Terms of Service

1. The service

1.1 What CUA does

CUA (Copyright Evidence Infrastructure), operated by Her Own Sky LLC, creates verifiable evidence that a work existed in a particular form at a particular time. Specifically it:

• generates an acoustic fingerprint and a SHA-256 hash of a submitted recording;
• records a timestamp and issues a certificate;
• where enabled, anchors the record to the Polygon public blockchain;
• publishes a verification page anyone can check without an account;
• on request, searches YouTube for possible unauthorised uploads of a registered work;
• can generate DMCA notices for a rights holder to review and send.

1.2 What CUA does not do

We do not adjudicate ownership. A registration records what was submitted and when; it is not a finding that the submitter owns the work.

2. Access and eligibility

CUA has no user accounts. There is no sign-up, login or password. Access takes one of three forms:

• Through a platform. Most people reach CUA because a platform they use has integrated it. Their terms govern your relationship with them.
• By API key. Keys are issued to an organisation, not an individual, after a request through our access form.
• Verification. Anyone can verify a registration. No key, no account, no charge.

To hold an API key you must be at least 18, able to enter a binding contract, and not barred from using the service under applicable law. You are responsible for keeping your key confidential and for everything done with it.

3. Your obligations

3.1 You must

• own, or have the rights to register, everything you submit;
• give accurate information, including where a URL is supplied for us to fetch;
• use the service lawfully and respect others' rights.

3.2 You must not

• register work you have no rights to, or create misleading registrations;
• use CUA to make fraudulent copyright claims;
• point our URL ingestion at systems you do not control or are not authorised to share;
• attempt to bypass rate limits, probe, or overload the service;
• reverse engineer or resell the service without written permission.

3.3 Your content, and the licence you give us

You keep every ownership right in what you submit. You grant us only the narrow licence needed to do the job: to process the recording in order to produce a fingerprint and a hash, to store and publish the resulting evidence record, to issue and distribute certificates, and to display registration information on verification pages.

The recording itself is deleted as soon as it has been fingerprinted. We do not keep a library of your audio, we do not licence it to anyone, and we do not use it to train models.

4. Intellectual property

4.1 Ours

CUA's name, marks, design, code and documentation belong to Her Own Sky LLC. Using the service grants you no rights in them.

4.2 Yours

Certificates are issued to you. Share, file and rely on them as you see fit.

4.3 The blockchain record

Where anchoring is enabled, the record written to the Polygon blockchain includes the registration identifier, title, artist name, artist identifier, album if given, the original registration date, both hashes, and the issuer. It is published on a public ledger and cannot be deleted by us or by anyone. Enabling anchoring is your decision and your consent to that permanence. Section 3 of the Privacy Policy sets this out in full.

5. Fees

Artists registering through an integrated platform such as Q the Music pay nothing; the platform carries the cost. Platform and API pricing is published at cua.herownsky.com and confirmed in writing when a key is issued.

Quoted prices exclude any tax, duty or withholding, which is your responsibility where it applies.

6. Availability and limits

6.1 Availability

We work to keep CUA available and will tell API customers about planned maintenance where we reasonably can. We do not offer a service level agreement and do not guarantee uptime. The service may be unavailable for maintenance, for faults beyond our control, or during a security incident. If you need a contractual availability commitment, ask us before integrating.

6.2 Limits

• Registration volume is set by your plan.
• Uploads are capped at 100MB per file, whether uploaded directly or fetched from a URL.
• Public forms are rate limited per sender.
• Monitoring searches draw on a shared daily allowance from a third-party API, and a work is not searched again within a cooldown period. Monitoring is best effort and is not guaranteed to find any given upload.

Sustained excessive use may be throttled or suspended, and we will try to reach you before doing so.

6.3 Changes to the service

We may change features, and may discontinue the service. If we discontinue it we will give at least 90 days' notice to API customers, and certificates and blockchain records already issued remain valid and verifiable.

7. Limitation of liability

7.1 Provided as is

CUA is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy and reliability.

7.2 Limitation of damages

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Her Own Sky LLC and its officers, directors, employees and agents are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages; for lost profits, revenue, data or business opportunities; for service interruption or data loss; or for legal costs arising from a copyright dispute. Our total liability for any claim will not exceed the fees you paid us in the twelve months before it arose.

7.3 What you acknowledge

• A CUA certificate is supplemental evidence, not conclusive proof of ownership.
• Enforcing copyright takes further legal steps that are yours to take.
• We are not liable for the outcome of a DMCA notice or any legal proceeding.
• Blockchain records are permanent and cannot be deleted.
• Monitoring may miss infringing uploads, and may surface results that are not infringing.

8. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Her Own Sky LLC from claims, damages, losses and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising from your use of the service, your breach of these Terms, your infringement of anyone's rights, false or fraudulent registrations you make, and the content you submit.

9. DMCA and copyright policy

We respond to properly made notices of claimed infringement and terminate the access of repeat infringers.

9.1 Sending a notice

A notice must include all of the following:

• a physical or electronic signature of the owner or their authorised agent;
• identification of the work claimed to be infringed;
• identification of the material claimed to be infringing, with enough detail for us to locate it;
• your contact details;
• a statement that you believe in good faith the use is not authorised;
• a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and you are authorised to act.

9.2 Designated agent

Knowingly making a material misrepresentation in a notice or counter-notice may make you liable for damages under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

10. Termination

10.1 By you

Stop using the service at any time. If you hold an API key, tell us and we will revoke it. You can ask us to delete your registrations; see section 7 of the Privacy Policy for what that can and cannot reach.

10.2 By us

We may suspend or revoke access immediately if you breach these Terms, act fraudulently, abuse or endanger the service, or where the law requires it.

10.3 Effect

• API keys stop working.
• Certificates already issued remain valid.
• Blockchain records remain, permanently.
• Fees already invoiced remain payable and are not refunded for a partial period.

11. Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Minnesota, USA, without regard to its conflict of law principles. You agree to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Ramsey County, Minnesota.

Before filing suit, both of us will try in good faith to resolve the dispute by negotiation, then mediation, and then binding arbitration if we both agree to it. You agree to bring disputes individually and not as part of a class, consolidated or representative proceeding.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms. The date at the top shows when they last changed, and continuing to use the service after a change accepts it. For a material change — to pricing, liability or dispute resolution — we will give API customers at least 30 days' notice using the contact details we hold for them, rather than relying on you noticing a new date.

13. General

If any provision is found unenforceable, the rest stands and that provision is applied as closely as the law allows to its original intent. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement between us about the service, replacing any earlier understanding. A delay in enforcing a right is not a waiver of it.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms go through the contact form, or in writing: