Terms of Agreement

4.1 Original Content Requirement

YOU MAY ONLY POST CONTENT YOU CREATED YOURSELF, OR THAT YOU HAVE EXPLICIT WRITTEN PERMISSION TO POST.

By uploading anything to Minkly, you confirm that you are the original author and copyright holder, or that you have secured all the necessary rights and licenses from whoever is. Your content must not infringe on anyone else's copyright, trademark, or other rights, and it must not be plagiarized from any source.

4.2 Zero Tolerance for Copyright Infringement

We have zero tolerance for copyright infringement. Posting work you didn't create or don't have permission to post — including stories copied from other platforms, unauthorized translations, modified versions of someone else's story, or anything else covered by a third-party copyright claim — will result in immediate account termination. Fan fiction is the one narrow exception, and only under the strict conditions in Section 4.7.

4.3 AI-Assisted Writing, Not AI-Generated Writing

Writing with AI tools is fine — many authors use them for brainstorming, editing, or polish. What's not fine is publishing content that is purely AI-generated and presented as your original work. If we determine that a story or chapter is essentially produced by AI rather than written by you, we will remove it. AI-assisted is welcome; AI-generated is not.

4.4 User Content License

You keep full ownership and copyright of the original content you post on Minkly ("User Content"). What you grant us is a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, revocable license to host your content on the Platform — to display and distribute it to readers, make the technical copies needed for caching and delivery, share excerpts in Platform promotion with attribution, and process your content through any AI features you choose to enable, as described in Section 9.

This license does not let us sell your content, create derivative works beyond what's needed for the features you enable, transfer rights to third parties, use your content outside the Platform without your permission, or train AI models on it.

4.5 Your Rights and Separate Arrangements

You keep all rights to your original work. You can remove your content at any time, control whether it's public, private, or paid, monetize through Platform features as they become available, publish the same work elsewhere, and pursue copyright claims independently.

Unless you separately agree in writing to different terms — for example, by opting into a Minkly-run program that has its own terms — you retain 100% of your rights. Where a separate arrangement exists, it applies only to the work and time period it covers.

4.6 AI Training Prohibition

YOUR CONTENT WILL NOT BE USED FOR AI TRAINING.

Minkly will never use your content to train, fine-tune, or improve AI models, will never include your stories in any machine-learning dataset, and will not allow third parties to do either. This commitment is absolute and applies to all User Content.

4.7 Fan Fiction Policy

Fan fiction is permitted on Minkly, but only under the conditions below. If your work doesn't meet all of them, please don't post it as fan fiction here.

5.1 DMCA Notice Procedure

If you believe content on Minkly infringes your copyright, send a DMCA takedown notice to dmca@minkly.io. To be valid, your notice must include:

• Identification of the copyrighted work
• URL or location of the infringing content
• Your contact information (name, address, email, phone)
• A statement of good-faith belief that the use is unauthorized
• A statement under penalty of perjury that you are the copyright owner or authorized agent
• Your physical or electronic signature

5.2 Counter-Notice

If your content was removed and you believe it shouldn't have been, you can file a counter-notice that includes:

• Identification of the removed content and its former location
• A statement under penalty of perjury that the removal was a mistake
• Your consent to jurisdiction
• Your contact information and signature

5.3 Repeat Infringer Policy

Users who repeatedly infringe copyright will be banned. We follow a three-strike policy: the first violation results in content removal and a warning, the second in a temporary suspension, and the third in permanent termination. Severe or willful infringement may skip steps.

6.1 Prohibited Content

Minkly has zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive behavior.

You may not post anything that infringes copyright, trademark, or other intellectual-property rights (with the narrow fan-fiction exception in Section 4.7); is plagiarized; breaks any applicable law; contains malware or harmful code; promotes illegal activity; sexualizes minors in any way; promotes hate, discrimination, harassment, or violence; threatens, harasses, or doxxes any individual; spams or deliberately misleads; impersonates someone else; or misrepresents fan fiction as original work. We remove content that crosses these lines, and we eject the users who post it.

6.2 Content Ratings and Warnings

Authors must accurately rate and tag anything readers may want to be warned about — graphic violence, sexual content, profanity, and other sensitive themes — using the Platform's tagging tools. Failing to label your content correctly can lead to removal, restrictions on your account, or suspension.

8.1 Content Control

As an author, you have full control over what you publish. You can edit and update chapters, delete content at any time, set publication schedules, decide who can comment or interact with your work, control access permissions, and turn AI-assisted features (such as text-to-speech) on or off.

8.2 Plagiarism Protection

Your strongest existing protections are the DMCA process described in Section 5 and the in-app Report function, which lets users flag stolen or infringing content for our review. Beyond that, we plan to introduce additional tools to help authors protect their work — such as automated plagiarism detection, content fingerprinting, and digital timestamps of publication — as those capabilities become available on the Platform.

8.3 Revenue and Monetization

Where monetization features are available, authors keep the rights to their earnings. Platform fees, payout terms, and other commercial details will be disclosed wherever the relevant feature lives in the app. You may also use other monetization channels off-Platform. Fan fiction may not be monetized through Minkly under any circumstances (see Section 4.7).

8.4 AI-Assisted Features

Authors may opt in to AI-assisted features for their content, such as text-to-speech audio. Enabling a feature doesn't change who owns the underlying work — the original writing remains yours. See Section 9 for details.

9.1 Text-to-Speech

Minkly offers AI text-to-speech that lets authors generate audio from their stories and lets readers listen to that audio for stories where the author has turned the feature on. Authors choose voice and settings.

Turning on text-to-speech grants Minkly permission to process your text through the AI system that produces the audio. The generated audio files are stored on our servers so readers can play them back. You retain all rights to your underlying writing, you can delete generated audio at any time from your account settings, and you can disable text-to-speech and remove the associated audio whenever you want. If you change the text, you may need to regenerate the audio.

9.2 AI-Assisted Artwork and Covers

You may upload AI-generated artwork, including AI-generated story covers, but it must be clearly labeled as AI-generated when you upload it. We prefer hand-drawn or original artwork; AI imagery is allowed, but it must be honest about what it is. You're responsible for making sure any artwork you upload — AI-generated or otherwise — doesn't infringe anyone else's copyright, trademark, or likeness rights.

9.3 Limitations and Prohibited Uses

AI features are provided as-is. We don't guarantee the accuracy or quality of generated output — text-to-speech may mispronounce things, AI-generated images may not match your intent — and we're not responsible for copyright issues arising from content you create with AI tools. You may not use Minkly's AI features to create content that violates these Terms, generate images that infringe others' copyrights or trademarks, create deepfakes or misleading material, harass or harm anyone, attempt to extract or reverse-engineer the underlying models, or for any illegal purpose. Your content is never used to train our AI systems.

11.1 Comments and Reviews

Readers can comment on and review stories. Comments must be constructive and respectful, must not include spoilers without warning, must not contain personal attacks, and must follow our content guidelines.

11.2 Following

You can follow authors and stories. Authors control their own notification settings.

11.3 Zero Tolerance, Reporting, and Blocking

Minkly has zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users.

Throughout the Platform — on stories, chapters, comments, and reviews — you can report content that you believe is objectionable, abusive, or otherwise breaks these Terms. We review every report and act on legitimate ones within 24 hours by removing the offending content and, where the violation warrants it, ejecting the user who posted it.

You can also block any user. When you block someone, their content is removed from your feed instantly, they can no longer interact with you on the Platform, and the block is sent to Minkly so we can review whether further action is warranted against the blocked user.

If you encounter content or behavior that should be removed, please use the in-app Report function or email support@minkly.io.

14.1 Platform Disclaimer

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE."

We don't guarantee the quality or accuracy of content posted by users, endorse any specific user content, verify copyright ownership beyond the DMCA process, guarantee that content will remain available indefinitely, or promise any particular feature or functionality.

14.2 Content Disclaimer

We are not responsible for the content users post, copyright disputes between users, content that gets lost or deleted (please keep your own backups), or any third-party action taken in connection with your content.

17.1 Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles.

17.2 Dispute Resolution

Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the Service will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in California, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction and venue of those courts.