Terms of Service

1. Acceptance

By accessing or using Parch, including our mobile applications, web application, websites, and related services (collectively, the "Service"), you agree to these Terms. The Service is operated by Parch Tech LLC ("Parch," "we," "us," or "our"). If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. Eligibility

The Service is not intended for children under 13. By using the Service, you represent that you are at least 13 years old. If you are under 18, you represent that you have your parent or guardian's permission to use the Service. You may use the Service only if you can form a binding agreement with us and are not barred from using the Service under applicable law.

3. Accounts and security

You must provide accurate account information and keep it current. You are responsible for safeguarding your login credentials and for all activity under your account. You must notify us promptly if you believe your account has been compromised. We are not responsible for losses caused by unauthorized use of your account unless required by applicable law.

4. Subscriptions, purchases, and billing

Paid subscriptions are purchased and billed through the Apple App Store or Google Play and may be processed by our subscription management provider (such as RevenueCat). If we offer subscriptions through additional channels in the future, the purchase flow or applicable terms may describe those channel-specific terms. Subscriptions renew automatically unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the current period or as otherwise required by the applicable platform. You are responsible for cancelling through your device, app store, or platform subscription settings. Deleting your Parch account or uninstalling the app does not automatically cancel a paid subscription. Refunds are handled by the applicable platform or payment provider according to its policies. We may change prices, plans, features, renewal terms, trial availability, or subscription terms with reasonable notice where required. Free and paid tiers may differ by feature access, usage limits (including limits on AI-assisted features, voice notes, OCR or text scans, custom book or collection covers, and similar capabilities), advanced tools, cloud sync, backup, or other capabilities. We may set, enforce, or change usage limits or quotas for the Service or specific features, including to prevent abuse or manage costs; we will give reasonable notice where practical for material changes affecting paid subscribers.

5. Your content and responsibilities

You are responsible for all content and data you submit, import, upload, scan, store, create, restore, export, share, or generate through the Service, including books in your library, notes, quotes, ratings, reviews, collections, tags, goals, reading sessions and related metadata, voice note transcriptions, OCR-scanned text, custom book or collection cover images you upload, images or videos used for share cards, files you import (such as Goodreads CSV exports), Reading Coach or similar plan data, and backup files ("Your Content"). You retain any rights you have in Your Content. You represent and warrant that you have all rights, permissions, consents, and lawful bases necessary to provide and use Your Content with the Service. This includes responsibility for text, images, book excerpts, cover art, or other material you scan, copy, import, or store from third-party sources, and that Your Content does not violate law or third-party rights. You are also responsible for the accuracy, quality, legality, and backup of Your Content. Do not upload cover images or other content that depict unlawful material, others' personal information without permission, or material you are not entitled to use.

6. License to Your Content

You grant Parch a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, process, encrypt or decrypt (as part of providing the Service), display, transmit, modify, adapt, resize, and otherwise use Your Content solely as reasonably necessary to provide, operate, maintain, secure, troubleshoot, support, and improve the Service; enforce these Terms; comply with law; and provide features you request, such as sync, backup, import/export, OCR, voice notes, reading insights, share-card generation, custom cover storage, Reading Coach features, guest-to-account data merge, and subscription entitlement management. This license continues for as long as necessary to provide the Service and for any retention periods described in our Privacy Policy, unless applicable law requires otherwise. We do not claim ownership of Your Content.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to: use the Service for unlawful, harmful, fraudulent, deceptive, abusive, harassing, defamatory, obscene, or infringing activity; upload or store content you do not have the right to use; violate intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other rights; use automated means (including bots, scripts, scrapers, crawlers, or data-mining tools) to access the Service or extract data without our permission; circumvent usage limits, paywalls, access controls, rate limits, or security measures; interfere with or disrupt the Service or other users' access; probe, scan, or test vulnerabilities except as authorized by us; introduce malware or harmful code; reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive source code except where such restriction is prohibited by law; resell, sublicense, lease, or commercially exploit access to the Service without our permission; share account credentials; misrepresent your identity or affiliation; use the Service to train, benchmark, or develop competing products except as permitted by law or with our written permission; or use custom cover URLs or other Service outputs to distribute unlawful or infringing material.

Copyright complaints (DMCA). We respect intellectual property rights and respond to notices of alleged infringement under the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512). If you believe content available through the Service (such as a custom cover image) infringes your copyright, send a written notice to our designated agent that includes: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed; (c) identification of the material you claim is infringing, with enough information for us to locate it (such as the URL); (d) your name, address, telephone number, and email address; (e) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; and (f) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf.

Designated agent: Copyright Agent, Parch Tech LLC, 130 Boon Street Apt A, Narragansett, RI 02882, USA. Email: admin@readparch.com (subject line: "DMCA Notice").

If we remove material in response to a notice, we will take reasonable steps to notify the user who provided it. That user may send a counter-notice to our designated agent that includes: their physical or electronic signature; identification of the material removed and where it appeared; a statement under penalty of perjury that they have a good-faith belief the material was removed by mistake or misidentification; and their name, address, and telephone number, with consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for their address (or, if outside the United States, any judicial district in which Parch may be found) and agreement to accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice. We may restore the material in 10 to 14 business days unless the complaining party notifies us that it has filed a court action. In appropriate circumstances, we will terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. Knowingly misrepresenting that material is infringing, or was removed by mistake, may expose you to liability for damages.

8. Third-party services, book data, and automated features

The Service relies on third-party services, including providers for hosting, authentication, cloud file storage, subscription management, error monitoring, email delivery, book metadata, barcode or ISBN lookup, optical character recognition, speech recognition, and related text or image processing (which may include AI or machine-learning services operated by third parties). Those services are subject to their own terms and policies, and we are not responsible for third-party services or content. Book metadata, catalog cover images, search results, recommendations, OCR results, voice transcriptions, reading insights, and other automated or AI-assisted outputs may be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, unavailable, or unsuitable for your intended use. We do not use Your Content to train machine learning models we operate; however, content you submit to optional features (such as cloud OCR) may be processed by third-party providers under their policies. You are responsible for reviewing and deciding how to use any extracted, suggested, imported, or generated output. Imports from third-party platforms (such as Goodreads) are initiated by you; we are not affiliated with those platforms and do not control their terms or data practices.

9. Reading tools and informational features

Parch is a reading tracker and productivity tool. Reading goals, streaks, achievements, insights, recommendations, summaries, Reading Coach plans, reminders, notifications, and similar features are provided for informational and motivational purposes only. They are not professional, medical, educational, or legal advice. We do not guarantee that the Service will improve reading outcomes, preserve streaks, meet personal goals, deliver notifications at a particular time, or produce any specific result.

10. Privacy, sync, and account deletion

Our Privacy Policy explains how we collect, use, share, retain, and delete information. If you use the Service without an account and later sign in, data stored on your device may be merged into your account as described in the Privacy Policy. You are responsible for reviewing merged data for accuracy. Notes and related fields may be encrypted on your device before backup; encrypted content from a prior sign-in, account reset, or different device may not be recoverable, as described in the Privacy Policy. You may delete your account through the App or via our account deletion page, as described in the Privacy Policy. Account deletion may remove access to synced data and account features, but it does not automatically cancel billing handled by Apple, Google, or another platform. Some information may be retained where permitted or required by law, platform rules, backup practices, fraud prevention, dispute resolution, tax, accounting, security, or legitimate business needs, as described in the Privacy Policy.

11. Parch intellectual property

The Service, including its software, designs, interfaces, templates, graphics, branding, trademarks, logos, text, features, workflows, and other content other than Your Content, is owned by Parch or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property and other laws. Except for the limited right to use the Service under these Terms, we do not grant you any rights in the Service or our intellectual property. You may not remove, alter, or obscure proprietary notices in the Service.

12. Feedback

If you submit ideas, suggestions, bug reports, feature requests, or other feedback, you grant us a perpetual, worldwide, irrevocable, royalty-free right to use, disclose, reproduce, modify, license, distribute, and otherwise exploit that feedback without restriction or compensation to you.

13. Service availability and changes

We do not guarantee that the Service or any feature will be available, uninterrupted, secure, or error-free. Sync, backup, import, export, and merge operations may fail, delay, conflict, or result in partial data loss due to connectivity, device storage limits, software defects, or third-party outages. We may modify, limit, suspend, discontinue, or remove any feature or the Service at any time, including for maintenance, security, legal, business, or operational reasons. We are not liable for any unavailability, modification, suspension, discontinuation, loss of data, or loss of access, except where applicable law requires otherwise. You should maintain your own backups of important reading data where practical.

14. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Service, remove content, or take other appropriate action at any time, with or without notice, if we believe you have violated these Terms, created risk or possible legal exposure for us or others, used the Service abusively, or if required for security, legal, or operational reasons. You may stop using the Service at any time. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination, including Sections 5, 6, 10, 11, 12, 15, 16, 17, 18, 21, and 22, survive termination.

15. Indemnification

To the maximum extent permitted by law, you agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Parch Tech LLC and its officers, directors, employees, contractors, agents, affiliates, successors, and assigns from and against any claims, demands, damages, losses, liabilities, judgments, settlements, penalties, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising out of or relating to your use of the Service, Your Content, your violation of these Terms, your violation of law, your infringement or misappropriation of rights, or your dispute with any third party.

16. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PARCH AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AGENTS, AFFILIATES, LICENSORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, QUIET ENJOYMENT, ACCURACY, AVAILABILITY, RELIABILITY, SECURITY, AND COURSE OF DEALING. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE, THIRD-PARTY SERVICES, BOOK DATA, AUTOMATED OR AI-ASSISTED OUTPUTS, OCR, TRANSCRIPTIONS, SYNC, BACKUP, MERGE, ENCRYPTED NOTES, CUSTOM COVERS, EXPORTS, OR ANY CONTENT WILL BE ACCURATE, COMPLETE, SECURE, AVAILABLE, ERROR-FREE, RECOVERABLE AFTER ACCOUNT OR DEVICE CHANGES, OR FREE FROM LOSS OR CORRUPTION.

17. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PARCH AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AGENTS, AFFILIATES, LICENSORS, AND SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, PUNITIVE, OR ENHANCED DAMAGES; LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, BUSINESS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA, OR CONTENT; COST OF SUBSTITUTE SERVICES; OR DAMAGES ARISING FROM INTERRUPTION, DELAY, SECURITY INCIDENTS, THIRD-PARTY SERVICES, AUTOMATED OR AI-ASSISTED OUTPUTS, SYNC OR BACKUP FAILURES, ENCRYPTION OR DECRYPTION ISSUES, OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM OR (B) $100 USD. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law (including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence where such limitation is prohibited). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

18. Governing law; disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Rhode Island, U.S.A., without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before filing a claim, you agree to contact us at admin@readparch.com and allow at least 30 days for us to try to resolve the dispute informally. If we cannot resolve the dispute informally, disputes shall be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Rhode Island, and you consent to personal jurisdiction there, except where applicable law requires otherwise (for example, where you qualify as a consumer entitled to sue in your home jurisdiction). Nothing in these Terms limits any non-waivable rights you may have under the consumer protection laws of your country or region of residence.

19. Changes

We may modify these Terms at any time. The "Last updated" date above reflects the current version. We will provide reasonable notice for material changes where required or practical, such as through the Service or by email. Continued use after the effective date of revised Terms constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

20. Contact

Privacy and legal: admin@readparch.com. Billing and product support: support@readparch.com. Address: Parch Tech LLC, 130 Boon Street Apt A, Narragansett, RI 02882. Privacy Policy.

21. App store terms

If you download or purchase the Service through Apple, Google, or another app store or distribution platform, that platform's terms may also apply, including payment, cancellation, refund, and account rules.

Apple App Store (iOS). If you access the Service on iOS through the Apple App Store, you acknowledge that these Terms are between you and Parch Tech LLC only, not Apple Inc. Apple is not responsible for the Service or its content. Apple has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for the Service. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Apple will have no warranty obligation with respect to the Service. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms solely as they apply to your use of the iOS version of the Service, and Apple may enforce these Terms against you as such beneficiary.

Google Play (Android). If you obtained the Service on Android through Google Play, you acknowledge that Google LLC is not responsible for the Service or its content, has no obligation to provide maintenance or support, and is not liable for claims relating to the Service. Google and its affiliates are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms solely as they apply to your use of the Android version obtained through Google Play, and Google may enforce these Terms against you as such beneficiary.

You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo or designated as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

22. General

These Terms constitute the entire agreement between you and Parch regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements about the Service. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect, and the unenforceable provision will be modified to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable. Our failure to enforce any right or provision does not waive that right or provision. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent; we may assign or transfer these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition, financing, reorganization, sale of assets, corporate transaction, or by operation of law. We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control.