Stories Left at a Place — Terms of Use

1. Definitions

• The Feature: "Leave a Story at This Place" in the App, including placing, receiving, and reading provided works.
• Placed story: the text of a story you placed through the Feature, its narration audio, the capture date, and the capture location.
• Story someone left: a story placed by another user. The App shows these under this name.
• Provided work: a story or description registered for a place by a provider — an author, publisher, municipality, museum, shrine, temple, facility, or similar — under an arrangement with us.
• Receiving: standing at the place and listening to (or reading) a story someone left or a provided work in the App.

2. Placing a Story

2.1 What you can place

You may place only stories created in the App from photos you took yourself (including stories you edited). You must hold the rights needed to grant us the license in these terms. Stories created from someone else's photo, or containing someone else's writing, may not be placed.

2.2 No name is shown

A placed story carries no name or display name. It reaches recipients as a "story someone left", together with the month and year of capture. However, anything you write in the story text — including your own or another person's name, address, or contact details — is delivered as is. Do not write personally identifiable information in the text.

2.3 Copyright and the license you grant us

You keep the copyright in your placed story. We do not take ownership of it.

You grant us a free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to use the placed story for the following purposes:

1. Delivering it to users standing at that place, through the App and our websites (including displaying the text and playing the narration audio)
2. Synthesizing and re-synthesizing narration audio; translating it; creating summaries and captions; adjusting punctuation and line breaks for narration
3. Collecting the stories placed at that place and editing, excerpting, and compiling them into a record of the place (an e-book, printed matter, an audio work, a web page, and the like), and publishing and distributing that record
4. Providing the stories placed at a place to that place's provider (the provider of the provided work, or the owner or manager of the place), and creating the record in 3 together with them
5. Processing for content review (including automated checks), handling reports, preventing abuse, and improving the Feature

Within these purposes, we may sublicense to providers and to businesses we engage for production.

Because placed stories are handled anonymously, your name is not shown in the record described in 3 either. You agree not to assert moral rights (the right of attribution and the right of integrity) against us or our sublicensees. We will not, however, alter a story in a way that distorts its meaning.

This license continues after you stop placing the story (2.4) and after the story expires (2.5). Because it is practically impossible to ask everyone for a new license later, please review this point before placing.

2.4 Stopping

You can stop placing a story at any time from the App. Once stopped, the story is no longer delivered to anyone new. However:

• Temporary copies on the devices of people who already received it cannot be removed by us (received stories are designed not to be saveable, so these copies normally disappear after a while)
• The original remains on our servers, and the license in 2.3 continues. A story cannot be removed afterwards from a record that has already been created under 2.3(3)

If you would like a story excluded from record-making, contact us through Section 8. For stories not yet incorporated into a record, we will accommodate this as far as we can.

Stopping is possible only from the device you used to place the story (or devices synced with the same Apple Account). Deleting the App may make it impossible to stop. Please review your placed stories before deleting the App.

2.5 How long a placed story lasts

A placed story is delivered for one year from the day it was placed, after which it stops automatically. Placing it again starts a new year from that day. After expiry the original remains with us and the license in 2.3 continues.

2.6 What may not be placed

The Feature has a zero-tolerance policy toward objectionable content and abusive use. The following may not be placed. If placed, we may stop delivery, remove the story, and prevent you from placing or receiving in the future, without notice.

• Offensive content: defamation, discrimination, harassment, or threats against any person or group
• Sexual content, or sexualized commentary about a person
• Content that encourages violence, self-harm, or dangerous acts
• Personally identifiable information about others: names, addresses, contact details, detailed descriptions of appearance or movements
• Advertising, solicitation, links to external sites, email addresses, or repeated identical content
• Works or trademarks of others used without their permission
• Impersonation, or content that misleads people with false claims
• Content that troubles the place's owner, manager, or people nearby, or that is based on photographing in restricted areas
• Content that violates laws or public order, or that we otherwise judge inappropriate

2.7 Automated check before placing

When you place a story, its text goes through an automated content check before publication. A story that fails the check is neither stored nor published. We do not tell you what triggered the check. If the check itself cannot be performed, the story cannot be placed. Even a story that passed the automated check may later be stopped if we judge it to fall under 2.6.

2.8 Reports and what happens next

Recipients can report a story someone left. A reported story stops being delivered immediately, before we review it. We then review the content and decide whether to restore or remove it. We do not notify the author of the outcome or the reasons.

We may refuse further placements from, and stop delivering stories to, anyone who placed content under 2.6 or who is reported repeatedly. In cases of serious violation or suspected illegal activity, we may provide information to the police or other public authorities.

2.9 Age

The Feature is for people aged 13 and over. If you are under 18, obtain a parent's or guardian's consent before placing a story. Placed stories are seen by other people.

2.10 No guarantees

We do not guarantee that a placed story will reach any particular person or any particular number of times, that it will be stored permanently, or that the place will remain part of the Feature. We may remove a place from the Feature when our arrangement with its provider ends or for operational reasons, in which case stories placed there stop being delivered.

3. Receiving a Story Someone Left

3.1 For listening on the spot

A story someone left is meant to be heard (or read) while standing at the place. The App is designed so that it cannot be saved. Do not capture the screen, record it, transcribe it, repost it on social media or the web, or distribute it to others. Use beyond quotation permitted by copyright law may infringe the author's rights.

Authors are anonymous. Do not attempt to guess or identify who the author is from the text, the capture month, or anything else.

3.2 Responsibility for content

A story someone left is that person's writing. Although we run an automated check before placement, we do not guarantee that the content is accurate, lawful, or suitable for you. What a story says is not necessarily a fact about the place.

If you encounter a story that is offensive or appears to fall under 2.6, report it from that story's screen. A reported story stops being delivered immediately. You can also block the author so you no longer receive their stories.

3.3 Using reports properly

Reports are for content under 2.6. Do not report a story merely because you dislike it, report the same story repeatedly, or report many stories at once. If we judge that reports are being abused, we may stop counting reports from that person.

3.4 Blocking

Blocking works per author and is recorded on our servers. We do not tell you who the blocked author is, nor tell the author that they were blocked. To lift a block, contact us through Section 8.

4. Reading Provided Works

4.1 Rights belong to the provider

Copyright and other rights in provided works belong to their providers (authors, publishers, municipalities, museums, and so on). Provided works are offered solely for your personal enjoyment while standing at the place. Do not:

• Copy, record, capture the screen, or transcribe them
• Repost them on social media or the web, distribute them to others, or transmit them publicly
• Publish modified, adapted, or translated versions
• Use them for any purpose other than enjoyment, including as input to generative AI
• Remove or alter the credit (rights notice) shown by the provider

The credit shown on a provided work's screen is specified by the provider.

4.2 Links from providers

A provided work's screen may show links prepared by the provider (information about a book, a facility, and the like). These lead to the provider's or a third party's site. We are not involved in, and take no responsibility for, their content or any transactions there.

4.3 Changes to and ending of provided works

Provided works are listed under arrangements between us and their providers. Their content may change, or their listing may end, without notice at the provider's discretion or when the arrangement ends.

4.4 Placing a story at a provider's place

Whether stories can be placed at a place with a provided work is decided by that provider. A story placed at such a place may also be provided to the provider under 2.3(4).

5. Safety at the Place

The Feature is used while actually standing at a place. Please observe the following:

• Stop walking and check your surroundings before listening. Do not operate the App while walking, cycling, or driving
• Do not enter dangerous places such as roads, station platforms, railway crossings, riverbanks, or cliffs, nor private property or restricted areas
• Give priority to instructions from the place's owner or manager, facility rules, and consideration for people around you

Except as provided in Section 7, we are not responsible for accidents, injuries, or disputes arising while using the Feature.

6. Location Data and Privacy

The Feature requires location data. For how we handle the capture location when placing, your current location when receiving, the pseudonymized identifiers stored for reports and blocks, and where the automated content check is sent, see the "Leave a Story at This Place" section of our Privacy Policy.

7. Changes, Suspension, and Limitation of Liability

We may change the Feature, and may suspend or end all or part of it without notice. When the Feature is suspended or ended, placed stories stop being delivered. We are not liable for any loss you suffer from such changes, suspension, or ending.

We are not liable for loss you suffer in connection with the Feature, except where caused by our willful misconduct or gross negligence. Where we are liable, our liability is limited to direct and ordinarily foreseeable loss, except to the extent such limitation is not permitted by the Consumer Contract Act of Japan or other mandatory law.

Disputes with other users or providers must be resolved between the parties concerned. We will become involved through Section 8 only where we judge it necessary.

8. Contact

9. Changes to These Terms

We may change these terms. Revised terms take effect when posted on our website. For changes that matter to you (such as changes to the scope of the license in 2.3, the prohibited content in 2.6, or the receiving conditions in Section 3), the App will show the key points again and ask for your agreement the next time you place or receive a story. If you do not agree, you cannot use the Feature, but the rest of the App remains available.

10. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These terms are governed by the laws of Japan. Any dispute between you and us concerning the Feature shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Tokyo District Court as the court of first instance, except where the Consumer Contract Act or other law designates a different court.