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Terms of Service

Last updated: 11 August 2026 Version: 1.2

These Terms govern your use of the Novaku Captions service at novaku.app (the "Service"), operated by Yinchao Chen, Bansinerstraße 29, 12619 Berlin, Germany ("we", "us"). By creating an account, redeeming a code, or purchasing access, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.


1. What the Service does

The Service accepts a video file you upload, produces a time-aligned transcript of its speech, lets you edit that transcript and choose visual styles, and renders a new video file with captions burned into the picture.

The optional reference-style feature accepts a supported public social-video link or a reference clip you upload, analyzes no more than the first 30 seconds without audio, and applies the closest style that our renderer can reproduce. It does not promise an exact copy, and private, expired, region-limited, or technically restricted links may not be accessible.

The Service is provided as is. Automatic speech recognition is probabilistic and will contain errors, particularly with accents, overlapping speakers, background noise, proper nouns, and technical vocabulary. You are responsible for reviewing and correcting the transcript before export. We do not warrant that any transcript is accurate, complete, or fit for any particular purpose.

2. Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of digital consent in your country if higher, and legally capable of entering into a contract. You are responsible for the accuracy of your account details, for keeping your credentials confidential, and for all activity conducted through your account.

We may suspend or terminate an account that we reasonably believe is being used in breach of these Terms, is being shared beyond a single natural person, or is being used to circumvent usage limits or pricing.

3. Your content

You keep ownership of everything you upload. You grant us a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, transcode, transcribe, render, and transmit your files solely to provide the Service to you, and to retain them for the periods described in the Privacy Policy. This licence ends when the files are deleted.

We do not use your uploads, transcripts, or exported videos to train machine learning models, and we do not sell them, license them to third parties for their own purposes, or make them publicly available.

You warrant that you hold all rights necessary to upload each file and to have it processed by the Service, including any rights in the recorded speech, performances, music, and likenesses it contains, and that processing it will not infringe the rights of any third party or breach any law.

The same warranty applies to every external reference-video link you submit. The fact that a video is publicly viewable does not by itself grant permission to copy or process it.

You must not upload material that is unlawful, that depicts child sexual abuse, that incites violence or hatred, that infringes intellectual property or privacy rights, or that you are otherwise not entitled to process.

4. Purchases, credits and passes

The seller is Yinchao Chen. Card payments are processed on a hosted checkout page operated by Stripe Payments Europe, Limited ("Stripe"). Stripe is our payment processor, not the seller. We do not receive or store your card number. We use Stripe Tax to calculate applicable tax from the billing information you provide, while we remain responsible for tax registration, collection and filing. Stripe emails the receipt to the address associated with your Novaku account.

Two products are offered:

ProductPriceWhat it grants
7-day pass€4.99Up to 20 successful exports, 100 processed minutes and 10 reference analyses during 7 consecutive days.

Every new account receives one free export credit. It is granted once per account, has no cash value, is not refundable, and cannot be transferred. Free credits may also be granted by a promotional code under clause 6. One credit is consumed per successful export.

The displayed €4.99 is the final price and includes VAT where applicable. The hosted checkout shows the tax calculation before payment. A credit is consumed only when an export completes successfully. If an export fails for a reason attributable to the Service, no credit is consumed; if a credit has already been recorded, it is restored automatically.

Passes purchased while an existing pass is still active are added to the end of the existing period; you do not lose unused days.

5. Fair use

The 7-day pass is licensed to a single natural person for that person's own work. It permits up to 20 successful exports, 100 processed minutes, and 10 reference-video analyses during the rolling 7-day entitlement period. Each source video may be no longer than 5 minutes. Each reference clip is limited to 30 seconds and its audio is removed before analysis.

These limits exist to prevent account sharing and automated bulk processing, not to restrict ordinary use; the overwhelming majority of users will never approach them. If you have a legitimate need that exceeds them, contact us at [email protected] and we will accommodate it where we reasonably can.

We may throttle or refuse processing where a pattern of use materially degrades the Service for others.

6. Promotional codes

Promotional and invite codes are granted at our discretion. Unless the code states otherwise: each code may be redeemed once per account; codes have a total redemption limit across all users; codes have an expiry date after which they cannot be redeemed; and credits granted by a code have no cash value, are not refundable, and cannot be transferred or exchanged.

The invite code cyccyy funds a shared total of 18 export credits across all users, granting up to 3 credits per account while the shared total lasts, and expires on 20 August 2026. Once the shared total is exhausted the code stops working, whichever accounts have redeemed it. If fewer than 3 credits remain, a redemption grants only the remainder.

We may invalidate a code that we reasonably believe has been published, automated, or otherwise used contrary to its purpose.

7. Right of withdrawal — please read carefully

If you are a consumer in the European Union or the United Kingdom, you normally have 14 days to withdraw from a distance contract for digital content without giving a reason.

Because credits and passes are usable immediately, we ask you at checkout to:

  1. expressly request that we begin supplying the digital content

immediately, before the 14-day withdrawal period expires; and

  1. acknowledge that by doing so you lose your right of withdrawal once

supply has begun.

This is required by Article 16(m) of Directive 2011/83/EU. Checkout is not available unless you give this consent, because the pass is activated immediately. We record the versions of the Terms, Privacy Policy, Refund Policy, and withdrawal notice accepted at checkout.

Where supply has begun with your consent, the right of withdrawal is lost in respect of the content supplied. This does not affect your statutory rights in respect of digital content that is faulty, not as described, or not of satisfactory quality.

8. Refunds

Nothing in this clause limits clause 7 or your statutory rights.

In addition to those rights, we will refund:

  • a failed export — if the Service fails to produce a usable output for

reasons within our control, we restore the credit or, at your option, refund the amount paid for it;

  • an unused purchase — if you contact us within 14 days of purchase and

have not consumed any credits and have not used a pass, we refund it in full;

  • a duplicate charge — refunded in full.

We do not generally refund credits already consumed on successful exports, or passes on which exports have been performed, because the digital content has been supplied. Refund requests are handled by us and returned through Stripe to the original payment method; write to [email protected] with your payment reference.

9. Availability

The Service is operated by one person on commodity infrastructure. We do not offer a service-level agreement and do not guarantee uninterrupted availability. We may modify, suspend, or discontinue features, and we will give reasonable notice of material changes where we can.

Processing is asynchronous and queued. Processing times vary with video length, queue depth, and third-party provider performance.

10. Acceptable use

You must not: reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code of the Service except to the extent that restriction is unenforceable under applicable law; access the Service by automated means other than any documented interface; circumvent usage limits, authentication, or billing; resell or sublicense access; upload malware; or use the Service to build a competing transcription or captioning product.

11. Intellectual property in the Service

We and our licensors own the Service, its software, presets, and interfaces. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of those rights to you. The bundled fonts are licensed under the SIL Open Font Licence and remain the property of their respective authors.

The output file is yours. We claim no rights in the video you export and impose no attribution requirement.

12. Liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any liability that cannot lawfully be excluded — including, for consumers, our liability under mandatory consumer protection law.

Subject to that, and to the maximum extent permitted by law:

  • we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, loss of profit, loss of

business, loss of goodwill, or loss of anticipated savings;

  • we are not liable for loss or corruption of data, and you remain responsible

for keeping your own copies of any file you upload; and

  • our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with the Service

is limited to the greater of €100 or the total amount you paid us in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim.

We are not liable for errors in automatically generated transcripts, or for any decision you take, or content you publish, in reliance on them.

13. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and request deletion of your account at any time. Unused credits are refundable in accordance with clause 8 and are otherwise forfeited on closure at your request.

We may suspend or terminate access for material breach of these Terms. Where the breach is capable of remedy and the circumstances allow, we will give you notice and a reasonable opportunity to remedy it first. If we terminate without cause, we refund unused credits and the unused portion of any active pass on a pro-rata basis.

14. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms. For changes that materially affect your rights, we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in-product notice before they take effect, and you may close your account and obtain a refund of unused credits if you do not accept them. Changes required by law may take effect sooner where necessary.

15. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the law of Germany, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer protection rules of the country in which you habitually reside, which continue to apply to you.

Disputes may be brought before the competent courts of Germany. If you are a consumer resident in the EU, you may also bring proceedings in the courts of your own country, and you may refer the dispute to an approved alternative dispute resolution body in your country of residence.

As required by § 36 of the German Consumer Dispute Resolution Act (VSBG): we are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board. This does not affect your right to bring a claim before the courts, or your statutory rights.

16. Contact

Yinchao Chen, Bansinerstraße 29, 12619 Berlin Support and legal notices: [email protected]

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