Terms of Service
These terms apply to the SOOTY desktop app, the browser extension, this website (sooty.app) and purchases of SOOTY licenses
SOOTY is developed and sold by Meitane (“we”, “us”), and these terms are an agreement between you and us. By downloading, installing or continuing to use SOOTY you accept these terms. If you don’t agree, please don’t use SOOTY
The sections in bold (disclaimer and limitation of liability, deactivating licenses, changes to these terms, governing law and disputes) affect your rights the most, so please read them carefully
Your license
- SOOTY is a perpetual license bought with a one-time payment. It isn’t a subscription and never renews automatically. The price of each tier and how many computers it covers are as stated at checkout, and for more computers please write to us
- After you pay, the license key is sent to the email address you gave at checkout. SOOTY works once you enter the key in the app and activate it over the internet, and after that it works offline. The app refreshes the activation from time to time when it happens to be online, and keeps working if it can’t
- Your license includes the new features and updates released during its update period. The update period starts on the day you pay and runs until the same date one year later, that day included, with dates counted in Coordinated Universal Time (UTC), and the license key email shows the end date
- We don’t promise that any particular feature will be released during your update period, and older versions aren’t guaranteed to run on future operating systems
- After the update period ends, the versions and features you already have keep working. New features released after that aren’t included, and if you want them you can renew for another year at the price shown at checkout when you renew. A renewal before the end date extends it from the old end date, and a renewal after it lapsed runs from the day you pay
- If you need more computers, you can upgrade to a tier with more computers by paying the difference between the two tiers, and your update period stays the same
- To move to a new computer, deactivate SOOTY on the old one first. If the old one no longer works, you can deactivate it while activating the new one, and it returns to not activated the next time it refreshes online. There is a limit on how many times you can deactivate computers yourself, and the app tells you when you reach it, after which please write to us
- The license gives you the right to use SOOTY, not the software itself. The SOOTY software, name, logo and the content of this website belong to us
Purchases and payment
- Our order process is conducted by our online reseller Paddle.com. Paddle.com is the Merchant of Record for all our orders. Paddle collects payment, issues invoices, handles sales tax and VAT, and deals with payment-related questions
- Paddle’s Buyer Terms also apply to your purchase
- The price is the one shown at checkout, with tax calculated by Paddle according to where you are
- Renewals and upgrades are started from the app and paid through Paddle’s checkout in the same way
- For refunds, see the Refund Policy: you can get a refund within 14 days of purchase, no reason needed, and the easiest way is to write to us
What you may do
- We grant you a non-exclusive license to install and use SOOTY on as many computers as your license covers, to organize assets for personal and professional work, including commercial projects
- The plugin interface, plugin SDK, plugin template and plugin developer guide are open under the MIT License, as is the sooty-media video decoding helper
- Third-party open source components used by SOOTY are provided under their own licenses, and nothing in these terms limits the rights those licenses give you
What you may not do
- Sell, rent, lend or sublicense SOOTY or a license key, or share a license key publicly, except where the law where you live allows resale
- Crack or bypass license checks, or distribute cracked or modified installers
- Decompile, disassemble or otherwise reverse engineer SOOTY, except to the extent expressly permitted by law or by the license of an open source component
- Use SOOTY to get around a website’s login, paywall, download protection or copy protection, or to scrape website content in bulk
- Use SOOTY or this website for anything unlawful, for fraud or spam, or to infringe copyrights, trademarks or other rights of others
- Attack or interfere with our website, APIs and servers
Your assets and plugins
- Your assets, tags and libraries are yours. They are stored on your own disk, we can’t access them, and we claim no rights over them
- You are responsible for having the right to use the content you put into SOOTY or hand to plugins or AI features
- When you save images or other content from web pages with the browser extension, you are responsible for respecting copyright and that website’s terms. SOOTY records the source URL so you can check the rights later
- AI-suggested tags, descriptions and recognized text can be wrong, so check them before relying on them
- Third-party plugins are provided by their authors, who are responsible for them. SOOTY runs plugins in a sandbox with only the permissions you approve, but we are not responsible for what third-party plugins do or contain
Disclaimer and limitation of liability
- SOOTY is provided as is. We work to fix problems, but we don’t guarantee that it will be error-free or uninterrupted, or that it suits every purpose you have in mind
- Feature descriptions and performance figures on this website describe SOOTY as it was when they were written, and are not a guarantee
- A library is an ordinary folder on your disk, so please back it up as you would any other important files
- Before changing assets through the local API, MCP, plugins or batch operations, please check what is about to be changed
- To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect losses such as lost data or lost profits, and our total liability to you is limited to what you have actually paid for SOOTY
- These limits don’t apply to losses we cause intentionally or through gross negligence, to personal injury we cause, or to any liability that the law doesn’t allow to be limited
- Nothing in this section affects consumer rights that the law where you live does not allow to be excluded
Deactivating licenses
- If you seriously breach these terms, file a chargeback, buy by fraud or put our security or other users at risk, we may deactivate the license key concerned
- After a full refund or a chargeback the license key is deactivated too and can no longer be activated or refreshed, and computers already activated with it return to not activated the next time they refresh online. A refund of a renewal or an upgrade only takes the update period or the number of computers back to what it was before that payment, as described in the Refund Policy
- Deactivating a license key never touches your libraries: they are ordinary folders on your disk, and your assets and data stay where they are
Changes to these terms
- When we change these terms we update the date at the bottom of this page. We announce significant changes on this website at least 30 days in advance, and also tell people who bought a license by email or in the app, unless the law requires a change to take effect sooner
- A change never reduces a license you have already bought: how many computers your license covers and when its update period ends stay as agreed when you bought it
- By continuing to use SOOTY after the new terms take effect you accept them. If you don’t agree, you can stop using SOOTY, and within 14 days of purchase you can get a refund under the Refund Policy
Governing law and disputes
- These terms are governed by the laws of the People’s Republic of China (for the purpose of these terms, excluding the laws of Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan)
- If there is a dispute, please write to hi@sooty.app first and we will try in good faith to resolve it
- If we can’t resolve it, the competent people’s court where we are located has jurisdiction
- If you are a consumer, this doesn’t take away the mandatory protection that the law of your country or region gives you
Other
- If any part of these terms is found invalid, the rest stays in effect
- These terms and the Refund Policy they refer to are the entire agreement between you and us about SOOTY. Prices and numbers of computers are as stated at checkout, and Paddle’s Buyer Terms also apply to payment
- We may transfer these terms together with the SOOTY business to a person or company that takes it over, and your license stays valid
- If we don’t act on a breach right away, we haven’t waived our right to do so
- These terms are available in Chinese and English. If the two versions differ, the English version prevails, without affecting the consumer protection described above
Contact
For questions about these terms, write to hi@sooty.app
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