Yotsugu Terms of Service

Version 0.1, prelaunch draft
Published: not published
Effective: [[EFFECTIVE DATE]]

These Terms form an agreement between you and [[LEGAL OPERATOR NAME AND ENTITY TYPE]], with an address at [[LEGAL ADDRESS]] ("Yotsugu," "we," "us," or "our"). They govern your use of [[CANONICAL DOMAIN]], Yotsugu applications, and related services.

The Platform Rules, Privacy Notice, and Moderation, Reports, Appeals, and Support Policy are part of these Terms.

1. What Yotsugu does

Yotsugu helps people discover web fiction, compare editions and sources, track reading progress, receive release updates, maintain private libraries, and contribute limited community information. Source links normally open on third-party websites.

A Yotsugu listing is informational. It is not an endorsement, a guarantee of quality or legality, a finding of copyright ownership, a license, or an award of translation exclusivity.

Yotsugu serves chapter content internally only when it has recorded authority for the underlying work, the translation where applicable, the content scope, and the reader's required entitlement. Yotsugu may refuse or stop internal display when that authority is missing, expires, or is disputed.

2. Eligibility

You may use public catalog pages without an account. To create an account, you must:

• be at least [[MINIMUM ACCOUNT AGE]] and old enough to consent to personal-data processing where you live;
• have a parent or legal guardian's valid involvement if local law requires it;
• be legally able to accept these Terms; and
• not be barred from the service under applicable law or a prior valid Yotsugu termination.

If you use Yotsugu for an organization, you confirm that you are authorized to bind that organization for the actions you take on its behalf.

Yotsugu must choose and implement a defensible age model before launch. The current draft does not create a parental-consent system.

3. Accounts and security

Provide accurate account information and keep your credentials secure. You are responsible for activity you authorize. Tell us promptly at [[ACCOUNT SECURITY EMAIL]] if you believe an account has been compromised.

Do not sell accounts, impersonate another person or organization, evade a restriction through another account, or share credentials in a way that defeats security or entitlement controls.

Public profiles are optional. Libraries, notes, manual entries, progress, lists, imports, and notification preferences are private by default unless Yotsugu clearly offers and you select a sharing control.

4. Permission to use the service

Subject to these Terms, Yotsugu gives you a personal, limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the service for its intended purposes.

You may export your own data, use normal browser accessibility and automation features, and use documented APIs within their limits. You may not interfere with the service, bypass access controls, extract data at a scale or rate that harms the service or others, reverse engineer secrets or protected systems, or use undocumented automation without written permission.

5. Your content and submissions

You keep ownership of content you submit, such as profile text, avatars, reviews, corrections, and supporting evidence.

You give Yotsugu a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, copy, format, display, transmit, moderate, and back up that content only as reasonably needed to operate, secure, improve, and explain the service. This license ends when the content is deleted, except for limited retention in backups, audit records, fraud and abuse evidence, or legal records as described in the Privacy Notice.

For public catalog submissions, Yotsugu may retain verified factual metadata and provenance after a submission or account is removed. Yotsugu will not treat this clause as ownership of your original creative expression.

You confirm that you have the rights and permissions needed for what you submit. Do not submit confidential material or personal data that you are not authorized to share.

6. Translation groups and source websites

Translation groups and source websites may request verified representative status under the Platform Rules. Verification establishes control of a Yotsugu presence. It does not establish ownership of the original work or exclusive translation rights.

Representatives must distinguish facts they directly control from claims about third parties. “Official,” “licensed,” rights ownership, and similar claims require reliable evidence. Translation method labels must be truthful when declared. Yotsugu may use “unknown” when evidence is absent or disputed.

Yotsugu may list multiple translation projects and source websites for the same work. Starting first, being larger, buying advertising, or claiming a listing first does not create exclusivity.

An integration, feed, or webhook requires separate approval. Website representatives may request reasonable corrections, request verification pacing changes, or opt out of a voluntary integration. Opting out does not automatically require Yotsugu to erase independently lawful factual references or user-created private links.

7. Community participation

Reviews may be positive or negative. Honest criticism of writing, translation quality, translation method, release practices, pricing, or a source website is allowed when it follows the Platform Rules. Yotsugu does not remove criticism merely because it is embarrassing, unfavorable, or disputed.

Ratings, reviews, correction reports, group claims, and support channels must not be manipulated, brigaded, bought, threatened, or used to harass others. Material conflicts of interest must be disclosed in reviews.

8. Prohibited conduct

You must follow the numbered Platform Rules. In particular, you must not:

• break the law or use Yotsugu to facilitate unlawful conduct;
• exploit or sexualize minors, share non-consensual intimate material, make credible threats, or target people with severe harassment;
• expose private personal information, credentials, or confidential communications without authority;
• impersonate a person, group, source, staff member, or rights holder;
• upload or copy chapter bodies without permission, defeat a paywall or entitlement check, or distribute stolen access;
• introduce malware, phish, probe without authorization, disrupt service, evade rate limits, or conceal harmful redirects;
• fabricate releases, rights, licenses, reviews, votes, reports, traffic, identities, or evidence;
• retaliate against a person for a good-faith report, correction, review, or appeal; or
• evade an enforcement action.

9. Third-party services

External source websites control their own content, availability, prices, accounts, privacy practices, and terms. Yotsugu is not a party to your transaction or relationship with them. An access label is an observed description and can become stale.

Yotsugu does not collect source-site passwords or cookies. Do not give them to Yotsugu or to another user through Yotsugu.

10. Copyright and other legal rights

Yotsugu respects intellectual property rights. A rights holder or authorized agent may send a copyright notice using the process in the Moderation and Support Policy. Notices must identify the right, the protected work, the specific Yotsugu material or link, contact information, the requested action, and the statements required by applicable law.

If United States law applies and Yotsugu seeks the protections of 17 U.S.C. section 512, its designated agent is:

[[DMCA AGENT NAME]]
[[DMCA AGENT POSTAL ADDRESS]]
[[DMCA AGENT EMAIL]]
[[DMCA AGENT PHONE]]

Yotsugu will maintain and reasonably implement a policy for terminating repeat infringers where appropriate. Yotsugu may forward a notice or counter-notice to the affected contributor. False legal claims can create liability.

Trademark, privacy, impersonation, and other legal complaints should be sent to [[LEGAL NOTICE EMAIL]]. A complaint does not guarantee the requested result. We may ask for authority and evidence, preserve records, restrict material while reviewing risk, or decline a request that is incomplete or unsupported.

11. Moderation and appeals

Yotsugu may correct labels, reduce distribution, disable a link or integration, hide content, restrict a feature, suspend an account, or terminate access when reasonably necessary to enforce these Terms or comply with law.

Except when notice would increase immediate safety, security, legal, or evasion risk, we will provide a decision notice with the rule relied on, affected item, action, duration, and appeal method. Temporary emergency action must be reviewed and explained as soon as reasonably practical.

You may appeal through the process in the Moderation and Support Policy. A person not materially involved in the original decision should review the appeal when staffing permits. If we reverse a decision, we will restore affected access or content when technically and legally possible and correct the enforcement record.

12. Privacy and data

The Privacy Notice explains what Yotsugu collects, why it is used, how long it is retained, and how to request access, correction, export, or deletion. Do not rely on these Terms as a substitute for that notice.

Yotsugu does not sell private library or reading-progress data. [[CONFIRM OR REPLACE BEFORE LAUNCH]]

13. Service changes and availability

Yotsugu may add, change, suspend, or discontinue features. We will give reasonable advance notice when a planned change materially removes a paid feature or makes exported user data inaccessible. Safety, security, upstream source failure, legal demands, and emergencies may require faster action.

Source checks, mappings, release times, status labels, and access labels can be incomplete or stale. Yotsugu will show uncertainty rather than knowingly present an inference as verified fact.

14. Fees

[[CHOOSE ONE: Yotsugu is currently free / describe paid plans, billing, refunds, taxes, renewals, and cancellation.]]

No source website or translation group may buy a moderation outcome, catalog ownership decision, review removal, or undisclosed ranking advantage. Sponsored placement, if introduced, must be visibly labeled and separated from organic ranking.

15. Disclaimers

To the extent permitted by law, Yotsugu is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not promise uninterrupted operation or that third-party metadata, links, releases, mappings, translations, reviews, or source availability are complete, accurate, lawful, or current.

Nothing in these Terms excludes a warranty or consumer right that applicable law does not allow us to exclude.

16. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, Yotsugu and its personnel will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or loss of profits, data, goodwill, or business opportunity arising from the service.

Yotsugu's total liability for claims arising from the service will not exceed the greater of [[LIABILITY FLOOR IN LOCAL CURRENCY]] or the amount you paid Yotsugu in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These limits do not apply where prohibited by law or to liability that cannot legally be limited, including [[COUNSEL TO COMPLETE FOR GOVERNING LAW]].

17. Responsibility for organizational misuse

If you use Yotsugu for a business or organization, that organization will defend and indemnify Yotsugu against third-party claims arising from its unlawful submissions, false authority or rights claims, or material breach of these Terms, to the extent permitted by law. This section does not apply to an individual consumer's ordinary good-faith use of Yotsugu.

18. Ending use

You may stop using Yotsugu at any time and may request account deletion through the available account controls.

We may end or restrict access for a material or repeated breach, legal requirement, serious risk, or discontinuation of the service. Where practical, we will give notice and a reasonable chance to export private library data before a non-emergency service shutdown or account termination. We may withhold access to evidence, other people's data, or material we must preserve.

Sections that by their nature should survive termination, including ownership, legal notices, disclaimers, liability limits, dispute terms, and necessary records, will survive.

19. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of [[GOVERNING JURISDICTION]], without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except that mandatory consumer protections where you live still apply.

Before filing a claim, you and Yotsugu agree to send a written dispute notice to [[DISPUTE EMAIL OR ADDRESS]] and allow 30 days for an informal resolution, unless urgent court relief or applicable law makes that inappropriate.

[[COUNSEL MUST CHOOSE COURTS, ARBITRATION, CLASS-ACTION LANGUAGE, OR NO SPECIAL FORUM CLAUSE. DO NOT PUBLISH THIS PLACEHOLDER.]]

20. General terms

These Terms and the policies they incorporate are the entire agreement about the service, except for a separate written agreement that expressly says it modifies them for its parties. If a provision is unenforceable, it will be limited or removed only to the extent necessary and the remaining provisions will continue. A failure to enforce a provision once is not a waiver of it.

You may not transfer your account or these Terms without our written consent. Yotsugu may assign these Terms as part of a merger, reorganization, sale, or transfer of the service, subject to applicable law and continued protection of user rights.

Yotsugu is not responsible for delay caused by events reasonably outside its control, but this does not remove obligations that applicable law does not allow us to exclude.

21. Changes to these Terms

Material changes follow the notice and versioning process in the policy index. We will not apply a new punitive rule retroactively. If you continue using an account after the effective date of revised Terms, that continued use constitutes acceptance where permitted by law. If the change legally requires express consent, Yotsugu will request it.

22. Contact

• General support: [[SUPPORT EMAIL OR FORM]]
• Privacy: [[PRIVACY EMAIL]]
• Legal notices: [[LEGAL NOTICE EMAIL]]
• India Grievance Officer, if applicable: [[NAME, CONTACT DETAILS, AND INDIA ADDRESS]]
• DMCA designated agent, if applicable: [[PUBLIC DMCA AGENT DETAILS]]