Terms of Service

By creating a Story Book, contributing a memory, or viewing one, you are agreeing to these terms. If you are contributing on behalf of someone else, for example, sending in a memory at someone’s request, these terms still apply to you. You must be at least 16 years old to use The Story Book.

You can use The Story Book with a full account, sign-in by one-time email code, Google, or Apple, with no passwords, or as a guest contributor through a contribution link or by email, without creating an account at all. If you later sign in with the same email address, your guest contributions become part of your account.

A personal contribution link is issued to one named person by a Story Book’s Owner. Treat it as you would a key: anyone holding it can contribute in your name. An Owner can withdraw it at any time.

You keep ownership of what you contribute. By uploading or emailing in a photo, video or story, you confirm you have the right to share it, and you grant the Story Book’s organisers (its Owner and the other organisers they invite), and us so that we can run the service, a licence to store, copy and show it as part of that Story Book. That includes letting the people they choose see it, and download a copy where downloads are allowed; creating derived versions such as thumbnails, display copies and export packs; and using it in a printed book, a poster or another keepsake made from that Story Book. This is the Contributor Grant.

The Contributor Grant is not a transfer of ownership and is limited to that one Story Book. It does not permit anyone to sell what you contributed or make money from it in any other way, or to change it beyond what is reasonably needed to do the things above, such as resizing or cropping. It does not permit us to use your memories for advertising or to train any model, and no AI reads what you contributed unless the Story Book’s Owner has switched such a feature on and you have consented to it.

You can ask for something you contributed to be removed. While a Story Book is still accepting contributions you can change or remove your own memories yourself. When a memory is removed, the Contributor Grant ends for that Story Book, but it continues for copies already made under it, such as downloads, printed books and posters, which their owners may keep.

Adding memories for someone else. An organiser can add memories on another person’s behalf, for example photos a relative sent them. By doing so the organiser confirms that the person has agreed to share them, and grants the Contributor Grant on that person’s behalf. If that person later joins the Story Book, these terms apply to them directly.

Organisers. If you organise a Story Book, you agree to use what people contribute only as the Contributor Grant allows. In particular, you will not sell it or make money from it, and you will remove a memory when the person who contributed it, someone who appears in it, or the person who owns its copyright asks you to and has good reason.

Asking for something to be taken down. If you appear in a memory, or own a photo someone else shared, you can ask the Story Book’s organisers to remove it, or write to privacy@thestorybook.io and we will help, including removing it ourselves where the law or these terms require.

The Story Book is built for genuine, personal memories. You agree not to upload content you do not have the right to share, content that infringes someone else’s rights, or anything unlawful, and not to use the service to harass or harm another person. You agree not to attempt to gain access to a Story Book you were not invited to, or to interfere with the service or the people using it.

Each Story Book has a storage allowance and a limit on the size of any single file. We will tell you what those limits are before you reach them, and an Owner can ask us to raise them. The Story Book is currently free to use while we are working with our first Story Books; if we introduce paid plans, existing Story Books will be told well in advance and never have their memories held hostage to a payment.

The Owner of a Story Book can delete it at any time. Deletion is genuine and permanent, with a 30-day grace window in case it was a mistake. See our Privacy Policy for the full detail. We may suspend access to a Story Book used in a way that breaks these terms. If we ever discontinue The Story Book, we will give Owners reasonable notice and a way to export everything before anything is removed.

We take the safekeeping of your memories seriously, and we build accordingly, but no service can promise to be perfect or permanently available. The Story Book is provided as it is, without warranties beyond those that cannot lawfully be excluded. To the extent the law allows, our liability to you is limited to the amount you have paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

Nothing in these terms limits your rights under the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act 1993 where it applies to you.

Because your memories matter more than any clause here can express, we strongly encourage every Story Book Owner to keep their own copy of what has been contributed. An export is available for exactly that purpose.

These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand, and the New Zealand courts have non-exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, regardless of where you or your Story Book’s contributors are located.

If we make a material change to these terms, we will tell Story Book Owners before it takes effect. The date at the top of this page always shows when it last changed.

Questions about these terms can be sent to hello@thestorybook.io.