Terms of Service

1. Agreement to Terms

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) form a binding agreement between you and SciReader (operated by Manifold One Limited, “Company”, “we”, “us”, “our”). They govern your access to and use of the SciReader desktop application for macOS and Windows, this website (scireader.com), and our online account, AI assistant, and Cloud Sync services (collectively, the “Services”).

By downloading, installing, or using SciReader, you agree to these Terms. If you are using SciReader on behalf of a company, university, lab, or other organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. License to Use the App

Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use the SciReader desktop application on computers that you own or control. All rights, title, and interest in and to the SciReader software, interface design, and branding remain the exclusive property of SciReader and its licensors.

You may not copy, modify, distribute, sell, lease, sublicense, reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract the source code of the application, nor may you bypass or tamper with any authentication, credit metering, or licensing mechanisms, except to the extent such restrictions are prohibited by applicable law.

3. Your Content and Ownership

Your work stays yours. You retain full ownership of all PDFs and documents you import, the highlights and Markdown notes you create, the questions and prompts you submit to the AI assistant (“Inputs”), and the responses or summaries generated for you by the assistant (“Outputs”). We claim no ownership rights over your library or your research.

We do not use your papers, notes, Inputs, or Outputs to train AI models. If you enable Cloud Sync or use the AI assistant, you grant us a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive license solely to host, transmit, process, and display your content as necessary to provide those Services to you and your own devices.

4. Responsibility for Imported Papers

You are solely responsible for ensuring that you have the legal right to store, process, and read the documents you import into SciReader. While the app can query public scholarly catalogs for metadata and open-access links, it does not grant you access to subscription-gated publications and must not be used to circumvent publisher access controls, Digital Rights Management (DRM), or systematic downloading restrictions.

5. Accounts and Acceptable Use

Local library management, reading, and annotation require no account. You must be at least 18 years old to register an account for the AI assistant or Cloud Sync. You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your sign-in credentials and for all activity that occurs under your account.

Individual use and fair play: Each SciReader account is for a single individual. You agree not to:

• Share your account credentials among multiple people, or pool a single subscription across multiple concurrent users.
• Use automated scripts, bots, scrapers, or third-party proxies to send bulk or programmatic requests to the AI assistant or scholarly lookup services.
• Resell, redistribute, or offer SciReader’s AI assistant or credit capacity as a commercial service to third parties.
• Interfere with, disrupt, or attempt to probe or overload our servers, storage infrastructure, or upstream providers.

We reserve the right to rate-limit, suspend, or terminate accounts that violate these rules to protect service stability for other users.

6. Subscriptions, Credits, and Billing

How credits work: AI assistant features are metered in credits. Signing in with a free account provides a one-time welcome credit allowance. Paid subscription plans (Basic, Pro, Max) provide a recurring monthly credit allowance and Cloud Sync storage, and optional top-up credit packs can be purchased inside the app.

Reset and nature of credits: Monthly subscription credits reset at the start of each billing cycle and do not roll over. If your monthly allowance is exhausted, the AI assistant pauses until the next cycle unless you hold top-up credit packs, which are then consumed automatically; we never charge you for overage usage without your explicit purchase. Top-up credit packs do not expire while your account remains active. All credits (whether welcome credits, monthly allowances, or top-up packs) are solely a measurement of in-app service capacity: they have no cash or monetary value, are non-transferable, and cannot be redeemed or exchanged for cash.

Billing and renewals: Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle provides all customer service inquiries and handles returns. Your payment contract is with Paddle, and Paddle’s buyer terms apply alongside these Terms. Applicable taxes are calculated at checkout. Paid subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each monthly or annual billing period unless you cancel before the renewal date. When you cancel, your paid plan remains active through the end of the period you have already paid for.

Refunds and price changes: Cancellations and refunds are governed by our Refund Policy. We may modify subscription or credit pack prices from time to time; if a price change affects your active subscription, we will notify you by email at least 30 days before the new price applies to your next renewal, giving you the opportunity to cancel beforehand.

7. AI Assistant Disclaimers and Academic Integrity

The AI assistant uses large language and vision models to summarize, explain, and compare scientific papers. Because AI models are probabilistic, Outputs may contain errors, omissions, misinterpretations of figures or tables, or confident statements not supported by the source text (“hallucinations”).

SciReader links assistant answers back to source sentences and regions in your PDFs specifically to help you verify them. You are solely responsible for independently verifying all AI Outputs against the original primary literature before relying on them for academic writing, citations, peer review, laboratory procedures, medical or clinical decisions, legal or financial advice, or engineering work.

8. Service Availability and Changes

The local desktop reader and library operate offline on your computer. Online features—including the AI assistant, scholarly lookups, and Cloud Sync—depend on internet connectivity and upstream cloud and AI model providers. While we work to keep online services fast and reliable, we do not guarantee uninterrupted uptime or the permanent availability of any specific third-party AI model.

We encourage you to maintain regular local backups of your library folder on your computer. Even if you use Cloud Sync, Cloud Sync is a synchronization service across your devices and is not a substitute for independent local backups.

9. Term and Termination

You may stop using SciReader, cancel your subscription, or delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your online account if you materially breach these Terms (including account sharing, automated abuse, or payment fraud), or if we are required to do so by law. If we discontinue the online Services or terminate a paid account without cause, we will provide a pro-rata refund of any prepaid, unused subscription period or unused purchased credit packs.

Termination of an online account affects only server-side features; the local PDFs, Markdown notes, and database stored on your computer remain yours and stay on your disk.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SciReader and all related Services and AI Outputs are provided “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE”, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any mandatory consumer rights that cannot be waived under the laws of your jurisdiction.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, SciReader, its affiliates, and its directors, employees, and suppliers shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, research, goodwill, or data arising out of or related to your use of or inability to use SciReader.

Our total aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Services in any twelve-month period shall not exceed the greater of: (a) the total amount you actually paid for SciReader in the twelve (12) months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) zero ($0) if you have only used the free tier.

Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes liability for fraud, gross negligence, death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any other liability that cannot be limited by law.

12. Governing Law and General Provisions

These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with applicable laws, without regard to conflict of law principles. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms deprives you of the mandatory consumer protections of your country of residence.

Severability and Entire Agreement: These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy and Refund Policy, constitute the entire agreement between you and us regarding SciReader. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permissible and the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms does not constitute a waiver of that right.

Changes to Terms: We may update these Terms as SciReader evolves. If a change materially affects your rights or obligations, we will post the updated Terms on this page and notify registered users at least 30 days before the changes take effect. Continuing to use SciReader after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

13. Contact

If you have any questions about these Terms, please contact us at feedback@scireader.com or visit our Contact page.