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Terms of Use
These Terms of Use ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Essayist Software Inc., based in Canada ("we", "us"), the developer of the Essayist and Researchist apps (each, "the App"). By downloading or using either App you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Apps.
These Terms are concluded between you and us only — not with Apple Inc. ("Apple"). We, not Apple, are solely responsible for the Apps and their content.
1. License
We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the Apps on Apple-branded devices that you own or control, as permitted by the App Store Terms of Service (including any Family Sharing rules). You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, rent, reverse engineer, or attempt to extract the source code of the Apps, except to the extent applicable law permits this despite this restriction.
2. Your content
You retain all rights to the essays, documents, notes, highlights, references, and other content you create or import in the Apps ("Your Content"). We claim no ownership of Your Content and, as described in our Privacy Policy, we have no access to it. You are responsible for ensuring that you have the right to download, store, and use the documents and materials you import, and for maintaining your own backups.
3. Subscriptions
- Certain features require a paid auto-renewing subscription — Essayist Pro in Essayist and Researchist Pro in Researchist. The available subscription terms (such as monthly or annual), the features included, prices, and any free trial are shown in the relevant App before purchase.
- Payment is charged to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase.
- A subscription renews automatically unless it is cancelled at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the current period ends.
- You can manage or cancel a subscription in your device's App Store subscription settings at any time. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period.
- If a free trial is offered, any unused portion of the trial is forfeited when you purchase a subscription.
- Some free features are subject to usage limits, which may change; applicable limits are shown in the App.
- Refunds are handled by Apple under the App Store's terms; we cannot issue refunds directly.
4. Acceptable use
You agree not to use the Apps in violation of applicable law, to infringe the intellectual-property rights of others (including publishers' rights in the papers and materials you import), or to interfere with, abuse, or attempt to circumvent the Apps' security, entitlement, usage-limit, or attestation mechanisms.
5. Third-party services and automated features
The Apps retrieve bibliographic metadata from third-party services (such as Semantic Scholar, Crossref, and ISBNdb), can connect to accounts you hold with third parties (such as Zotero), embed third-party websites (such as Google Scholar), and fetch web pages and files at your direction. Your use of those services and websites is subject to their own terms and policies; we do not control them and are not responsible for their availability, terms, or content. When you direct an App to retrieve material from a website, you are responsible for ensuring that retrieval and your use of the material comply with that website's terms and applicable law.
Features such as metadata extraction, reference parsing, citation formatting, outline detection, and summaries are generated automatically, including by on-device machine learning. They may be incomplete or inaccurate. Always verify extracted citations, metadata, formatted bibliographies, and summaries against the original source before relying on them in your work.
The Apps also include third-party machine-learning models that run on your device, including a Gemma-family model provided under and subject to the Gemma Terms of Use; your use of the Apps' AI features must comply with those terms.
6. Maintenance and support
We are solely responsible for providing any maintenance and support for the Apps; Apple has no obligation to furnish maintenance or support. For support, contact contact@essayist.app. We do not guarantee that the Apps will be maintained, updated, or compatible with future operating-system versions indefinitely.
7. Warranty
The Apps are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement, to the maximum extent permitted by law. In the event of any failure of an App to conform to an applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price of that App to you; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to the Apps, and any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, or expenses attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty are our responsibility. Nothing in these Terms limits warranties or rights that mandatory law grants you as a consumer.
8. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages, or for loss of data, arising from your use of the Apps. Our total liability for all claims relating to the Apps is limited to the amount you paid for the Apps in the twelve months preceding the claim. This limitation does not apply to liability that cannot be excluded under applicable law, including liability for intent, gross negligence, or injury to life, body, or health.
9. Claims and legal compliance
We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party relating to the Apps, including product-liability claims, claims that an App fails to conform to legal or regulatory requirements, claims under consumer-protection or similar legislation, and claims that an App infringes a third party's intellectual-property rights. You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. government embargo or designated a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
10. Termination
These Terms are effective until terminated. Your rights under these Terms end automatically if you fail to comply with them. Upon termination, you must stop using the Apps. Sections 2 and 7–9 survive termination.
11. Third-party beneficiary
Apple and Apple's subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Upon your acceptance of these Terms, Apple has the right (and is deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.
12. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time, for example when we add features or when legal requirements change. The current version is always available at this page, with the effective date shown above. Continued use of the Apps after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.
13. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of British Columbia and the federal laws of Canada applicable therein, excluding conflict-of-law rules. Mandatory consumer-protection provisions of the jurisdiction in which you reside remain unaffected.
14. Contact
Essayist Software Inc.
contact@essayist.app
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