Terms of Service

Effective: 20 May 2026 · Last updated: 16 September 2026

• About Dormouse
• Your account
• Acceptable use
• Your content
• AI features
• Availability
• Subscriptions
• Termination
• Warranties
• Liability
• Changes
• Governing law
• Contact

1. About Dormouse

Dormouse is an iOS app for novelists — a notebook for capturing fragments of ideas (by voice or text) and watching them organise themselves into characters, scenes, threads, and AI-generated overviews. These Terms of Service ("Terms") apply to your use of the Dormouse iOS app and the supporting services we provide.

Dormouse is operated by CYBURON Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales.

Throughout these Terms, "we", "us", and "our" mean CYBURON Ltd (trading as Dormouse). "You" means you, the user. "The app" or "the service" means the Dormouse iOS app together with the backend services that support it.

By creating an account or using the app, you agree to these Terms and to the Privacy Policy. If you don't agree, please don't use Dormouse.

2. Your account

2.1 Eligibility

Dormouse is for writers aged 17 and over. By creating an account you confirm you're at least 17. If we find out a user is under 17 we will close the account and delete any associated personal data.

2.2 Account setup

You can create a Dormouse account in two ways:

• Email and password — you'll need to verify your email address before using the app.
• Sign in with Apple — Apple verifies your email for us.

You agree to give us accurate information when you sign up, and to keep your account credentials secure. You're responsible for everything that happens under your account, even if someone else accesses it because you shared a password or left your device unlocked.

2.3 One person, one account

Dormouse accounts are personal. Don't create multiple accounts to circumvent rate limits or get around restrictions; don't share your account credentials with other people. If you need multiple accounts for legitimate reasons (a family member who also writes, a co-author on a different project), each person should create their own.

3. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use Dormouse to do anything illegal under UK law or the law of any country where you use the app.
• Use Dormouse to generate, distribute, or store content that sexually exploits or harms children, or that incites violence against real people.
• Use Dormouse to harass, defame, or threaten others — either through what you write into it, or through how you behave toward us in support communications.
• Reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to extract source code from the app, except to the extent that applicable law explicitly permits this.
• Try to bypass the rate limits, the App Check protection, or any other technical safeguards on the service. (One legitimate user, one set of limits.)
• Use the app or any data obtained from it to train your own AI models, build a competing service, or scrape content out for resale.
• Send spam, malware, or any other deliberately harmful content through the service (for example, into AI prompts designed to abuse the underlying API).
• Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with anyone.

We take a light-touch approach: we don't read your writing to enforce these rules. But if a credible report reaches us — or if abuse patterns surface in the operational logs — we may investigate and act.

4. Your content

4.1 You own your writing

Everything you write, record, or create in Dormouse — your notes, ideas, projects, characters, scenes, threads, themes, and the AI-generated content that's derived from them — belongs to you. We make no claim of ownership over any of it.

4.2 The licence you give us

To operate the service we need a narrow, time-limited licence to handle your content. By using Dormouse, you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive licence to:

• Store your content on our infrastructure (Firebase — cloud database and file storage) so the app works.
• Transmit it across our backend and to the AI provider (Google Gemini) when you actively request an AI feature, so that we can return the result to you.
• Display it back to you in the app on the devices you sign into.

This licence exists only to provide the service to you. It ends when you delete your content or your account. We do not use this licence for any other purpose — not for marketing, not for analytics, not for training AI, not for sharing with anyone outside the processors listed in our Privacy Policy.

4.3 Content you put into Dormouse

You're responsible for ensuring you have the right to put any content into Dormouse — that you wrote it, or that you have permission from whoever did, or that it's free for you to use. If your use of someone else's content in Dormouse leads to a complaint or claim against us, you'll indemnify us against the resulting costs.

4.4 Your AI-generated content

When you ask Dormouse to generate a summary, character dossier, scene synthesis, or other AI output, the output is yours to use however you want. We don't claim ownership of AI output. (We can't promise the output is original or fit for any particular purpose — see Section 9.)

5. AI features — what to know

Dormouse's AI features are powered by Google's Gemini API. Some important facts about how this works:

• AI output can be wrong, biased, or weird. AI models hallucinate, contradict themselves, get character names wrong, and occasionally produce content that doesn't reflect what you actually wrote. Treat AI output as a draft that needs your eye, not as ground truth.
• We use a paid Gemini tier specifically so your inputs aren't used to train Google's models. See our Privacy Policy for the exact contractual position.
• There's a daily fair-use cap. Currently 50 AI requests per user per UTC day. This protects against runaway costs (yours and ours). Hitting the cap pauses AI features until midnight UTC; everything else (capture, organisation, sync) keeps working.
• AI features may be temporarily unavailable. If Gemini itself is overloaded or down, AI calls will fail — usually transiently. We retry automatically; persistent failures may need waiting it out.

6. Service availability

We do our best to keep Dormouse running smoothly, but we don't promise the service will be available 100% of the time, free of bugs, or compatible with every configuration of your device. We may need to:

• Take the service offline temporarily for maintenance or updates.
• Modify features, including AI behaviour, to keep up with changes in our processors or providers.
• Withdraw specific features if a provider we depend on (Apple, Google) changes their terms in a way that makes the feature untenable.

We'll give you reasonable notice of significant changes that affect your use of the service — usually through an in-app notice on next launch, or by email for material changes.

7. Subscriptions and payment

7.1 What Dormouse costs

Dormouse is a paid app. There are two plans and they give you exactly the same thing — the only difference is how often you pay:

• Monthly — £4.99 per month.
• Annual — £44.99 per year, about 25% cheaper than paying monthly.

The price shown on the purchase screen in the app is the price Apple charges, in your local currency. If the two ever disagree, the App Store is right — and we'd like to hear about it.

7.2 The free month

New customers get one month free on the annual plan. The monthly plan has no free trial; it bills straight away.

• The free month is available once per Apple ID. If you've had it before — including on another device signed in to the same Apple ID — you won't get it again, and the app will say so before you buy.
• Apple requires a payment method on file before a free trial can start. You are not charged during the free month.
• When the free month ends, the annual plan begins and Apple charges £44.99. That is the first payment on the subscription, not a renewal.
• To avoid that payment you must cancel at least 24 hours before the free month ends. That deadline is Apple's rather than ours, and we can't waive it.

We will email you about a week before the free month ends, and again a couple of days before, so that the first payment is never a surprise. Both emails tell you how to cancel.

7.3 Renewal and cancelling

Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period — monthly or annually — until you cancel them. Apple takes the payment. We never see or store your card details.

You cancel through Apple, not through us: Settings → your name → Subscriptions → Dormouse → Cancel Subscription. Cancelling stops the next payment. It doesn't end the period you've already paid for, and you keep full access until that period runs out.

7.4 Refunds

Apple sells Dormouse subscriptions and handles refunds for them. You can ask for one at reportaproblem.apple.com. We can't issue App Store refunds ourselves, but if Apple turns down a request you believe was fair, email us and we'll do what we can on your behalf.

Nothing here affects your statutory rights as a consumer under UK law.

7.5 What happens if your subscription ends

Your writing stays yours, and it stays here. If your subscription ends — you cancel, the free month finishes without converting, or a payment fails — your account does not close and nothing is deleted.

Dormouse becomes read-only. You can still open every book, read every note and transcript, play back every voice recording, read your cast, places, items, threads, themes, canon facts and plans, search all of it, and export the whole lot. What stops is creating or editing anything, and the AI features.

There is no time limit on that, and no countdown. We do not delete your work because you stopped paying. Subscribe again whenever you like and everything picks up exactly where it was.

7.6 Price changes

If we change the price, Apple will tell you before it takes effect and, where Apple's rules require it, ask you to agree before charging the new amount. A price change never applies to a period you have already paid for.

8. Ending your account

8.1 You can end it any time

You can delete your account from inside the app at Profile → Delete Account. This permanently erases your writing, voice recordings, and moodboard images from our systems, then removes your account; see the Privacy Policy for the full list of what's deleted.

Deleting your account does not cancel your subscription. Your subscription is a contract with Apple, and only you can end it, at Settings → your name → Subscriptions. If you delete your account without cancelling, Apple will keep charging you for a service you no longer have. We will remind you of this in the app before you confirm deletion, but please cancel first — in that order — to be sure.

8.2 We can end it for cause

We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these Terms in a serious way — for example, if you use Dormouse to generate illegal content, attack the service, or repeatedly abuse the rate limits. We'll give you warning where reasonable and possible. In cases of serious harm or illegality we may act immediately.

8.3 What survives termination

Sections 4.3 (content responsibility), 7.5 (what happens when a subscription ends), 9 (warranties), 10 (liability), and 12 (governing law) survive any termination of your account.

9. Disclaimer of warranties

Dormouse is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied — including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or uninterrupted operation. To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• We do not warrant that the app will be free of defects, that AI output will be accurate or useful, or that the service will meet your specific needs.
• We do not warrant that errors in the app will be corrected, or that the service will be available without interruption.
• We do not warrant that any content (yours or AI-generated) will be preserved free of loss; we strongly recommend you keep your own copies of work that matters.

Nothing in this section limits your statutory rights as a consumer under UK law (including the Consumer Rights Act 2015), which cannot be excluded by contract.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• We will not be liable to you for any indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages arising out of or in connection with your use of Dormouse — including (but not limited to) loss of writing, loss of profits, loss of opportunity, or loss of reputation.
• Our total aggregate liability for any direct loss arising out of or in connection with these Terms will in any event be limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) £50.

Nothing in these Terms limits our liability for: death or personal injury caused by our negligence; fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; any other liability that cannot be limited under UK law.

11. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time — to reflect new features, changed processors, regulatory requirements, or to make the wording clearer. When we make a material change we'll:

• Update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page.
• Email registered users at least 7 days before the change takes effect.
• Surface a notice in the app on next launch.

Continued use of Dormouse after the effective date means you accept the updated Terms. If you don't accept them, you can delete your account at any time.

12. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute arising from these Terms or from your use of Dormouse will be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales, unless you are a consumer based in a different UK nation (Scotland or Northern Ireland), in which case the courts of your home nation may also have jurisdiction.

13. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Reach out:
privacy@cyburon.com

Postal address:
CYBURON Ltd
66 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NA