Terms of Service

1. Scope and Parties

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern the use of the website www.loonacast.com and the associated web application (together, the "Service") operated by Sascha Jan Roelofs, Köhlerstraße 26, 89264 Weißenhorn, Germany ("Loonacast", "we", "us").

The Terms apply both to consumers within the meaning of § 13 of the German Civil Code (BGB) and to entrepreneurs within the meaning of § 14 BGB. Where individual clauses apply only to one of these groups, this is stated explicitly.

Any conflicting, deviating or supplementing terms of the user shall not become part of the contract unless we expressly consent to them in writing.

2. Description of the Service

Loonacast is a software-as-a-service product that helps podcasters turn full episodes into short-form video clips. The Service uses automated processing and artificial intelligence to transcribe audio and video uploads, identify potentially relevant moments and render short videos with captions, layout templates and related assets.

The Service is provided over the public internet. We do not owe a specific creative result, a specific number of usable clips or any guaranteed engagement or reach on third-party platforms. AI-generated output may contain errors, inaccuracies or unexpected results and must be reviewed by the user before publication.

We are entitled to further develop, change or discontinue features of the Service at any time, provided that the contractually owed core functionality of any paid plan remains preserved during a running billing period.

3. Registration and User Account

Use of the Service requires the creation of a user account. The user must provide truthful and complete information during registration and keep this information up to date.

Users must be at least 18 years old or, if younger, have the consent of a legal guardian to the extent permitted by applicable law.

The user is responsible for keeping their login credentials confidential and for all activity that takes place under their account. Suspected unauthorized access must be reported to us without undue delay.

4. Free and Paid Plans

We offer both free plans and paid subscription plans. The features, usage limits (for example processing minutes, number of clips, storage) and prices of each plan are described in the pricing section of our website at the time the user subscribes. All prices are stated including statutory VAT, unless explicitly marked as net prices for business customers.

Paid subscriptions are billed in advance for the chosen billing period (monthly or annually). Unless otherwise stated, subscriptions renew automatically for the same period until cancelled. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; the account is then either downgraded to a free plan or deactivated.

Payments are processed by external payment service providers. The user must ensure that their selected payment method remains valid. If payment fails, we may suspend access to paid features until payment is received.

5. Right of Withdrawal for Consumers

Consumers have a statutory right of withdrawal of 14 days from the conclusion of the contract. Detailed information on the right of withdrawal, including a model withdrawal form, is provided separately during the order process.

The right of withdrawal expires early in the case of a contract for the supply of digital content not on a tangible medium if the consumer has expressly consented to the start of performance before the end of the withdrawal period and has confirmed knowledge that this consent results in the loss of the right of withdrawal once performance has begun (§ 356 (5) BGB).

6. User Content and Rights Clearance

The user retains all rights to audio files, video files, transcripts, text, images and other content they upload, import or otherwise transmit to the Service ("User Content").

In order to operate the Service, the user grants us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable right (limited to the duration of the contract and to what is technically necessary) to store, copy, transcode, transmit, analyze, process and reproduce the User Content, including by means of third-party infrastructure and AI providers, for the sole purpose of providing the Service to the user. We will not use User Content to train our own foundation models without the user's separate, explicit consent.

The user warrants that they hold all necessary rights, licenses and consents (including from guests, co-hosts, music rights holders and persons appearing in the material) to upload the User Content and to have it processed by the Service. The user is solely responsible for ensuring that the User Content and any clips, transcripts or other output generated from it do not infringe third-party rights (in particular copyright, trademark, personality and data protection rights) and do not violate applicable law.

The user shall indemnify us, to the extent legally permissible, against third-party claims that are based on a culpable breach of the warranties in this clause 6. Statutory rights of consumers remain unaffected.

7. Acceptable Use

The user agrees not to use the Service in any way that:

• violates applicable law or third-party rights;
• uploads or generates content that is illegal, defamatory, deceptive, harassing, sexually exploitative of minors, or that incites violence or hatred;
• attempts to circumvent technical limits, security mechanisms or usage quotas of the Service;
• uses automated means (bots, scrapers, etc.) to access the Service in a way that goes beyond ordinary individual use;
• reverse engineers, decompiles or disassembles the Service, except to the extent expressly permitted by mandatory law;
• uses the Service to develop a competing product or service or to extract material amounts of data for that purpose; or
• imposes a disproportionate load on our infrastructure.

8. Third-Party Services

The Service relies on third-party providers (for example for hosting, payment processing, transcription and AI inference) and offers optional integrations with a number of social media platforms. When the user connects an external account or publishes content through Loonacast to one of these platforms, the relationship with the respective platform is established directly between the user and that platform. The user is responsible for complying with the terms, community guidelines and data policies of every platform they use. We are not responsible for the availability, behaviour or policy changes of third-party services.

9. Managing Third-Party Account Access

In order to import episodes from or publish clips to a third-party platform, the user can link the respective account to Loonacast. Access is established through the platform's official authorization flow (typically OAuth) and is limited to the permission scopes that the user explicitly approves. Loonacast never stores the password of any connected third-party account; instead, the platform issues access and refresh tokens that the Service uses on the user's behalf.

The Service uses these tokens only for the functions selected by the user, for example reading metadata of uploaded videos, downloading source episodes, uploading rendered clips, or scheduling posts. Tokens are stored in encrypted form and are automatically refreshed where supported by the platform.

The user can disconnect any linked account at any time from within the Loonacast settings. After disconnection, the stored tokens are revoked and deleted, and the Service can no longer access the corresponding account. Independently of this, the user can revoke access directly through the security or app settings of the respective platform, for example:

• Google / YouTube: myaccount.google.com/permissions
• Instagram (via Meta): accountscenter.instagram.com/apps_and_websites
• TikTok: TikTok settings
• LinkedIn: Permitted services settings

The user is responsible for keeping the access of linked third-party accounts up to date and for revoking it when no longer needed. If a third-party platform changes its terms, API or available scopes, individual integrations may become temporarily or permanently unavailable; we will inform users in a reasonable manner where this affects a paid feature.

Details on how personal data obtained through these integrations is processed can be found in our Privacy Policy.

10. Availability

We aim to provide a high level of availability of the Service but do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free operation. Planned maintenance, security updates, force majeure events and interruptions outside our reasonable control (e.g. failures of upstream providers or internet infrastructure) may temporarily affect availability.

11. Liability

We are liable without limitation for damages resulting from injury to life, body or health caused by a negligent or intentional breach of duty by us or one of our legal representatives or vicarious agents, as well as for damages covered by liability under the German Product Liability Act (Produkthaftungsgesetz) and for damages caused by intent or gross negligence or based on a guarantee given by us.

For damages caused by slight negligence, we are only liable in case of a breach of a material contractual obligation (an obligation whose fulfilment is essential for the proper performance of the contract and on whose observance the user regularly relies and may rely). In such cases, our liability is limited to the damage that was foreseeable and typical at the time the contract was concluded.

Any further liability is excluded. In particular, we are not liable for AI-generated output, for the user's commercial success on third-party platforms, or for the loss of data to the extent that the damage would not have occurred if the user had maintained adequate backups.

The above limitations also apply to our legal representatives and vicarious agents. Mandatory statutory rights of consumers remain unaffected.

12. Term and Termination

The contract for the use of a free plan runs for an indefinite period and may be terminated by either party at any time without notice. The term and notice periods for paid plans are determined by the chosen subscription period.

Both parties' right to extraordinary termination for cause remains unaffected. Cause for us exists in particular in cases of material or repeated breach of these Terms by the user, including violations of clauses 6 and 7.

On termination, we may delete the user's account and User Content after a reasonable transition period, subject to statutory retention obligations. Users are responsible for exporting any content they wish to retain before the end of the contract.

13. Changes to these Terms

We may amend these Terms with effect for the future where this is necessary to reflect changes in the Service, applicable law or our business operations, and where the change does not unilaterally disturb the contractual balance to the detriment of the user. We will notify users of material changes in text form (e.g. by email) at least 30 days before they take effect. If the user does not object within this period, the changes are deemed accepted; we will point this out in the notification. Users have the right to terminate the contract before the changes take effect.

14. Data Protection

Information about the processing of personal data in connection with the Service can be found in our Privacy Policy.

15. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms and the contractual relationship between the user and Loonacast are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods (CISG). For consumers, this choice of law applies only to the extent that the protection granted by mandatory provisions of the law of the consumer's habitual residence is not withdrawn.

If the user is a merchant, a legal person under public law or a special fund under public law, the exclusive place of jurisdiction for all disputes arising from or in connection with this contract is our registered seat. The same applies if the user has no general place of jurisdiction in Germany or the EU.

The European Commission provides a platform for online dispute resolution (ODR), which is available at https://ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We are neither obliged nor willing to participate in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

Should individual provisions of these Terms be or become invalid in whole or in part, the validity of the remaining provisions shall not be affected.

16. Contact

For any questions regarding these Terms of Service, please contact: