Effective Date: October 19, 2022
v 3.0.7
Hi! We’re so excited you’re here and can’t wait to see what masterpieces will evolve on Crinkle as we grow together.
First things first though, let’s cover the terms of our service.
Who Are We.
Crinkle (referred to herein as the “app”, “service”, “platform”, “application”) is a mobile software and technology platform for social authoring and reading. Crinkle is designed, owned, and operated by H’Appile Interactive (referred to herein as “we”, “us”, “our”). H’Appile Interactive is an independent privately owned entity that operates in the mobile application and software development space. We are committed to providing you with the best user experience possible. Our intent and mission is to provide a unique collaborative literary platform for readers and writers that encourages creativity and social authoring and reading experiences.
User Eligibility & Our Terms.
Individuals must be able to consent to personal data processing to use the Service. i.e. individuals must be at least 13 years of age in the US, or greater if their respective jurisdiction requires (i.e. 16 years of age in parts of the EEA, etc.) to use the Service.
Use of the service by individuals under the age of 18 (or minors) also requires a parent or guardian of age 18 or older to have accepted and reviewed this document and to have provided their consent and approval.
This is a legally binding “click-wrap” “Agreement”. The Agreement includes all sections of this document and our Privacy Policy, which is hereby incorporated into this Agreement. By accepting this Agreement and using the service, you are making an affirmative agreement to the terms and policies herein and granting Crinkle and/or H’Appile Interactive the permissions outlined herein.
By accepting these terms, you are stating you are 18 or older and have the authority to accept these terms on behalf and responsibility/oversight of all users on this device or machine.
YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU HAVE A DUTY TO READ THIS AGREEMENT BEFORE YOU DOWNLOAD, INSTALL OR USE CRINKLE ON YOUR MOBILE DEVICE. YOUR INSTALLATION, USE, OR OPERATION OF CRINKLE CONSTITUTES YOUR MANIFESTATION OF ASSENT TO AND ACCEPTANCE OF THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT FOR YOU AND/OR ANY USER(S) YOU ARE ACCEPTING THIS AGREEMENT ON BEHALF OF. Please READ THIS AGREEMENT CAREFULLY! IN ADDITION TO OTHERS, THIS AGREEMENT CONTAINS A BINDING ARBITRATION CLAUSE, CLASS ACTION WAIVER, AND JURY TRIAL WAIVER, WHICH MAY AFFECT YOUR LEGAL RIGHTS. IF YOU DO NOT AGREE TO ALL OF THE TERMS OF THIS AGREEMENT, YOU ARE EXPRESSLY PROHIBITED FROM USING CRINKLE AND MUST TERMINATE YOUR USE OF AND UNINSTALL CRINKLE IMMEDIATELY. THIS AGREEMENT DOES NOT REPLACE BUT IS IN ADDITION TO ANY APPLE APP STORE AGREEMENT REQUIRED TO DOWNLOAD AND USE WIDGETPET.
1 / DEFINITIONS:
“content(s)” as referred to here forth includes, but is not limited to, a work, its text, one or more of a chapter(s) within a work, page(s) within a work, posts, comments, text, cover page, and/or work attributes such as title, genre, synopsis, characters, themes, plot elements, etc.
“work(s)” as referred to here forth is a reference to a book, novel, story, literary work, collection of content, etc. on the Crinkle service.
“service” and/or “platform” as referred to within these terms includes the iOS and/or iPadOS based Crinkle application, our website, and/or all affiliated backend servers and/or data architectures/infrastructures, services, apis, push notifications, etc.
“you” as referred to in these terms is meant to encompass the broad definition of a “user”. In some instances this may mean simply yourself as an individual and may in other cases encompass an organization or group of individuals if you are representing such and advocating the use of the service in such place and/or on behalf of.
2 / CONTENT:
The Crinkle service and platform provides the ability for content creation (i.e. authoring, editing, posting, etc) and content consumption (i.e. reading, viewing, etc).
2.1 / CREATION:
2.1.1 / OWNERSHIP, ORIGINALITY, LIABILITY:
You are the owner of all content(s) and work(s) you author, input, upload, or submit on Crinkle, and you retain all liabilities and original authorship rights for such content/work in accordance with this agreement and limited by these terms.
All content and work must be original. Under no circumstances may you or any other user entity or person, upload, post, or input to the service any previously copyrighted works or content or references to such.
You are responsible for the content you upload, post, or input to the service and are certifying its originality and that you hold copyright to.
Crinkle complies with copyright laws and will acknowledge and investigate any requests for takedown of content in compliance with the DMCA of 1998. Please see our DMCA policy in Appendix A of these terms.
2.1.2 / YOU AS LICENSOR, US AS LICENSEE:
You agree that any content you create, compose, enter into the Crinkle platform/service and/or save or submit (i.e. upload, post, etc) such as characters, words, symbols, pages, chapters, etc. you have copyright ownership over as original author. Additionally, you agree to grant and assign the sole and perpetual worldwide exclusive royalty free license for this content to Crinkle. Thereby, you are agreeing to grant us the right to indefinitely hold, retain, host, display, distribute, modify, edit, adapt, format, curate, moderate, arrange, attribute, filter, organize, add onto, include, sell, sub license, assign, transfer, promote, share, advertise with, and use in any way we deem appropriate on the service that may benefit us, our users, you, or any other party in our interest and also on any other related adjacent platform(s) such as a website, blog, online forum, affiliated advertisement, app store, etc.
You agree that Crinkle maintains the sole and perpetual worldwide exclusive royalty free license for all content and works on the service indefinitely. This license does not expire or terminate under any circumstances unless mutually agreed in written form upon by you(the licensor, content creator) and us(the licensee). i.e. your termination as a user or leaving the service has no effect whatsoever on our rights as licensee to previously licensed content from your use.
You agree to in NO form (printed, digital, etc) distribute or share/keep the content you create and license to Crinkle on any other platform, service, or media outlet — except possibly if desired in original private manuscript form for yourself in an offline format (i.e. not readily accessible to any other party). Modification and request for release from this exclusivity are discussed in the later section 2.1.5 “More About Exclusivity”.
Crinkle is not responsible beyond the service’s normal scope/functionality for distributing, generating, or providing you any copies of your work or content if you leave the service for any reason, we restrict or remove the work, or you are restricted from use or lose access to the service for any reason.
The license terms expressed herein section 2.1.2 are “rights” which you have granted us and we retain and may choose to exercise at will, however under no circumstances are we obligated to do any of the above at any time or for any duration. Our lack to exercise or use one or more rights does not affect our retention of these rights or license terms.
2.1.3 / CURATION, MODERATION:
Because Crinkle is independently and privately owned and operated by H’Appile Interactive, we reserve the rights to and may curate, moderate, and control the platform, its content(s), and work(s).
Curation and/or Moderation may include, but is not limited to, actions such as formatting, arranging, adding or modifying attributes on, editing, filtering, correcting/fixing (such as but not limited to spelling, grammar, syntactical properness, aesthetic appearance, etc.), and/or adapting or adding onto any work(s) and/or content(s) that exists on the platform for any reason and at any time.
We also reserve the right to remove and/or restrict/ban/hide any work(s) and/or content(s) which we deem in our judgement may defame, degrade, offend, breach these terms, violate our content guidelines/policy in the following section 2.1.4, or pose a risk to the platform, its integrity, users, or for any other reason at any time. At our discretion, in lieu of removing and/or restricting/hiding a work and/or content which violates our terms, we may instead choose to adapt or edit the work/content to bring it into compliance with our terms. Note – we still retain all license terms under section 2.1.2 for any removed, restricted, or hidden work/content until/if otherwise communicated with an author or editor in written form.
Generally though, especially any of the above mentioned that affect a work’s content/text directly, we want to respect and leave in the hands of the editor or original author(s) — after all your work and its content should be your masterpiece! (Again, this is obviously assuming you abide by our our content policy in section 2.1.4.) Therefore, usually we’ll refrain from textual edits/additions unless an obvious typo (i.e. like an extra line feed that affects formatting, misplaced/erratic spacings, etc.) or something presents and/or an incomplete work is abandoned on the service or left without editorship/authorship, etc. (that stated, this sentence/paragraph in no way limit or change our rights to do so if we deem appropriate or in our sole discretion is in the best interest of the platform).
We may also re-attribute works (i.e. for instance changing a genre to align with other works of the same category or better align with a work’s content and theme.)
We might also order or arrange content and work by popularity, trends, stats, etc. to help users better navigate and search for works they want on the platform or to highlight works.
Genres that are confusing or misrepresentative of a work or its contents, we may modify. (i.e. if you pick a genre that the work is clearly not demonstrative of etc.)
We’re always glad to take author and editor inputs and will work to correct/best align with the work’s objectives and audience. If you feel we’ve mis-attributed or curated/moderated a work incorrectly – please email us at support@crinklestories.com if you have comments.
2.1.3a / Cover Pages:
Cover pages allow choice from and leverage a third party API to provide a large collection of images to choose from. Cover pages are subject to the same curation and moderation outlined previously above in section 2.1.3. We are not responsible for or have control over the third party API results or images provided. Please use good discretion and choose images that are suitable, compliment, and are appropriate for your work(s).
2.1.4 / APPROPRIATE CONTENT POLICY & GUIDELINES:
Please use good judgement and ensure your work(s) and/or content are composed in good faith, originality, and taste such that you would expect a well intentioned audience of readers to enjoy and accept the work. We encourage variety and freedom of expression. We honor and respect tasteful and appropriate artistic liberties in all works of well intentioned and generally accepted literary genres and forms. However, we will NOT tolerate malicious works or the explicit making of disturbing/obscene content that lacks taste or would likely not appeal to a well intentioned audience on the Crinkle service (in our sole opinion and discretion).
We realize and understand that guidelines here within section 2.1.4 are in some cases open to interpretation and subjective opinion, and want to emphasize we retain the rights for final decisions and opinions on whether they meet our policy and definitions here within.
We have a strict policy against, and will remove/restrict/ban, any work(s) and/or content(s) that could be (in our sole discretion and opinion) offensive to the general Crinkle audience/user base and/or threaten the integrity of our service (i.e. including, but not limited to, those having graphically obscene and/or sadistic content, strong sexual content, that are pornographic, violent, threatening, profane, racist, prejudice, etc.)
Trying to circumvent or bypass the above guidelines by using slang, play on words, abbreviations, or simply censoring characters are NOT acceptable either.
Note: All following examples are meant as illustrative cases only, and are NOT to be interpreted as limiting to such specific cases in any way.
// Example 1 –
Consider a title such as “F***”, “FU All”, or variants like “fuALL”, “fukALL”, etc. While maybe not “explicitly” profanity, these are clearly offensive especially in a title and these are NOT acceptable.
Consider a title like “XXX Stories”. While “XXX” could potentially be open to interpretation, this in our opinion would degrade the platform and have “pornographic” or “strong sexual” connotations that we prohibit.
//
As previously mentioned, we may use subjectivity in our evaluation and enforcement of these guidelines. For instance, we might examine where content appears within a work to determine if it violates our guidelines.
// Example 2 –
Consider a romance novel which may have some mild sexual content or a story with some profanity. These “could” be within the scope of our guidelines if such content were included tastefully in the body of the work and they aligned with the work. However, a romance novel that put this sexual content in the title or synopsis, etc. or a work with profanity in such elements, where these would be blatantly visible to anyone just browsing to read a new work, etc. — we’d probably consider intrusive, inappropriate, and a risk to being offensive to some user(s) and we’d deem in violation of our content policy.
//
Contents that are defamatory, hateful, harassing, disrespectful or abusive to any groups or individuals are not allowed. Also, do not surprise or catch individuals off-guard by using them or naming them in your work(s)/content(s) without permission and notification. i.e. this would include using real life individuals as characters, or could even be a fictional character if they are similar enough that they may be identifiable to a real life individual(s) who you are referencing or taking inspiration from for the work. Doing so without permission could be offensive or surprising/unwanted by that individual — this is a violation of our terms as it could be offensive and is disrespectful. If you do include or reference real life individuals you MUST first have express written permission from the individual to do so – this is your responsibility to document and keep record of.
Crinkle is not a source of medically peer reviewed or endorsed content, and should not be used as such. Work/content such as medical literature, opinions, diagnostic/treatment guides, etc. targeted at such audience are not appropriate for Crinkle and are not allowed on the platform.
Crinkle is not intended to be used as platform to disseminate works, opinions, or content which could carry significant liability risks or need disclaimers/trigger warnings. This may include non-fictional or opinionated content(s) that may try to directly influence and make recommendations to others in real-life basis. Examples of subjects that may be unacceptable would be “strong money making advice or financially implicated content”, “strong gambling referenced content”, “life-coaching advice or personal accounts that includes strong and focused risks to a reader”, etc. In our sole and absolute judgement, we may remove works that pose such risk on the Service.
Crinkle complies with all laws. Private, sensitive, or confidential information and/or information or content which would be considered illegal to share or distribute in any jurisdiction which Crinkle operates is NOT allowed and prohibited.
Crinkle does not express preference toward or represent any political affiliations or objectives and we want our platform to remain neutral. As such any politically motivated, charged, or targeted content is not allowed and should not be expressed or published on Crinkle.
Work or content with expressions of faith or religion, “enlightenments” or philosophies, cultural focuses, etc. must not target or single out any other groups or incite conflicts. Simply stated – if you think your work may be be offensive to someone because it is religious or culturally targeted towards them/singles them out, then it’s definitely NOT appropriate for Crinkle.
Content that appears as spam, gibberish, and/or works without literary meaning, that are not human readable, and (in our and/or our well intentioned audience/users’ judgement) clutter or aesthetically “disrupt” the Crinkle environment and platform, may be removed or restricted. Intentionally or maliciously authoring such content to disrupt or “pollute” the platform is considered an abuse and violation of these terms and will result in termination of your use, profile, etc.
If you believe a work has been restricted or removed because of a mistake on our part in evaluating the work’s content, a misunderstanding, or simply a language barrier — please contact us at support@crinklestories.com. We’d be glad to help and restore the work if appropriate. Please be sure to indicate the name of your work and your user alias in your inquiry. Crinkle respects and values all nationalities, languages, and cultures. We sincerely apologize for any misunderstandings and are always working sincerely and in good faith to make our platform the best for all users worldwide. Thank you for your understanding as we grow together!
2.1.5 / MORE ABOUT EXCLUSIVITY:
Crinkle values and respects the creativity, hard work, and dedicated contributions of all authors and editors on our platform. Without you, Crinkle could not exist. It means the world to us, and we are sure our readers too, you choosing to author using Crinkle.
As previously outlined in section 2.1.2, Crinkle retains the exclusivity rights as Licensee to content you have licensed to us in terms of this agreement. However, if an author(s) and editor(s) wish to take previously licensed content outside of Crinkle to print, distribute, publish, license, sell etc in other mediums we would be glad to start a dialog with you to discuss terms and pursue these interests, subject to your understanding that the outcome would include, but not be limited to, the following:
1) Crinkle shall still maintain a non-exclusive license (subject to all terms previously outlined here) to and right to distribute such content on our platform (i.e. we don’t want to impact our users by pulling a popular work, etc…)
2) Crinkle shall receive a modest and fair royalty(ies) or compensation(s) that is agreed upon and negotiated by all parties for our involvement, facilitation, and hosting of the work’s original creation, growth, exposure, and distribution on our platform. The amount and details of such royalty(ies) or compensation(s) would be in line with industry comps, based on work specifics (i.e. popularity, length, etc) and consideration of any impact to our platform by losing exclusivity, etc.
If you are an author or editor on Crinkle and would like to chat about exclusivity and possible terms of release, please contact us at support@crinklestories.com. We’d be glad to talk!
IMPORTANT: We are in NO form giving any implied or express permissions in this section 2.1.5 here right now and in these terms, and our exclusivity rights remain in full force until otherwise agreed upon in a later addendum to these terms that is contractually agreed upon by all relevant parties (H’Appile Interactive(i.e. Crinkle) and You). This section also does not guarantee any agreement of, or require us to grant or agree to any exclusivity release, if we cannot reach acceptable and agreeable terms for all parties.
2.1.6 / REGISTERED AUTHORS’, REVENUE & MONETIZATION:
Crinkle is proud to be able to offer our Authors the means to earn revenue from their contributions. By becoming a “Registered Author” on Crinkle you’ll be eligible to earn revenue from your work.
2.1.6(a) – Author Eligibility/Requirements
To be eligible to earn revenue from your work(s) you must meet the following conditions:
1) you must currently be, and remain, an active Crinkle Pro subscriber
2) you must register and provide us your legal name, region of residence, and verify your email address (for electronic payment purposes)
3) you must have agreed to and be in compliance with all of our terms of service outlined herein
We currently issue payments via PayPal as our electronic payment service. To receive payment, you understand you must have an active PayPal account that is linked to the email address you verify with us when you sign up.
EMAIL AUTHORIZATION: You understand and agree that for the longevity (i.e. until you explicitly delete your account or notify us to do so) of your profile on Crinkle, and for any compliance/documentation needs after, Crinkle may contact you at this email address for administrative needs such as payment processing, records, etc. and will retain such on file for a period after. For more information on any other reasons we may contact your via email, please see our Privacy Policy.
2.1.6(b) – Work Eligibility
A work on Crinkle becomes eligible to earn revenue once it has at least 10 readers. Once a work becomes “revenue eligible” it will remain eligible for its lifetime even if readership drops below 10 active readers at some point. We recommend sharing new work(s) with friends, family, and social media using the app to help gain initial readership.
2.1.6(c) – Calculated Contributor Revenue (CCR).
Crinkle uses a proprietary algorithm to assign value to and track frequency of page reads in works on our service. Using these page read metric(s) and a proprietary revenue sharing model, we derive a value we call “Calculated Contributor Revenue” (CCR) for each work that is revenue eligible on the service. CCR is the share of value we allocate to authors on a given work. This total CCR for the work is then split amongst authors and editors on works as a weighted function of their contributions to the work. i.e. the more pages you author the more you’ll generally receive in revenue. Editors automatically receive a base 25% of the work’s CCR plus the percentage of their pages authored.
2.1.6(d) – Our Right to Modify Revenue Model and CCR Algorithm
In order to align with our business needs, sustainability, and to continue to best serve our Authors and Readers alike, we reserve all rights to and may at any time without notice modify or change our revenue model and/or value(s) we associate with page reads, etc. This may cause increases or decreases and fluctuations/variations in your revenue and payouts. You understand and acknowledge that our Revenue Model and CCR Algorithm(s) are proprietary and we are not expected to, or obligated to disclose any details on such (unless otherwise obligated by law).
2.1.6(e) – In App Revenue Dashboard and Modeling Tool
The app provides a dashboard for tracking your revenue and a modeling tool which can help estimate potential earnings based on the size of your reading audience.
Values shown in the revenue dashboard are usually very accurate and will correspond to current earnings and pending payouts for the current period. Note all dashboard values are in USD $ denominations and your actual payouts may be received in local currency denominations which may differ. Occasionally though due to bugs, performance, or unforeseen issues your actual payouts may differ from the reported values in the in app dashboard. Also note dashboard values may be delayed from realtime as they are refreshed throughout the day.
The in app modeling tool uses assumptions that are based on a work being popular and well received on Crinkle. Works that are not popular or don’t garner significant readership may have significantly different performance from that depicted in the modeling tool. The modeling tool is not a guarantee of revenue or income, and you understand results of your work may differ from these estimates substantially.
2.1.6(f) – Suspected Fraudulent Activity, Fake Page Reads, Reader Inflation
It’s against the terms of service and use of Crinkle to attempt to or engage in artificially trying to inflate page reads or the number of real readers actively on a work (i.e. fake or automated page turns, purposely duplicating authors, etc) on works and/or trying to reverse engineer our revenue model or page read algorithm to do such. If we suspect such and/or detect an author(s)/reader(s) are purposely attempting to inflate or “mimic” readership on works we may suspend their accounts and/or mark such works as not eligible for revenue. We may withhold payment to such author(s) and/or work(s) we deem have engaged in or been affected by such. We also may correct or modify a calculated revenue and/or payout based on such suspected activity if we deem appropriate. We make all good faith efforts to preserve the integrity of our service and revenue model’s accuracy so authors can continue to benefit and grow revenue. Please respect our service and don’t abuse it.
2.1.6(g) – About Payments
Payments are made by Crinkle’s parent holder H’Appile Interactive on a weekly basis provided the following are satisfied:
1) You have met the minimum payment threshold ($10) to be eligible for a payout for the current weekly period.
2) You must be an active Crinkle Pro member
3) You must be in active good standing and not in violation of our terms of service in order to be eligible for payment. We are not obligated in any circumstances to issue payment if we deem our terms of service have been violated by an author.
We only agree to issue payments for the longevity and maintenance of our service under the entity of H’Appile Interactive. i.e. a transfer of ownership, service disruption or lack of, shutdown, closure, etc of the service may affect future payments.
Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive are also not responsible for any lost or voided payments as a result of inaccurate details during sign up (i.e. an email that is not registered with PayPal whom we use for electronic issuance of payments). Authors are responsible for notifying Crinkle of any changes to their email used to receive payment after signing up. If needed, please notify us of any updates to your receipt of payment email at support@crinklestories.com and please include your Crinkle author alias.
2.1.6(h) – Authors as Independent Contractors, Tax Liability
Crinkle Registered Authors are “Independent Contractors”. Crinkle does not retain such authors as “employees” of any kind and doesn’t sponsor any benefits, tax withholdings, or associated employee related services as a result. You (the independent contractor) are responsible for all tax liabilities on any earnings from use of the service. Based on your jurisdiction and if you earn over a certain amount in a given tax year, we may send you a tax document detailing your earnings for such period and/or file such with the appropriate tax authority in your jurisdiction.
2.1.7 / SOLO AUTHORSHIP & ABANDONED TRANSFERENCE:
Crinkle provides the means for either authoring a work with a Team of authors or Solo (i.e. by yourself). When you start a work as Solo, you are the only author for the work while you remain a user of Crinkle. By authoring a solo work you understand, however, that if you leave the service or abandon the work on the platform before it’s finished, another author may pickup the work where you left off. This is only fair to our readers as there may be an audience who is interested in the work and reading it! In this case, authorship of the work will be transferred and the current author will be attributed as the new “Author” on the title page.
2.1.8 / TEAM AUTHORING:
2.1.8(a) Joining an in progress Team Work
When you join in helping author a team work, you’re expressing the desire and commitment to help author the work regularly and be an active contributor. If you fail to contribute to the work for several consecutive pen passes, you may be automatically removed from the work to make room for new authors. You can track when it’s your turn and how long until the next pen pass in your writing studio tab of the app.
As an author on a team work, stay engaged and up to date with the Editor’s comments and other authors in the chat feed. Keep tuned for any notes or planning in the “Scratch Pad” the Editor lays out for the work. These things will help keep your contributions on point and aligned with the overall work’s plot, themes, and progress!
2.1.8(b) Starting a New Team Work, Editor Role:
When you start a new “Team” work on Crinkle, and/or assume Editor responsibilities for an existing work, you are granted certain extra privileges and control over the work’s progress (i.e. things like editing pages or chapter names in a work after they’re written, deciding how many pages are authored per author on each pen pass, the length of the work, the minimum chapter lengths, managing authors on the work, etc.). Such privileges come with extra responsibility.
Specifically we need to discuss the responsibility that comes with managing authors and their page contributions with some careful considerations and respects in mind.
1) Editors have the ability to remove co-authors on a work. Obviously if an author is sabotaging a work, exhibiting blatant harassment or malicious natures (like “spamming” the work with gibberish, profanity, obscenities, etc.) in their contributions, please feel free to remove them without hesitation and additionally let us know at support@crinklestories.com so we can prevent this from happening to any other works.
Usually though we want to express caution in removing an author without first working for a mutual resolution and a constructive relationship. Most of the time authors who are genuinely trying to contribute and in good faith writing on a work, are valuable to you and sometimes may be hard to find! You should not immediately remove a co-author simply for what is a poor contribution in your opinion or not in line with where the work was intended to progress. Instead, as the Editor and leader of the work, we suggest you reach out and communicate in the chat/post feed to inspire and help guide their contributions to be more effective and share your vision for the work. Obviously if poor contributions continue or resolution cannot be sought then it may be appropriate to remove such co-author. When you remove an author they’ll be on probation from re-joining your work for a period of time.
NOTE: Removing co-authors just because, to simply make room for someone else, or without careful thought and/or reason is considered abusing Editor privileges and is reckless/degrading to the platform’s core purpose of collaboration and negatively impacts our users and our mission — please do not do this it’s a violation and breach of these terms and may affect your continued editor privileges and/or use.
2) As Editor you also have the right to modify and edit pages in the work, including those contributed by co-authors after they’re written. While this is definitely a necessary privilege as editor of course, please realize co-authors work hard on their contributions. Please don’t go simply re-writing entire pages or deleting co-authors work because it’s not exactly what you would have written. This doesn’t mean you can’t change or edit pages, and even at times maybe you do have to re-write a page or part of one; that’s ok. Just make sure you’re trying to be respectful of co-authors and their work, or they may simply decide to leave your work and stop co-authoring, which we’re sure you don’t want 🙂 .
Thank you for being an awesome Editor on Crinkle!
NOTE: if you leave the service or abandon a work in which you are the Editor for, your role as Editor may be relinquished and another author(s) may assume Editorship and will be attributed as the Editor of the work instead.
2.2 / CONSUMPTION:
Content(s) and/or Work(s) on Crinkle are copyrighted by their original creators and exist on the service under license terms. Content(s) and/or Work(s) are ONLY to be consumed on the service, and shall NEVER be copied or transferred by user(s) in any medium from the service unless we authorize doing so. Under and in no circumstances may you or your use of the service result in transferring any work(s) and/or content(s) from the service without express written permissions/authorization from us or as otherwise outlined in these terms. Forbidden actions would include, but are not limited to, actions such as copying content, taking screenshots of content, recording content screens or frames of, etc.
Crinkle complies with copyright laws and will acknowledge and investigate any requests for takedown of content in compliance with the DMCA of 1998. Please see our DMCA policy in Appendix A of these terms.
3 / POST, CHAT FEEDS:
The Crinkle service offers authors, readers, and editors the ability to chat and collaborate on works in a chat/post feed type infrastructure for each work. This privilege assumes responsible, safe, and conscientious use for all our users. Our goal and commitment is to ensure the post and chat environment is appropriate for all users on the work. Therefore – All posts are subject to moderation and curation by Crinkle.
Including, and in addition to, all prior content guidelines in section 2.1.4, posts must NOT be defamatory/obscene or degrading, and must NOT contain profanity, racist/sexual slurs, offensive or threatening language, sexual references or language, violence or threats in any form, harassment or targeting of specific users or groups, and/or private or sensitive personal information that is not authorized to be shared or appropriate for the given audience. Crinkle may promptly remove any post(s) we deem in violation of these terms and/or for any other reason at all we deem necessary for the quality of our service and user environment. By posting or submitting any content to the chat feeds, you agree and give Crinkle the right to remove and/or moderate all content submissions subject to these terms.
4 / YOUR CRINKLE ALIAS(ES):
Crinkle purposefully uses a short Alias for your profile to provide users a level of personal anonymity on our service. Your Crinkle Alias is the tag or string of characters you choose when you first log in and create a profile on Crinkle. If you are a user who does not explicitly log in with a profile (i.e. maybe you are only a “reader” on Crinkle) we assign you a random tag for use in attributing your posts/chat feeds in works you are reading, etc. You understand and agree/grant us permission to share and display these aliases on Crinkle and any of our associated platforms. You understand that these alias(es) or tag(s) are public and may be shared permanently and bound within content in work(s) (including but not limited to on pages, table of contents, credit pages, title pages, chapter dividers, etc. within these works) and/or on the posts/chats that you contribute and license to Crinkle.
Note on uniqueness of aliases – Crinkle does our best to make sure aliases are not repeated and unique so users can identify their contributions and attributed content in Crinkle. However, there may be cases where due to high volume use and/or user turnover, unique new aliases are in short supply or a repeated alias emerges. We will work to resolve such occurrences if and when detected, however we do not guarantee against or assume responsibility for any effects of such. You also understand that if you leave the service and delete your profile, Crinkle may reuse your alias and recycle it for new users. If an alias is recycled or reused, we will attempt to the best of our ability to remove prior attributions from use of the alias on the service to prevent confusion and provide a clean starting point for the new user of the alias.
5 / ADVERTISING, IN-APP PURCHASES, SUBSCRIPTIONS:
Our service uses advertising to provide a “free” user experience. Advertisements are served by a trusted and industry leading third party. Since we only display and do not generate or make the ad content, and we do not preview or see ads ahead of time (they’re served on demand by design and per the third party api), we cannot be directly responsible for content in advertisements, and do not assume responsibility for such.
At times we may also present optional in app purchases to help enhance your use of the service. These are purely optional. You will never be required to make any purchase or charged at any time without your consent. We may offer subscription based in app purchases that auto-renew and you are responsible for monitoring and maintaining your subscription or canceling if you wish or stop use of. All sales are final.
In-App Purchases Offered in the App Include:
1) Ad Removal ($1.99 one time purchase): Ad removal removes in app banner and interstitial advertisements. Note “rewarded” video advertisements such as those shown for unlocking new skins may still be shown.
2) Crinkle Pro (First week free, $0.99/month after first week. Automatically renews until canceled. Cancel anytime in the manage subscription settings of your Apple device). Crinkle pro provides the following benefits:
-removes all ads
-unlocks all skins
-allows reading saved works offline
-provides revenue eligibility as an author
-allows authors to author an unlimited number of works
-enables authoring more than 1 solo work at a time
-allows readers to read an unlimited number of works
6 / PUSH NOTIFICATIONS:
Our service employs an optional push notification feature using Apple’s Push Notifications Service to provide notifications to users. Examples may include updates like when it’s your turn with the pen for a work you are authoring, or new pages have been added to a book you are reading, etc. The specific notifications we send may vary and evolve as the platform grows. We always try to carefully tailor notifications and only send them when we believe they will be beneficial to you and intended to enhance your user experience of Crinkle.
You understand and agree you have the ability to opt out of this service in the settings on your iOS or iPadOS device and that these notifications are only displayed if you have provided your authorization. If you authorize and have push notifications enabled for Crinkle, you can also configure more specific preferences within the app in the settings menu on the home page.
We are not responsible for unwanted or nuisance push notifications you receive as a result of your failure to disable or turn off notifications on your device.
Additionally we cannot necessarily guarantee success of all push notifications and you may intermittently experience lack of notifications beyond our control.
You are responsible for managing the push notification settings on your device and can revoke your authorization at any time.
7 / DISCLAIMER, QUALITY OF SERVICE:
Crinkle strives to provide the best quality service and user experience. We take our commitment to quality and the integrity of our service to our users very seriously. However, we make no guarantee of service availability at any given time and for any continuous duration. Periodically the service may undergo updates and maintenance that could disrupt or impact the service.
Crinkle does not come with any warranties whether implied, exThe service or application may experience bugs or crashes, unexpected behavior that could cause interruption of temporary/apparent loss of work(s) or content(s). In the event of any service disruptions or impacts we become aware of, we’ll work diligently to restore functionality as soon as possible. We make all efforts to minimize these interruptions as best possible and mitigate against effects of by frequently backing up databases, etc.
We are not responsible for any extended or indefinite service interruptions/impacts beyond our control such as third party api outages, network issues, acts of God, etc. We are not responsible for losses or damages incurred from from such unforeseen service disruptions.
Under no circumstances are we required to provide a refund or any compensation for losses or any time due to any unexpected service interruption(s). However, we may choose to do so, at our discretion and choice, and based on unique circumstances should they arise or we feel users were impacted unfairly on our behalf.
H’APPILE INTERACTIVE PROVIDES CRINKLE ON AN AS-IS BASIS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, QUALITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, OR ACCURACY. YOU ACKNOWLEDGE AND AGREE THAT YOU USE CRINKLE AT YOUR OWN RISK AND THAT H’APPILE INTERACTIVE WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY DEFECTS, ERRORS, OMISSIONS, API OUTAGES, NETWORK ISSUES, BUGS, SERVICE INTERRUPTION(S), OR DOWNTIME. ANY ATTEMPT BY H’APPILE INTERACTIVE TO MODIFY CRINKLE WILL NOT BE DEEMED TO BE A WAIVER OF THIS LIMITATION OF LIABILITY. H’APPILE INTERACTIVE WILL NOT BE HELD LIABLE FOR ANY CONTENT CONTAINED WITHIN CRINKLE, ANY THIRD-PARTY LINKS OR ADVERTISING ACCESSIBLE THROUGH CRINKLE, OR ANY PRODUCT LISTED OR PURCHASED THROUGH CRINKLE.
8 / BREACH OF TERMS, RIGHT TO TERMINATE:
Use of our service is conditional to abiding to the terms of all sections of this agreement. At our sole discretion, Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive reserves the right to suspend, revoke privilege(s) of, or terminate any profile, user, or activity for violation or breach of any of these terms of service, and/or for any other abuse of the service in any way deemed inappropriate by H’Appile Interactive.
9 / YOUR RIGHT TO LEAVE THE SERVICE:
You have the right to leave the service at any time and for any reason. You also have the right to delete any profile or user accounts you’ve made with the service during your use.
10 / EFFECT OF TERMINATION, LEAVING, LACK OF USE:
Our termination of your use, you leaving, or simply your stopping/lack of use of the service for any reason (voluntary or involuntarily), does not constitute any entitlement to, or our requirement to provide any compensation/refund for previously purchased in app purchases, subscriptions, or loss of use to the service. It’s your responsibility to cancel and monitor any automatically renewing subscriptions you’ve purchased from Crinkle that are linked to your Apple ID and/or iTunes account regardless of if you are still using, accessing, or have the service currently installed. Failing to use or cancel a subscription does not entitle refund.
11 / ARCHIVED CONTENT LIFETIME:
When you explicitly delete your profile, Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive takes actions to remove your login and any personally identifiable information from our servers in accordance with the terms of our Privacy Policy. Certain types of content(s) previously submitted to Crinkle though such as in or on post(s), page(s), chapter(s), work(s), etc. may be permanent as they’re “bound” within Crinkle works and post feeds, etc. and additionally such content has been perpetually licensed to us as defined earlier in section 2.1.2. These content(s) may contain your public Crinkle Alias as discussed in earlier section 4. Such content and elements may persist and can be archived forever. (comparable or familiar examples might include signing a book and distributing it to the public, placing your name on a hard copy book you’ve authored and then distributing it to the public, or writing a comment on a page of a book in a public collection or online forum, sending a text message/email which you cannot undo, etc).
12 / DATA CONNECTION AND USE:
Crinkle uses an internet and data connection for its service. You agree that Crinkle may use and access network data services on your device (i.e. such as a cellular connection or wifi connection). Further, you agree and authorize Crinkle to use and transmit/receive on this connection, at any and all times while able without limit or restriction (other than those which may be configured or enforced by your device), for the purpose(s) of updating, maintaining, modifying, adapting, monitoring, rendering, creating, and/or facilitating/enabling any and all services, functionality, cloud databases/servers, etc related to Crinkle and/or its included content and/or third party frameworks such as advertising, analytics, etc. You understand that you are responsible for this usage and any service charges for such according to your cellular device plan or network provider.
13 / UPDATES, NEW RELEASES:
Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive may modify or amend the platform and/or service at any time in order to improve user experience, comply with necessary industry requirements/guidelines, fix bugs, add new features, etc. We will make all efforts to ensure existing users are not impacted negatively, however Crinkle makes no guarantees of the indefinite existence of service features as they are subject to change and development over the lifecycle of application and platform evolution.
Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive does not assume any responsibility or compensation/reimbursement for your choosing to discontinue to use the service or its features at your discretion for any reason related to a new release or update.
14 / SOFTWARE, SERVICE OWNERSHIP:
“Content” herein under “Software, Service Ownership” additionally includes all algorithms, code, binary, executables, apis, frameworks, graphics, etc and/or any of the also previously held definition for “Content” earlier defined in these terms that exists in the application or product.
Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive reserves All Rights to the proprietary content in and of the application/service that is not licensed or an api/framework integrated from a third party. We reserve brand rights to our service and its associated trademarks, logos, name, etc.
All content within and of the application, including but not limited to graphics, icons, fonts, logos, etc. may be subject to copyright by third parties and/or Crinkle. Crinkle maintains licensed use of such third party asset(s) for use in the Crinkle application. Content may not, under any circumstance, be shared or transferred outside of the Crinkle application by any user in any format (i.e. including but not limited to device screenshots, photographs, digital replications, etc.).
All users and any person(s) which downloads the Crinkle application, and/or possess an installation of or interface/access to the service in any medium, are forbidden from attempting to reverse engineer, view source code of, decompile any part of or nature of the application, or hack into/modify any backend architectures/databases/application services outside the normal intended use of Crinkle.
15 / VOLUNTARY USE, LIMITATION OF LIABILITY, HOLD HARMLESS:
Your use of the service is voluntary. You assume all risks. The content and works on the platform may be varied and diverse in nature and we respect the right of authors to explore their professional creativity and freedom of expression in their works and content, as long as they meet our content requirements as described earlier in section 2.1.4. We cannot and do not guarantee all works and content will be directly suitable or appropriate for all audiences, personal preferences, or varying tastes. You, as the user, agree to and are responsible for your choice to view, consume, or contribute to (i.e. read, author, edit, share, comment on, view, attribute to, etc) any given content or work. (Similar to the likes of walking into or exploring a bookstore, public library, joining a book group, online forum, etc.). User generated work and content on the Service does not directly reflect or represent the opinions or advice of H’Appile Interactive, LLC and is not under any warranty or guarantee oF any kind.
Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive and its associates, representatives, employees, owners, affiliates are not responsible for any loss(es), damage(s), injury(ies), burden(s), affliction(s), umbrage(s), or liability(ies) whether direct or indirectly occurred as a result of your (and/or any person(s) you assume/have responsibility for) use(s) of (and/or lack thereof), association(s) with, and/or advocacy(ies) of the service.
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Crinkle and H’Appile Interactive, and its associates, representatives, employees, owners, affiliates for any loss(es), damage(s), injury(ies), burden(s), affliction(s), umbrage(s), or liability(ies) arising from your (and/or any person(s) you assume/have responsibility for) use(s) of (and/or lack thereof), association(s) with, and/or advocacy(ies) of the service.
16 / OUR RIGHT TO UPDATE TERMS, NOTIFY:
You understand these terms are subject to change and may be updated or amended at any time. We may update terms to make them more clear, complete, and/or when something in the service changes, features are added or removed, etc. We respect your right to review changes and we take effort to make users aware of updated terms. However, we are not responsible for your voluntary choice to terminate service/loss of use as a result of refusing to accept such updated terms.
17 / TERM, SUPERSEDENCE
This Agreement remains in full force and effect, unless stated otherwise elsewhere in this Agreement, as long as you use Crinkle and/or have the App installed. If you’ve previously agreed to a prior version of these terms and are an existing user of the service, then these terms shall supersede and replace any previously agreed upon terms, and be effective from your initial date of terms agreement on the service. As such then, these terms do and shall apply to all content(s) and work(s) that exists or will exist by you on the service (i.e. including the past, present, and future).
18 / DISPUTE RESOLUTIONS, WAIVERS, SEVERABILITY:
In the event of a dispute to these terms, you agree that the dispute shall first be mediated for at least 8 hours by a neutral third party and with negotiated discussions. Disputes that are not settled in mediation shall be settled in a legally binding arbitration process. Any arbitration proceedings or awards necessitating enforcement will be handled and decided by a Judge; jury trials are waived. As part of this agreement you further waive rights to bring any class action suits whatsoever against Crinkle, H’Appile Interactive, or its owner(s) or representatives.
All rights granted/limitations set forth under this Agreement may not be waived by either party unless made in writing and signed by the party to be charged. Any attempt to waive such without will not be recognized. This Agreement is solely between H’Appile Interactive and you and will not confer any rights or remedies upon any third party, including third party beneficiaries, unless otherwise stated herein. A finding that any term or provision of this Agreement is invalid or unenforceable will not affect the validity or enforceability of this Agreement. Any term or provision of this Agreement that is found to be invalid or unenforceable will be reformed to the extent necessary to make it valid and enforceable.
YOU AND H’APPILE INTERACTIVE AGREE THAT ANY CAUSE OF ACTION ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THIS AGREEMENT OR THE SERVICES PROVIDED UNDER THIS AGREEMENT MUST COMMENCE WITHIN ONE YEAR AFTER THE CAUSE OF ACTION ACCRUED. FAILURE TO ASSERT SAID CAUSE OF ACTION WITHIN ONE YEAR WILL PERMANENTLY BAR ANY AND ALL RELIEF.
APPENDIX A: DMCA policy
This Digital Millennium Copyright Act policy (“Policy”) applies to the “Crinkle” mobile application (“Mobile Application” or “Service”) and any of its related products and services (collectively, “Services”) and outlines how H’Appile Interactive (“H’Appile Interactive”, “we”, “us” or “our”) addresses copyright infringement notifications and how you (“you” or “your”) may submit a copyright infringement complaint.
Protection of intellectual property is of utmost importance to us and we ask our users and their authorized agents to do the same. It is our policy to expeditiously respond to clear notifications of alleged copyright infringement that comply with the United States Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”) of 1998, the text of which can be found at the U.S. Copyright Office website.
What to consider before submitting a copyright complaint:
Please note that under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), you may be liable for any damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees incurred by us or our users, if you knowingly misrepresent that the material or activity is infringing. If you are unsure whether the material you are reporting is in fact infringing, you may wish to contact an attorney before filing a notification with us.
We may, at our discretion or as required by law, share a copy of your notification or counter-notification with third parties. This may include sharing the information with the account holder engaged in the allegedly infringing activity or for publication. If you are concerned about your information being forwarded, you may wish to use an agent to report infringing material for you.
Notifications of infringement, Designated Agent:
Our designated Agent is:
Edward Thomas Petrak
H’Appile Interactive
2711 Legion Rd
PO Box 8184
Erie, PA 16505
Registration Number: DMCA-1034671
Email: happileinteractive@gmail.com
If you are a copyright owner or an agent thereof, and you believe that any material available on our Services infringes your copyrights, then you may submit a written copyright infringement notification (“Notification”) using the our agent’s contact details above pursuant to the DMCA by providing us with the following information to our designated agent.
– Identification of the copyrighted work that you claim has been infringed, or, if multiple copyrighted works are covered by this Notification, you may provide a representative list of the copyrighted works that you claim have been infringed.
– Identification of the infringing material and information you claim is infringing (or the subject of infringing activity), including at a minimum, if applicable, the URL or URLs of the web pages where the allegedly infringing material may be found.
– Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an e-mail address.
– A statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, the copyright owner’s agent, or the law.
– A statement that the information in the notification is accurate, and under penalty of perjury that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.
– A physical or electronic signature (typing your full name will suffice) of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf.
All such Notifications must comply with the DMCA requirements. You may refer to a DMCA takedown notice generator or other similar services to avoid making mistake and ensure compliance of your Notification.
Filing a DMCA complaint is the start of a pre-defined legal process. Your complaint will be reviewed for accuracy, validity, and completeness. If your complaint has satisfied these requirements, our response may include the removal or restriction of access to allegedly infringing material as well as a permanent termination of repeat infringers’ accounts.
If we remove or restrict access to materials or terminate an account in response to a Notification of alleged infringement, we may make a good faith effort to notify the affected user in the service and/or contact them directly if we have current contact details for. Such contact may include information concerning the removal or restriction of access, which may include a full copy of your Notification (including your name, address, phone, and email address), along with instructions for filing a counter-notification.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any portion of this Policy, H’Appile Interactive reserves the right to take no action upon receipt of a DMCA copyright infringement notification if it fails to comply with all the requirements of the DMCA for such notifications.
Counter-notifications
A user who receives a copyright infringement Notification may make a counter-Notification pursuant to sections 512(g)(2) and (3) of the US Copyright Act. If you receive a copyright infringement Notification, it means that the material described in the Notification has been removed from our Services or access to the material has been restricted. Please take the time to read through the Notification, which includes information on the Notification we received as well as instructions on how to file a counter-notifications.
To file a counter-notification with us, you must provide a written communication that sets out the information specified in the list below:
– Identification of the material that has been removed or to which access has been restricted and the location at which the material appeared before it was removed or access to it was restricted.
– Information reasonably sufficient to permit us to contact you, such as an address, telephone number, and, if available, an e-mail address.
– A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good faith belief that the material was removed or restricted as a result of mistake or misidentification of the material to be removed or restricted.
– A statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which the address is located (or if you are outside of the United States, that you consent to the jurisdiction of any judicial district in which the service provider may be found), and that you will accept service of process from the person or company who provided the original infringement notification.
– A physical or electronic signature (typing your full name will suffice) of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf.
Please note that you may be liable for, including costs and attorneys’ fees incurred by us or our users, if you knowingly misrepresent that the material or activity is not infringing the copyrights of others or that the material or activity was removed or restricted by mistake or misidentification. Accordingly, if you are not sure whether certain material infringes the copyrights of others or that the material or activity was removed or restricted by mistake or misidentification, you may wish to contact an attorney before filing a counter-notification.
Notwithstanding anything to the contrary contained in any portion of this Policy, H’Appile Interactive reserves the right to take no action upon receipt of a counter-notification. If we receive a counter-notification that complies with the terms of 17 U.S.C. § 512(g), we may forward it to the person who filed the original Notification.
The process described in this Policy does not limit our ability to pursue any other remedies we may have to address suspected infringement.
Changes and amendments
We reserve the right to modify this Policy or its terms relating to the Mobile Application and Services at any time, effective upon posting of an updated version of this Policy in the Mobile Application. When we do, we will revise the updated date and version of our terms of service.
Reporting copyright infringement
If you would like to notify us of the infringing material or activity, you may do so via email to happileinteractive@gmail.com addressed with subject “Attn: Copyright Agent”. You can also visit https://www.copyright.gov/dmca-directory/ to look up additional contact details of our agent:
H’Appile Interactive
Registration Number: DMCA-1034671