Terms of Service

1. Who we are and what these Terms cover

1.1 These Terms of Service (the "Terms") govern your use of Stockmeta, a software application and related online services that generate metadata for image files (the "Service").

1.2 During the private beta the Service is provided by Mariusz Ostoja-Świerczyński, Pabianice, Poland ("Stockmeta", "we", "us"). When Stockmeta sp. z o.o. is registered, it may take over the Service under clause 16.4.

1.3 You can contact us at support@stockmeta.ai.

1.4 These Terms also constitute the regulamin świadczenia usług drogą elektroniczną required under the Polish Act of 18 July 2002 on the provision of services by electronic means. We make them available to you free of charge before you conclude a contract with us, in a form that allows you to download, store and reproduce them.

1.5 Certain provisions apply only to Consumers and others only to Business Users. Where a provision is limited in this way, it says so expressly.

• A "Consumer" is a natural person entering into a contract with us for purposes not directly connected with their business or professional activity. For the purposes of these Terms, we also treat as a Consumer a natural person conducting a business activity who enters into a contract directly connected with that activity where the contract is not of a professional character for that person, to the extent Polish law grants such a person consumer protections.
• A "Business User" is anyone who is not a Consumer.

1.6 The software licence is a separate agreement. The Stockmeta desktop application is licensed to you under the End User Licence Agreement ("EULA") presented when you install it, and available in the application under Help → Licence agreement. The EULA governs your possession and use of the software itself, including use in manual mode without an account. These Terms do not grant you a licence to the software. Where the EULA and these Terms both apply and conflict, these Terms prevail.

1.7 When these Terms bind you. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, apply to you from the moment you create a Stockmeta account during the private beta. The invitation you received links to them, and creating an account confirms that you accept them. Until you create an account, only the EULA applies to you.

1.8–1.10 Orders for paid plans, the record of acceptance, and payments through Stripe: not part of the beta Terms.

2. Your account

2.1 You need an account to use the Service. You must be at least 18 years old.

2.2 You must provide accurate registration information and keep it current. You are responsible for keeping your account credentials confidential and for activity carried out through your account, except where that activity results from our fault.

2.3 One account is for one user. You may not share, sell, rent or transfer your account.

2.4 We may require you to verify your email address before some or all features become available.

2.5 You may not use the Service in breach of applicable sanctions or export control laws.

3. What the Service does — and what it does not promise

3.1 The Service analyses image files you provide and generates suggested metadata, including titles, descriptions and keywords, and can export that metadata in formats intended for upload to third-party stock content platforms.

3.2 The metadata is generated by artificial intelligence and is a suggestion, not a verified result. It may be inaccurate, incomplete, generic, or unsuitable for a given image. You are responsible for reviewing and editing all generated metadata before you use it.

3.3 We do not guarantee any outcome. In particular, we make no representation and give no guarantee that:

• generated metadata will be accurate, complete or fit for any particular purpose;
• content submitted using generated metadata will be accepted by Adobe Stock, Shutterstock or any other platform;
• generated metadata will comply with the current rules, formats or limits of any such platform;
• use of the Service will result in any level of sales, visibility, revenue or search ranking.

3.4 We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or acting on behalf of Adobe, Shutterstock or any other stock content platform. Their rules and decisions are outside our control and may change without notice to us.

3.5 You remain solely responsible for what you submit to any third-party platform, including compliance with that platform's terms, content policies and metadata requirements.

3.6 Nothing in this section limits our liability where liability cannot be limited under applicable law, or our obligations to Consumers regarding conformity of digital content and digital services.

4. Licence to use the software

4.1 Your licence to install and use the Stockmeta desktop application is granted under the EULA, not under these Terms. The restrictions in clause 4.2 apply in addition to those in the EULA and cover your use of the Service as a whole, including its online components.

4.2 You may not, except to the extent applicable law expressly permits notwithstanding this restriction:

• copy, modify, or create derivative works of the software;
• reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble the software, or attempt to derive its source code;
• remove or alter any proprietary notices;
• distribute, sublicense, rent, lease or lend the software;
• circumvent or attempt to circumvent any usage limit, licence check, quota or access control;
• use the Service to build a competing product or service.

4.3 We retain all intellectual property rights in the Service, the software, our trade marks and our documentation. These Terms grant you no rights in them other than the licence in clause 4.1.

4.4 Updates. There is no automatic update during the beta. When a new build is available, the application tells you and you install it yourself. Where an update materially changes the Service to your detriment, clause 12 applies.

5. Your images and your metadata

5.1 You keep your rights. You retain all rights in the images you submit and in the metadata generated from them. We claim no ownership of either.

5.2 The limited permission you give us. You grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to process your images and associated data solely to the extent necessary to operate the Service and provide the results to you. This licence exists only for that purpose, lasts only as long as processing requires, and covers nothing else.

5.3 We do not use your images to train AI models, and we do not license, sell or otherwise make them available to third parties for any purpose other than delivering the Service to you.

5.4 We do not store your images. Images are transmitted to our processing infrastructure and to our AI model provider solely for the purpose of generating metadata, and are not retained on our servers after processing. Our AI model provider may keep them for a limited period for safety and abuse monitoring, as described in our Privacy Policy, which also sets out which sub-processors we use and where they are located.

5.5 Your warranties. You represent and warrant that, for every image you submit:

• you own it or hold all rights and permissions necessary to submit it to the Service;
• submitting it does not infringe any third party's copyright, trade mark, privacy, publicity, or other rights;
• it does not contain unlawful content;
• you have obtained any consents or releases required from identifiable persons appearing in it.

6. Acceptable use

6.1 You must not use the Service to:

• process content that is unlawful, or that infringes the rights of others;
• process content depicting child sexual abuse, or content that is otherwise criminal to possess or distribute;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to the Service, other users' accounts, or our systems;
• interfere with, overload, or disrupt the Service or its infrastructure;
• use automated means to access the Service other than through interfaces we provide, or to exceed or evade usage limits;
• resell, white-label, or provide the Service to third parties as a service of your own, unless we have agreed in writing;
• attempt to extract, replicate, or benchmark our underlying models or prompts for the purpose of building a competing service;
• misrepresent your identity or your relationship with any person or entity.

6.2 We may investigate suspected breaches of this clause and take the measures set out in clause 11.

7. Photos during the beta

7.1 When you create an account you receive 5 free photos. One analysis of one image uses one photo. Where an analysis fails for technical reasons on our side and is retried automatically, that retry uses no extra photo. Where you choose to run an analysis again on the same image, that uses one photo.

7.2 If you want more photos, write to us. You may also try a paid plan from your account page: during the beta its checkout runs in Stripe's test environment, so no money is charged and real cards are declined. A plan chosen this way gives you the photos shown on your account page.

7.3 Beta subscriptions end when Stockmeta launches. Your account then moves to the Free plan. We will tell you by email beforehand what happens to photos you have not used.

7.4 Because no payment is taken, these Terms contain no pricing, billing, refund or withdrawal terms. They will be added before paid plans launch (clause 12.6).

8. Right of withdrawal and refunds

Not part of the beta Terms: no payment is taken during the beta (clause 7.4).

9. Availability and support

9.1 Stockmeta is in beta. Features may be incomplete, may change or may be removed, and errors are more likely than in a finished product. We aim to keep the Service available, but we do not offer a service level agreement and do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation.

9.2 We may suspend the Service temporarily for maintenance, updates, or to address a security or operational issue. Where planned maintenance is likely to cause material disruption, we will give reasonable notice where practicable.

9.3 The Service depends on third-party providers, including our AI model provider and our cloud infrastructure provider. Interruption at any of them may interrupt the Service.

9.4 Support is provided by email at support@stockmeta.ai. We aim to respond promptly, but support response times are not a contractual commitment. This clause does not affect the deadline for responding to complaints under clause 15.

9.5 End of the beta. We may end the beta, or change it substantially, at any time. We will tell you by email with reasonable notice where we can.

10. Third-party services

10.1 The Service integrates with or depends on third parties, including Google (sign-in), our AI model provider, our cloud infrastructure provider, our email provider, and Stripe (the simulated checkout during the beta). Their identities and roles are described in our Privacy Policy.

10.2 Your use of a third-party service under your own account with that third party — including your accounts with stock content platforms — is governed by that third party's terms, not these Terms.

10.3 Communications. While your account is open we will send you service messages that form part of the Service — sign-in codes, security alerts, notices under clause 12, and news about the beta such as new builds. You cannot opt out of these without closing your account. During the beta we may also email you to ask how you use Stockmeta or to invite you to a short call; you can always say no. Marketing email is separate: we send it only if you have given specific, optional consent, that consent is never a condition of registration or of using the Service, and you may withdraw it at any time without affecting service messages.

11. Suspension and termination

11.1 By you. You may stop using the Service at any time, and close your account by writing to support@stockmeta.ai.

11.2 By us. We may suspend or terminate your access, in whole or in part, where:

• you materially breach these Terms, in particular clause 6;
• we reasonably suspect fraud, abuse, or unauthorised access;
• we are required to do so by law or by a third-party provider on whom the Service depends.

11.3 Proportionality and notice. Except where the breach is serious or immediate action is required, we will notify you and, where the breach is capable of remedy, give you a reasonable opportunity to remedy it before suspending or terminating.

11.4 If you are a Consumer, we will state the reason for suspension or termination and you may contest it under the complaints procedure in clause 15.

11.5 Effect. On termination, your access to the Service ends and any unused photos lapse. Your licence to the software continues under the EULA unless we terminate it under that agreement, so you may continue to use the application in manual mode.

11.6 Survival. Clauses 3, 4.3, 5.5, 12, 13, 14, 15 and 16 survive termination.

12. Changes to these Terms and to the Service

12.1 We may change these Terms or the Service for valid reasons, including changes in law, changes in the cost of the third-party services we depend on, security requirements, and changes to the features of the Service.

12.2 Notice. We will notify you of any change that is to your detriment at least 30 days before it takes effect, by email to your registered address and in the application.

12.3 Your right to reject. If you do not accept a change, you may close your account before the effective date at no cost. If you continue to use the Service after the effective date, you are taken to have accepted the change.

12.4 Changes required by law, and changes that are purely to your benefit or have no effect on your rights or obligations, may take effect without the notice period in clause 12.2.

12.5 We may add, modify or remove features of the Service. Where removal of a feature materially reduces the Service, clauses 12.2 and 12.3 apply.

12.6 Paid plans. Before paid plans launch we will publish updated Terms, including payment terms, and ask you to accept them before you buy anything.

13. Liability

13.1 Consumers. If you are a Consumer, we are liable to you on the terms provided by Polish law, including the Civil Code and the Act on Consumer Rights. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for wilful misconduct, for gross negligence, or for anything else that cannot be excluded or limited by law. Clauses 13.2 and 13.3 do not apply to Consumers.

13.2 Business Users — exclusions. As regards Business Users, we are not liable for lost profits, lost revenue, lost sales, loss of business opportunity, loss of goodwill, loss or corruption of data, or any indirect or consequential loss, however arising.

13.3 Business Users — cap. As regards Business Users, our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount paid by you for the Service in the 3 months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, and (b) EUR 100. This limit does not apply to damage caused intentionally.

13.4 We are not liable for a decision by any third-party stock content platform to reject, remove, or restrict your content, or for any consequence of that decision.

13.5 We are not liable for failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control.

14. Indemnity (Business Users only)

14.1 If you are a Business User, you will indemnify us against claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising from your breach of clause 5.5 or clause 6, or from content you submitted to the Service.

14.2 This clause does not apply to Consumers.

15. Complaints

15.1 You may submit a complaint about the Service by email to support@stockmeta.ai. Please describe the issue, your account email, and what you would like us to do.

15.2 We will respond within 14 days of receipt. Where you are a Consumer, we will provide the response on paper or another durable medium, and if we do not respond within that period your complaint is taken to have been accepted.

15.3 Alternative dispute resolution (Consumers). If you are a Consumer and are not satisfied with our response, you may use out-of-court dispute resolution. Available routes in Poland include the provincial inspectorates of the Trade Inspection (Wojewódzkie Inspektoraty Inspekcji Handlowej) and municipal or district consumer ombudsmen (miejski lub powiatowy rzecznik konsumentów). A list of dispute resolution bodies across the EU is maintained by the European Commission at consumer-redress.ec.europa.eu.

15.4 We are not obliged to participate in out-of-court dispute resolution proceedings, and we are willing to participate in them.

16. Governing law, jurisdiction and language

16.1 Governing law. These Terms are governed by Polish law. If you are a Consumer, this does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of habitual residence.

16.2 Jurisdiction. If you are a Business User, the courts competent for Pabianice, Poland have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a Consumer, you may bring proceedings in the courts of your country of residence or in Poland, and we may bring proceedings against you only in the courts of your country of residence.

16.3 Language and severability. These beta Terms are published in English. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remainder continues in effect and the unenforceable provision is replaced by the closest enforceable provision reflecting its purpose.

16.4 Assignment. You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms to anyone else without our written consent. We may transfer ours to Stockmeta sp. z o.o. once it is registered, or to a person who acquires the Stockmeta product, provided your rights under these Terms are not reduced. Where you are a Consumer, we will notify you at least 30 days before the transfer takes effect, and you may close your account with immediate effect.

16.5 Entire agreement. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, form the entire agreement between you and us in respect of the Service. The EULA continues to govern the software as described in clause 1.6. This does not limit any liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.