Terms of Use (United States)

Version 1.5 — Effective date: 2026-11-08

1. Who these terms are between

These Terms of Use are an agreement between you and Zhang Liu, an individual developer based in South Carolina, United States ("we", "us"), about the BeyondRead app for iOS.

By tapping Agree, you agree to these Terms of Use, including the binding arbitration provision and class-action waiver described in Section 12. If you do not accept them, do not use the app. Reading features that work without an account are provided under these terms as well.

Apple is not a party to these terms. See §13 for terms that App Store rules require us to state about Apple.

2. What the service is

• A local reader for EPUB, PDF and MOBI files you already have. This part works offline, without an account, and is free.
• AI features — translate/explain a selected passage, ask questions about it, and "AI Digest" (a structured article about a book, grounded in its real table of contents). These require an account and a network connection, and are subject to plan quotas.
• The Browse tab — a catalog of free books: books that are in the public domain, or that their publishers have released under a free license (for example CC BY-SA), which you can browse and add to your library without an account. Each book's page states the basis on which we distribute it, the license of that edition, who must be credited, and links to the source. Availability depends on your App Store country, because copyright terms differ. Catalog books are provided as they are; once added to your library, a catalog book is an ordinary local file and stays on your device even if it is later removed from the catalog.

We work from the catalogs of the projects we mirror and check each title, but we cannot guarantee that every listing is free of error. If you believe a book in the catalog infringes your rights, write to zhang3917@hotmail.com with the title and the basis of your claim; we will remove it promptly while we look into it.

We may change, add or remove features. If a change removes something material you paid for, §8 (subscriptions) governs.

3. Your books and your rights in them

• Your book files stay on your device. We never modify your files, and we never upload the full text of a book.
• When you use the AI features, you send us (and we relay to the AI model provider) short excerpts, the book's metadata, its table of contents and brief chapter openings. **You are responsible for having the right to use your book files this way.** Do not use the app with content you are not lawfully permitted to possess and process.
• You keep all rights in your content. You grant us only the narrow license needed to operate the service: to transmit, process, and retain your AI inputs as described in the Privacy Policy, solely to provide the features, handle complaints, and meet legal obligations. We do not use your content to train AI models.
• AI Digest articles are generated for you. We claim no ownership over them; treat your right to reuse them as limited by the rights you hold in the underlying book.

4. Accounts

• Sign in is with your Apple account. You may optionally add a username and password in Settings; both ways lead to the same account. There is no separate registration, and there is no password recovery by email — if you forget the password, sign in with Apple and set a new one.
• Keep your credentials safe. You are responsible for activity under your account.
• You can delete your account at any time in Settings; deletion is immediate and is described in the Privacy Policy §7.

5. AI content — read this section

AI output is generated by a machine and can be wrong, incomplete, or misleading, even when it sounds confident. Every digest carries an AI-generated notice.

• It is not professional advice. For manuals: it does not replace the manufacturer's instructions. For legal documents: it is not legal advice. For medical content: it is not a diagnosis or treatment advice — do not use it to self-diagnose or delay care. For financial content: it is not investment, tax or financial advice and is not a basis for any transaction. For contracts: it is not a contract review — check the contract itself.
• Verify anything you intend to act on against the original text and, where it matters, with a qualified professional.

6. Acceptable use

You agree not to: probe, overload, or interfere with the service; bypass quotas, rate limits, or technical protections (including by fabricating failures to farm refunds); resell or programmatically harvest the AI features; use the service to violate law or third-party rights; or attempt to identify other users. We may throttle, suspend, or terminate accounts engaged in abuse (§9).

7. Quotas and fair use

Each plan (including the free plan) has quotas that refill with the calendar month — on the 1st, United States Eastern time — independently of when your subscription renews (see §8). The current figures are shown in the app. A failed AI call is refunded to your quota, but the number of attempts is capped separately and attempts are not refunded — this is the mechanism that stops manufactured-failure abuse; occasional real failures leave you ample retries. Unused monthly quota does not roll over to the next month (AI Top-Up credits are not part of the monthly quota and do not expire — see §8). Quotas and plan contents may be adjusted; changes apply from the next calendar month.

One consequence worth stating plainly: because the allowance follows the calendar and the charge follows your renewal date, moving to a lower plan mid-month leaves you with whatever remains of that plan's allowance after what you have already spent this month. If you have already used more than the lower plan allows, you have none left until the 1st.

8. Subscriptions, AI Top-Up packs and billing

• Paid plans are sold as auto-renewing subscriptions through Apple. Billing, renewal, cancellation and refunds are handled by Apple under Apple's terms: manage or cancel in your Apple ID subscription settings at least 24 hours before the period ends; request refunds from Apple at reportaproblem.apple.com. We cannot issue Apple refunds ourselves.
• Prices may change; Apple will notify you and, where required, ask you to agree before a higher price applies.
• Pro is our subscription, sold monthly or yearly with the same benefits: a monthly allowance of AI conversations and AI Digests, deeper follow-up questions, and a monthly allowance of premium-voice listening that works on any book that supports premium voice, so you do not have to buy books one by one. The current figures are shown in the app at the time of purchase. Premium-voice hours reset with the calendar month like the AI allowance and do not carry over. A book you bought premium voice for separately uses your Pro hours first while you still have them this month; its own hours are used after that and do not expire. Pro also lets you share the files of books you downloaded from Browse, up to 10 books a month (sharing the same book again in the same month does not count twice; the count starts over on the 1st of each month, US Eastern time; we may adjust this number for cost reasons, and the app shows the current figure); your own book files can be shared on any plan. Plus, sold in earlier versions of the app, is a subscription of the same kind with larger AI allowances; everything said here about Pro applies to it too.
• The yearly plan may include a free trial for first-time subscribers (the length is shown on the purchase screen), once per Apple Account. When the trial ends you are charged the yearly price unless you cancel in your Apple ID subscription settings at least 24 hours before it ends.
• **Your AI allowance resets with the calendar month — on the 1st, United States Eastern time — independently of when your subscription renews.** The two dates coincide only if you happened to subscribe on the 1st. If you subscribe on the 20th, you are billed on the 20th of each month while your allowance refills on the 1st, so your first period gives you less than a full month of usage. Unused monthly allowance does not carry over.
• AI Top-Up packs were one-time purchases of AI credits (conversation rounds and AI Digests), sold through Apple as consumable in-app purchases. The app no longer offers them; credits you already bought keep working as described here. Credits belong to the account that was signed in when they were bought and do not expire. They are used only after your plan's monthly allowance has run out, and they are separate from it: the monthly reset does not touch them. AI translation does not use Top-Up credits.
• Top-Up credits cannot be transferred to another account, exchanged for money, or restored from the App Store receipt. **If you delete your account, any unused credits are erased with it and are not refunded** — the app tells you this before you confirm the deletion.
• Refunds for Top-Up packs are decided by Apple (reportaproblem.apple.com). If Apple refunds a pack, the credits that remain from that pack are removed.
• Premium voice for a single book is a consumable in-app purchase sold through Apple: it buys listening time for that book in one voice, priced by the book's length (5–200 hours). It does not expire and is not a subscription. The other voice is bought separately; buying the same voice again adds time to that book. Each book has a 5-minute preview. You must be signed in to buy, and the time belongs to the account that was signed in. Audio you have listened to is stored on your phone and replaying it does not use time; if you delete the book or move to a new phone, it is generated again and counted again. If you delete your account, unused premium-voice time is erased and not refunded. If Apple refunds a purchase, that voice can no longer be used for the book and its audio is removed from your phone. Listening with the system voice is free and needs no account.
• If a subscription ends, your account reverts to the free plan; your local books and data are untouched.

9. Termination

You can stop using the app, or delete your account, at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access to the AI features (or, for serious abuse, your account) if you materially breach these terms, with notice where practicable. Sections that by their nature survive (3, 5, 10, 11, 12) survive termination.

10. Disclaimers

THE APP AND THE AI FEATURES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW CERTAIN WARRANTY EXCLUSIONS; IN THAT CASE THE EXCLUSIONS APPLY TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED.

11. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (a) WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS OR GOODWILL; AND (b) OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE APP IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF US $100 OR THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID US THROUGH THE APP IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM. NOTHING IN THESE TERMS LIMITS LIABILITY THAT CANNOT BE LIMITED BY LAW (INCLUDING FOR GROSS NEGLIGENCE OR WILLFUL MISCONDUCT).

12. Governing law; binding arbitration; class action waiver

Please read this section carefully. It affects your rights: it requires individual arbitration of most disputes and waives class actions. You can opt out within 30 days (§12.5).

12.1 Governing law. These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. The Federal Arbitration Act governs the interpretation and enforcement of this §12.

12.2 Talk to us first. Before filing any claim, you agree to email zhang3917@hotmail.com with a description of the dispute and give us 60 days to try to resolve it informally. Most issues get fixed this way, faster than any proceeding.

12.3 Binding individual arbitration. Except as provided in §12.4, any dispute arising out of or relating to the app or these terms shall be resolved by binding arbitration on an individual basis, administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Consumer Arbitration Rules and, where applicable, its Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules, in each case as then in effect. The arbitration will be conducted in English, by videoconference, or — if an in-person hearing is required — in the county where you live. Fees are allocated under the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules; if your claim is for less than US $10,000, we will pay the administrative and arbitrator fees other than your initial filing fee, unless the arbitrator finds the claim frivolous. The arbitrator's award is final and may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.

12.4 What stays out of arbitration. Either party may (a) bring qualifying claims in small claims court, and (b) seek injunctive or equitable relief in court for infringement or misuse of intellectual property.

Nothing in this Section waives or limits any right to seek public injunctive relief where such a waiver or limitation is prohibited by applicable law.

For anything not subject to arbitration, the state and federal courts located in Santa Clara County, California have exclusive jurisdiction, except to the extent applicable law gives you the right to bring a claim in another jurisdiction.

12.5 Your right to opt out. You may reject this arbitration agreement, without any penalty, by emailing zhang3917@hotmail.com within 30 days of first accepting these terms, stating your account identifier and that you opt out of arbitration. If you timely opt out, this arbitration agreement, including the arbitration-related jury-trial and class-action waivers, will not apply to you. Any dispute will instead be resolved in court as provided in §12.4, subject to applicable law.

12.6 Class action waiver. BOTH PARTIES WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND THE RIGHT TO PARTICIPATE IN A CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED OR REPRESENTATIVE ACTION. Claims may be brought only in an individual capacity. If this waiver is found unenforceable as to a particular claim, then that claim (and only that claim) must proceed in court under §12.4, not in arbitration.

12.7 Severability of this section. If any part of this §12 other than §12.6 is found unenforceable, the rest of §12 still applies.

13. Apple-required terms

• These terms are between you and Zhang Liu only — not with Apple. Apple has no obligation to furnish maintenance or support, and is not responsible for the app, its content, or any claims relating to it (including product liability, regulatory compliance, consumer protection, and IP claims), all of which are our responsibility to the extent required.
• Your license to use the app is limited, non-transferable, and for use on Apple-branded devices you own or control, as permitted by the App Store Terms of Service.
• In case of the app's failure to conform to a warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price (if any); Apple has no other warranty obligation.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo and are not on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

14. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. For material changes we will present the new version in the app and ask you to accept before continuing to use the AI features; reading features are not gated. The version and effective date at the top tell you what you are looking at.

15. Contact

Zhang Liu — zhang3917@hotmail.com