These Terms are the legally binding version. A Traditional Chinese translation is provided for convenience only; in case of conflict, this English version governs.

1. Who you are contracting with

The Service is operated under the name OpenStela by Chen Law Cultural Enterprise Co., Ltd. (誠律文化事業有限公司, unified business no. 62107935), a limited company incorporated in Taiwan ("OpenStela", "we", "us"). Contact: support@openstela.io.

Name change. The Service operated under the name Avatar Lab at avatar-lab.app until 16 September 2026, when it was renamed OpenStela and moved to openstela.io. The operator, your account, your registrations, registry numbers (AVL-…), deals and records are unchanged. References to "Avatar Lab" in earlier versions of these Terms, in contracts signed before that date, and in anchoring records mean OpenStela. Old addresses redirect for at least one year.

Change of operator. Until 11 October 2026 the Service was operated by OpenStela, a sole proprietorship established in Taiwan. As provided in the earlier version of this section, the business has been incorporated, and from 12 October 2026 the company named above is the contracting party. These Terms, your account, your registrations, registry numbers (AVL-…), deals, records and anchoring history continue with the company unchanged; nothing you have done needs to be repeated. Contracts concluded in the deal room are between users and are not affected.

2. What the Service does

OpenStela is a registry and marketplace for original characters and the works made with them. You define a character pack — a written specification and the reference images you upload — and the Service issues the character a registry number. You register works — music, video, images, links — with or without a character, and the Service writes an authorship record for each. You may bind a work to a character, and the Service lets you show, license or sell the character with that record attached.

• Import — we call a third-party model (currently Google's Gemini API) on your behalf to read a draft specification out of the pictures you upload; you confirm or edit it. Free of charge, subject to a daily limit.
• Character ID and registry record — an identifier of the form AVL-XXXXXX, fingerprints of the specification, of every work's authorship record and of every binding, a public verification page, and daily anchoring of those fingerprints to a public blockchain (Section 9).
• Works, bindings and evidence — registration of music, video, images and links, each with an authorship record, with or without a character; binding a work to a character; automated checks of how a bound work relates to the character; and verification of the channels you publish on (Section 4A).
• Market and deal room — public listing, in-app negotiation, standard contract templates, electronic signature, and execution of the agreed transfer or licence (Section 4B).

We may add, change or withdraw features. Where a change materially reduces what a paid plan provides, we will give notice before it takes effect.

3. Eligibility and accounts

You must be at least 18 years old and legally able to enter into contracts. The Service is not directed at children.

Accounts are created by signing in with Google or GitHub. We only accept a verified email address from those providers, because your quota, files and payments are all attached to the identity derived from that address. You are responsible for the security of the account you sign in with.

You may not share, sell or transfer your account. One human, one account; creating additional accounts to circumvent usage limits is a breach of these Terms.

Accounts operated by OpenStela. We, or an affiliate of ours, may operate accounts — including under pen names — that publish characters and works we create ourselves. Their records are made, fingerprinted and anchored exactly like any other account's; the previous paragraph does not apply to them.

API keys and AI assistants. Anything done through an API key of your account, or through an AI assistant you authorise to use it, is done by you and on your account, as if you had done it in the interface — including creating a character and issuing its registry ID — and the declarations made that way are yours. An AI assistant can only issue a registry ID after showing you a summary of what will be registered and receiving the one-time confirmation code from that step.

4. Your content, and what we may do with it

You keep ownership. Character specifications, uploaded images and generated outputs remain yours as between you and us. We claim no ownership of them.

Licence to us. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, transmit and display your content solely to operate and support the Service, and for items you make public, to feature them as Section 4E provides — including transmitting it to the third-party model providers listed in the Privacy Policy so that generation and analysis can be performed. This licence ends when you delete the content, except for backups pending deletion and for anything already anchored to a public blockchain (Section 9).

We do not train models on your images. Images you upload are not used to train any model, ours or anyone else's. We do use metadata about model-processing events — model used, token counts, failure modes — to operate, debug and improve the Service. See the Privacy Policy for detail.

Public content. One endpoint is public by design: the verification link (/api/verify/<fingerprint>). Anyone holding a fingerprint can check when a specification was registered and whether it has changed since. It returns no images, no specification text and no account details. A character with a registry number, and a registered work, each have a public page and appear on the market unless you mark them private (Sections 4A and 4B) — a per-item choice you can change at any time.

4A. Works you register (music, video, images, links)

What registering a work does. When you register a work, the Service computes a cryptographic fingerprint (SHA-256) of the uploaded file — or, for a link, of a snapshot fetched at the moment of registration — and writes an authorship record: that fingerprint, the attribution you give, the creation date you claim, your declarations under this Section, and the time of registration. The fingerprint of the authorship record is included in the daily batch anchored to a public blockchain (Section 9). This proves the work, exactly as fingerprinted, existed and was registered under that attribution on that date. It does not prove authorship, non-infringement, or any right to sell — the same limits as Section 9. A work does not need a character: it may be registered on its own and bound to a character later, or never.

Binding. You may bind a work to a character you hold. Binding writes a separate binding record — the character's registry number and specification version, the fingerprint of the work's authorship record, and the time — which is anchored on its own (Section 9). Binding does not change the authorship record. A work may be bound to more than one character. The Service does not currently offer unbinding; deleting the work (below) ends its display, not its records.

Links are snapshots. Content behind an external link (e.g. Instagram, YouTube) can be changed or removed by its host at any time. What is certified is the snapshot taken at registration, and the Service says so wherever a linked work is displayed.

Your declarations. Registering a work requires you to declare: (a) that it is your own work or that you hold the rights to publish it — for music, that you hold both the composition and the recording rights; (b) the attribution, meaning the name under which the work is published, which may be a pen name you are entitled to use; and (c) whether the work was made with AI tools and, if so, what you yourself contributed (for example lyrics, the creative choices in your prompts, arrangement, editing). Declarations (b) and (c) form part of the authorship record: they are stored with a timestamp, their fingerprint is anchored, they cannot be edited afterwards (a corrected declaration requires a new registration), and while the work is public they are shown on its public page. We ask for (c) because, in most jurisdictions, only the human contribution to AI-assisted material is protected (Section 10); a record that says nothing about it would be of little use to you later. A false declaration, or registering a work you have no rights to, is a breach of these Terms and may lead to removal and account action.

Public by default. A registered work is shown on your public page and on its own public page unless you switch it off, at registration or at any time later. Switching a work off hides it; it does not change or withdraw any record. The public pages show the authorship record, the fingerprints, the anchoring status and the characters the work is bound to; they do not show your private notes.

Deletion. Deleting a work removes the file from the Service. The authorship record, any binding record and the blockchain anchoring cannot be recalled: anyone holding a fingerprint can still verify that it was registered on a given date. The verification endpoint will say the work has since been deleted.

Evidence records. For each work bound to a character the Service runs a set of automated checks on how the work relates to that character — whether the work's dates fall after the character's registration, how the linked page presented the work when it was registered (title, channel, date), what rights you declared, and how long the work has been shown publicly. The Service does not compare the content of a work against the character — no marker detection, palette comparison or likeness scoring — and does not judge whether a work "looks like" the character. Each check is recorded separately with one of four results — pass, partial, fail or not applicable — a timestamp and the method version used, and its fingerprint is anchored (Section 9). Checks are evidence, not findings. They are performed by software on the material available at the time, can be wrong in either direction, are not reviewed by a person, and do not establish authorship, ownership or non-infringement. A fail is not an accusation and a pass is not a certificate. Evidence records are never altered after the fact; a later run adds a new record.

Channel verification. You may verify that you control a channel (a website, a social or video account) by placing a one-time code where the Service tells you to. Verification records that the code was found at that location on that date; it lapses after 90 days unless renewed, and it does not establish that you own the content published there. Works you link from a verified channel inherit the channel's verification status for display purposes only.

Storage and limits. There is no limit on the number of works per account or per character. Uploaded files count against your storage allowance (Section 7); links count only for the size of the snapshot taken. Registration of a new upload is refused, not silently truncated, when the allowance is full. A daily limit on the number of registrations applies to prevent abuse and is shown in the Service.

Works move with a character. When a character is assigned through the deal room (Section 4B), the works bound only to that character move to the buyer's account with it — file, authorship record and binding record — and a transfer line is added to each work's history. The authorship record is not rewritten: it continues to name the original registrant. A work bound to more than one character stays in your account; the character's public page says so before any deal is opened. From signature until the transfer completes, works bound to the character are locked like the pack itself (Section 4B).

Infringement reports. If a registered work or a listed character infringes your rights, follow the procedure in Section 4C.

4B. Market listings and the deal room

Public by default; for sale by choice. Once a character has a registry number it appears on the market and has a public page, marked not for sale, unless you mark it private. Registered works appear on the market the same way (Section 4A). Anyone interested may contact you through the Service's message threads. Putting a character up for sale or licence — choosing that mode, with or without an asking price — is a separate step and is an invitation to negotiate only, not an offer. You may only offer a character you hold; a character under an exclusive licence, or locked in a pending deal, cannot be offered. Works are not sold through the deal room; they change hands only together with a character they are bound to (Section 4A).

The deal room. The Service provides a deal room in which the parties may draft a contract from the Service's standard templates (an assignment or an exclusive licence), adjust the parameters and optional clauses those templates expose, add their own clauses, negotiate revisions, and sign electronically. Each signature is recorded against the SHA-256 fingerprint of the exact text signed; a change to the text after one party has signed voids that signature. You agree that an electronic signature given in the deal room is your signature for the purposes of the U.S. Electronic Signatures in Global and National Commerce Act, the Uniform Electronic Transactions Act, Regulation (EU) No 910/2014 and equivalent laws, and that the signed text is a written instrument for the purposes of 17 U.S.C. § 204(a) and equivalent writing requirements.

Templates are not legal advice. The standard templates are general-purpose documents drafted for transactions between creators, primarily with United States law in mind. They are provided as-is. Whether a template suits your transaction, the parameters you choose, and any clause you add or edit are your own responsibility and are not reviewed by the Service. The Service is not a party to any contract concluded in the deal room and is not your lawyer.

Payment stays between the parties. The Service does not process payments, hold funds or act as escrow. The buyer records in the deal room that payment has been sent; the seller records that it has been received. Deal fee. When a deal reaches the transfer step, the Service charges the seller a deal fee of 5% of the agreed price, minimum US$15, or US$3 for a non-exclusive licence (prices agreed in a currency other than US dollars are charged the applicable minimum). The fee pays for the Service executing the transfer, checking every file against the signed manifest and anchoring the record; it is shown in the deal room before signature and again before payment, and the transfer runs once it has been paid. No fee is charged for registration, showcase listings, opening a deal room, signing, or a cancelled deal. The fee is a charge for the Service's own work and is not a share of the sale price, which the Service never receives.

Lock and execution. From the moment both parties have signed, the seller's character pack, and the works bound to it, are locked: their files cannot be changed, no work can be newly bound to the character and no bound work deleted, until the transfer completes or the deal is cancelled. When the seller confirms receipt of payment, the Service executes the agreed transfer automatically. For an assignment it moves the character pack — files, works, evidence records and registry number — together with the works bound only to that character (Section 4A), from the seller's account to the buyer's, leaving the seller a read-only record without files. For an exclusive licence it delivers a copy of the pack to the licensee, marks the licensor's character as exclusively licensed for the term, and removes the copy when the term ends. In both cases the event is appended to the registry record and the fingerprints of the signed contract and of the transfer event are anchored on the next daily batch (Section 9). The contract text itself is never published.

Acceptance and disputes. After execution the buyer has an acceptance window (72 hours unless the contract states otherwise) in which the Service's machine acceptance check — a per-file fingerprint comparison of what was delivered against what was frozen at signature — is available to both sides. A dispute raised in the deal room within that window freezes the transaction for our review. We may uphold the transfer, reverse it, or cancel the deal, based solely on the machine check and the deal record. That decision governs only what the Service does with the accounts and records concerned; it is not an adjudication of the parties' rights, which remain governed by their contract and the law. We do not resolve disputes about payment, quality or fitness, and we do not recover funds.

What goes public. Listing a character makes its public page visible to anyone: reference images, identity markers, registered works and their public evidence summary, the channels you add (marked self-declared or verified), and the registry record including its history of transfers and licences by platform handle. The full specification text, per-platform prompts, your original import prompt and the detail of evidence records remain private. Visibility is on by default once a character has a number and can be switched off per character at any time; switching it off hides the page and the market entry but withdraws no record.

Contact details. If you add a contact method to a listing, it is shown publicly. Beware of impersonation and off-platform scams; we never ask either side to pay us to complete a sale.

4C. Copyright complaints and repeat infringers

We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement in accordance with the notice-and-takedown procedure of the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) and apply the same procedure worldwide.

Designated agent. Our agent for receiving copyright notices, as registered in the U.S. Copyright Office's DMCA Designated Agent Directory (registration no. DMCA-1079983), is:

Copyright Agent
Chen Law Cultural Business Ltd.
2 F., No. 88, Jinzhuang Rd., Neihu Dist., Taipei City 114, Taiwan
Phone: +886 981 182 935
Email: support@openstela.io

Sending a notice. Send your notice to the designated agent, preferably by email with the subject line "Copyright notice", including: (1) identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed; (2) the URL, registry number or fingerprint of the material you claim is infringing; (3) your name, address, telephone number and email address; (4) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorised by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; (5) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the owner or authorised to act for the owner; and (6) your physical or electronic signature. Incomplete notices may not be acted on.

What we do. On receipt of a valid notice we remove or disable access to the material, notify the account holder and forward the notice to them. The registry record is not deleted — a public blockchain cannot be edited — but the verification endpoint will state that the material was removed following a complaint.

Counter-notice. An account holder who believes material was removed by mistake or misidentification may send a counter-notice to the same address containing: identification of the material and its former location; a statement under penalty of perjury of good-faith belief that it was removed by mistake or misidentification; consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for their address (or, if outside the United States, of any judicial district in which we may be found) and to accept service from the complainant; and their name, address and signature. We forward counter-notices to the complainant and may restore the material in not less than 10 and not more than 14 business days unless the complainant informs us that it has filed a court action.

Repeat infringers. We terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who are repeat infringers. Knowingly sending a false notice or counter-notice may make you liable for damages under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f) and equivalent laws.

4D. Posts, comments, likes, reposts, quotes and mentions

Posts. If you have a public profile address you may publish posts: text, optionally with one of your own public characters or works attached, up to four images or one video, and a link. When you add a link we fetch the linked page to build a preview (title, summary and image), which is stored with the post; links to YouTube, StreetVoice, Suno and SoundCloud play in that platform's own player. Only upload images and videos you are entitled to share; uploads count toward your storage allowance. Posts appear on your profile and in your followers' feeds, and others may like, comment on, repost, quote, save and report them. You may delete your own posts at any time; deleting a post removes it. Everything in this section about comments — responsibility, the licence you grant, moderation and the fact that it changes nothing in the registry — applies to posts in the same way. Posts are not anchored.

What they are. You may like, save, repost, quote and comment on characters and works that are public on the Service, like comments, and mention other users by their profile address. A repost shows the item to your followers with its holder named; a quote is a post of your own with the item embedded, listed in the item's quotes list, with its own likes, comments and reposts; if the quoted item is deleted, made private or its account suspended, the quote post remains but no longer displays that item. Neither copies the item or gives you any rights in it. Saves are private. When an item stops being public, likes, saves, reposts, quotes and comments on it stop being shown.

Comments are conversation, not records. A comment is not an objection, a notice or a claim. It does not change the registry record, any evidence check or any anchored fingerprint, and it is never anchored. The Service does not decide disputes between users about who made, holds or has rights in a character or a work; those are for the parties to resolve between themselves, including through the courts. Copyright complaints follow Section 4C.

Your responsibility. You are responsible for what you post. Do not post content that is unlawful, infringing, defamatory, harassing or deceptive, advertising unrelated to the item, or another person's personal data. You keep any rights you have in your comments and grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host and display them on the Service for as long as they remain posted.

Moderation. Commenting and quoting require a public profile address. The holder of a character or work may choose who can comment on and quote it (everyone, their followers, people they follow, or no one), pin a comment, delete comments under it, and block accounts. Any user may block another account: the blocked account can no longer follow, like, repost, quote, comment on or send messages to the blocking user, follows between the two are removed, and each stops seeing the other in feeds and search; a blocked account is not notified. Any user may mute another account, which only changes what the muting user sees and is notified about. We do not review comments before they appear and are not responsible for their content, but we may remove comments and posts or restrict commenting, including after a report, and may act under Section 14 against repeated abuse. When we act on a report we tell the reporter the outcome (not who was reported), and we tell the author when their comment or post is removed and why. API keys cannot follow, like, comment, quote, repost, post, save, mute, block or send messages. A deleted comment's text is deleted, not hidden; when you delete your account, your comments are deleted in the same way.

4E. Featuring your public characters and works

Licence to feature. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to reproduce and display any character or work you have made public on the Service, and to crop, resize, frame and caption it without otherwise altering it, in posts promoting the Service on our social media accounts, website, newsletters and presentations. You grant this licence only to the extent of the rights you hold.

Credit. We will credit you by your display name and link to the item's public page.

Stopping it. If you make the item private or delete it, we will not use it in new posts. You may ask us to remove an existing post featuring your character or work by emailing support@openstela.io, and we will remove it.

5. Rules of use

You must not use the Service to create, upload or generate:

1. The likeness of a real person without their permission — including public figures, celebrities and deceased persons where local law protects them. This is the single most important rule on this platform, because the product is about persistent, recognisable characters.
2. Sexual content involving minors, or any depiction of a minor in a sexualised manner. This is prohibited absolutely and will be reported where the law requires.
3. Content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, or that incites violence or hatred.
4. Material that infringes another person's copyright, trade mark, or other rights.
5. Deceptive synthetic media intended to make people believe a real person said or did something they did not.

You must also not: circumvent usage limits or rate limits; scrape, resell or redistribute the Service or its outputs as a competing service; probe or attack the infrastructure; or use automated means to create accounts.

You warrant that you hold all rights necessary for the material you upload, including the consent of any identifiable person depicted in it. You agree to indemnify us against third-party claims arising from your breach of this Section.

Zero tolerance. There is no place on the Service for objectionable content or abusive users. Anyone can report a character, work, post, comment or account, and block another account (section 4D). We act on reports of objectionable content within 24 hours: content that breaks this section or section 4D is removed, and the account responsible may be suspended or terminated.

We may suspend or terminate an account that breaches these rules. Where the breach is not serious, we will normally warn first.

6. Third-party platforms and your own accounts

Adapter packs are provided so you can use your character on platforms we do not operate. Your use of those platforms is governed by their terms, not ours. We do not operate your account on any platform that lacks an official API, and we will never ask for the credentials of such an account.

Platform behaviour changes without notice. The guidance we provide is based on our own testing at a point in time and is offered without warranty that it still holds.

7. Fees and payment

Registration is free. Registering characters, binding works, contracts, the deal room, messages and anchoring cost nothing. Each account is subject to usage limits (number of characters, storage for uploaded works, and a daily limit on imports) shown in the Service. The first 50 characters on an account are free; for the other limits, if you reach one in good faith, write to support@openstela.io.

Character slot packs (optional). Above 50 characters you can buy one-time slot packs: +15 characters for US$4.99, +50 for US$12.99, +100 for US$19.99. Packs stack, do not expire and stay on the account. They are not a subscription and nothing renews.

Apart from optional slot packs, the only charge is the deal fee described in section 4B, paid by the seller when a deal reaches the transfer step. Current rate and minimum are shown in the Service and in the deal room.

Legacy subscriptions and credits. Subscriptions, character-slot add-ons and credit packs sold before 19 September 2026 are no longer offered. Character slots purchased under those plans remain on the account. Credit balances no longer have a use in the Service; if you bought a credit pack and have an unused balance, contact support and we will refund it.

Payment processing. The deal fee and slot packs are processed by Polar Software Inc. acting as Merchant of Record. This means Polar, not OpenStela, is the seller of record for that payment: Polar handles payment, invoicing, and any applicable sales tax or VAT. Polar's terms and privacy policy apply to the payment itself. Polar processes only the fee and slot packs; the sale price is settled between buyer and seller and never passes through Polar or the Service.

Paying in our iPhone and iPad app. If you pay the deal fee inside the OpenStela app for iPhone or iPad, the payment is made through Apple's In-App Purchase: Apple, not Polar or OpenStela, processes it under Apple's terms. App Store prices come in fixed steps, so the amount charged in the app is the fee under section 4B rounded up to the nearest available App Store price point; the exact amount is shown before you confirm. The sale price itself never passes through Apple.

Prices are stated in US dollars and exclude any tax Polar or Apple is required to add at checkout.

8. Refunds

A deal fee is not refundable once the transfer has run, because the work it pays for — moving the pack, checking every file, anchoring the record — has been performed. If the transfer fails and cannot be completed, or the deal is reversed by the Service under section 4B, the fee is refunded in full.

Slot packs are refunded on request within 14 days of purchase, as long as none of the pack's slots has been used — that is, the account has not gone above the character limit it had before the purchase. After that, a pack is not refundable, because the slots have been delivered. The qualifications above apply to slot packs as well.

If you were charged in error, contact support@openstela.io — those cases are handled on their merits, not by this policy.

9. Character ID, registry and blockchain anchoring — what it is and is not

Each character pack may be issued an identifier (AVL-XXXXXX) and a registry record. The record holds cryptographic hashes (SHA-256) of the character's specification (not of its images) in each version, of each work's authorship record and each binding record, of each evidence and channel record, and of each signed contract and transfer event (Section 4B). A work registered without a character has its own record and anchoring in the same way. Hashes are batched daily into a Merkle tree and the tree root is written to a public blockchain (Arbitrum One).

Record cards. A record is also shown as a card — a character ID card, or an authorship record card for a work (numbered W- followed by the work's identifier; this is a display format, not a separate number). The card shows the fingerprint when the record is created; the transaction and Merkle root are filled in after the daily batch. You may download and share it. The card only depicts the record: everything in this section about what a record does and does not prove applies to it, and it carries the notice "timestamp evidence, not proof of rights or authorship". Do not present it as a certificate of copyright, ownership or authorship.

What this proves: that a specific piece of data — a specification, an authorship record, a work binding, an evidence result, a contract text — existed, in exactly this form, at or before the time of that transaction, and that the record has not been altered since.

What this does not prove, and what we do not claim:

• It is not proof of authorship. It does not establish that you created the character or the work.
• It is not proof of ownership, and not proof that the character does not infringe someone else's rights.
• It is not a registration of copyright, trade mark, or any other legal right with any government office. Copyright arises on creation under the law of most jurisdictions; a timestamp is evidence, not title. Registration with the U.S. Copyright Office or elsewhere, where available, is your own responsibility.
• It is not a token, an NFT, a security, or any kind of asset in its own right. There is no wallet, no coin, and nothing on the blockchain that anyone holds. The registry number has no value separate from the character it identifies.

The registry record follows the character; it is not itself for sale. The registry number cannot be sold, given away or moved to another character, and cannot be split from the character's files and works. When a character is assigned through the deal room (Section 4B), the whole character — files, works, evidence and registry record, and the works bound only to it (Section 4A) — moves to the new holder's account and the transfer is appended to the record's history; the number stays the same. Under an exclusive licence the record stays with the licensor and the licence event is appended. Any purported transfer of a registry number outside the deal room has no effect as far as the Service is concerned and is not reflected in the record.

We do not hold any digital asset on your behalf. The wallet used for anchoring exists only to pay transaction fees.

Anchored data cannot be deleted. A public blockchain is append-only. The anchored value is a 32-byte hash root and contains no personal data and no readable content, but it will remain on that chain permanently, including after you delete your account. The underlying files, specification text, authorship records and evidence detail are held by us and are deleted with your account.

10. Copyright status of AI-generated output

In many jurisdictions, including the United States, the European Union and Taiwan, material generated by an AI system without sufficient human creative input may not attract copyright protection at all. The U.S. Copyright Office has stated that it will not register works whose expressive elements were produced by AI without human authorship, and that a character is protectable only to the extent it is delineated by human creative choices. Nothing in the Service changes that. We make no representation that any output you produce, or any character you register, is protectable; the Character ID, evidence records and anchoring do not alter its legal status; and a character's provenance log — which parts are human-authored and which are AI-generated — is your own declaration, not our finding. A buyer or licensee should read that log before contracting.

11. Taking your data with you

For as long as your account is active you may download your character packs — specification, reference images and adapter packs — from the interface, in open formats. This is a deliberate design commitment: the product's premise is that a character is portable, so lock-in through data retention would contradict it. A complete copy of everything held under your account — including model-processing events and consent records — can be downloaded at any time from Settings → Your data. Requests by email to support@openstela.io remain available.

12. Availability

The Service is provided on an "as is" and "as available" basis. It runs on shared infrastructure and includes queueing and daily caps; capacity is not guaranteed. We do not commit to any uptime level or service-level agreement.

The Service does not generate images. Where it does use a model — drafting a specification from the images you upload, and running evidence checks — the model is non-deterministic, and we do not guarantee any particular draft or check result.

12A. If the Service ends

This section states what we will do if we decide to stop operating the Service. It does not qualify section 12: we still make no commitment as to uptime, and nothing here should be read as a promise that the Service will continue.

1. Ninety days' notice. We will give at least ninety (90) days' notice before the registry stops being served, by email to every account holding a registered record and by notice on the Service. This is longer than the notice period in section 15 because acting on it takes longer than reading it.
2. Export remains available until the last day. Account export under section 11 and the per-record proof packs will continue to function throughout the notice period, including for accounts whose paid plan or trial has already ended.
3. Publication of the anchoring data. Before the Service closes we will publish, to at least one location not controlled by us — such as a public code repository or a content-addressed store — the complete set of batch leaf hashes together with the corresponding transaction identifiers, and a digest of the registry. Those files contain fingerprints and transaction references only; they contain no account identifiers, character names or registry numbers, and publishing them therefore discloses nothing about who registered what. Their purpose is to allow any holder to reconstruct a Merkle proof for their own fingerprint without us. The same data is published continuously while the Service operates, through the public batch endpoint described on the Continuity page.
4. Anchors are not revoked. Each Merkle root is recorded in a transaction on a public blockchain. We cannot remove it, and closing the Service does not affect it.
5. No transfer without these commitments. If the Service or the registry data is sold, assigned or otherwise transferred, we will procure that the transferee assumes the commitments in this section; failing that, the registry data is excluded from the transfer.

Nothing in this section creates an obligation to continue operating the Service, to restore it after closure, or to preserve any file other than the anchoring data described above. Your own copies remain your responsibility, and section 11 exists so that you can take them at any time.

13. Warranties and liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.

Our total liability to you for all claims arising out of or relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US$100.

We are not liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, data or goodwill.

Nothing in these Terms excludes liability for fraud, for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded — including the mandatory rights of consumers under the Taiwan Consumer Protection Act and equivalent laws elsewhere.

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service at any time, and may request deletion of your account and its contents by writing to privacy@openstela.io (see the Privacy Policy for how deletion requests are handled).

We may suspend or terminate access where you materially breach these Terms, where required by law, or where continued operation would expose us or other users to legal risk. On termination we will, absent legal obligation to the contrary, delete your content in accordance with the Privacy Policy — except anything already anchored to a public blockchain, which cannot be deleted. While an account is suspended, its profile, posts and comments are not shown to others and it cannot post, comment, interact or send messages; its data is kept, and lifting the suspension restores it. The account holder is shown the reason.

15. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms. For material changes we will give notice by email or in-product at least 14 days before they take effect, and continued use after that date constitutes acceptance. If you do not accept a change, your remedy is to stop using the Service and cancel any subscription.

16. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of Taiwan (Republic of China), without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. The Taiwan Taipei District Court is agreed as the court of first instance for any dispute between you and us, save that if you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence, nor of the right to bring proceedings in the courts of that country where the law so provides.

Talk to us first. Before starting proceedings, please write to support@openstela.io describing the dispute. We will respond within 30 days and try to resolve it informally. This step is not a condition of your legal rights.

Contracts between users. This Section governs only disputes between you and us. Contracts concluded in the deal room carry their own governing-law and forum clause chosen by the parties; the standard templates default to the law and courts of the State of New York.

17A. Our apps from the App Store and Google Play

If you use the Service through our app downloaded from Apple's App Store:

• these Terms are between you and us only, not with Apple, and we, not Apple, are solely responsible for the app and its content;
• your licence to use the app is limited to use on Apple-branded devices that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the App Store Terms of Service;
• Apple has no obligation whatsoever to provide maintenance or support services for the app;
• if the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price of the app to you (the app is free); to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation with respect to the app;
• we, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claims by you or any third party relating to the app or your possession or use of it, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to conform to any legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection, privacy or similar legislation;
• in the event of any third-party claim that the app or your possession and use of it infringes that third party's intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of that claim;
• you represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo or that has been designated by the U.S. Government as a "terrorist supporting" country, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties;
• you must comply with any third-party terms applicable to your use of the app; and
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and, upon your acceptance of them, will have the right (and will be deemed to have accepted the right) to enforce them against you as a third-party beneficiary.

Questions, complaints and claims about the app go to support@openstela.io. If you use our app from Google Play, Google Play's terms also apply to the download and to any payment made through Google Play.

17. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, form the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Service. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remainder stands. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it. You may not assign your rights under these Terms; we may assign them to a successor entity on notice to you.

Contact: support@openstela.io