Terms of Use

1. Agreement

These Terms are an agreement between you and Red Abstract (“we,” “us”), the maker of Ballad. By creating a profile or using Ballad, you agree to these Terms, the Community Guidelines, and our Privacy Policy. These Terms supplement Apple’s Licensed Application End User License Agreement, which also applies. If you don’t agree, please don’t use Ballad.

2. Who can use Ballad

You must be at least 13 years old. If you’re under 18, or under the age of legal majority where you live, a parent or guardian must agree to these Terms for you. Be honest about your birthday, because it decides which ballads you can see. You may not use Ballad if the law prohibits it or if we’ve previously removed you.

3. Your account

You sign in with your Apple Account. Keep your device secure, because anyone who can unlock it can write as you. Your account is personal to you, so don’t share it or sell it. Pick a handle that doesn’t impersonate anyone and isn’t offensive. We may reclaim handles that break these rules.

4. Your writing

You own your verses. We don’t claim ownership of anything you write on Ballad.

What you let us do. When you post a verse, a title, a bio, or anything else, you give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to store, copy, display, and transmit it. We use this license only to operate Ballad, for example to show your verse to the bards and readers of the ballad it belongs to. This license ends when your content is deleted from Ballad, except for copies we must keep for safety or legal reasons.

Ballads are shared work. Each bard owns their own verses, and a ballad as a whole is a collaboration. By adding a verse to a ballad, you let that ballad’s bards and readers read it and keep a personal copy of the ballad. Nobody, including the ballad’s creator, may publish or sell a ballad that contains other bards’ verses without their permission. If you delete your account, verses you’ve already contributed stay in the ballad without your handle, as described in our Privacy Policy.

You’re responsible for what you write. Only post work that you have the right to share. Don’t paste in someone else’s copyrighted writing. If you believe something on Ballad infringes your copyright, email [email protected] and include the ballad title, the verse, and details of your work.

5. Zero tolerance for objectionable content and abusive users

Ballad has no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users. You agree not to post, and not to help anyone else post, anything that breaks our Community Guidelines, including:

• sexual content involving minors, in any form, including fiction
• sexually explicit or pornographic content
• harassment, bullying, threats, or intimidation of anyone
• hate speech, or content that attacks people for who they are
• content that promotes or instructs self-harm, violence, or illegal activity
• anyone’s private personal information, including your own contact details
• spam, advertising, scams, or impersonation
• content that infringes someone else’s rights

You also agree not to misrepresent your age, get around a block or a ban, access Ballad by automated means, interfere with how Ballad works, or reverse engineer the app except where the law allows it.

6. Moderation

Ballad has several layers of protection. Creators approve each verse before it joins a ballad. Anyone can block a bard, and anyone can report a verse by pressing and holding it and choosing Report verse. Our team reviews reports within 24 hours. When content breaks these Terms or the Community Guidelines, we remove it, and we can warn, suspend, or permanently remove the bard who posted it. We may also remove content or accounts without a report when we find a violation. We aren’t required to review everything posted on Ballad, and we aren’t responsible for what users post, but we act on what we find and what you report to us.

7. Ballad+ subscriptions

• Ballad+ is an auto-renewing subscription that you buy through your Apple Account. The price is shown in the app before you buy.
• Your subscription renews automatically unless you cancel it at least 24 hours before the end of the current period. Apple charges your Apple Account for renewal within 24 hours before the period ends.
• To manage or cancel, go to Settings → [your name] → Subscriptions. If you cancel, Ballad+ stays active until the end of the period you’ve paid for.
• Apple handles payments and refunds. To request a refund, visit reportaproblem.apple.com.
• If Ballad+ lapses, everything you’ve written stays. You just can’t start new ballads beyond the free plan’s limit until you have a free slot.
• If we change the price, Apple will tell you in advance, and in some cases will ask you to agree to the new price before your subscription renews.

8. The beta

Ballad is in beta. Beta builds are pre-release software, provided through Apple’s TestFlight. They may have bugs, features may change or disappear, and ballads written during the beta may be reset between builds. Please don’t rely on a beta build to keep the only copy of something important. Feedback you send us helps make Ballad better, and we may use it without any obligation to you.

9. Our stuff

The Ballad app, name, logo, and design belong to Red Abstract. These Terms let you use Ballad for personal, non-commercial purposes. They don’t give you any right to use our name or branding.

10. Ending things

You can stop using Ballad at any time and delete your account in Profile → Delete account. We may suspend or end your access if you break these Terms, if we’re required to by law, or if we stop offering Ballad. If we end your access for a reason other than a violation, we’ll give you notice when we reasonably can. The sections on your writing, disclaimers, and liability continue after your access ends.

11. Disclaimers and limits of liability

Ballad is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We don’t promise that Ballad will be uninterrupted or error-free, and we aren’t responsible for what other users write.

To the fullest extent the law allows, Red Abstract won’t be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, or goodwill. Our total liability for any claim relating to Ballad is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us for Ballad in the 12 months before the claim, or US $50. Some places don’t allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you.

If you break these Terms and it leads to a claim against us, you agree to cover our reasonable costs of dealing with that claim, as far as the law allows.

12. Apple

These Terms are between you and Red Abstract, not Apple. Apple isn’t responsible for Ballad or its content, and it has no obligation to provide maintenance or support for it. If Ballad fails to conform to an applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price, if any. Apart from that, Apple has no warranty obligation for Ballad. Apple isn’t responsible for any claims relating to Ballad, including product liability, legal or regulatory compliance, consumer protection, or intellectual property claims. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you. You confirm that you aren’t located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo and aren’t on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.

13. Changes and contact

We may update these Terms as Ballad grows. When we do, we’ll change the date at the top of this page, and if a change is significant, we’ll tell you in the app. If you keep using Ballad after a change takes effect, you accept the new Terms. Questions? Email [email protected].