Terms of Service

Welcome to Mote.

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of the Mote mobile application and related services (together, “Mote” or the “Service”), which are operated by Yi-Wen, Chang, trading as Mote (“we”, “us”, or “our”).

By creating an account, accessing, or using Mote, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, please do not use Mote.

Please also read our Privacy Policy, which explains how we collect, use, and protect personal information.

For questions about these Terms, contact us at contact@heymote.com.

1. Who Can Use Mote

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account or use Mote.

Mote is currently not offered to users located in the European Union. You must not access or use Mote from a location where doing so would violate applicable law or where Mote is not offered.

You are responsible for ensuring that your use of Mote is lawful in the place where you access the Service.

2. Your Account

You may need an account to use Mote.

You do not need to use your legal name publicly. You may use a display name, handle, avatar, or other identity of your choosing, provided that you do not impersonate another person or misrepresent your identity in a misleading or unlawful way.

You must provide information reasonably necessary to create and maintain your account and keep any required account information reasonably accurate and up to date.

You are responsible for activity carried out through your account and for taking reasonable steps to keep your account secure.

Mote does not currently impose a general restriction on the number of accounts you may create. However, you must not create or use multiple accounts to evade restrictions, abuse the Service, harass others, manipulate features, or otherwise violate these Terms.

3. Your Homebase

Some Mote features use a location you select as your Homebase.

Your Homebase may affect features such as estimated postcard travel times, daily usage resets, and other location-based parts of the Mote experience.

Where Mote provides a daily usage allowance, that allowance generally resets at midnight based on your selected Homebase.

You are responsible for selecting an appropriate Homebase. You must not intentionally manipulate your Homebase to circumvent usage limits or other Service rules.

4. Your Content

“Your Content” means content that you upload, create, submit, send, or otherwise make available through Mote, including photos, profile images, captions, text, Moments, and postcards.

You keep ownership of Your Content

You retain any ownership rights you have in the content you upload to Mote.

Mote does not claim ownership of your original photos or other content merely because you upload them to the Service.

Permission you give Mote

To operate Mote, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide licence to host, store, reproduce, process, transform, display, transmit, and otherwise use Your Content only as reasonably necessary to:

• provide and operate Mote;
• generate Moments and other features you request;
• store and display your content;
• show content to people you choose to share it with;
• send and deliver postcards;
• maintain, secure, troubleshoot, and improve the operation of the Service;
• investigate reports or potential violations of these Terms; and
• comply with applicable law.

This licence does not give Mote ownership of Your Content.

The licence ends when the relevant content is deleted from Mote, except to the extent that temporary copies must reasonably remain for technical, security, backup, legal, or compliance purposes.

AI training

We do not use Your Content to train our AI models.

If this policy changes in the future, we will not treat these Terms as permission to begin training on Your Content without providing appropriate notice and obtaining any consent that may be required.

5. Your Responsibility for Content

You are responsible for the content you upload, create, or share through Mote.

You must have the rights and permissions necessary to use that content on Mote.

For example, you must not upload or share content that:

• infringes another person's copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights;
• you obtained or use unlawfully;
• contains another person's image where you do not have the permissions reasonably required for your intended use;
• impersonates or misleadingly represents another person;
• is unlawful, fraudulent, threatening, abusive, or harassing;
• promotes hatred or unlawful discrimination;
• contains sexual exploitation or abuse;
• contains unlawful sexually explicit material;
• promotes serious violence or illegal activity;
• contains malware or malicious code; or
• is intended to interfere with, exploit, or abuse Mote or its users.

You are responsible for how you use and share content created through Mote, including outside the Service.

6. Moments and AI-Generated Content

Mote can transform photos and other inputs into AI-assisted visual content that we call Moments.

Mote does not claim ownership of the Moments you create through the Service.

Subject to applicable law and any rights belonging to third parties, you may use your Moments for personal or commercial purposes.

However, AI-generated and AI-assisted content has limitations.

Outputs may:

• contain inaccuracies;
• alter or omit visual details;
• differ from what you expected;
• resemble content independently generated for someone else; or
• contain elements that may be subject to third-party rights.

Mote does not guarantee that any Moment is unique, error-free, historically or visually accurate, suitable for a particular purpose, or free of all third-party rights.

You are responsible for reviewing a Moment before publishing, distributing, selling, or otherwise relying on it.

7. Friends and Sharing

Mote includes social features that allow you to connect with other users.

Moments you keep on Mote may be visible to your Mote friends according to the privacy and sharing settings provided by the Service.

You should only connect with people with whom you are comfortable sharing content under those settings.

Mote may change or expand privacy and sharing controls over time. Where a change materially affects who can see existing content, we will take reasonable steps to communicate that change.

8. Postcards

Mote allows you to send Moments to other users as postcards.

A postcard is private to its sender and recipient and is not intended to be publicly visible to other friends through the normal Mote experience.

Once a postcard has been sent, it cannot be recalled through Mote.

Mote may show an estimated arrival time for a postcard. These arrival times are part of the Mote experience and are estimates only. They are not guaranteed delivery deadlines and may vary because of technical, operational, location, or other factors.

Mote postcards are digital experiences and do not represent physical postal delivery unless we expressly state otherwise.

9. Deleting Content and Accounts

You may delete content where Mote provides that functionality.

When a Moment is deleted, it will no longer be available through the normal Service, including places where it was visible to friends. Deleting a Moment does not recall or remove postcards that have already been sent using that Moment.

You may also delete your Mote account.

Deleting your account will remove the content associated with that account from the normal Mote experience. This includes previously sent postcards, which will no longer remain available to their recipients after your account has been deleted.

Because deleting your account can affect postcards that another user previously received from you, you should consider this before deleting your account.

We may retain limited information after deletion where reasonably necessary for security, fraud prevention, legal compliance, dispute resolution, or other purposes described in our Privacy Policy.

We do not guarantee permanent storage or archival availability of any content.

10. Reporting and Blocking

Mote provides tools that may allow users to report content or other users and to block other users.

We may review reports and take action where we reasonably believe it is necessary to protect users, enforce these Terms, protect the Service, or comply with law.

Possible actions may include:

• restricting the visibility of content;
• removing content;
• limiting features;
• suspending accounts; or
• terminating accounts.

Reporting content does not guarantee that it will be removed.

11. Acceptable Use

You must not misuse Mote.

In particular, you must not:

• use Mote for unlawful purposes;
• infringe or violate the rights of another person;
• harass, threaten, abuse, or deceive another user;
• attempt to gain unauthorised access to accounts, systems, or data;
• interfere with or disrupt the Service;
• introduce malicious code;
• scrape, crawl, harvest, or systematically extract data from Mote without permission;
• reverse engineer the Service except where applicable law expressly permits it;
• circumvent usage limits, security mechanisms, or access restrictions;
• use automated methods to create abusive amounts of traffic or content;
• exploit bugs or vulnerabilities;
• use Mote in a way that imposes unreasonable load on our systems; or
• help another person do any of the above.

12. Free and Paid Plans

Mote may offer free and paid plans.

Different plans may include different features, limits, daily usage allowances, or other benefits. The current features and allowances associated with a plan will be shown in Mote before you purchase it.

Unless otherwise stated in the Service, daily usage allowances:

• reset each day based on midnight at your Homebase; and
• do not accumulate or roll over when unused.

A usage allowance is a limit on use during a particular period. It is not stored credit, money, property, or a transferable balance.

We may change plan names, features, allowances, or other benefits from time to time.

If we make a material change that negatively affects a paid subscription, we will provide reasonable notice where required and will respect any rights you have under applicable law.

13. Subscriptions and Payments

Paid subscriptions to Mote are currently offered through Apple's App Store.

The price, billing period, trial terms if applicable, subscription benefits, and other purchase information will be shown to you before purchase.

Subscriptions may automatically renew unless you cancel them in accordance with the terms presented by Apple.

If you cancel a subscription, you will generally continue to have access to the paid subscription until the end of the period you have already paid for, subject to Apple's applicable rules.

Payments, renewals, cancellations, refunds, upgrades, and downgrades are processed through Apple and may also be subject to Apple's terms and policies.

Mote does not independently determine whether Apple will grant a refund.

Nothing in these Terms limits any refund, cancellation, cooling-off, or other consumer right that you are entitled to under applicable law.

14. Changes to Plans and the Service

Mote is an evolving product.

We may add, modify, replace, suspend, or discontinue features from time to time.

We may also change how particular parts of the Service work, including presentation, sharing features, generation systems, usage limits, social features, and subscription benefits.

We will not use this section to remove rights that applicable law requires us to provide.

Where a change materially affects a paid service or materially disadvantages existing users, we will provide reasonable notice where required by law.

15. Availability of Mote

We aim to keep Mote available and working reliably, but we do not guarantee that the Service will be available continuously or without interruption.

Mote may occasionally be unavailable because of:

• maintenance;
• updates;
• infrastructure or network failures;
• third-party service failures;
• security incidents;
• technical problems; or
• circumstances outside our reasonable control.

We may temporarily suspend all or part of the Service where reasonably necessary.

We do not guarantee permanent storage of photos, Moments, postcards, account data, or other content. You should keep your own copies of content that is important to you.

16. Suspension and Termination

We may restrict, suspend, or terminate access to Mote if we reasonably believe that:

• you have materially or repeatedly violated these Terms;
• your use of Mote creates a security, legal, or safety risk;
• you are abusing or attempting to manipulate the Service;
• your activity infringes another person's rights;
• we are required to do so by law; or
• continuing to provide the Service would expose Mote or others to material harm.

Where reasonably practicable, we will provide notice and an opportunity to address the issue before terminating an account.

However, we may act immediately where necessary because of serious abuse, security concerns, illegal activity, risk of harm, or legal requirements.

You may stop using Mote at any time and may delete your account using the functionality provided in the Service.

17. Mote's Intellectual Property

Except for Your Content and content belonging to other users or third parties, Mote and its associated intellectual property belong to us or our licensors.

This includes, where applicable:

• the Mote name and branding;
• logos and visual identity;
• the Tangii character and related artwork;
• software and source code;
• user-interface designs;
• illustrations and graphics;
• text and copy;
• product features and interactions; and
• other original materials forming part of the Service.

These Terms allow you to use Mote for its intended purpose. They do not transfer ownership of Mote's intellectual property to you.

You must not copy, reproduce, distribute, sell, licence, or commercially exploit Mote's intellectual property except where we expressly permit it or applicable law gives you that right.

18. Feedback

If you voluntarily provide ideas, suggestions, feedback, or feature requests about Mote, you agree that we may use that feedback without restriction or payment to you.

This does not give us ownership of Your Content or confidential information you have not intended to provide as product feedback.

19. Third-Party Services

Mote depends on third-party platforms and service providers to operate certain parts of the Service.

Those third parties may have their own terms and policies.

We are not responsible for third-party products or services that are outside our reasonable control, but this does not affect any responsibility that applicable law requires us to accept for the Mote Service itself.

20. Apple App Store

Mote is currently distributed through Apple's App Store.

Your use of the App Store and your Apple account is subject to the terms you have with Apple.

Where Apple's standard end-user licence agreement applies to the Mote application, that licence applies in addition to these Terms.

Apple is not responsible for operating Mote or providing Mote's services, content, support, or maintenance, except to the extent Apple expressly agrees otherwise under its own terms.

Subscription purchases and related billing are handled through Apple's systems as described above.

21. Our Responsibility to You

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits responsibility where it would be unlawful to do so.

In particular, nothing in these Terms affects your statutory rights as a consumer or excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation or for death or personal injury caused by negligence where applicable.

We are responsible for losses you suffer if they are a foreseeable result of our breach of these Terms or our failure to use reasonable care and skill, subject to applicable law.

We are not responsible for losses that were not reasonably foreseeable when you agreed to these Terms.

Mote is intended primarily for personal consumer use. If you use Mote for business or commercial purposes, we are not responsible for business losses such as loss of profit, revenue, business opportunity, anticipated savings, goodwill, or business interruption, except where applicable law requires otherwise.

We are also not responsible for loss or damage caused by circumstances outside our reasonable control, provided that we have taken any steps required of us by applicable law.

Nothing in this section removes any rights or remedies that you have under applicable consumer law.

22. No Guarantee About User or AI Content

We do not control everything users upload or communicate through Mote.

Views, images, statements, and other content supplied by users belong to or are the responsibility of those users and do not necessarily represent Mote.

Although we may moderate or remove content, we do not guarantee that all objectionable or unlawful content will be identified or removed immediately.

Similarly, AI-assisted output may be unpredictable. You should not rely on Mote-generated content for medical, legal, financial, safety-critical, or other high-stakes decisions.

23. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time, for example because:

• Mote changes;
• we introduce new features;
• our business model changes;
• legal or regulatory requirements change; or
• changes are necessary for security or operational reasons.

If we make a material change, we will provide reasonable notice through Mote, by email, or by another appropriate method.

Where applicable law requires your consent to a change, we will ask for it.

The updated Terms will state their effective date.

If you continue using Mote after updated Terms take effect, the updated Terms will apply to your future use of the Service, except where applicable law requires a different process.

24. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales.

However, if you are a consumer living elsewhere, you may also have mandatory rights under the laws of the place where you live that these Terms cannot take away.

If you have a concern or dispute with Mote, please contact us first at contact@heymote.com so that we can try to resolve the matter informally.

These Terms do not require you to submit disputes to mandatory private arbitration.

Nothing in these Terms prevents you from bringing a claim before a court that has jurisdiction under applicable law.

25. General Terms

If a court or other competent authority finds part of these Terms unlawful or unenforceable, the remaining provisions will continue to apply.

If we do not immediately enforce a provision of these Terms, that does not mean we have waived our right to enforce it later.

You may not transfer your rights or obligations under these Terms to another person without our consent where consent is reasonably required.

We may transfer our rights and obligations under these Terms as part of a restructuring, sale, transfer, or other change to the operation or ownership of Mote, provided that doing so does not reduce your rights under applicable law.

These Terms, together with any additional terms presented to you for a particular feature or purchase and our Privacy Policy where applicable, form the agreement governing your use of Mote.

26. Contact

If you have questions, concerns, or complaints about Mote or these Terms, contact:

Yi-Wen, Chang, trading as Mote

Email: contact@heymote.com