Terms of Service

1. Agreement to these terms

These Terms of Service (the "Terms") form a binding agreement between you and BananenBoot, registered in the Netherlands at *, * *, the Netherlands (Chamber of Commerce **, VAT **), operating BananaBoat Academy (the "Service").

You accept these Terms by ticking the agreement box when you create an account, or by using the Service. If you do not accept them, do not create an account and do not use the Service.

Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle personal data and forms part of this agreement.

If you are entering into these Terms for a company or other organisation, you confirm you have authority to bind it, and "you" means that organisation.

2. Who can use the Service

You must be at least 14 years old to create an account. If you are under 18, you confirm that your parent or legal guardian has reviewed and agreed to these Terms on your behalf.

You must also have the legal capacity to enter into a contract, and you must not be located in, or ordinarily resident in, a country subject to comprehensive EU, UK, UN, or US trade sanctions, or appear on any applicable restricted-party list.

3. Your account

You agree to provide accurate registration details and to keep them current. You must verify your email address to unlock the Academy, token usage, and checkout.

You are responsible for everything that happens under your account and for keeping your password confidential. Do not share your account or let anyone else use it. Tell us at [email protected] as soon as you suspect unauthorised access.

You may close your account at any time from your account settings or by emailing us.

4. What the Service provides

The Service gives you an AI production tutor, mix analysis tools, music theory tools, and — depending on your plan — saved conversations and a lesson dashboard. Some features are available in the browser and some through the BananenBoot VST plugin in your DAW.

The Service is an educational tool. It does not provide professional, legal, financial, medical, or career advice, and it does not guarantee any particular musical, commercial, or learning outcome.

The full Academy workspace is designed for desktop browsers. Some features are unavailable on small screens; this is a design decision, not a fault.

5. Plans, tokens, and fair use

We offer a Free tier and paid Basic and Pro plans. Current features, prices, and allowances are shown on the Pricing page and are incorporated into these Terms.

Tokens are the internal unit we use to meter tutor interactions. Different actions consume different amounts, as described in our FAQ. Tokens:

• have no cash value, cannot be exchanged for money, and cannot be transferred between accounts;
• are not refundable once consumed;
• on the Free tier are a one-off lifetime allowance that does not reset;
• on paid plans refresh each billing period and do not roll over into the next period.

We may adjust token costs per action or plan allowances. If a change reduces what your current paid plan gives you, we will tell you at least 30 days beforehand and you may cancel before it takes effect.

Automated access, scraping, resale of tutor output as a competing service, or sharing one account across multiple people are not fair use and may lead to rate limiting or suspension.

6. Payment, renewal, and cancellation

Paid plans are billed in advance through our payment provider, who acts as merchant of record. Prices are shown before you confirm, and include VAT or other applicable sales tax where required.

Automatic renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price, and your payment method is charged, until you cancel. This is a recurring charge that continues until cancelled.

Cancelling. You can cancel at any time from your account area. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the billing period you have already paid for, and you keep access until then. We do not pro-rate partial periods except where the law requires it.

Price changes. We will give you at least 30 days' notice by email before a price increase applies to your subscription. You may cancel before the new price takes effect. Where the law requires your express consent to a price change, we will ask for it.

Failed payments. If a payment fails we may retry it, and may downgrade or suspend paid features until payment succeeds.

Taxes. You are responsible for any taxes that are not collected by us or our payment provider.

7. Right of withdrawal (EU, EEA, and UK consumers)

If you are a consumer in the EU, EEA, or UK, you normally have 14 days from the day your contract is concluded to withdraw from it without giving a reason, under Directive 2011/83/EU and its national implementations.

Important exception for immediate access. When you buy a paid plan, you are asked to request that we start supplying the digital service immediately, and to acknowledge that you lose your right of withdrawal once supply has begun. If you do not give that acknowledgement, supply begins after the 14-day period ends.

If you have not yet used any paid feature or consumed any tokens from a paid allowance, we will honour a withdrawal request within the 14-day window and refund you in full within 14 days, using the same payment method you used.

To withdraw, email [email protected] with a clear statement that you are withdrawing. You may use the model withdrawal form in Annex I of the Directive, but you do not have to.

8. Refunds and your statutory guarantees

Outside the withdrawal right above, payments are generally non-refundable. We will always refund you where the law requires it.

If you are a consumer in the EU or UK, the Service must conform to the contract under Directive (EU) 2019/770 on digital content and services, or under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 in the UK. If it does not, you are entitled to have it brought into conformity, and to a price reduction or a refund if we cannot or do not do so within a reasonable time. Consumers in other countries keep any equivalent statutory guarantees, including those under the Australian Consumer Law.

Nothing in these Terms limits those statutory rights. If you think the Service is faulty, contact us first — we would rather fix it.

9. Your content

"Your Content" means anything you upload or submit: audio, MIDI, images, chat messages, project details, and feedback.

You keep ownership. We claim no ownership of Your Content.

Licence to us. You grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, transmit, and process Your Content solely to operate and provide the Service to you — including sending it to the AI providers listed in our Privacy Policy to generate a response. This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for backups pending deletion and anything we must keep by law.

We do not use Your Content to train public AI models, and we do not license it to third parties for their own purposes.

Your warranties. You confirm that you own Your Content or have all the rights needed to submit it, and that submitting it does not infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, or other rights. Do not upload material you do not have the right to use — including copyrighted stems, samples, or recordings owned by someone else — unless your licence permits it.

Feedback. If you send us suggestions about the Service, we may use them freely and without obligation to you.

10. AI-generated output

The tutor uses large language models. You should understand that:

• Output can be inaccurate, incomplete, or misleading. Verify anything important before you rely on it. AI output is not a substitute for professional advice or your own judgement.
• Output is not unique. Similar prompts from other users can produce similar responses, so we cannot guarantee originality or promise you exclusive rights in it.
• As between you and us, you may use the output for your own musical and educational purposes, subject to these Terms and to the terms of the underlying AI providers.
• We are not responsible for decisions you make based on tutor output, or for the commercial performance of any work you create with its help.
• Do not use the Service to generate content that is unlawful, defamatory, or that infringes third-party rights.

11. Acceptable use

You must not:

• break any applicable law, or infringe anyone's intellectual property, privacy, or publicity rights;
• upload malware, or content that is unlawful, harassing, hateful, sexually exploitative of minors, or that incites violence;
• attempt to bypass token limits, plan restrictions, rate limits, authentication, or any other technical safeguard;
• probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of our systems without our prior written permission, or interfere with the integrity or performance of the Service;
• use bots, scrapers, or automated means to access the Service outside a documented interface, or extract data in bulk;
• reverse engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive our source code or model prompts, except to the extent this restriction is prohibited by law;
• resell, sublicense, or provide the Service to third parties as your own product, or use it to build a competing service;
• misrepresent your identity, impersonate anyone, or use another person's account;
• use the Service in a way that risks harm to us, our providers, or other users.

For chat-specific rules (attachments, saved conversations, and tutor misuse), see our Acceptable Use Policy.

We may investigate suspected breaches and take proportionate action, including removing content, limiting features, suspending, or terminating accounts.

12. Our intellectual property

The Service, including its software, VST plugin, interface, design, text, tooling, and the BananaBoat Academy name and logo, belongs to BananenBoot or our licensors and is protected by intellectual property law.

We grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to use the Service in line with these Terms and your plan. No other rights are granted, expressly or by implication.

13. Copyright complaints and illegal content

If you believe content on the Service infringes your copyright, send a notice to [email protected] including: your contact details; identification of the protected work; identification of the material and where it is located; a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorised; a statement that your notice is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorised to act; and your signature. This satisfies the notice requirements of the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, 17 U.S.C. § 512(c).

Under the EU Digital Services Act you may also notify us of any content you consider illegal using the same address. We will assess notices in a timely, diligent, and non-arbitrary way, tell you what we decided and why, and explain how to contest the decision. If your content is removed, you may appeal to us at the same address.

We terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

14. Third-party services

The Service depends on third parties for hosting, authentication, AI models, email, and payments. Their availability and terms are outside our control, and their own agreements apply to their handling of data.

Links to third-party websites are provided for convenience. We do not endorse them and are not responsible for their content or practices.

15. Availability and changes to the Service

We work to keep the Service available and reliable, but we do not promise uninterrupted or error-free operation. We may carry out maintenance, and outages may be caused by third-party providers.

We may add, change, or remove features. If we discontinue a paid feature that materially reduces the value of your plan, we will give you reasonable notice and, if you cancel because of it, refund the unused part of your current billing period.

16. Suspension and termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time.

We may suspend or terminate your access if you materially breach these Terms, if we are required to by law, or if your use presents a security or legal risk to us or other users. Where it is reasonable and lawful to do so, we will warn you first and give you a chance to put things right.

If we terminate your account without cause, we will refund the unused portion of any prepaid period. If we terminate it for a serious breach by you, no refund is due.

On termination, your right to use the Service ends and we delete your data as described in the Privacy Policy. Sections that by their nature should survive — content licences already granted, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and governing law — continue to apply.

17. Disclaimers

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the Service is provided "as is" and "as available", and we disclaim all implied warranties, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, accuracy, and uninterrupted availability.

We do not warrant that tutor output is accurate or suitable for your purpose, that the Service will meet your requirements, or that defects will be corrected.

If you are a consumer, this section applies only to the extent permitted by your local law. Mandatory statutory guarantees in the EU, UK, Australia, and elsewhere are not excluded or limited by these Terms.

18. Limitation of liability

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, for gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or for anything else that cannot lawfully be excluded — including a consumer's mandatory statutory rights.

Subject to that:

• we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, goodwill, data, or musical works, however caused;
• our total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service in any 12-month period is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, or EUR 100;
• we are not liable for failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including third-party provider outages.

If you are a consumer in a jurisdiction that does not allow some of these exclusions, they simply do not apply to you, and our liability is limited to the minimum the law allows. Under Dutch and EU consumer law, we remain liable for damage caused by a failure attributable to us in accordance with those rules.

Back up your work. Keep your own copies of projects and audio; do not rely on the Service as your only storage.

19. Indemnity

If you use the Service for business purposes, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless BananenBoot and its personnel against claims, damages, and reasonable legal costs arising from Your Content, your breach of these Terms, or your unlawful use of the Service.

This section does not apply to consumers.

20. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms as the Service and the law change. The version and effective date at the top of this page always show the current text.

For material changes we will notify you by email or in-product notice at least 30 days before they take effect, and we will keep the previous version available on request. If you keep using the Service after the effective date, you accept the new Terms. If you do not accept them, cancel your subscription and close your account before that date, and we will refund the unused part of your current billing period.

21. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the law of the Netherlands, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.

If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory consumer laws of the country where you habitually reside, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country. If you are a business, disputes will be brought exclusively before the competent courts of the Netherlands.

Please contact us first at [email protected] — most issues are resolved informally.

EU consumers may also use the European Commission's Online Dispute Resolution platform at ec.europa.eu/consumers/odr. We are not currently committed to any alternative dispute resolution body.

Nothing in these Terms requires binding arbitration or waives your right to a jury trial or to participate in a class action, where the law of your jurisdiction gives you those rights.

22. General

Entire agreement. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, and the plan details on the Pricing page are the whole agreement between us about the Service.

Severability. If any provision is held invalid or unenforceable, the rest stays in force and the invalid provision is replaced by an enforceable one that is closest to its intent.

No waiver. If we do not enforce a right straight away, we do not lose it.

Assignment. You may not transfer your rights under these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them to a successor in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you.

Export and sanctions. You must comply with applicable export control and sanctions laws, and must not use the Service in breach of them.

Language. These Terms are drafted in English. If we provide a translation and there is a conflict, the English version governs unless mandatory consumer law in your country says otherwise.

Notices. We send notices to the email address on your account; you send notices to the address below.

23. Contact

BananenBoot

*, * *, the Netherlands

Email: [email protected]