Terms of Service
Last updated: [Month Day, Year]
Welcome to Codal. These Terms of Service explain the rules for using Codal's website, application, APIs, publishing tools, collaboration features, export tools, verification tools, and related services.
By creating an account, joining an organization, creating a project, contributing to a project, uploading content, publishing a release, or using Codal, you agree to these Terms.
If you are using Codal on behalf of an organization, you confirm that you have authority to accept these Terms for that organization.
1. What Codal is
Codal is a software platform for creating, editing, reviewing, translating, publishing, exporting, verifying, preserving, and printing books and other long-form works.
Codal provides tools and infrastructure. Codal is not your publisher, legal advisor, copyright advisor, literary agent, printer, distributor, retailer, or rights-clearance service unless we separately agree to provide those services in writing.
2. Your content belongs to you
You and your organization retain ownership of the books, manuscripts, images, metadata, source documents, translations, annotations, comments, covers, files, and other materials you create, upload, import, edit, publish, or export through Codal.
Codal does not claim ownership over your content.
You grant Codal a limited license to host, store, process, display, transform, format, render, export, verify, preserve, and distribute your content only as needed to operate the service and provide the features you choose to use. This includes creating previews, EPUBs, PDFs, print files, metadata feeds, signed release records, verification kits, preservation bundles, and portable project packages.
If you make a project or release public, you authorize Codal to display and make available the public parts of that project or release according to your project settings and selected license.
3. You are responsible for your content
You are responsible for the content you create, upload, import, publish, export, print, or distribute through Codal.
This includes responsibility for:
- the legality of your content
- copyright ownership and permissions
- public-domain claims
- licenses and contributor permissions
- quotations, images, scans, and source materials
- translations and adaptations
- factual accuracy
- metadata and catalog information
- privacy and personal information contained in the content
- distribution choices
- compliance with laws, rules, contracts, and third-party rights
Codal may provide readiness checks, rights fields, public-domain provenance tools, accessibility checks, print preflight, metadata tools, package exports, OPID records, signatures, and verification tools. These features help you review and document your work, but they do not replace legal review and do not guarantee that your content is lawful, accurate, non-infringing, public domain, accepted by a printer, accepted by a retailer, or suitable for every jurisdiction.
4. Accounts and organizations
You must provide accurate account information and keep your login credentials secure.
You are responsible for activity under your account, organization, and projects.
Organizations are responsible for managing their users, roles, permissions, projects, contributors, publication settings, and content.
If you invite someone to a project or organization, you are responsible for assigning the correct access level.
5. Projects, collaborators, and contributors
Codal lets users and organizations invite collaborators, editors, translators, reviewers, and contributors.
Project owners and organizations are responsible for:
- deciding who can view, edit, review, translate, release, or administer a project
- ensuring contributors have the rights to submit their contributions
- ensuring accepted contributions may be used under the project's license
- managing contributor attribution and privacy settings
- complying with any contributor agreements or CLAs used by the project
Codal may provide contributor tracking, review workflows, attribution, provenance, and privacy tools, but project owners remain responsible for how contributors are managed and credited.
6. Licenses and public projects
When you choose a project license, that license controls how others may use the content you publish under that project or release.
If you select a permissive license, public-domain mark, CC0, Creative Commons license, educational license, or all-rights-reserved setting, you are responsible for understanding the effect of that choice.
Codal does not guarantee that a selected license is appropriate for your project.
Public projects and releases may be indexed, copied, downloaded, cited, archived, mirrored, or distributed depending on your settings and license. Do not make a project public unless you are authorized to do so.
7. Public-domain works
Codal may help you document public-domain provenance, source scans, author death dates, publication dates, jurisdictions, OCR history, component licenses, and modern additions.
Public-domain status can depend on jurisdiction, publication history, authorship, renewal or restoration rules, translations, illustrations, scans, annotations, and modern editorial additions.
You are responsible for any public-domain claim you make. Codal does not guarantee that a work is in the public domain.
8. AI-assisted tools
Codal may include AI-assisted tools for drafting, translation, formatting, cleanup, research, review, and import curation.
AI outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, biased, outdated, or unsuitable. You are responsible for reviewing, correcting, approving, licensing, and publishing any AI-assisted output.
Do not rely on AI outputs as legal, copyright, financial, medical, professional, or factual advice. You are responsible for verifying facts, citations, quotations, translations, sources, and rights.
9. Publishing, exports, and external services
Codal may generate EPUB files, PDF files, PDF/X print files, cover wraps, metadata files, OPDS feeds, ONIX files, OAI-PMH records, preservation bundles, portable book.codal packages, verification kits, OPID records, and other outputs.
External printers, retailers, distributors, libraries, archives, and platforms may apply their own requirements and may reject files or metadata.
Codal does not guarantee acceptance by any printer, retailer, distributor, library, archive, marketplace, search engine, or other external service.
10. Acceptable use
You may not use Codal to create, upload, publish, export, or distribute content that violates our Content Policy, infringes the rights of others, violates the law, abuses the service, harms users, or interferes with the operation of Codal.
We may remove content, restrict access, suspend accounts, disable exports, remove public visibility, or take other action if we believe content or activity violates these Terms, our policies, applicable law, or third-party rights.
11. Copyright complaints
If you believe content on Codal infringes your copyright, you may submit a complaint through our Copyright Policy.
Codal may remove or disable access to content in response to valid notices or legal requirements. We may also terminate repeat infringers where appropriate.
12. Service availability and changes
Codal may change, improve, suspend, limit, or discontinue parts of the service at any time.
We try to provide reliable service, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability, error-free operation, or permanent hosting of any content.
You are responsible for exporting and backing up content you need to preserve.
13. Beta and preview features
Some features may be marked beta, preview, experimental, or invite-only.
Beta features may change, fail, produce incomplete results, or be removed. Do not rely on beta features for critical publishing decisions without independent review.
14. Fees and paid services
If Codal offers paid plans or services, the applicable fees, billing terms, cancellation terms, and refund terms will be shown at purchase or in a separate agreement.
Unless stated otherwise, fees are non-refundable except where required by law.
15. Termination
You may stop using Codal at any time.
We may suspend or terminate accounts, organizations, projects, public access, or exports if we believe there is a violation of these Terms, legal risk, security risk, abuse, nonpayment, or harm to Codal or others.
Termination does not remove your responsibility for content you previously published or distributed.
16. Disclaimers
Codal is provided "as is" and "as available."
To the fullest extent allowed by law, Codal disclaims warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, availability, and error-free operation.
Codal does not provide legal, copyright, publishing, printing, distribution, accessibility, tax, or professional advice.
17. Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent allowed by law, Codal will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, loss of data, loss of goodwill, business interruption, rejected print files, rejected retailer submissions, copyright disputes, or third-party claims.
Codal's total liability for any claim will not exceed the amount you paid Codal for the service during the [three/six/twelve] months before the claim, or [amount], whichever is greater, unless the law requires otherwise.
18. Indemnity
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Codal from claims, damages, liabilities, losses, costs, and expenses arising from:
- your content
- your projects or releases
- your public-domain claims
- your licenses or rights decisions
- your use of third-party materials
- your distribution, export, printing, or publication decisions
- your violation of these Terms
- your violation of law or third-party rights
19. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of [State/Country], without regard to conflict-of-law rules.
Any dispute will be resolved in the courts located in [County/State/Country], unless a separate agreement or applicable law requires otherwise.
[Optional arbitration language to be reviewed by legal counsel.]
20. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. If changes are material, we will provide notice through the service, by email, or by updating the "Last updated" date.
Your continued use of Codal after changes become effective means you accept the updated Terms.
21. Contact
Questions about these Terms may be sent to: