These Terms of Use (“Terms”) are a legally binding agreement between you and the operator of this Spoonspring website (“Spoonspring”, “we”, “us”). They sit alongside the Privacy Policy. By accessing or using Spoonspring, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service.
Spoonspring is an early, informal idea board. It is provided as-is. It is not a company-formation service, not legal, medical, or investment advice, and not a confidential invention-submission system.
1. Eligibility
You must be at least 13 years old. If you are under the digital age of consent in your country (often 16 in parts of the EEA/UK), you need a parent or guardian’s consent. You must have the legal capacity to agree to these Terms.
2. The service and your anonymous session
We give you a cookie-based anonymous session and a generated handle. That is not a verified account. If you lose the cookie, we cannot restore “your” spoons, rooms, or handle. You may have at most three live (ungerminated, unexpired) spoons at a time. Live spoons wilt after 14 days. At 100 energy, a spoon may spring into a private workspace for the creator and skill pledgers only.
We may change, suspend, or stop the service at any time, including deleting data, with or without notice, especially while the product is experimental.
3. No confidentiality — The Pot is public
Anything you drop into The Pot (text, photo, sketch, audio, layers) is public to other users of the service. Do not post trade secrets, passwords, private personal data, or anything you need to keep unpublished. Posting an idea here does not create a patent, copyright registration, trademark, or NDA. Other people may be inspired by public spoons. We are not responsible for how others use ideas they saw on Spoonspring.
Workspaces are limited to members but are not a security product or a promise of secrecy. Members can copy content. You use workspaces at your own risk.
4. Your content and license
You retain whatever rights you have in content you post. You grant Spoonspring a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, transmit, and crop or resize (for layout, including fitting a photo on a card and showing a larger view) that content solely to operate, secure, and improve the service. This license lasts as long as we store the content and for reasonable backups.
You represent that you have all rights needed to post the content and to grant this license, that the content is accurate enough for a casual public board, and that it does not violate law or these Terms. You are solely responsible for your content.
5. Acceptable use
You must not:
- Post illegal content, including child sexual abuse material (strictly prohibited).
- Harass, threaten, stalk, or incite violence against anyone.
- Post others’ personal data, intimate images, or recordings without a lawful basis.
- Infringe copyright, trademark, or other rights, or post malware.
- Attempt to break into the service, scrape aggressively, or overload the server.
- Impersonate others in a misleading way, or use the service to run scams or spam.
- Use Spoonspring if applicable law forbids you from doing so.
We may remove content, block a session cookie, or shut rooms without prior notice if we believe these Terms or the law were violated, or if we need to protect users or the operator.
6. Intellectual property of Spoonspring
The Spoonspring name, logo, and the site’s design and software are owned by the operator or licensors. You may not copy the product except as allowed by applicable law (including limited quotation or fair dealing/fair use where it applies).
7. Copyright complaints (DMCA-style notice)
If you believe content on Spoonspring infringes your copyright, send a notice to the operator that includes: (a) your contact details; (b) a description of the work; (c) the exact URL or location of the material; (d) a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is not authorized; (e) a statement under penalty of perjury that the information is accurate and that you are the owner or authorized agent; and (f) your physical or electronic signature. US operators may also designate an agent with the Copyright Office. We may remove material and, where appropriate, terminate repeat infringers.
8. Disclaimers
SPOONSPRING IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE”. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free, that ideas will remain private, that energy counts or springing will be fair or available, or that content will be stored forever.
Nothing on Spoonspring is professional advice. Public user content is not endorsed by us.
9. Limitation of liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE OPERATOR AND ITS HELPERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, GOODWILL, OR IDEAS, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF SPOONSPRING, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ANY CLAIM RELATING TO THE SERVICE IS LIMITED TO FIFTY US DOLLARS (US $50) OR THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US IN THE PAST TWELVE MONTHS (CURRENTLY ZERO), WHICHEVER IS GREATER.
Some places do not allow certain limitations. In those places, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted. These Terms do not exclude liability that cannot be excluded, including for fraud or (where prohibited) death or personal injury caused by negligence. If you are a consumer in the EEA/UK, you keep mandatory statutory rights.
10. Indemnity
You will defend and indemnify the operator against claims, damages, and reasonable legal fees arising from your content, your use of Spoonspring, or your violation of these Terms or of others’ rights, except to the extent caused by our willful misconduct.
11. Accessibility
We aim to make Spoonspring usable, including keyboard access, a skip link, visible focus, and in-product settings for contrast, text size, reduced motion, and underlined links. We target WCAG 2.2 Level AA where reasonably practicable for a small experimental site. If you hit a barrier, contact the operator using the Privacy Policy contact method and describe the page and the problem.
12. Termination
You may stop using Spoonspring at any time and may clear cookies to drop the session. We may suspend or terminate access at any time. Surviving sections include licenses for stored copies, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and governing law.
13. Governing law
These Terms are governed by the laws of the jurisdiction in which the operator is established, excluding conflict-of-law rules, except that consumers keep mandatory protections of their country of residence where those cannot be waived. Courts of that operator jurisdiction will have jurisdiction, except where the law gives you the right to sue in your home courts.
14. Changes; miscellaneous
We may update these Terms by posting a new version with a new date. Continued use after the update is acceptance. If a provision is unenforceable, the rest still applies. These Terms are the entire agreement for use of Spoonspring. You may not assign your session. We may assign the service. Failure to enforce a term is not a waiver.
Contact: use the method in the Privacy Policy.