Terms of Service

1. Who we are and this agreement

Mela is run by Mela Social, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("Mela", "we", "us"). These Terms of Service ("Terms") cover your use of Mela's apps and website and the emails and notifications we send (the "Service"). We offer the Service in the United States and Canada. If you use it elsewhere, you're responsible for following local law.

Other documents that apply

The Privacy Policy explains how we handle information. Each community's charter and conduct policy apply to you inside it (Section 5).

Key terms

A "community" is a group on Mela run by its "owner" and "admins" ("admins" includes owners). A "Space" is a topic area inside a community. "Content" is anything put on Mela, including instructions to AI features. The "Assistant" and "Agents" are Mela's AI features (Section 8). "Space memory" is the notes the Assistant and Agents keep for a Space.

2. What Mela is

Mela is a service for communities, where members post, chat, send messages and use AI features. The Privacy Policy explains what is and isn't public.

Your license and our property

While you follow these Terms, we give you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable and revocable license to install and use Mela's apps and the Service. Open-source parts of the apps are covered by their own licenses, which these Terms don't limit. Mela's software, design, name and logos belong to Mela and our licensors. You may not use our name or logos, or suggest that we endorse you or your community.

3. Who can use Mela

To use Mela, you need to:

• be at least 13, or older if the law where you live requires;
• if you are a minor where you live, confirm that your parent or guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms;
• not be barred by law, or previously banned by Mela unless we said you may return;
• give accurate information, including your date of birth; and
• keep one personal account, and not share it.

If you use Mela for an organization, you confirm that you may accept these Terms for it. If we learn that someone is under the minimum age, we suspend the account and then delete it and its content.

4. Your account

Keep your email account, and any Apple or Google account you sign in with, secure, because anyone who controls it can sign in as you. You are responsible for activity on your account unless our failure to protect it caused it. If someone else gets in, please let us know as soon as you can at support@mela.social.

You can't change your username once it's set, so choose it carefully. It can't impersonate anyone, mislead people or infringe others' rights, and we may take back one that does.

We send important notices to your account email and, where possible, in the app, so keep that address working. If you don't use Mela for 2 years, we may close and delete your account after emailing you first.

5. Communities

Mela's Terms and platform rules apply in every community. Owners and admins can add a stricter charter and conduct policy, but they can't allow anything our rules (Section 7) prohibit.

Owners and admins are users, not Mela staff

Owners and admins are members with extra powers. They are not Mela's employees or agents and don't speak for Mela. If you run a community, you are responsible for keeping its charter, conduct policy and settings lawful and consistent with these Terms, for your moderation decisions and Agents, and for using what you see about members only to run the community.

When Mela steps in

In any community, and even where its admins decided otherwise, we may remove content, change settings, replace an admin or owner, or close a community that breaks these Terms or the law or puts people at risk.

Leaving and closing communities

To leave a community, ask its admins to remove you or contact support@mela.social. Owners can ask us to close a community. If you leave or are removed, what you posted stays unless you delete it first or ask us to at privacy@mela.social. If an owner deletes their account, ownership passes to a co-owner, otherwise an admin or another member; if nobody can take over, we may appoint an owner or close the community.

6. Your content

You own the content you create on Mela. These Terms don't transfer it to us.

The license you give Mela

You give Mela a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, format, display, translate, summarize, analyze and deliver your content, only to operate, protect and improve Mela. This includes:

• showing it to the people you share it with, including in notifications, previews and search within the community where you shared it;
• checking it with AI moderation and using it to order feeds;
• processing it with AI features, for example when the Assistant or an Agent looks it up for a member who can already see it; and
• sharing it with the service providers named in the Privacy Policy who help us run Mela.

Members who can see your content may also quote and share it inside Mela as its features allow. We don't sell your content or use it for advertising. We don't use it in Mela's marketing without your permission.

AI training

This license also lets us use your content to train and improve Mela's own AI models, unless you opt out in settings. We will never train on your direct messages or group chats. The Privacy Policy explains more.

When the license ends

The license ends when you delete the content, except for content that stays after you delete your account (shown as written by "Former member", Section 16), for as long as it stays on Mela; copies in our records and backups for the retention periods in the Privacy Policy; copies others already received, such as delivered messages and posts they quoted; copies we must keep for legal, dispute or safety reasons; and AI models trained on it before you deleted it or opted out.

Your responsibilities

You are responsible for what you post. You confirm that you have the rights needed to post it and grant this license, and that it follows these Terms, the community's rules and the law.

AI output and feedback

As between you and Mela, you own AI output created at your request, to the extent the law allows, but others may get similar output. If you send us ideas about Mela, we may use them without owing you anything.

7. Platform rules

These rules apply everywhere on Mela, including messages and what you ask AI features to do. Mela has no tolerance for objectionable content or abusive users.

Don't post, share, request or threaten to share:

• child sexual exploitation or abuse, including sexual content involving minors (real, drawn or AI-generated), grooming and sextortion;
• intimate images of a real person without their consent, including AI-generated or edited ones;
• pornography or sexually explicit content, even in private communities;
• threats, or content that encourages or glorifies violence, terrorism or violent extremism;
• gory or gratuitously violent images or video;
• encouragement of suicide, self-harm or eating disorders (discussion for support or recovery is fine);
• harassment, bullying or unwanted sexual attention;
• attacks on people because of race, ethnicity, national origin, religion, caste, sex, gender, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, serious illness or age; or
• someone's private information, such as their address, phone number, ID or financial details, without permission.

Also don't:

• impersonate anyone, mislead people about who you are, spam, run scams, or fake engagement;
• hide that you were paid to post about a product or brand, pass off AI content as human-made where that misleads, or remove AI labels;
• post illegal content, promote illegal goods or services, infringe intellectual property (Section 12) or violate others' privacy;
• upload malware, phish, overload the Service, or reverse engineer it except where the law allows;
• scrape or bulk-collect data from Mela, including for AI training, without our written permission;
• get around security, access controls, bot checks, usage limits or AI safeguards, or access others' accounts;
• hide instructions in content to manipulate other people's Assistant or Agents;
• use AI features to make prohibited content or to decide people's access to jobs, housing, credit, insurance or education;
• buy, sell or trade accounts, usernames or invite codes; or
• use another account to evade a suspension, ban or block.

8. AI features

The Assistant answers questions and takes actions in a community for you, and Agents gather information and publish posts into a Space. Both can browse the web and, when a task needs it, act on outside websites, such as filling in and submitting forms. The Privacy Policy explains what they process. The Assistant is a productivity tool, not a companion.

• The Assistant acts for you through your account, and an Agent acts for its creator through theirs. What the Assistant does on your instructions or with your confirmation counts as yours. You are responsible for your instructions and for what you publish with AI's help, and an Agent's creator for everything it publishes until it is stopped or passes to someone else when the creator deletes their account.
• AI can be wrong. Its output can be inaccurate, incomplete, biased or offensive, and it is not medical, legal, financial, mental health or other professional advice. Check important information before relying on it.
• The Assistant always says it is an AI if asked and never claims to be human.
• The Assistant isn't an emergency service, though it may point you to crisis resources. If you or someone else is in danger, please contact local emergency services.
• We may set and change limits on AI use, and change the AI models and providers we use.

9. Content from other sources

Agents and the Assistant can bring in content from outside Mela, such as web pages and news. It belongs to its original authors, not to Mela or the Agent's creator, and Mela doesn't endorse it. If you set up an Agent, point it only at sources you may use.

If you wrote such content or it is about you, ask us to remove it at safety@mela.social, even if you don't use Mela (see the Privacy Policy). Copyright claims go through Section 12.

10. Moderation and enforcement

Mela's AI checks posts, comments and Agent posts against Mela's platform rules and the community's charter and conduct policy, and may hold a post back until it passes. No system catches everything, and we don't promise all content follows these Terms.

Admins may hide posts in their community and remove, suspend or ban members there. Depending on the breach, Mela may hold back, label or remove content, limit features, or suspend or close your account, and may report illegal content to the authorities.

When Mela restricts your content or account, we'll usually tell you why and how to appeal. You can appeal within 14 days, and a person reviews it. Posts held under a community's rules go to its admins. Everything else goes to Mela at safety@mela.social, including if you think an admin's decision broke Mela's rules or the law, or the admins haven't resolved your appeal.

We usually warn you first. Repeated breaches lead to stronger action, up to closing your account. We skip the warning only for serious harm or threats to others (such as child sexual exploitation, non-consensual intimate images or threats of violence), for accounts that are under the minimum age, compromised, fraudulent or evading a ban, or when the law requires it. Content that breaks these Terms is removed when we find it.

11. Reporting and illegal content

When you flag a post, the flag goes to that community's admins. When you email safety@mela.social, the report comes to Mela. Mela also reviews reports that something breaks Mela's platform rules, even if the admins have already decided. We handle reports promptly, most serious first. You can also block someone in a community to stop them messaging you there.

Anyone, including people who don't use Mela, can report content they believe is illegal to safety@mela.social.

Intimate images shared without consent

If an intimate image or video of you, real or AI-generated, was shared on Mela without your consent, you or someone authorized to act for you can ask us to remove it at safety@mela.social. Include enough information to find it, a short good-faith statement that it was shared without your consent, your name and physical or electronic signature, and your contact details. We remove it within 48 hours of a valid request and make reasonable efforts to remove identical copies.

Child safety

We have zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation and abuse. When we find it, we remove it, preserve it and keep records as the law requires, close the accounts responsible, report it to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children (NCMEC) and other authorities where required, and cooperate with law enforcement. Report it to safety@mela.social, the NCMEC CyberTipline or, in Canada, Cybertip.ca. Don't copy or share the material, even to report it.

12. Copyright and trademarks

If you believe content on Mela infringes your copyright or trademark, email legal@mela.social. We may remove infringing content, take back usernames and community names that infringe a trademark, and close the accounts of repeat infringers.

13. Messages

Messages on Mela are not end-to-end encrypted, so please don't use Mela for information that needs to stay secret. The Privacy Policy explains who can read messages and when.

14. Parental controls notice

US federal law (47 U.S.C. § 230(d)) requires us to tell you that parental control tools, such as hardware, software and filtering services, are commercially available and may help limit children's access to material harmful to minors. Examples include Apple Screen Time, Google Family Link and Microsoft Family Safety, none of which we endorse.

15. Fees

Mela is currently free to use. You'll see the price and terms before you buy anything.

16. Ending your account

You can delete your account at any time in the app or on the web, and deletion can't be undone. Content you posted or sent stays where you shared it, shown as written by "Former member", as does anything saved in a Space's memory. The license in Section 6 continues so it can stay visible, but we won't use it to train AI models; delete anything you want gone first. The Privacy Policy explains what we delete and keep.

We may suspend or close your account, or stop providing all or part of the Service, if you break these Terms, for legal reasons, to protect people or the Service, or for inactivity (Section 4), with notice and reasons as Section 10 describes.

If we shut Mela down, we'll try to give you reasonable notice.

Sections 6 (the license for content that stays after your account is deleted, the other exceptions to when the license ends, and feedback), 12, 16 and 18 to 24 survive the end of your account, as does anything else that by its nature should.

17. Changes to Mela and to these Terms

We may add, change or remove features. Beta or experimental features may be unreliable or change without notice.

We will tell you about a material change to these Terms at least 30 days before it takes effect, by email and in the app, explain what is changing and why, and ask you to accept. If you don't accept, you won't be able to keep using Mela after the change takes effect, and you can delete your account before then. A change to the license in Section 6 applies only to content you post after it takes effect. Clarifications, fixes and urgent legal changes may come with shorter notice. Past versions are available on our website.

18. Disclaimers

We provide Mela "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we make no warranties beyond those in these Terms, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement. We don't promise that Mela will be uninterrupted, secure or error-free, or that content will never be lost.

We are not responsible for content posted by members or admins (including through Agents) or brought in from other sources, for admins' decisions, or for other websites Mela links to or loads content from. To the extent the law allows, we don't promise that AI output is accurate, complete or fit for any purpose.

Where the law doesn't allow these disclaimers, they apply only as far as it permits.

19. Limits on liability and indemnity

To the fullest extent the law allows, Mela and its officers, employees and suppliers won't be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill, arising from these Terms or the Service, even if we were told they were possible.

Our total liability for all claims relating to these Terms or the Service is limited to the greater of US$100 or the amount you paid Mela in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.

These limits don't apply to death or personal injury caused by our negligence, to fraud, gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or to any liability the law doesn't let us limit. Nothing in these Terms limits your rights under the mandatory consumer protection law of your state or province.

Indemnity

If someone brings a claim against Mela because of your content, an Agent you set up, or your breach of these Terms or the law, you'll cover Mela's reasonable resulting losses and costs, including reasonable legal fees, but only to the extent you caused the claim, not to the extent Mela did. We will tell you promptly and let you take part in the defense. This applies only as far as the law where you live allows.

20. Resolving disputes

Try to resolve it with us first

Before starting a formal claim, send a written notice to legal@mela.social with your name, account email, what the dispute is about and what you want. Both sides will try in good faith to resolve it within 60 days, and time limits for bringing a claim are paused meanwhile. If you live in Canada, this step is optional.

Individual arbitration for US users

This subsection applies if you live in the United States. It affects how disputes are resolved, so please read it carefully.

Except as set out below, you and Mela agree that any dispute arising from these Terms or the Service will be decided by binding individual arbitration, not in court. The American Arbitration Association (AAA) will run it under its Consumer Arbitration Rules and, where they apply, its Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this subsection. Hearings may be by video or phone, or in your county. Payment of all filing, administration and arbitrator fees is governed by the AAA's rules. The arbitrator can award the same individual relief a court could, but only for you.

There are some exceptions. Either of us may bring a qualifying individual claim in small claims court, in your county or in Delaware, and may go to court over infringement or misuse of intellectual property. Claims for public injunctive relief that the law doesn't allow to be arbitrated go to court after the arbitration ends.

You and Mela may bring claims against each other only individually, not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective or representative action. You and Mela both give up the right to a jury trial.

You can opt out of arbitration by emailing legal@mela.social within 30 days after you first accept these Terms, with your name, username, account email and a clear statement that you are opting out of arbitration. If you do, none of this subsection applies to you, including the class action and jury waivers, and the rest of these Terms is unaffected. If we later change this subsection, you can reject the change by emailing us within 30 days of the notice, and the earlier version keeps applying to you.

If the class action waiver is unenforceable for a claim, that claim goes to court and is paused until any individual arbitration ends. The rest of this subsection still applies.

21. Governing law and where claims are heard

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to conflict-of-law rules.

If you are a consumer in Canada, or anywhere else whose law gives you the right to use your local courts, the next sentence does not apply to you.

Except for small-claims matters and as Section 20 provides, any claim that isn't arbitrated will be heard only in the state or federal courts in Delaware, and you and Mela consent to their jurisdiction.

22. Apple and Google app store terms

If you downloaded Mela from the Apple App Store or Google Play, the store's terms also apply to your download. The terms below add to these Terms and, for that app, win if they conflict. They don't widen Mela's liability under Section 19.

Apple

If you use Mela's iOS app downloaded from the Apple App Store:

• These Terms are between you and Mela only, not Apple. Mela, not Apple, is responsible for the app and its content.
• Your license is limited to using the app on Apple-branded products you own or control, as the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions allow, including by accounts linked to the purchaser through Family Sharing or volume purchasing.
• Mela alone is responsible for maintaining and supporting the app. Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for it.
• If the app fails to meet an applicable warranty, you can notify Apple, and Apple will refund any price you paid for it. To the maximum extent the law allows, Apple has no other warranty obligation for the app. Mela is responsible for any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs or expenses from a failure to meet a warranty, to the extent these Terms don't disclaim them.
• Mela, not Apple, is responsible for addressing any claims by you or a third party about the app or your use of it, including product liability claims, claims that the app fails to meet a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims under consumer protection, privacy or similar laws.
• If a third party claims the app or your use of it infringes their intellectual property rights, Mela, not Apple, is responsible for investigating, defending, settling and discharging the claim.
• You confirm that you are not in a country subject to a US government embargo or designated by the US government as "terrorist supporting", and are not on any US government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Send questions, complaints or claims about the app to Mela using the details in Section 24.
• You must follow third-party terms that apply when you use the app, such as your mobile data provider's.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms. Once you accept them, Apple has the right, and is treated as having accepted the right, to enforce them against you.

Google

If you downloaded Mela from Google Play, these Terms are between you and Mela only, not Google. Google is not responsible for the app, its content or its support, and Google's own terms govern your use of Google Play.

23. General terms

These Terms, with the documents they refer to, are the whole agreement between you and Mela about the Service and replace earlier agreements about it.

If any part is found unenforceable, it will be changed as little as needed and the rest stays in effect; the arbitration subsection has its own rule. If we don't enforce a term straight away, we can still enforce it later.

You can't transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms; we may transfer ours in a merger, acquisition, sale of assets or reorganization, or to a group company. We aren't responsible for failures caused by events we can't reasonably control, such as natural disasters, war, provider outages or changes in law. You may use Mela only in line with US and other applicable export control and sanctions laws.

These Terms create no partnership, employment or agency relationship. No one other than you and Mela has rights under these Terms, except Apple (Section 22).

You agree to receive notices electronically, which satisfies any requirement for written notice. If a translation of these Terms conflicts with the English version, the English version applies unless the law where you live says otherwise.

24. Contact and legal notices

Our postal address is Mela Social, Inc., 6513 132nd Ave NE, PMB 124, Kirkland, WA 98033.