Terms of Service

1. Who we are

ChapterMuse is a trading name of Paul Morris, a sole trader based in the United Kingdom (referred to in these terms as “ChapterMuse”, “we”, “us”, or “our”). References to “you” and “your” mean the person or entity using the service.

2. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to create a ChapterMuse account. If you are accessing the service on behalf of an organisation, you confirm that you have authority to bind that organisation to these terms.

3. Your account

You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure and for any activity that happens under your account. Tell us immediately at support@chaptermuse.com if you believe your account has been accessed without your permission.

You may close your account at any time from the account settings. We may suspend or close an account that breaches these terms, after reasonable notice except where immediate action is necessary (e.g. to prevent harm or comply with law).

4. Your content

Everything you write inside ChapterMuse — manuscripts, characters, plot notes, comments, and any other material you create — remains your intellectual property. We do not claim ownership of your writing, and we do not train AI models on it.

You grant ChapterMuse a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, back up, render, format, transmit, and display your content only to the extent strictly necessary to operate the service for you. This licence ends when you delete the content or close your account, except to the limited extent that residual copies persist in routine encrypted backups for a short period before being overwritten.

Content you choose to share publicly (e.g. by posting in the Writers' Corner community, requesting feedback, or sharing a chapter) is published under the visibility you select at the time. You can change that visibility or take the content down at any time, subject to the practical limit that other users may have already seen or quoted it.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to use ChapterMuse to:

• break the law of any jurisdiction that applies to you or to us;
• post content that infringes someone else's copyright, trademark, or other intellectual property rights;
• harass, threaten, dox, or impersonate another person;
• publish material that is unlawful, defamatory, or sexually exploitative of minors;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to other accounts, scrape user content at scale, or interfere with the integrity of the service (e.g. by probing for vulnerabilities outside a coordinated disclosure programme);
• use the service to operate a competing platform, train machine-learning models on another user's content, or resell access without our written agreement.

6. Community spaces

The Writers' Corner is a moderated community. Posts and replies are subject to our community guidelines, which form part of these terms. Moderators may remove content, restrict accounts, or refer serious incidents to the relevant authorities.

7. Our intellectual property

ChapterMuse's software, design, branding, and documentation are owned by Paul Morris (trading as ChapterMuse) or licensed to us. You may not copy, modify, or redistribute the platform or its assets except as expressly permitted by these terms or by separate written agreement.

8. Subscriptions and payment

Some features may require a paid subscription. Where they do, pricing, billing cadence, and renewal behaviour are described at the point of purchase. You can cancel a recurring subscription at any time from your account settings; cancellation stops future renewals but does not refund the current billing period unless required by law (notably the UK and EU 14-day distance-selling cooling-off period for first purchases).

9. Service availability

We work hard to keep ChapterMuse available and responsive, but we cannot guarantee uninterrupted access. The service is provided on an “as is” basis. We do not warrant that it will be error-free or that any defects will be corrected.

10. Liability

Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited — including death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Subject to that, ChapterMuse's total liability to you for any claim arising out of or in connection with these terms or the service is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us for the service in the twelve months before the claim arose, or (b) £100.

We are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of business opportunity, or loss of data — provided that we have taken reasonable steps to maintain backups in accordance with our security obligations.

11. Indemnity

You agree to indemnify ChapterMuse against any third-party claim arising from your content or your breach of these terms, provided we tell you about the claim promptly and let you control the defence (with you bearing reasonable costs).

12. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. For material changes we will notify you in the product or by email at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Continued use of the service after that date constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. The courts of England and Wales have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or in connection with them, except that consumers may also bring proceedings in their place of habitual residence.

14. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email legal@chaptermuse.com or use the contact page.