Terms of Service

1. Your Content, Your Rights

You retain full ownership of every manuscript, chapter, note, and piece of writing you upload to BetaShelf. We do not claim any intellectual property rights over your content. By uploading, you grant us only the limited license necessary to operate the service — storing, displaying, and transmitting your work back to you and to beta readers you explicitly invite.

When you delete your manuscripts, they are removed from our active systems. You may export or delete your content at any time.

2. Analysis Tools (“As-Is”)

BetaShelf offers advanced writing analysis tools on its paid plans. These tools are provided “as-is” without warranty of accuracy. Automated analysis is meant to supplement — not replace — human editorial judgment.

Tool outputs may contain errors, miss context, or produce unexpected results. You should always review automated feedback critically before making changes to your manuscript. We do not guarantee that tool suggestions will improve your writing or be factually correct.

3. Acceptable Use

You agree not to use BetaShelf to:

• Upload content that infringes on the intellectual property rights of others
• Distribute malware, spam, or harmful content
• Harass, threaten, or abuse other users, including beta readers and authors
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or exploit the platform or its analysis features
• Create multiple accounts to circumvent plan limits
• Use the analysis tools to generate content that violates applicable laws

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

4. Copyright & DMCA

BetaShelf respects the intellectual property rights of all authors. By accessing a shared manuscript on BetaShelf, beta readers agree that:

• The manuscript is the exclusive intellectual property of its author
• They will not copy, reproduce, distribute, or share the manuscript or any portion of it
• They will not use the manuscript or its ideas for their own commercial purposes
• Access is granted solely for the purpose of providing feedback to the author

If you believe your copyrighted work has been used on BetaShelf without your permission, please contact us through our contact page with a description of the copyrighted work and the location on BetaShelf where it appears. We will investigate and take appropriate action, including removal of infringing content.

5. Subscriptions & Billing

BetaShelf offers a free tier and paid subscriptions (Single and Unlimited). Paid subscriptions are billed annually through Stripe. You may cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period. We do not offer partial refunds for unused time.

We reserve the right to change pricing with 30 days' notice. Existing subscribers will be notified via email before any price change takes effect.

6. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, BetaShelf and its creators shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the service. This includes, but is not limited to, loss of data, loss of profits, or damages resulting from reliance on automated analysis output.

Our total liability for any claim arising from your use of BetaShelf is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or $100, whichever is greater.

7. Changes to These Terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you via email or a prominent notice on the platform. Continued use of BetaShelf after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.