Legal

Aleph Terms of Use

Effective August 17, 2026 · Last updated August 17, 2026

1. The agreement

These Terms are a binding agreement between you and Blake Hunsicker (“Aleph,” “we,” “us”) covering the Aleph app, the readaleph.com website, and related services (the “Service”). Using the Service means you agree to them. If you don’t, don’t use it.

Our Privacy Policy is part of this agreement. These Terms are the “Licensed Application End User License Agreement” referred to in Apple’s App Store Terms of Service.

Eligibility. You must be at least 13, or 16 in the EEA, UK, or anywhere setting a higher minimum. Below the age of majority where you live, you need a parent or guardian’s consent, and they’re responsible for your use and any charges. You confirm you can legally enter this agreement.

2. Apple-required terms

2.1 This agreement is between you and Aleph only, not with Apple Inc. (“Apple”). Aleph, not Apple, is solely responsible for the Service and its content.

2.2 Scope. Your license covers Apple-branded products you own or control, per the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions, except that accounts associated with you via Family Sharing or volume purchasing may also use it where enabled.

2.3 Maintenance and support are solely our responsibility. Apple has no obligation whatsoever to provide them.

2.4 Warranty. Any warranties are solely ours. If the app fails to conform to one, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund your purchase price. Beyond that, Apple has no warranty obligation whatsoever, and any resulting claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, or expenses are ours alone.

2.5 Product claims. We, not Apple, handle any claim about the app or your use of it — including product liability, failure to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer protection or privacy law.

2.6 Intellectual property. If a third party claims the app infringes their intellectual property, we, not Apple, are solely responsible for investigating, defending, settling, and discharging it.

2.7 Legal compliance. You confirm you’re not in a country under US embargo or designated “terrorist supporting,” and aren’t on any US list of prohibited or restricted parties.

2.8 Contact. Questions, complaints, or claims: blakehunsicker@gmail.com.

2.9 Third-party terms. Comply with applicable third-party terms, such as your wireless plan.

2.10 Third-party beneficiary. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and can enforce them against you.

3. Your license, and its limits

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to use Aleph on devices you own or control, for personal, non-commercial use. This is a license, not a sale — we and our licensors keep all rights, including in the Aleph name and logo. Anything not expressly granted is reserved.

You may not: copy, modify, or make derivative works of the Service; reverse engineer or decompile it, except where that restriction is legally prohibited; rent, sell, sublicense, or commercially exploit it; remove proprietary notices; use it to build or benchmark a competing product; access it through scrapers or bots rather than the app as we provide it; circumvent security, authentication, rate limiting, entitlement checks, or access controls, or reach another user’s data; test its vulnerabilities without our written authorization; overload our infrastructure; or use it unlawfully.

4. Your account

You sign in with Apple or Google. You’re responsible for everything done under your account and for the security of the account you sign in with — anyone with access to it can reach your library. Tell us at blakehunsicker@gmail.com if it’s compromised.

Don’t share your account, use someone else’s, sell or transfer it, or run multiple accounts to get around limits, trials, or a suspension. We may refuse or reclaim an account at our discretion.

5. Subscriptions and billing

Aleph requires a paid subscription or a one-time lifetime purchase.

Prices appear in the app before you buy and control over any stated elsewhere. Apple collects tax at checkout.

5.1 Apple handles payment. Charges go to your Apple Account at confirmation of purchase. We never receive or store your payment details. The Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions also apply.

5.2 Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the then-current price unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. Apple charges within 24 hours before that point.

5.3 Cancelling. Cancel any time in Settings → [your name] → Subscriptions, or via the App Store. It takes effect at period end, and you keep access until then. We can’t cancel for you, and neither can Apple support. Deleting your account, deleting the app, and signing out do not cancel your subscription or stop billing.

5.4 Free trials. Granted once per Apple Account per subscription group — Monthly and Annual share a group, so a trial on one uses it for both. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, a trial becomes a paid subscription. Buying a subscription during a trial forfeits the unused portion. We may change, withdraw, or set eligibility for offers at our discretion.

5.5 What “Lifetime” means.

It gives you access without recurring charges for as long as we operate the Service and your account is in good standing. It does not guarantee that we’ll run the Service for any length of time, that any feature will exist or keep existing, that it’ll work on any particular platform or OS version, or that future features will be included rather than sold separately.

We may discontinue the Service (Section 8). If we do, a Lifetime purchase does not entitle you to a refund, though we’ll make reasonable efforts to give notice and let you export your library.

If you own Lifetime while a subscription is still renewing, you keep getting billed until you cancel it through Apple. We can’t cancel or refund it.

5.6 Refunds. All purchases are final and non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise. Apple processes payments, so Apple handles all refunds — request one at reportaproblem.apple.com. We can’t issue, expedite, or guarantee one. We don’t refund partial periods, unused time, or access lost through suspension or termination for breach. None of this limits a non-waivable statutory cancellation right you have as a consumer.

5.7 Price changes. We may change prices. For subscriptions, increases apply only from a later billing period, and Apple will notify you and seek consent where required. Cancel before renewal if you don’t accept.

5.8 If your subscription lapses.

Your library isn’t deleted. It stays on our servers and normally on your device, and returns when you resubscribe or buy Lifetime. We may — at our discretion and without obligation — offer read-only access, grace periods, or export tools to lapsed subscribers; any such gesture can be withdrawn and creates no entitlement.

Don’t rely on Aleph as your only record. See Section 15.

5.9 Purchases outside the App Store. If we later sell through another processor, those purchases are governed by these Terms plus any additional terms we show you then.

6. Your content

Your library is yours. The books, ratings, notes, reading sessions, and any photographs or other material you add (“Your Content”) stay your property.

The permission you give us. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, fully paid, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, copy, back up, transmit, cache, reformat, index, display, distribute, and publicly perform Your Content — to operate, provide, secure, support, and improve the Service, including to make Your Content available through profile, sharing, social, discovery, and public features in accordance with the visibility settings available to you. We don’t sell Your Content. This license ends when you delete the content or your account, except for copies in routine backups and anything others have already received or re-shared.

Visibility. The Service may offer profile, sharing, social, discovery, and public features, and we may add, change, or remove them. Where we provide visibility settings, those settings govern who can see what. Treat anything visible to others as potentially permanent — it can be copied, screenshotted, indexed by search engines, cached, or archived by people we don’t control, and may stay reachable after you remove it. Removing content or changing its visibility stops future display through the Service but can’t recall copies already made.

Your promises. You own or have the rights to Your Content, it doesn’t infringe anyone’s rights, and it doesn’t break these Terms or the law.

Feedback. Suggestions, requests, and bug reports come with a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable, transferable license to use them for anything, without restriction, attribution, or payment. Feedback isn’t confidential.

7. Acceptable use

Don’t use the Service to break the law or anyone’s rights; to store or share content that’s unlawful, infringing, defamatory, harassing, threatening, abusive, hateful, obscene, sexually explicit involving minors, or promoting violence or self-harm; to impersonate anyone; to harass, stalk, threaten, or harm another user or harvest their information; to transmit malware or spam; to infringe intellectual property, including by uploading cover images you have no right to use; to misrepresent your entitlement, circumvent the paywall, or use fraudulent or stolen payment methods; or for commercial purposes without our written consent.

We may remove content, restrict features, suspend, or terminate any account for violating this, at our discretion, with or without notice. We’re not obliged to monitor content, but we may.

Copyright complaints. Send DMCA notices to blakehunsicker@gmail.com with: your signature; the work; what’s infringing and where; your contact details; a statement of good-faith belief the use isn’t authorized; and a statement under penalty of perjury that this is accurate and you’re authorized to act. We terminate repeat infringers.

8. The Service will change

At any time, at our discretion, and without liability to you, we may: add, change, redesign, or remove features — including ones you rely on; introduce features in your existing plan or as paid add-ons or higher tiers; set or change limits on storage, library size, sync frequency, lookups, uploads, or shared content; change providers; suspend the Service for maintenance or emergencies; or discontinue it entirely.

Anticipated features include camera capture, barcode and ISBN scanning, cover photography and image recognition; profiles, sharing, social, discovery, and public features; statistics and recommendations, possibly produced with machine learning or AI; import and export; push notifications; and additional platforms. None of this obligates us to build any of it.

If we shut the Service down, we’ll make commercially reasonable efforts to give notice and offer a way to export your library, but owe no refunds except as required by law and as described in Section 5.

Beta features are provided “AS IS”, may be unstable, may change or vanish, may be unsupported, and may lose data. To the maximum extent permitted by law we have no liability arising from them.

Devices and networks. The Service needs a compatible device, a current OS, and an internet connection. You’re responsible for your devices, software, network access, and carrier charges. We don’t warrant compatibility with any device or OS version and may end support for older ones at any time.

9. Book metadata

Aleph pulls book information and cover art from Google Books and Open Library / Internet Archive. That information comes from them, not us. It’s frequently incomplete, sometimes wrong, and sometimes attaches the wrong cover, page count, publisher, or date to an edition. We make no representation or warranty about the accuracy, completeness, currency, or availability of any metadata or cover image, and aren’t responsible for it. You can correct any field yourself.

Covers and descriptions belong to their rights holders and are shown for identification, subject to the supplying provider’s terms. A provider may change its terms, restrict access, impose quotas, or shut down at any time, and we aren’t liable for that.

10. Other users

The Service may let users publish profiles and libraries, follow one another, and interact.

We’re not responsible for other users. We don’t vet them, verify identities, or endorse what they share. Interactions are between you and them, and you assume the risk. We disclaim all liability arising from user-to-user interactions, including offensive content, harassment, misrepresentation, and any harm — online or offline — from contact with another user.

We may moderate but don’t have to. We may review, refuse, remove, restrict, or limit any content and restrict or terminate accounts, at our discretion, without notice and without liability. Report problems to blakehunsicker@gmail.com.

11. Our intellectual property

The Service — its software, source code, design, 3D shelf rendering, appearance, typography, text, graphics, and the “Aleph” name and logo — belongs to us and our licensors, protected by copyright, trademark, and trade dress law. Nothing here lets you use our trademarks, logos, or brand features without written permission.

12. Ending it

You can stop any time by deleting the app. To end things completely, delete your account in the app and separately cancel your subscription through Apple.

We may suspend or terminate your access, in whole or part, at any time, with or without notice, at our discretion — including for breach of these Terms, prolonged inactivity, legal requirement, risk or legal exposure to us, or discontinuation of the Service.

Where circumstances reasonably permit, we’ll try to notify you, and if we terminate without cause while you hold a paid subscription, to enable a pro-rated refund through Apple for the unused part of your current period. That is our entire liability for termination without cause.

On termination your license ends immediately. Deleting your account permanently and irreversibly erases your library from our servers and your device. We cannot recover it.

Surviving sections: 2, 3, 5.3, 5.6, 6, 9, 11, 12, and 13 through 20.

13. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE AND OUR LICENSORS AND SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS, IMPLIED, STATUTORY, OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING OR TRADE USAGE.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE, ACCURATE, COMPLETE, OR ERROR-FREE; THAT DEFECTS WILL BE FIXED; THAT IT IS FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS; THAT SYNCHRONIZATION WILL SUCCEED, COMPLETE, OR PRESERVE ANY PARTICULAR DATA; OR THAT IT WILL MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS. NO ADVICE FROM US CREATES ANY WARRANTY NOT STATED HERE.

Some jurisdictions don’t allow excluding implied warranties; there, they’re limited to the minimum scope and duration the law requires, and your statutory consumer rights are unaffected.

14. Limits on our liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ALEPH, ITS OPERATOR, AND ITS OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS, CONTRACTORS, SUPPLIERS, AND LICENSORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, GOODWILL, USE, OR ANY LOSS, CORRUPTION, OR INABILITY TO ACCESS ANY DATA, LIBRARY, NOTES, RATINGS, OR READING HISTORY — ARISING OUT OF THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE, ON ANY LEGAL THEORY, WHETHER OR NOT WE WERE ADVISED SUCH DAMAGES WERE POSSIBLE, AND EVEN IF A LIMITED REMEDY FAILS OF ITS ESSENTIAL PURPOSE.

OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) WHAT YOU ACTUALLY PAID US OR PAID APPLE FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT, OR (B) FIFTY US DOLLARS (US$50.00).

These limits are an essential basis of our bargain — the Service would cost materially more without them.

Some jurisdictions don’t allow these limits. Nothing here excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or for anything else that can’t legally be excluded. Where limits aren’t permitted, our liability is reduced to the legal minimum. EEA and UK consumers keep their mandatory statutory rights.

15. Your library is your responsibility

We’re a convenience, not a vault. Your library is replicated to our servers so it survives a lost phone. That’s a feature, not a guarantee.

We don’t warrant that any backup, sync, or restore will succeed, complete, or preserve any particular data. Sync can fail silently. Conflicts resolve last-write-wins, so an edit on one device can overwrite an edit on another. Cover images aren’t synced and exist only on your device. You are solely responsible for backing up anything you can’t afford to lose.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE ARE NOT LIABLE FOR ANY LOSS, CORRUPTION, DELETION, OR INACCESSIBILITY OF YOUR CONTENT, however caused — software defect, sync failure, conflict resolution, server failure, data breach, service discontinuation, account termination, your own deletion of content or your account, a lost device, lost access to your Apple or Google account, or a lapsed subscription. This includes the permanent, irreversible deletion the in-app account deletion performs.

16. Indemnification

You’ll defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Aleph, its operator, and its officers, employees, agents, contractors, suppliers, and licensors from any claims, demands, actions, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising from: your use or misuse of the Service; Your Content; your breach of these Terms; your violation of any law or third-party right; or your interactions with other users.

We may take over the exclusive defense of any such matter at your expense, and you’ll cooperate. You won’t settle without our written consent.

17. Disputes, arbitration, and class action waiver

17.1 Talk to us first. Before filing anything, email blakehunsicker@gmail.com describing the dispute and what you want. We’ll do the same. Both sides agree to negotiate in good faith for 60 days before starting arbitration. This pauses any limitations period, and completing it is a condition of starting arbitration.

17.2 Agreement to arbitrate. Except as stated in 17.5 and 17.9, you and Aleph agree that any dispute arising out of these Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Service, or our relationship — on any legal theory, whenever it arose — will be resolved exclusively by BINDING INDIVIDUAL ARBITRATION, not in court.

17.3 YOU AND ALEPH EACH WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A JURY TRIAL AND TO SUE IN COURT, except as this section allows. Arbitration is more limited than court, and appellate review is very narrow.

17.4 How it works. The American Arbitration Association administers it under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (adr.org), as modified here, before a single arbitrator. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this section. Arbitration happens in the county where you live, or — your choice for claims under US$25,000 — by phone, video, or written submissions. We’ll pay all AAA filing, administration, and arbitrator fees for any claim you bring under US$10,000, unless the arbitrator finds it frivolous or improper. Otherwise each side bears its own fees unless a statute or the award says otherwise. The arbitrator may award any relief a court could in an individual case, but only for the individual seeking it and only as far as their own claim warrants. The award is final and binding and may be entered in any court with jurisdiction.

17.5 Exceptions. Either of us may bring an individual claim in small claims court instead, and either may seek injunctive relief in court to stop infringement or misappropriation of intellectual property or unauthorized access to the Service.

17.6 CLASS ACTION WAIVER. YOU AND ALEPH MAY BRING CLAIMS AGAINST EACH OTHER ONLY INDIVIDUALLY — NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, REPRESENTATIVE, OR PRIVATE ATTORNEY GENERAL PROCEEDING. The arbitrator can’t consolidate claims or preside over any representative proceeding. If this paragraph is unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim must be severed and brought in court, and the rest of this Section 17 still applies to everything else.

17.7 One year. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, ANY CLAIM MUST BE FILED WITHIN ONE YEAR OF ACCRUING, OR IT’S PERMANENTLY BARRED.

17.8 Opting out. Email blakehunsicker@gmail.com with the subject “ARBITRATION OPT-OUT” within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, including your name and account email. It affects only Section 17, and won’t affect our relationship in any other way. If you opt out, disputes go to court under Section 18.

17.9 EEA, UK, and other consumers. If you’re a consumer somewhere whose law makes a pre-dispute arbitration agreement or class action waiver unenforceable against you, 17.2 through 17.7 don’t apply, and you keep the right to sue in your own country’s courts under its mandatory consumer law. EU consumers may also use the European Commission’s Online Dispute Resolution platform.

17.10 Changes. If we materially change this section after you accept, you can reject the change by emailing us within 30 days, and the version you last accepted governs.

17.11 This section survives termination.

18. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, and by the Federal Arbitration Act as to Section 17. The UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods doesn’t apply.

For disputes not going to arbitration, we both consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in Delaware and waive objections to venue or forum.

If you’re a consumer in the EEA, the UK, or anywhere with mandatory consumer protection law, nothing here deprives you of that law’s protection or your right to sue in your own country’s courts.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms, updating the “Last updated” date and posting the new version at https://readaleph.com/terms. For material changes we’ll give reasonable advance notice in the app or by email. Continuing to use the Service after the effective date means you accept them. Changes don’t apply retroactively to a dispute that already arose.

20. Odds and ends

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and any feature-specific terms are the whole agreement, replacing everything prior.

Severability. An invalid provision is narrowed enough to be enforceable, or severed; the rest stands. Section 17.6 has its own severability rule.

No waiver. Not enforcing something once doesn’t waive it later.

Assignment. You can’t assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign freely, including in a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.

Third-party beneficiaries. None, except Apple under 2.10 and the indemnified parties under Section 16.

Force majeure. We’re not liable for delays or failures beyond our reasonable control, including the failure of any third-party service we depend on.

Relationship. No partnership, joint venture, agency, employment, or fiduciary relationship is created.

Notices. We’ll reach you in-app, by email, or by posting on readaleph.com. Reach us at blakehunsicker@gmail.com.

Export controls. Don’t use or export the Service in violation of US export laws or your own jurisdiction’s.

US Government users. The Service is “commercial computer software” under FAR 12.212 and DFARS 227.7202.

Language. The English version controls over any translation, except where law requires otherwise.

Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only. “Including” means “including without limitation.”

21. Contact

blakehunsicker@gmail.com · readaleph.com