Our simple English Terms of Service
Who are the parties agreeing to these Terms and Conditions?
We are In Shambles Productions, Incorporated, a corporation registered in the state of Texas, USA, and doing business as firstpodcasts.com. You are the person, persons, company, or organization that agrees to the delivery of any of our Services. Such Services may be sold or provided for free on this website, and your agreement is defined by checking the box that you agree to the Terms and Conditions.
When does this agreement take effect?
The Terms of this agreement go into effect when you check the I have read and agree to the website Terms and Conditions checkbox on this website.
If there are issues where will this be legally settled?
All legal, arbitration, or other methods of disagreement resolution will be managed within the state of Texas, United States of America.
Services
We provide a range of audio-related services. These services are defined on this website on pages that require you to click a “submit” button after agreeing to these Terms and Conditions. Any services outlined on other pages are not to be considered binding for these Terms and Conditions.
Payment
You agree to pay for the services we provide. Some of our services are offered for free, while others may require a pyament. The amount of the payment will be explicitly stated on the Order Form before you pay. We use Stripe as our payment processor, and you acknowledge the validity of your payment when you submit your payment via Stripe.
For services requiring payment, payment is required in advance before we render services. Payment is only considered made when the funds are delivered to our bank account via our payment provider, Stripe. In some circumstances, we may provide services before payment. If we provide services before payment, the amount of payment will be confirmed via email before services are provided. Your confirmation of this via email is considered binding.
What You Provide Us
Upon payment, including services we provide for free, you will submit your book chapter, revisions, or other additional material (the “Content“) to us via our website Order Forms, which are hosted on our website and identified as such. In some instances, your submitted Content quantity will be filled in by you in the Order Form. The quantity must match the quantity of the Content that you submit, within reasonable limits.
The nature of your content must be within our Content Guidelines, which can be found here. We have the right to refuse service to any submission that is outside of those Content Guidelines. If we do reject your book for content reasons, you will receive a full refund within 30 days of the rejection.
What we provide you
We will, to the best of our ability, provide you with the services outlined on the Order Form. Our services are delivered as-is, without warranty or promise of quality or usability.
Podcast Promotion
We produce podcasts of audiobook first chapters to the public designed to promote new audiobooks. Once accepted, we will release your chapter as an episode of the podcast selected by you. Each episode will include a promotional piece of audio for your audiobook before the podcast starts (the “Preroll”) and after it ends (the “Postroll”).
We have sole control over the contents of the Preroll and Postroll, but will make our best commercial effort to create a clear promotional message that identifies the Title, short summary (“Logline”), and a sales website URL.
The episode will include your full first chapter as delivered to us. We will make no changes or additions, other than to mix the audio with the preroll and postroll into a single episode using standard podcast formatting. A branded introduction produced by us will be included before the Content.
With the exception of Short Segments used to promote the episode, we agree not to use the Content in any manner other than as part of the episode you pay for. Such Short Segments will be a maximum of 15 seconds in length and only used in the time frame of 30 days before the episode is release through 30 days after the episode is released.
While this is designed to effectively promote your audiobook, we make no claims, warranties, or guarantees that such promotion will affect sales in any way.
Delivery of Services
We include your content within a podcast, as described on the product page. The scheduling of the podcast delivery is at our discretion, but will not be longer than sixty days after your submission. If we do not deliver your services by that time, you may request a cancellation and a refund if you paid for any service. The nature of a podcast is that it is available to listeners in perpetuity. You provide us the rights to host your content within our podcasts in perpetuity, subject to Cancellation below.
Cancellation
Once you submit your podcast, you give us a license to host the content in perpetuity. You may cancel this license at any time, beginning two years after the anniversary date your Content is published. If you would like to cancel this license, you must request this via email to legal@firstpodcasts.com.
Liability and Indemnification
We are responsible for our Services. You are responsible for your Content.
We provide Services and do not provide any guidance or have any responsibility over the Content that you provide us. If we are party to a lawsuit over Content that you provide us, you agree to pay for all legal fees and indemnify us for all penalties or settlements related to that Content, without limit.
You provide Content and are paying for our Services. If you are party to a lawsuit over the nature of the Services that we provide, we agree to pay for all legal fees and indemnify you for all penalties or settlements, without limit.
You are responsible for how you use our Services.
If we are party to a lawsuit over your use of our Services in any way, you agree to pay for all legal fees and indemnify us for all penalties or settlements related to the use of our Services, without limit.
Ownership
All specific rights and ownership of the Content belongs to you. We make no claim to ownership or copyright of the Content. You do not own any other aspect of the delivered podcast, including but not limited to, music, images, additional material not submitted to us, promotional mentions within the podcast that includes your content, or other material, written or spoken, that is not part of your Content.
You can do whatever you like with the Services, subject to Indemnification above.
Privacy
Privacy is governed by our Privacy Policy.
We will only use your personal data for normal and required business purposes. We will not sell your data. Nor will we use your data beyond that required for providing you the Services unless you explicitly agree to it by a voluntary opt-in.
The terms of how we manage Privacy may be updated from time-to-time. You can find the current policy on our Privacy Policy page, linked above. Any terms on the Privacy Policy page will be considered binding for this Terms and Conditions, and if there are conflicts, the Privacy Policy page will take precedence.
We will handle your private data with currently acceptable best-practices. Despite our best efforts, there is no guarantee that your data may not be exposed at some point. If this occurs, we will notify you on the timing and the scope of a Data Breach. You agree not to hold us liable for a Data Breach other than due to gross negligence by Us or legal representatives of our company.
Hosting of Audio
As part of some of our Services, we will host audio on your behalf (“Hosted Content“). You may use this hosting to share your Hosted Content with others. We have the right to remove hosting of your content for any reason and at any time.
Refunds
If applicable, Refunds are governed by our Refund Policy.
We do not offer refunds other than in exceptional circumstances.
Last updated March 3, 2024