Terms and Conditions.

Shared Slate Ltd | Effective Date: 5 February 2026 | Status: Beta Release

1. Agreement and Account Responsibilities

1.1 Agreement to Terms: By accessing ReadWithMe, you confirm you are at least 18 years of age and have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement. These terms constitute a legally binding agreement between you and Shared Slate Ltd. If you are using the service on behalf of a household, you represent that you have the authority to bind that household to these terms.

1.2 Account Types and Responsibilities:

  • Adult Accounts: You are the "Account Owner." You are responsible for all data accuracy and all activity occurring under your account, including actions taken by child profiles you create.

  • Child Profiles: These are sub-accounts with zero independent legal standing. You must have legal guardianship over any child for whom you create a profile. You are responsible for monitoring their use and setting appropriate parental controls within the app.

1.3 Verification: To comply with safety regulations, adult status must be verified via our payment processing partner before a child profile can be activated.

1.3.1 Verifiable Parental Consent: By completing the Stripe verification process, you provide express Verifiable Parental Consent (VPC) for Shared Slate Ltd to process the limited personal data of the child profiles you create, as outlined in our Privacy Policy. This consent may be revoked at any time by deleting the child profile.

2. Subscription, Payment, and Beta Policy

2.1 Processing: Payments are handled exclusively via our payment processing partner. Shared Slate Ltd does not store or see your full credit card details.

2.2 Beta Pricing: During our Beta phase, we reserve the right to offer free access or modified pricing. Any transition to paid tiers will require your explicit opt-in.

2.3 Cancellation: You may cancel at any time via your account settings. Access continues until the end of the current billing cycle.

2.4 Refund Policy: Refunds are generally granted within 14 days of the initial transaction if the service has been inaccessible due to technical failure on our end. Requests must be sent to support@sharedslate.com.

2.5 Beta Disclaimer: ReadWithMe is currently in Beta. You acknowledge that features may be experimental and the service is provided "as is." Shared Slate Ltd is not liable for loss of reading progress or achievements during the Beta phase.

3. Intellectual Property and Technology

3.1 Proprietary Technology: The Text-to-Speech (TTS) engine, voice-synthesis models, and reading difficulty assessment algorithms are proprietary technology developed and owned exclusively by Shared Slate Ltd. We do not license this tech from third-party AI providers.

3.2 SharedSlate Originals: All original stories and illustrations labeled as "SharedSlate Originals" are authored and owned by Shared Slate Ltd.

3.3 Publisher & Author Licensing: Third-party books are displayed under digital distribution agreements. Licenses are for a minimum of 12 months, auto-renewing unless terminated with 90 days' notice. Rightsholders have the right to request an annual summary of engagement metrics to verify royalty accuracy.

3.4 Digital Rights Management (DRM): We utilize proprietary digital access controls to prevent unauthorized downloading, copying, or printing of licensed content.

3.5 User-Generated Content (UGC): Users retain ownership of content they upload (e.g., family photos). By uploading, you grant us a royalty-free, sub-licensable license to host and display this content solely to facilitate your use of the Service.

3.6 Trademarks: the reading app logo is a trademark of Shared Slate Ltd.

3.7 Open Source: Our platform utilizes open-source components (e.g., WebRTC). A full "Credits" manifest is accessible at sharedslate.com/credits.

4. Acceptable Use and Safety

4.1 Strict Prohibitions: You shall not:

  • Share login credentials outside the immediate household.

  • Attempt to decompile, reverse-engineer, or extract the underlying models of the TTS engine.

  • Use the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) video system to transmit unsolicited, offensive, or illegal content.

  • Use automated bots to scrape book content or metadata.
    4.2 Video Features: Video calling is restricted to "Mutual Approval" contacts. You acknowledge that Shared Slate Ltd does not monitor live video/audio and you assume all risk for the interaction.
    4.3 Sanctions: We reserve the right to revoke access for any user found to be intentionally stressing the system or violating safety protocols.

5. Liability, Disclaimers, and Termination

5.1 Disclaimers: ReadWithMe is a supplementary educational tool. We make no guarantees regarding specific literacy outcomes.

5.2 Limitation of Liability: To the maximum extent permitted by law, Shared Slate Ltd’s liability is limited to the amount paid by you for the service in the 12 months prior to the claim. We are not liable for issues arising from your P2P video connections.

5.3 Force Majeure: We are not liable for failures caused by events outside our control (e.g., global cloud outages).

5.4 Termination: You may delete your account at any time. Data will be anonymized or deleted within 30 days. We may terminate access immediately for breaches of Acceptable Use or Safety.

5.5 Dispute Resolution: You agree to contact support@sharedslate.com first. Formal disputes shall be governed by the laws of England and Wales and settled in the courts of London.

6. General Provisions

6.1 Severability: If one part of these terms is found invalid, the rest remains in effect.

6.2 Notices: Official notices will be sent to your registered email via our transactional email service.

6.3 Changes: We may update these terms with 30 days' notice for material changes.

Schedule A: Infrastructure Partners

Cloud Hosting - Fly.io - UK (London)

Identity & Auth - Auth0 - UK / EU

Payment & VPC - Stripe - Global

Email Delivery - Resend - Global