VocaTales.com (the “Site” or "Website") is owned and operated by VocaTales, Inc ("VocaTales," "we" or "us").
Please read these Terms of Use ("Terms of Use" or “Agreement”) carefully before you start to use the Website. These Terms of Use are a binding agreement between you and us and govern your use of the Website. By using this Website, you represent and warrant that you have read and understand these Terms of Use and agree to be legally bound by these Terms of Use.
From time to time we may update these Terms of Use. The changes will be effective immediately when we post them. Your continued use of the Website after we make changes is deemed acceptance of those changes, so please check these Terms of Use periodically for updates, noting the "Last Modified: date at the top.
Use of VocaTales Services is restricted to people 13 years old or older. Accounts operated by users younger than this minimum age will be deactivated.
You may be required to register or provide certain information about yourself prior to using certain features of the Website, and the Website may provide you with additional opportunities to share information about yourself with others. All information we collect on the Website is subject to our Privacy Policy. Please refer to the Privacy Policy for information about how we collect, use, and disclose information about you.
The Website provides a platform for users to create, read, and share stories and media ("Content”) through the Site using VocaTales storyboards. This Content can be created by a single user or multiple users together. The Site also allows VocaTales-approved creators to supply their Content for our and our users’ use in connection with the Service.
The Website allows users to interact with the VocaTales community, including liking, sharing, following, saving, and commenting on other users’ stories. We provide a platform only for creating and sharing content and disclaim all liability, to the extent allowed by law, with respect to the content and information shared by our users (collectively, "User Content").
VocaTales does not endorse any User Content, and VocaTales makes no guarantee, express or implied, that any information provided by any user is accurate or will lead toor further any specific educational outcome.
To ensure a safe and engaging community experience, interactions on the Platform are subject to moderation. This may include automated content filtering and review by human moderators where necessary. Users can report inappropriate content, and VocaTales reserves the right to remove any content that violates our Terms.
If you register for an Account, you will be able to submit stories and other writings, which may include multimedia such as videos and photographs, that you have created for posting on the Platform (the “Stories”).
The Website is intended as a platform for sharing unique user-developed stories. This Website may contain profiles, content feeds, photos, and other interactive features (collectively, "Interactive Services") that allow users to post, submit, publish, and display (hereinafter, "post") User Content provided by themselves or other Website users through the Website.
Unless otherwise provided in the terms and conditions of a Special Promotion, you will retain all your ownership rights in your Content. By submitting content to the site, you do, however, grant us rights to display such content on the Platform. Posting your content on VocaTales does not prevent you from publishing the same content elsewhere, including self-publishing, traditional publishing, or distribution on other platforms. However, if you participate in exclusive creator programs, additional terms may apply. The above license granted by you in Stories will terminate within 180 days after you remove or delete your Publications from the Platform or deactivate your Account. You understand and agree, however, that VocaTales may retain, but not display, distribute, or perform, server copies of your Publications that have been removed or deleted. The above license granted by you in Content other than Publications (for example, user comments and reviews) is perpetual and irrevocable. VocaTales will not use your Publications in an anthology without your prior, written permission.
In short: you own everything you create on VocaTales. We will never sell, distribute, or republish your content without your explicit permission or voluntary participation in one of our creator programs. To run the site, we do need permission to display your content on the Website itself and in our marketing. This means a story you wrote might be visible in our advertising but would remain subject to all applicable copyright protections.
VocaTales does not claim exclusive rights over your content. However, some publishers may have policies regarding previously published content. If you intend to seek a traditional publishing deal, we recommend checking with the publisher regarding their stance on pre-published works.
All User Content must comply with the Content Standards set out in these Terms of Use.
Prior to submitting any content to VocaTales Services, please ensure a thorough understanding of our Content Guidelines. Failure to adhere to these guidelines may lead to the removal of your content at any time and at our discretion.
All rights and ownership to the content you generate and post on VocaTales Services remain yours, provided the original content was rightfully yours. Please refrain from posting content that infringes on copyright laws, unless explicit permission has been obtained, including the right to confer upon VocaTales the permissions outlined in these terms. Refer to our Copyright FAQ for details on Copyright.
You retain all ownership over User Content you create and share on the Site. But we do need the right to use your User Content to the extent necessary to provide the Site and Services to users, including to display your User Content in the manner requested by you to operate the Site and Services. In order for us to make the User Content you contribute available on the Site for these purposes, and to operate, market and promote the Service, we need the right to make use of suchUser Content in accordance with and subject to this Agreement. For example, if you write Stories or leave Comments, we need your license to display that User Content on the Services, and we need the right to sublicense that User Content to our other users so that they can view that User Content.
VocaTales operates on a freemium model, and to maintain free access to all users, we incorporate advertising within the Services, which may include the display of your content or other information. Furthermore, your Content may be used to promote the Services. Be assured, your content will not be sold to third parties without your explicit consent.
By contributing User Content to the Site or creating it on the Site you automatically grant to us an irrevocable and perpetual (except as set forth in this Agreement), non-exclusive, transferable, royalty-free (except for creators participating in creators contests or creator programs ), worldwide license, by ourselves or with others, to use, copy, distribute, publicly perform, publicly display, print, publish, republish, excerpt (in whole or in part), reformat, translate, modify, revise and incorporate into other works, that User Content and any works derived from that User Content, in any form of media or expression, in the manner in which the Service from time to time permits User Content to be used (that is, for marketing and providing Services), in compliance with all applicable laws, and to license or permit others to do so. This license expires after 180 days after you delete your content or deactivate your account, except where otherwise agreed upon (e.g., creator contests). This license extends only to the uses outlined in this Agreement as necessary for providing the Services described herein.
If a user's content is stolen and published elsewhere without consent, VocaTales will, to the best of its ability, assist the original creator in enforcing their rights, including providing proof of original authorship. Users retain full responsibility for enforcing their copyright claims, and we encourage registering works with the U.S. Copyright Office for additional protection.
In the process of using the Services, you may agree to additional terms and conditions that may modify or supersede these Terms of Service, such as participation in creator contests or special programs like VocaTales: Rise of TheHumans.These programs are designed to enable content creators to monetize their work and for VocaTales to incentivize their efforts. In the event of any conflict or inconsistency, the terms and conditions of these additional agreements will take precedence over these Terms of Service.
Except as expressly permitted on the Site (for example, the use by creators to earn payments from our use of their Content for creators under VocaTales: Special Promotions Program), you are only permitted to use the Website for personal and non-commercial purposes and only for its intended purpose as described in these Terms of Use and any other applicable policy we may post from time to time.
You may use the Website only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms of Use.Without limiting that general statement or any other restrictions in theseTerms of Use, you agree not to use the Website:
Additionally, you agree not to:
We reserve the right to withdraw or amend the Website and any service or materials we provide on the Website in our sole discretion and without notice. We will not be liable if, for any reason, all or any part of the Website is unavailable at any time or for any period. From time to time, we may restrict access to some parts of the Website, or the entire Website, to users, including registered users.
You are responsible for:
To access the Website or some of the resources it offers, you may be asked to provide certain registration details or other information. It is a condition of your use of the Website that all the information you provide on the Website is correct, current, and complete. You agree that all information you provide, to register with the Website or otherwise, including through the use of any interactive features on the Website, is governed by these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy, and you consent to all actions we take with respect to your information consistent with these Terms of Use and our Privacy Policy.
If you choose, or are provided with, a user name, password or any other piece of information as part of our security procedures, you must treat such information as confidential, and you must not disclose it to any other person or entity. You also acknowledge that your account is personal to you and agree not to provide any other person with access to the Website or portions of it using your username, password or other security information. You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized access to or use of your user name or password or any other breach of security at support@vocatales.com
We have the right to disable any user name, password, or other identifier, whether chosen by you or provided by us, at any time in our sole discretion for any or no reason, including if in our opinion you have violated any provision of these Terms of Use.
You are responsible for all activities conducted by any person accessing the Website on your behalf or using your account, even if you are not the individual who undertakes such activities. This includes any unauthorized access and/or use of your account or your computer or devices.
You may not use or otherwise export or re-export the App except as authorized by applicable law. Without limiting that statement, the App may not be exported or re-exported (a) into any U.S.-embargoed countries or (b) to anyone on the U.S. Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals List or the U.S. Department of Commerce Denied Persons List or Entity List. By using the App, you represent and warrant that you are not located in any such country or on any such list. You also agree that you will not use our services for any purposes prohibited by applicable law.
The Website and its entire content, features and functionality (including all information, software, text, displays, images, video and audio, and the design, selection and arrangement thereof), are owned by VocaTales, our licensors or other providers of such material and are protected by copyright, trademark, patent, trade secret and other intellectual property or proprietary rights laws.
You must not reproduce, distribute, modify, create derivative works of, publicly display, publicly perform, republish, download, store or transmit any of the material on our Website, except as follows:
You must not delete or alter any copyright, trademark or other proprietary rights notices from copies of materials from the Website.
If you print, modify, copy, download or otherwise use or provide any other person with access to any part of the Website in breach of the Terms of Use, your right to use the Website will cease immediately and you must, at our option, return or destroy any copies of the materials you have made. No right, title or interest in or to the Website or any content on the Website is transferred to you, and all rights not expressly granted are reserved by VocaTales. Any use of the Website not expressly permitted by these Terms of Use is a breach of these Terms of Use and may violate copyright, trademark and other laws and may subject you to liability to the fullest extent provided under applicable law, including intellectual property law, for infringement and other legal actions.
VocaTales has instituted a policy addressing copyright infringement on the Services in alignment with the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act ("DMCA"). Although this policy is predicated on U.S. law, we enforce it universally across all jurisdictions where our Services are accessible. If you wish to report a copyright infringement, please refer to our page on Reporting Copyright Infringement. VocaTales maintains the right to remove alleged infringing content without prior notification, at our sole discretion, and without liability to you or any other party. Where appropriate, we will terminate the account of any user identified as a recurrent infringer.
In the event that a user's work is stolen and published elsewhere without consent, VocaTales will provide reasonable support to the original author, including verification of content ownership. However, VocaTales is not legally responsible for pursuing copyright claims on behalf of users. If you believe your work has been misused, we encourage you to file a formal DMCA takedown request.
We have the right to:
VocaTales reserves the right to remove from the Website any and all User Content that violates these Terms of Use without notice and at our absolute discretion. We have the right to fully cooperate with any law enforcement authorities or court order requesting or directing us to disclose the identity or other information of anyone posting any materials on or through the Website.
However, we cannot/do not undertake to review all material before it is posted on the Website and cannot ensure prompt removal of objectionable material after it has been posted. Accordingly, we assume no liability for any action or inaction regarding transmissions, communications or content provided by any user or third party. We have no liability or responsibility to anyone for performance or nonperformance of the activities described in this section.
The Website may display, include, or make available third party content, or provide links to sites and resources provided by third parties, including links contained in advertisements, banner advertisements and sponsored links and images from Tenor ("Third Party Materials").These Third Party Materials are provided for your convenience only. We have no control over any Third Party Materials and accept no responsibility for them or for any loss or damage that may arise from your use of them. If you decide to access any of the Third Party Materials, you do so entirely at your own risk and subject to the terms and conditions of use for such Third Party Materials.Under no circumstances will VocaTales be liable to you or any person in respect of any content, advertising, products, services or other tools or features available on or derived from any third party site.
In addition, the Website may provide certain social media features that enable you to:
You may use these features solely as they are provided by us and solely with respect to the specific content they are displayed with and otherwise in accordance with any additional terms and conditions we provide with respect to such features. Some of these features may require you to log into one of your social media accounts or otherwise access your social media account information. This may result in obtaining information about you from your social media provider, and vice-versa. Our collection and use of this information will be subject to our Privacy Policy. However, VocaTales is not in control of your social media account or how the social media site providers use your information, which remains governed by the settings and privacy policy of the relevant social media sites.
We may disable all or any social media features and any links at any time without notice and at our discretion.
You possess the right to irrevocably delete your VocaTales account. Upon choosing to close your account, it will initially be deactivated, followed by complete deletion. During the deactivation phase, your account will be invisible on VocaTales, but all your comments and posts on the VocaTales community message board will persist, albeit anonymized. For a period of six months post-deactivation, there exists the possibility of restoring your account if it was deactivated erroneously or inadvertently, which includes re-association of your comments and message board posts to your profile. After six months, we permanently delete your account from our systems, except that your anonymized comments and message board posts will remain on the Services.
VocaTales reserves the right to suspend or terminate your account, or discontinue providing you with all or part of the Services, at any moment and for any reason we find suitable. In such an event, we will endeavor to notify you via the email address linked to your account or upon your subsequent attempt to access your account.
We make the Free Services available without charge. To be able to continue to do so, we display third party advertisements and promotions on or in connection with the Service. Since the advertising we provide is based upon information provided by third parties, we will not be responsible or liable for any loss or damage of any sort incurred by you as a result of any advertisements. Your interactions with advertisers found on or through the Service, including, without limitation, all reliance upon advertising, all commercial transactions and legal obligations associated with such advertisements, are solely between you and the advertisers.
If you wish to find out more information about the practices of these third party advertisers and your choices about how your personal information may be used by them, please visit www.networkadvertising.org
You understand that we cannot and do not guarantee or warrant that files available for downloading from the internet or the Website will be free of viruses or other destructive code. You are responsible for implementing sufficient procedures and checkpoints to satisfy your particular requirements for anti-virus protection and accuracy of data input and output, and for maintaining a means external to the Website for any reconstruction of any lost data. We will not be liable for any loss or damage caused by a distributed denial-of-service attack, viruses or other technologically harmful material that may infect your computer equipment, device, device or computer programs, data or other proprietary material due to your use of the website or any services or items obtained through the website or to your downloading of any material posted on it, or on any website linked to it.
Your use of the website, its content and any services or items obtained through the website is at your own risk. The website, its content and any services or items obtained through the website are provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis, without any warranties of any kind, either express or implied. Neither VocaTales nor any person associated with VocaTales makes any warranty or representation with respect to the completeness, security, reliability, quality, accuracy or availability of the website. Without limiting the foregoing, neither VocaTales nor anyone associated with VocaTales represents or warrants that the website, its content or any services or items obtained through the website will be accurate, reliable, error-free or uninterrupted, that defects will be corrected, that our website or the server that makes it available are free of viruses or other harmful components or that the website or any services or items obtained through the website will otherwise meet your needs or expectations.
VocaTales hereby disclaims all warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, statutory or otherwise, including any warranties of merchantability, non-infringement and fitness for particular purpose.
The foregoing does not affect any warranties which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
In no event will VocaTales, our affiliates or our licensors, service providers, employees, agents, officers or directors be liable for damages of any kind, under any legal theory of liability arising out of or in connection with your use, or inability to use, the website, any websites linked to it, any content on the website or such other websites or any services or items obtained through the website or such other websites, including any direct, indirect, special, incidental, consequential, exemplary or punitive damages, including personal injury, pain and suffering, emotional distress, loss of revenue, loss of profits, loss of business or anticipated savings, loss of use, loss of goodwill, loss of data, and whether caused by tort (including negligence),breach of contract, warranty claim, strict liability or otherwise, even if foreseeable. That said, VocaTales’ total liability to you for losses, damages and causes of action related to your use of the website will not exceed the greater of (a) $100.00, or (b) the amount you paid to VocaTales in the one-month period immediately preceding the date on which your claim arose.
The foregoing does not affect any liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.
You agree to defend, indemnify and hold VocaTales, our affiliates, licensors and service providers, and its and their respective officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, licensors, suppliers, successors and assigns from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, judgments, awards, losses, costs, expenses or fees (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to your violation of these Terms of Use or your use of the Website, including your User Content, any use of the Website’s content, services and products other than as expressly authorized in these Terms of Use or your use of any information obtained from the Website.
All matters relating to the Website and these Terms of Use and any dispute or claim arising therefrom or related thereto (in each case, including non-contractual disputes or claims), shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the internal laws of the State of Illinois without giving effect to any choice or conflict of law provision or rule.
Any legal suit, action or proceeding arising out of, or related to, these Terms of Use or the Website shall be instituted exclusively in the federal courts of the United States or the courts of the State of Illinois although we retain the right to bring any suit, action or proceeding against you for breach of these Terms of Use in your country of residence or any other relevant country. You waive any and all objections to the exercise of jurisdiction over you by such courts and to venue in such courts.
Any cause of action or claim you may have arising out of or relating to these terms of use or the website must be commenced within one (1) year after the cause of action accrues, otherwise, such cause of action or claim is permanently barred.
You and VocaTales hereby waive to the fullest extent permitted by law any right to trial by jury in any action, suit or related proceeding brought to enforce, defend or interpret any rights or remedies arising under, relating to or in connection with these terms. Further, you agree that you may only resolve disputes in your individual capacity, and may not bring a claim as a plaintiff or as class member in a class, consolidated, or representative action. Class arbitrations, class actions, private attorney general actions, and consolidation with other actions are not permitted.
Modifications: From time to time, we may revise our Terms of Service. In the event of any material alterations, we will inform you either by notification on the Site or by dispatching an email. Please be aware that your sustained use of the Services following any amendment signifies your acceptance of, and agreement to be bound by, the updated Terms of Service. Should you disagree with any modifications in the Terms of Service and do not wish to be subject to the updated terms, you will need to terminate your account and/or discontinue using the Services.
Entire Agreement: These Terms of Service (inclusive of any document incorporated by reference) constitute the entire agreement between VocaTales and you pertaining to the Services. TheseTerms of Service supersede and replace any prior agreements that may have existed between VocaTales and you regarding the Services.
Non-Waiver and Severability: VocaTales' failure to exercise or enforce any specific right or provision under these Terms of Service does not imply a waiver of that right or provision. Should any provision of these Terms of Service be deemed invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary, while the remaining provisions of these Terms of Service will continue in full effect.
Assignment: These Terms of Service are personal to you. You are not permitted to assign, transfer, or sublicense them without obtaining prior written consent from VocaTales. Conversely, VocaTales reserves the right to assign, transfer, or delegate any of its rights and obligations under these Terms of Service without your consent or prior notice.
This Website is operated by VocaTales, Inc. All feedback, comments, requests for technical support and other communications relating to the Website should be directed to: support@vocatales.com.