1. Ownership
Authors retain ownership of original content, subject to licenses granted to ShortBooks and any third-party rights, provider terms, or source-material restrictions.
2. Platform License
Authors grant ShortBooks a worldwide, non-exclusive license to host, store, reproduce, display, distribute, watermark, format, promote, moderate, process, transmit, back up, and make content available through the platform.
3. AI-Assisted Content
Authors are responsible for prompts, generated text, generated images, uploads, edits, metadata, and final works. AI assistance does not guarantee originality, rights clearance, suitability, approval, ranking, sales, or legal compliance.
4. Rights Clearance
Authors represent that they have all rights needed to publish, distribute, and monetize submitted content, including rights to text, images, characters, logos, likenesses, names, voices, and source material.
5. Review and Approval
ShortBooks may review, reject, send back, approve, publish, unpublish, restrict, re-rate, remove, watermark, or demonetize content using automated tools, human review, reports, or administrative judgment.
6. Monetization and Platform Fees
Monetization is not guaranteed. ShortBooks may earn revenue through platform fees, subscriptions, transaction shares, premium tools, render fees, or other paid services. Author earnings may be reduced by platform fees, payment processor fees, refunds, chargebacks, taxes, reversals, fraud holds, payout thresholds, and accounting corrections.
7. Payout Eligibility
Payout eligibility may require Stripe Connect or another provider-managed onboarding process for identity, tax, payout, and compliance verification. ShortBooks may delay or withhold payouts while disputes, fraud review, legal review, or provider restrictions are unresolved.
8. Minor Authors
Minor authors may require parent or guardian approval and separate guardian-managed or provider-approved payout workflows before monetization or payout access. Parent approval for account access is not the same as payout approval.
9. No Guarantees
ShortBooks does not guarantee publication, sales, subscriptions, revenue, ranking, promotion, discoverability, reader engagement, feature availability, or continued access to beta tools.
10. Termination and Enforcement
ShortBooks may suspend, restrict, remove, or terminate author access for violations, risk, fraud, legal claims, payment issues, abuse, or failure to complete required onboarding.