App Terms of Use

Before you start, the five things that matter most

1. It runs on your Mac. Merriweather has no account and no server. What it records and learns stays in your macOS account. We never receive it.
2. It is a beta. It will have bugs. It can lose or misread data. Keep your own records of anything important.
3. Recording other people is your responsibility. Many places, including California, Florida, Illinois, Maryland, Massachusetts, Montana, New Hampshire, Pennsylvania, Washington and much of Europe, require the consent of everyone in a conversation before it is recorded. The other people in your meeting are not told by the app or by Zoom that you are recording. Tell them.
4. Its output can be wrong. Transcripts, names, time records and summaries are produced by software and must be checked before you rely on them, especially for anything you bill, sign or send.
5. Disputes go to individual arbitration (Section 17), unless you opt out within 30 days.

These App Terms of Use ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Plausible Industries LLC, a California limited liability company ("Plausible Industries," "we," "us," or "our"), for the Merriweather app (the "App"). You accept them by clicking Agree when the App first opens, or by using the App. If you use the App for an organisation, you accept for that organisation and confirm you may bind it. If you do not agree, do not use the App; quit it and move it to the Trash.

1. The App

The App is a macOS menu-bar application that observes your work on your Mac so it can remember it: which app is in front and its window title, idle and lock state, calendar events and reminders if you allow them, contacts if you allow them, documents and pages you add, and meetings it records and transcribes. It organises what it observes into a work record for an engagement you set up. Processing happens on your Mac, including with Apple's on-device Foundation Models and a bundled speech model. The Privacy Policy describes exactly what the App does with data and when it uses the network.

The App does not record keystrokes and does not take continuous screenshots.

2. Licence

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use the App on Macs you own or control, for your own work, including work you do for your employer or clients. [During the beta the App is free of charge.]

You may not, and may not let anyone else: sell, rent, sublicense or redistribute the App or the installer; remove or alter its notices; modify it or bypass its code signature; reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble it except where the law allows this despite this restriction; or use it to build a competing product.

The App includes open-source software and models licensed by others. The licences listed in Settings > About > Licenses (and in the Acknowledgements file inside the App) apply to those components, and nothing in these Terms limits your rights under them.

We and our licensors keep all rights in the App not expressly granted.

3. Beta

The App is pre-release software. Features may change or be removed without notice. It may contain errors, stop working, misrecord time, fail to record a meeting, mis-transcribe, attribute words to the wrong person, or lose data. We have no obligation to provide support, updates or fixes, or to release a final version. Do not use the App as your only record of anything that matters, and back up your Mac.

4. Your data stays yours, and on your Mac

Everything the App records, transcribes, infers or stores ("Your Data") belongs to you (or to whoever owns it as between you and your employer or clients). It is stored in your macOS user account and is not sent to us. We claim no rights in it and do not receive it.

Because we do not receive Your Data, we cannot recover it if it is lost, and we cannot delete or export it for you. You can delete any meeting, a person's voice profile, an engagement, or all App data yourself, as the Privacy Policy describes. Deleting the App from Applications does not by itself delete Your Data.

If you choose to send us a diagnostics file or anything else for support, we use it only to help you and delete it as stated in the Privacy Policy. Please do not send us recordings or transcripts.

5. Recording meetings: your responsibilities

The App can record your microphone and the audio of calls on your Mac (for example Zoom, Microsoft Teams, Google Meet or FaceTime), either when you start it or automatically when it detects a meeting, if you turn automatic capture on. It can also recognise recurring voices across meetings by keeping a voice profile for each speaker on your Mac.

You are the person recording. We do not decide what you record, are not a party to your conversations, and do not receive the recordings. By using the recording features, you agree that:

1. You will comply with every recording, wiretapping, eavesdropping, privacy and biometric law that applies to you and to each person you record, wherever they are. When people join from different places, the strictest applicable law may govern. Some laws make recording without everyone's consent a crime and allow statutory damages per recording.
2. You will tell everyone in the meeting that you are recording, and obtain their consent where the law requires it, before you record. The App does not notify other participants, and the meeting service will generally not show them that you are recording. Use the App's notice tools (for example, the line it offers to paste into the meeting chat or calendar invite) or tell people out loud.
3. If you turn on automatic capture, you are responsible for every meeting it records. Turn it off, or pause the App, for any meeting where you have not given notice or obtained consent, or where recording is not allowed.
4. If you use voice recognition, you are responsible for any notice, consent, retention schedule and deletion that biometric privacy laws (such as the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act, Texas Business and Commerce Code § 503.001, Washington RCW 19.375, the Colorado Privacy Act, and the GDPR) require for the people whose voices are recognised. You can turn voice recognition off and delete any voice profile at any time, and you will delete a person's voice profile when they ask or when you no longer need it.
5. You will respect confidentiality obligations to your employer, clients and others, including any rule against recording or storing their meetings or data on your own devices.
6. You will not use the App to record or monitor anyone covertly, to monitor employees or others without the notice the law requires, or to record any conversation you are not part of.

Nothing in the App, on our website or in these Terms is legal advice about recording. If you are unsure, ask a lawyer where you are.

6. Other permissions and services

The App asks macOS for permissions (microphone, system audio, calendars, reminders, contacts, accessibility and similar). You can grant or revoke them in System Settings at any time; some features stop working without them.

When you sign in to a third-party site or service inside the App, or ask the App to fetch a page, look up a name in a directory, or use your calendar, reminders or contacts, you act under your own account and must follow that service's terms and your organisation's policies. We are not responsible for third-party services, and their availability may change.

7. Acceptable use

You will not use the App: in violation of any law or anyone's rights; to collect information about people for purposes unrelated to your own work; to make decisions about other people's employment, credit, housing, insurance or similar matters without meaningful human review; or in any way that breaches the terms of the Apple software or services it relies on, including Apple's acceptable use requirements for its Foundation Models.

8. Output is not advice, and can be wrong

Transcripts, speaker labels, names, summaries, follow-up items, time records and any other output are generated automatically and may be incomplete or wrong. They are not legal, financial, tax, employment or other professional advice. Review time records before billing anyone, and review anything before you send it to someone else or rely on it.

9. Updates

We may release new versions on our website. The App does not update itself [today]. Newer versions may come with updated Terms, which you accept by agreeing in the App or by using the new version.

10. Feedback

If you give us suggestions or feedback, we may use them without obligation to you.

11. Termination

You may stop using the App at any time. We may end your licence if you breach these Terms, or end the beta for everyone, by notice on our website. When the licence ends, stop using the App and delete it. Your Data remains on your Mac and remains yours. Sections 4, 5, 8 and 12 to 19 survive.

12. Disclaimers

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE APP IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITH ALL FAULTS AND WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY AND QUIET ENJOYMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE APP WILL RECORD, TRANSCRIBE OR REMEMBER ANYTHING CORRECTLY OR AT ALL, THAT IT WILL BE ERROR-FREE OR UNINTERRUPTED, OR THAT YOUR DATA WILL NOT BE LOST.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, PLAUSIBLE INDUSTRIES AND ITS MEMBERS, MANAGERS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, AGENTS AND LICENSORS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, REVENUE, BILLINGS OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE APP OR THESE TERMS, ON ANY LEGAL THEORY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THEIR POSSIBILITY.

OUR TOTAL LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE APP OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE APP IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AND ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US$100).

These limits do not apply where the law does not allow them, including for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or fraud.

14. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Plausible Industries and its members, managers, officers, employees and agents from any claim, loss, penalty or cost (including reasonable attorneys' fees) arising from (a) your recordings, transcripts or voice profiles, including any claim by a person you recorded or recognised; (b) your breach of these Terms; or (c) your violation of any law or anyone's rights.

15. Export and government use

You will comply with U.S. export control and sanctions laws and will not use or transfer the App where those laws prohibit it. The App is "commercial computer software" provided to U.S. government users with only the rights in these Terms.

16. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Subject to Section 17, the state and federal courts in Sacramento County, California have exclusive jurisdiction. If you are a consumer, this does not deprive you of the mandatory protections of the law where you live.

17. Dispute resolution: individual arbitration and class waiver

PLEASE READ THIS SECTION. IT AFFECTS HOW DISPUTES ARE RESOLVED.

17.1 Talk first. Before starting arbitration, send a written notice describing the dispute to Plausible Industries LLC, Attn: Legal, [company mailing address], and [legal@plausibleindustries.com]. We will negotiate in good faith for at least 60 days.

17.2 Arbitration. Except as in 17.4, any dispute arising out of or relating to the App or these Terms will be resolved by individual, binding arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules (or, if you use the App for an organisation, its Commercial Arbitration Rules), before one arbitrator, seated in Sacramento County, California, with the option to appear by video. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this Section.

17.3 No class actions. Disputes will be resolved only on an individual basis, not as a class, collective or representative action. If this class waiver is found unenforceable for a claim, that claim proceeds in court, not in arbitration.

17.4 Exceptions. Either party may bring an individual claim in small claims court, or seek an injunction in court for infringement or misuse of intellectual property.

17.5 Opt-out. You may opt out of this Section by emailing [legal@plausibleindustries.com] within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, with your name and the statement that you opt out of arbitration.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. We will show material changes in the App or on our website before they take effect. Continuing to use the App after that means you accept them; if you do not, stop using the App.

19. General

These Terms, with the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement about the App and replace earlier understandings, except any separate written beta or partner agreement we have signed with you, which controls if it conflicts. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest remains in effect. You may not assign these Terms; we may assign them in a merger, acquisition or sale of assets. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. Apple is not a party to these Terms and has no responsibility for the App.

20. Contact

Plausible Industries LLC Attn: Legal [company mailing address] [legal@plausibleindustries.com]

End of Merriweather App Terms of Use.