (b) death or personal injury caused by Ember Legacy’s negligence, or (c) any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain damages. In such jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the fullest extent permitted by law.

15. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Ember Legacy, Inc., its officers, directors, employees, and agents from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from: (a) your User Content; (b) your violation of these Terms; or (c) your violation of any third-party rights. This indemnification does not apply to the extent that a claim arises from Ember Legacy’s own negligence, willful misconduct, or breach of these Terms.

16. Dispute Resolution

Governing law: These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict of law provisions.

Informal resolution first: Before filing any formal claim, you agree to contact us at support@emberlegacy.ai and attempt to resolve the dispute informally for at least 60 days.

Binding arbitration: If informal resolution is unsuccessful, any dispute shall be resolved by binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association (AAA) under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. Arbitration may be conducted remotely by phone, video, or written submissions.

Arbitration fees: For claims under $10,000, Ember Legacy will pay all AAA filing and arbitrator fees. For claims over $10,000, fees will be allocated according to AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules. Regardless of the outcome, Ember Legacy will not seek to recover its attorneys’ fees or costs from you in arbitration unless the arbitrator determines your claim was frivolous.

Class action waiver: All disputes must be resolved on an individual basis. You agree to waive any right to participate in a class action, class arbitration, or representative proceeding.

Small claims exception: Either party may bring an individual action in small claims court for disputes within the court’s jurisdiction.

Injunctive relief: Nothing in this section prevents either party from seeking injunctive or other equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction to prevent imminent, irreparable harm (such as unauthorized use of intellectual property or data breaches).

Litigation venue: For any disputes not subject to arbitration, the exclusive venue shall be the state or federal courts located in the State of Delaware, and you consent to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

Opt-out right: You may opt out of the arbitration and class action waiver provisions by sending written notice to support@emberlegacy.ai within 30 days of first accepting these Terms. Your opt-out will not affect any other provisions of these Terms.

17. Changes to Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will notify you via email and/or in-app notification at least 30 days before they take effect. Your continued use of the Service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

If you disagree with updated Terms, you may export your data and delete your account before the changes take effect.

18. Service Continuity and Discontinuation

Ember Legacy is designed for long-term preservation of your family’s stories. However, if we ever need to discontinue the Service or materially reduce its functionality:

• We will provide at least 180 days advance notice via email and in-app notification
• During that period, all data export features will remain fully functional at no cost
• We will make reasonable efforts to assist you in migrating your data
• If applicable, pro-rated refunds will be issued for prepaid subscription periods extending beyond the discontinuation date

19. Feedback and Suggestions

If you provide us with feedback, ideas, or suggestions about the Service, you grant Ember Legacy a non-exclusive, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable license to use and incorporate that feedback for any purpose without compensation to you. This does not apply to your User Content, which remains governed by Section 4.

20. General Provisions

• Entire agreement: These Terms and our Privacy Policy constitute the entire agreement between you and Ember Legacy regarding the Service.
• Severability: If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force and effect.
• Waiver: Our failure to enforce any right or provision does not constitute a waiver of that right or provision.
• Assignment: Ember Legacy may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, provided the assignee agrees to honor these Terms. You may not assign your rights under these Terms.
• Force majeure: Ember Legacy is not liable for any delay or failure to perform resulting from causes beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, terrorism, pandemics, labor disputes, government actions, power failures, internet disruptions, or acts of God.
• Survival: Provisions regarding content ownership, recipient rights, limitation of liability, indemnification, dispute resolution, and feedback survive termination of these Terms.

21. Contact Us

If you have questions about these Terms of Service, please contact us:

Ember Legacy, Inc.
Email: support@emberlegacy.ai