Terms of Service

Effective October 4, 2026

These terms are an agreement between you and CivicEar, operated by Andrew Cook in Maine (“CivicEar,” “we” or “us”). By creating an account or using civicear.com or the CivicEar service, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you use CivicEar for an organization, you agree on its behalf and confirm you have authority to do so.

Who can use CivicEar

You must be at least 18 years old and able to enter a binding contract. You are responsible for keeping your login private, for all activity under your account, and for telling us promptly at contact@civicear.com if you think someone else has used it. Accounts are for one person; do not share your login.

The service

CivicEar turns recordings of public meetings into transcripts and timestamped reports. We may add, change or remove features, and some features may be marked as early or experimental. We try to keep CivicEar available and working well, but we do not promise it will be uninterrupted or error-free.

Acceptable use

Use CivicEar only for lawful purposes and only with public recordings you are allowed to access. Do not:

• submit material you have no right to use, or try to get around paywalls, logins or other access controls;
• use CivicEar to harass, stalk, threaten or target private individuals, or to break any law;
• try to access other users’ accounts or data, test or bypass our security, or disrupt or overload the service;
• copy, scrape, reverse engineer or resell the service, or use it to build a competing product, without our written permission.

We may suspend or close accounts that break these rules.

AI-generated reports

Reports are produced by AI and can contain mistakes, omissions, transcription errors or approximate timestamps, even after CivicEar’s automatic checks. Each report links to the moments in the recording it is based on; verify anything important against the recording before you rely on it or share it. CivicEar is an information tool, not legal, financial or professional advice, and you are responsible for decisions you make using it.

Your content

You keep whatever rights you have in the links, presets, instructions and other material you provide, and in your reports. You give us permission to store, process and copy that material, and to send it to the service providers described in our Privacy Policy, only as needed to run, secure and improve CivicEar for you. Public recordings and their contents remain subject to the rights and terms of their owners.

Our property

CivicEar’s software, design, name and logo belong to us. These terms give you a personal, non-transferable right to use the service while your account is in good standing; they do not transfer any ownership.

Fees and payment

CivicEar may offer paid plans. Prices and what each plan includes are shown before you buy, and payments are processed by Stripe. Subscriptions renew automatically for the same period until you cancel. You can cancel at any time and keep access until the end of the period you paid for. Except where the law requires otherwise or we say so at purchase, payments are non-refundable. We will give you advance notice of any price change, and it will apply from your next billing period.

Third-party services

CivicEar works with recordings and services run by others, such as YouTube and government websites. We are not responsible for their content, availability or terms.

Ending your use

You may stop using CivicEar at any time and ask us to delete your account. We may suspend or end your access if you break these terms, if required by law, or if we stop offering the service; when we can, we will give notice and a chance to download your reports first.

Disclaimers

CivicEar is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy and non-infringement.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, CivicEar will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, data or business opportunities, arising from your use of the service. Our total liability for any claim relating to CivicEar is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim or $50. Some places do not allow these limits, so they may not fully apply to you.

Indemnity

You agree to cover CivicEar’s reasonable costs, including legal fees, from claims by others that arise from your misuse of the service or your breach of these terms.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Maine, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute will be decided in the state or federal courts located in Maine, and you and CivicEar agree to their jurisdiction.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. We will post the new version here with its effective date and tell account holders about significant changes by email or in the app. Continuing to use CivicEar after a change takes effect means you accept the updated terms.

Contact

Questions about these terms: contact@civicear.com.