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Terms of Service, Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and Content & Copyright Policy for Readlink.

Terms of Service

Effective date: March 2, 2026
Last updated: May 15, 2026

Welcome to Readlink. Readlink is operated by Lykan Sagl, Ai Salici, 6633 Lavertezzo, Switzerland ("Readlink," "we," "us"). By using our app or website, you agree to these Terms of Service ("Terms"). Please read them carefully.

1. Eligibility

  • You must be at least 16 years old to use Readlink.
  • By signing up, you confirm that you meet this age requirement.
  • In jurisdictions where the age of majority is higher than 16, your continued use of the Service confirms that a parent or legal guardian has reviewed and accepts these Terms on your behalf where required by local law.
  • We do not knowingly permit anyone under 16 to create an account. If we become aware that an account has been created by someone under 16, we will close the account and delete associated personal data in accordance with our Privacy Policy.

2. Account Registration

  • You may need an account (via Clerk) to access some features.
  • You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for all activity on your account.
  • One person, one account. Automated account creation is prohibited.

3. Your Content — Categories and Rights

Readlink hosts and processes several different kinds of content. Different rules apply to each, so please read this section carefully.

3.1 What you upload, in plain terms

When you use Readlink, you may contribute four broad kinds of content:

  • (a) Creative content — your reviews, posts, comments, photos you take yourself, and notes you choose to publish.
  • (b) Private notes and annotations — notes you mark as private, intended only for yourself.
  • (c) Functional book metadata — corrections or additions to factual book information (titles, authors, ISBNs, page counts, publication dates, edition data, table of contents structure, and similar structural information).
  • (d) OCR text fragments — short text excerpts you capture from physical books using our OCR feature, where you select a region of a page and Readlink extracts the text. Source photos are discarded; only the text you select is retained.

3.2 Ownership

You retain ownership of all content you contribute, in every category above. Readlink does not claim ownership of your work.

3.3 License to Readlink — Creative Content (Category a)

For creative content, you grant Readlink a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, display, reproduce, distribute, and create derived previews of your content, solely for the purpose of operating, promoting, and improving the Service. This license includes the right to sublicense to our service providers (e.g., hosting providers) to the extent necessary to operate the Service.

This license terminates when you delete the content or your account, except: (i) for reasonable backup retention periods, (ii) where the content has been reshared, embedded, or quoted by other users (in which case the secondary uses persist), and (iii) for aggregated or anonymized data that no longer identifies you or your work.

3.4 Treatment of Private Notes and Annotations (Category b)

Private notes and annotations remain yours. We do not display them to other users, do not use them to train models, and do not include them in any public dataset. We process them only as necessary to provide the Service to you (for example, to display them back to you, sync across devices, or back them up).

3.5 License to Readlink — Functional Book Metadata (Category c)

Functional book metadata is, by its nature, factual information that benefits every reader on the platform. To maintain a clean, accurate, shared book catalog, you grant Readlink a worldwide, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to use, modify, combine, distribute, and incorporate your metadata contributions into the Readlink Dataset, including for use after you delete your account.

This applies only to the factual and structural layer of book information. It does not apply to your reviews, opinions, or creative writing about books, which fall under Section 3.3.

You represent and warrant that your contribution of functional metadata is consistent with applicable doctrines of fair use, right of quotation (including under Art. 25 of the Swiss Federal Copyright Act), fair dealing, or equivalent informational-use principles in your jurisdiction. Functional bibliographic data — titles, authors, ISBNs, publication dates, page counts, and structural elements such as tables of contents — is generally treated as factual information not subject to copyright in itself; nothing in this section requires you to contribute material that exceeds these recognized informational-use principles.

3.6 License to Readlink — OCR Text Fragments (Category d)

When you use the OCR feature, Readlink discards the source photo as soon as text extraction is complete. Only the text you affirmatively select is retained. Because OCR fragments may include short excerpts of copyrighted text, you agree that:

  • You will only OCR books you own or have lawful access to.
  • You will not use the feature to systematically reproduce substantial portions of any work.
  • Short fragments you save and choose to keep private are treated as private notes (Section 3.4).
  • Short fragments you choose to publish (for example, attaching a quote to a review) are treated as creative content (Section 3.3) and you represent that the use qualifies as quotation, criticism, or review under applicable copyright law.

3.7 Your Warranties

For all content you contribute, you represent and warrant that:

  • You own the content or have all necessary rights, licenses, and permissions to contribute it.
  • Your contribution does not infringe any third party's intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other rights.
  • For OCR fragments, you have lawful access to the source book.
  • For photographs you upload to the feed, the photograph is yours or you have permission to share it.

3.8 Moral Rights

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you waive, or agree not to assert, any moral rights you may have in your contributions to the extent necessary for Readlink to exercise the licenses granted above. Where such waiver is not permitted, you grant Readlink permission to display, edit for length, crop, format, and contextually display your contributions in the normal course of operating the Service.

4. The Readlink Dataset

The Readlink Dataset is the compiled, curated body of book metadata that results from combining public sources (such as the Open Library API), our own work, and contributions from our community under Section 3.5.

  • The selection, arrangement, structure, and presentation of the Readlink Dataset are proprietary to Readlink and protected to the maximum extent available under applicable copyright, database, and contract law.
  • You may use the Readlink Dataset through the Service for personal, non-commercial purposes consistent with these Terms.
  • You may not extract, copy, or reuse substantial parts of the Readlink Dataset for any other purpose without our prior written consent.
  • Specifically, you may not use automated tools (scrapers, bots, crawlers, headless browsers, or any other systematic extraction method) to access, copy, or harvest data from the Service except where we expressly authorize it (for example, through a published API).
  • Violation of this section is a material breach of these Terms and may result in immediate account termination, technical countermeasures, and legal action including claims for damages and injunctive relief.

4.1 Survival and Persistence of the Dataset

The Readlink Dataset is built up over time as users add corrections, structural data, and other functional contributions on top of records derived from public sources and licensed providers. To preserve the integrity of the Service and protect the work users invest in their libraries, Readlink asserts a Right of Persistence over the Readlink Dataset:

  • Readlink retains a perpetual right to maintain, store, modify, combine, and continue to operate on all structured bibliographic data and user contributions previously integrated into the Readlink Dataset.
  • Functional metadata contributions made under Section 3.5 persist in the Readlink Dataset after the contributing user terminates their account.
  • The expiration, termination, or modification of any agreement with a third-party data provider does not extinguish Readlink's interest in records that have been integrated, augmented, curated, or materially transformed within the Readlink Dataset, which may be treated as derivative works of Readlink and its community.
  • The persistence of the Dataset is a user-protective measure: when you add reviews, notes, or annotations linked to a book record, the underlying record needs to remain stable even if our upstream data sources change.

The Right of Persistence is exercised consistent with applicable third-party rights and the specific terms of the relevant upstream agreement, and Readlink reserves the right to prune, regenerate, or restructure records as required by law or by a binding contractual obligation that cannot be reconciled with this Right.

5. Prohibited Conduct

You may not:

  • Upload illegal, infringing, defamatory, or harassing content.
  • Harass, threaten, dox, or impersonate others.
  • Attempt to compromise the security of Readlink or other users' accounts.
  • Use automated systems to access, scrape, or interact with the Service except as expressly permitted.
  • Use the Service to systematically reproduce copyrighted books or substantial portions of them.
  • Circumvent any technical or contractual restrictions on the Service.
  • Use the Service to send spam, malware, or unsolicited commercial communications.
  • Resell, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service or its contents without our express written consent.

6. Intellectual Property

  • All Readlink branding, software, designs, layouts, and original content are owned by Lykan Sagl or its licensors.
  • The Readlink Dataset is governed by Section 4.
  • Book metadata sourced from the Open Library API and similar public sources is used in accordance with the licenses granted by those sources (typically CC0 or equivalent for Open Library).
  • Cover images displayed in the Service may be subject to publisher copyright; we display them under principles of fair use, fair dealing, and equivalent doctrines, and in accordance with our Content & Copyright Policy.
  • You may not copy, reproduce, distribute, or create derivative works from Readlink's intellectual property without permission.

7. Third-Party Content

  • Books, metadata, and cover images displayed via APIs (Open Library and others) may belong to third parties.
  • We do not guarantee the accuracy, legality, or completeness of third-party content.
  • You are responsible for your use of any third-party content surfaced through the Service.
  • If you believe third-party content displayed in Readlink infringes your rights, please follow the procedure in our Content & Copyright Policy.

8. Termination

  • You may terminate your account at any time through the app or by contacting us.
  • We may suspend or terminate accounts for: material violation of these Terms; repeated copyright infringement; harassment, threats, or doxxing of users; security attacks or attempts to compromise the Service; systematic scraping or automated access in violation of Section 4; fraudulent activity (including in any promotion, referral, or campaign); or behavior that creates legal risk for Readlink or other users. Where reasonable, we will provide notice and an opportunity to remedy before termination.
  • Upon termination: creative content (Section 3.3) is removed from public display in accordance with normal deletion timelines; functional metadata contributions (Section 3.5) remain in the Readlink Dataset; private notes (Section 3.4) are deleted.

9. Disclaimers

  • Readlink is provided "as is" and "as available."
  • We do not guarantee uninterrupted access, accuracy, or suitability for any purpose.
  • We do not guarantee that book metadata, recommendations, or AI-generated suggestions are accurate or complete.

10. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Lykan Sagl is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service. Our total liability for any claim arising under these Terms is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid Readlink in the 12 months preceding the claim, or (b) CHF 1,000.

Nothing in this section limits or excludes liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, fraud, gross negligence, willful misconduct, or any other liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including mandatory consumer protections in your jurisdiction.

11. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Lykan Sagl, its affiliates, and employees from any claims, damages, or expenses arising from: your use of the Service, your contributions, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any third party's rights.

12. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. For material changes, we will notify users via in-app notice or email at least 30 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of the Service after the effective date of an updated version constitutes acceptance of the changes.

13. Governing Law and Dispute Resolution

  • These Terms are governed by Swiss law, excluding conflict-of-laws principles.
  • Disputes are resolved in the competent courts of Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland, or as otherwise required by mandatory local consumer protection law.
  • Where you are an EU consumer, nothing in these Terms deprives you of mandatory consumer protections under your local law.

14. Paid Features and In-App Purchases

14.1 Apple App Store and Google Play

Paid features, subscriptions, and in-app purchases offered through the iOS or Android app are sold and processed by Apple or Google under their respective terms (Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions; Google Play Terms of Service). When you make such a purchase, you enter into a transaction with Apple or Google, not directly with Lykan Sagl, for the payment portion of that transaction. Their refund, billing, family sharing, and renewal terms govern the payment relationship and supersede anything to the contrary in these Terms.

The features and content delivered as a result of that purchase are provided by Lykan Sagl and remain subject to these Terms.

14.2 Refunds

Refund requests for in-app purchases must be directed to Apple or Google through their respective support channels — we cannot directly refund a transaction Apple or Google processed. Where required by mandatory consumer protection law (including the EU right of withdrawal for digital content), we will honor your statutory rights regardless of the store's policy.

14.3 Subscriptions

Subscriptions purchased through Apple or Google auto-renew under the terms of those stores until you cancel them in your Apple ID or Google Play account settings. Canceling within Readlink does not cancel the underlying store subscription. To manage or cancel your subscription, please use the subscription settings in your Apple ID (App Store) or Google Play account.

14.4 RevenueCat

We use RevenueCat, Inc. to validate and manage subscription entitlements across platforms. RevenueCat acts as our processor for this purpose. See our Privacy Policy for the data flows involved.

14.5 Web Subscriptions and Stripe

Premium subscriptions purchased on the Readlink website are sold and processed by Lykan Sagl as merchant of record, with payments handled by Stripe Payments Europe, Limited or its affiliates ("Stripe") acting as our payment processor. When you subscribe on the website, you enter into the subscription contract directly with Lykan Sagl under these Terms; Stripe's role is limited to processing the transaction under its own terms applicable to payers.

Web subscriptions auto-renew at the cadence selected at checkout (monthly or annual) until you cancel. You may cancel a web subscription at any time through your Readlink account settings or by contacting us at legal@readlink.app. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you retain access to Premium features through that period.

Refunds for web subscriptions are handled directly by Readlink. We will honor refund requests where required by mandatory consumer protection law, including the European Union right of withdrawal for digital content where applicable, and otherwise consider refund requests on a case-by-case basis. Contact legal@readlink.app to request a refund.

We use RevenueCat, Inc. to maintain a single, unified Premium entitlement across our website and (once available) our mobile applications. If you subscribe on the website and later sign in on a mobile device with the same Readlink account, your Premium entitlement is recognized on both surfaces. RevenueCat does not handle payment funds; its role is described in Section 14.4 and in our Privacy Policy.

14.6 Premium and Time-Limited Campaigns

From time to time, Readlink runs time-limited campaigns, promotions, or contests with their own published rules and entry windows. Subscribing to Premium — whether before, during, or after such a campaign, and whether on the website (Section 14.5) or through Apple or Google (Sections 14.1–14.3) — gives you access to the Premium product features for the term of your subscription, and is governed by these Terms together with the relevant billing terms.

Purchasing or holding a Premium subscription does not, by itself, enroll you in any campaign. Entry into a campaign, eligibility for any campaign prize or reward, and the effect (if any) that your Premium subscription has on campaign mechanics are governed exclusively by the published rules of that campaign in effect at the time you participate. Where a campaign's published rules describe a benefit, multiplier, or bonus tied to Premium status, that benefit applies only within the entry window and under the conditions specified in those rules.

Campaigns may include a free alternative entry path for participants who do not subscribe to Premium; that path is described in the relevant campaign rules. The existence of such an alternative does not entitle you to a refund of a Premium subscription you have separately chosen to purchase.

15. Contact

For questions about these Terms: legal@readlink.app

Privacy Policy

Effective date: March 2, 2026
Last updated: May 17, 2026
Controller: Lykan Sagl, Ai Salici, 6633 Lavertezzo, Switzerland
Contact email: legal@readlink.app

1. What Data We Collect

  • Account info: email, login data via Clerk.
  • Content you create: reviews, posts, comments, photos you upload to the feed, private notes, OCR text fragments you save.
  • Functional contributions: corrections and additions to book metadata.
  • Usage info: app interactions, device info, approximate location derived from IP.
  • Cookies & tracking: see Cookie Policy.
  • Web subscription data (Premium subscribers on the website): when you purchase a Premium subscription on the Readlink website, the transaction is processed by Stripe Payments Europe, Limited or its affiliates ("Stripe") under Stripe's terms. Stripe collects your billing email, billing address, and tokenized card or alternative payment instrument details on our behalf. We do not store full card numbers on our servers — Stripe retains that data and shares with us only the limited information necessary to grant you Premium and manage your subscription, including a customer identifier, subscription identifier, plan, currency, payment status, and renewal timestamps. We use RevenueCat, Inc. as our cross-platform subscription management infrastructure, which receives the same limited transaction data plus a pseudonymous user identifier we generate. Lykan Sagl is the merchant of record for web subscriptions; Stripe is our payment processor (a data processor) under Swiss data protection law and the GDPR.
  • In-app purchase and subscription data (paid features only): when you purchase a subscription or in-app feature on iOS or Android, the transaction is processed by Apple (App Store) or Google (Google Play) under their respective billing terms. We do not receive your full payment details (card number, billing address, etc.) — Apple and Google retain that data and share with us only the limited transaction information necessary to grant you the features you purchased, including a transaction identifier, product identifier, purchase and renewal timestamps, and entitlement status. We use RevenueCat, Inc. as our subscription management infrastructure to validate purchases, manage entitlements across platforms, and track subscription lifecycle events. RevenueCat receives the same limited transaction data described above plus a pseudonymous user identifier we generate.

We do not retain photos used for OCR. The source image is discarded once text extraction is complete; only the text fragment you select is stored.

2. How We Use Your Data

  • Provide, maintain, and improve Readlink.
  • Display your public content to other users in line with your privacy settings.
  • Operate features such as recommendations, search, and the social graph.
  • Maintain the Readlink Dataset of book metadata.
  • Communicate with you about your account, and (with your consent) send optional updates or marketing.
  • Analyze app usage to improve the Service.
  • Detect, prevent, and respond to fraud, abuse, scraping, and security incidents.

3. Legal Basis (GDPR / FADP)

  • Performance of a contract — to provide the Service you signed up for.
  • Legitimate interest — to operate, secure, and improve the Service, including dataset maintenance, abuse prevention, and analytics.
  • Consent — for marketing communications and optional features.
  • Legal obligation — to comply with applicable law.

4. Sharing & Transfers

  • We share data with service providers strictly as needed to operate the Service: Clerk (authentication), Vercel (hosting), PlanetScale (database), Stripe (processing payments for web subscriptions), RevenueCat (subscription management and entitlement validation across the website and in-app purchases), Cookiebot (cookie consent management), and analytics providers (planned).
  • We do not sell your personal data.
  • Web subscription processing via Stripe:When you purchase a Premium subscription on the Readlink website, Stripe processes the payment as our processor under Swiss data protection law and the GDPR. Stripe receives the billing email, billing address, and tokenized payment instrument details necessary to complete and renew the transaction; we receive only the limited subscription metadata described in Section 1. Stripe may further share transaction data with card networks, issuing banks, and fraud-prevention partners as necessary to authorize and settle the payment. Stripe operates from the European Union (Stripe Payments Europe, Limited) and, for cross-border processing flows internal to Stripe, relies on its own legal transfer mechanisms (standard contractual clauses, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework). For further information about how Stripe handles your data, see Stripe's Privacy Policy.
  • In-app purchases via Apple and Google:When you purchase a subscription or paid feature through the iOS or Android app, your purchase is processed directly by Apple Inc. through the App Store or Google LLC through Google Play, under those companies' own terms and privacy policies. Apple and Google act as independent controllers of your full payment data, which we do not receive. Limited transaction metadata (product, timestamp, entitlement status, anonymized transaction identifier) is shared with us and with RevenueCat, Inc., which we use to manage subscription lifecycle and entitlements across platforms. For information about how Apple and Google handle your payment data, see Apple's Privacy Policy and Google's Privacy Policy directly.
  • International transfers are safeguarded via standard contractual clauses, the EU-US Data Privacy Framework where applicable, and Switzerland's adequacy framework.
  • We may disclose data where required by valid legal process, to enforce our Terms, or to protect the rights and safety of users.

5. Your Rights

You have the right to:

  • Access the personal data we hold about you.
  • Request correction of inaccurate data.
  • Request deletion of your data, subject to limits described in our Terms (functional metadata contributions remain in the Readlink Dataset).
  • Object to or restrict certain processing.
  • Withdraw consent at any time where processing is based on consent.
  • Lodge a complaint with the Swiss Federal Data Protection and Information Commissioner (FDPIC) or your local data protection authority.
  • Data portability where applicable.

To exercise any of these rights, contact legal@readlink.app.

6. Retention

We retain personal data only as long as necessary to operate the Service and comply with legal obligations. Specifically:

  • Account data: retained while your account is active, deleted on termination.
  • Public creative content: removed from public display upon deletion. Residual copies in encrypted backups are retained for up to 90 days, after which they are overwritten in the normal backup rotation.
  • Private notes and OCR fragments: deleted on account termination.
  • Functional metadata contributions: retained as part of the Readlink Dataset per the Terms of Service.
  • Logs and security data: retained for limited periods consistent with security and legal needs.

7. Security

We use reasonable technical and organizational measures to protect your data, including encryption in transit, access controls, and provider-level security from our subprocessors. No system is perfectly secure; we will notify you of significant breaches as required by applicable law.

8. Children

The Service is not intended for anyone under 16. We do not knowingly collect personal data from anyone under 16. If we become aware that we have collected data from a person under 16 without verified parental consent in jurisdictions where that is permissible, we will delete it. If you believe a person under 16 has provided us data, please contact legal@readlink.app.

9. Changes to This Policy

We may update this Privacy Policy from time to time. For material changes — including changes to the categories of data we collect, the purposes of processing, the legal basis, retention periods, or the list of subprocessors — we will notify you via in-app notice or email at least 30 days before the change takes effect. The "Last updated" date above reflects the most recent revision.

Cookie Policy

Effective date: March 2, 2026
Last updated: May 9, 2026

What cookies we use

  • Essential cookies — required for the Service to function (authentication via Clerk, session management, security). These are always active because the Service cannot operate without them.
  • Analytics cookies — when activated, used to understand how the Service is used (current or future providers may include PostHog and Google Analytics). These are only set after you give consent through our cookie banner.
  • Functionality cookies — used to remember preferences (e.g., theme, language). Set only after consent where required by law.

Consent

Where required by the EU ePrivacy Directive, Swiss data protection law, or other applicable rules, we request your consent before setting any non-essential cookies. You can change your preferences at any time through the cookie banner or your account settings.

If you decline non-essential cookies, the Service will still work; some features and our ability to improve the Service will be limited.

Your controls

  • Adjust your consent through the cookie banner at any time.
  • Block or delete cookies through your browser settings (note that disabling essential cookies may prevent the Service from working).
  • See the Privacy Policy for details on how we process the data collected via cookies.

Live cookie list

A current list of all cookies and similar technologies used on Readlink — including provider, purpose, duration, and category — is available through our cookie banner declaration.

Effective date: March 2, 2026
Last updated: May 9, 2026

Ownership and License

  • Users retain ownership of content they upload.
  • License grants to Readlink are described in detail in Section 3 of the Terms of Service.
  • Users must only contribute content they own or have rights to share.
  • Public sharing and social media reposting are permitted under the licenses described in the Terms.

Third-Party Content

  • Cover images, book descriptions, and other content surfaced via APIs may be subject to third-party rights.
  • Readlink displays such content on a good-faith basis under principles of fair use, fair dealing, quotation, and equivalent doctrines.
  • We act expeditiously on valid takedown requests.

Copyright Takedown Procedure

If you believe content available through Readlink infringes your copyright or other intellectual property rights, send a Takedown Notice to legal@readlink.app including:

  1. Your contact information (name, address, email, phone).
  2. Identification of the work you claim is infringed (title, author, ISBN where relevant).
  3. The exact location of the allegedly infringing material on Readlink (URL, profile, post, or precise description).
  4. A statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized by the rights holder, an agent, or the law.
  5. A statement, made under penalty of perjury or its civil-law equivalent, that the information is accurate and that you are the rights holder or authorized to act on the rights holder's behalf.
  6. Your physical or electronic signature.

Readlink operates a notice-and-action procedure under Article 16 of the EU Digital Services Act (Regulation (EU) 2022/2065), Swiss intermediary-liability principles, and equivalent doctrines in other jurisdictions where we offer the Service. We are a Swiss-established service and do not rely on the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act safe harbor, although our procedure is designed to be compatible with DMCA-style notices submitted by U.S. rights holders.

We will:

  • Acknowledge receipt of valid notices without undue delay.
  • Process notices in a timely, diligent, non-arbitrary, and objective manner.
  • Where the notice is sufficiently substantiated, remove or disable access to the allegedly infringing material expeditiously and provide a clear statement of reasons to the user who posted the content, including the legal basis for the action and information about available redress.
  • Notify the affected user and provide them an opportunity to file a counter-notice through the procedure described below.
  • Maintain a record of all notices and actions for the period required by applicable law.
  • Track repeat infringers and suspend or terminate accounts associated with repeated, manifestly illegal content per Article 23 of the Digital Services Act.

Counter-Notice

If you believe content you posted was wrongly removed, you may submit a counter-notice to legal@readlink.app including: your contact information, identification of the removed content, a statement under penalty of perjury or civil-law equivalent that you believe the content was removed in error, and your consent to legal jurisdiction in the courts of Locarno, Ticino, Switzerland.

Repeat Infringers

  • Accounts that are the subject of multiple valid takedown notices may be suspended or terminated at our discretion.