Terms of Service

Incipit is an AI-powered archival research tool that helps historians and researchers organize, verify, and connect primary source documents. The service is provided by Incipit (“we,” “us,” “our”). By creating an account and using Incipit, you agree to these terms.

Incipit is an actively developed commercial product. Features may change, be added, or be removed as the product develops. Accounts may have document quotas, plan limits, or usage restrictions. We may adjust these limits over time and will communicate material changes to pricing or access terms before they take effect.

You sign in using Google or Apple authentication. You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account. You agree to provide accurate information and to use only one account per person. We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms.

You own your documents. Anything you upload to Incipit remains your property. We do not claim ownership of your documents, your metadata, your research notes, or any content you create within the service.

We store your documents on secure servers and process them using AI services to extract metadata, identify entities, and surface connections. Your documents are not shared with other users, sold to third parties, or used to train AI models.

Incipit uses AI to extract metadata, identify entities, and suggest connections between documents. AI-generated content is not guaranteed to be accurate. This is why Incipit includes a verification step: extracted fields receive confidence scores, and researchers verify important metadata before relying on it in citations, search, or analysis. You are responsible for verifying the accuracy of any AI-generated content before relying on it in your research, publications, or citations.

You agree to use Incipit only for lawful purposes. You may not upload, store, or process any content that:

Is illegal. This includes but is not limited to content that violates local, state, national, or international law. This includes content related to child exploitation, terrorism, or illegal trafficking of any kind.

Infringes on the rights of others. Do not upload documents you do not have the right to possess or use. If you are working with archival materials, ensure you have the appropriate permissions or that the materials are in the public domain or covered by fair use.

Contains harmful or abusive material. This includes content that is obscene, threatening, defamatory, or designed to harass or harm others.

Attempts to abuse the service. Do not attempt to circumvent usage limits, reverse-engineer the service, interfere with other users' accounts, or use automated tools to upload content in bulk beyond what the interface provides.

Violates third-party service terms. Your use of Incipit must also comply with the terms of service of our infrastructure providers for data storage, hosting, authentication, and AI processing. Content that violates their acceptable use policies may be removed.

We reserve the right to remove content and terminate accounts that violate these guidelines without prior notice.

Incipit is designed for uploading scans, photographs, and PDFs of research documents. Supported file types include PDF, JPG, JPEG, PNG, and similar image formats. You agree that all files you upload are documents you have the right to use for research purposes. Do not upload files containing malware, executable code, or content designed to exploit vulnerabilities in our systems or third-party services.

Your documents, metadata, and account information are stored for as long as your account is active. You may request deletion of your account and all associated data at any time by contacting us. Upon deletion, your documents and metadata will be permanently removed from our systems within 30 days. Backups may retain data for up to an additional 30 days before being purged.

We aim to keep Incipit available and reliable, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted access. The service may be temporarily unavailable due to maintenance, updates, or circumstances beyond our control. We are not liable for any loss or inconvenience caused by downtime.

Incipit is provided “as is” and “as available.” We make no warranties, express or implied, regarding the service's accuracy, reliability, or fitness for a particular purpose. To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, or consequential damages arising from your use of the service. This includes but is not limited to loss of data, loss of research, or reliance on AI-generated content that proves inaccurate.

We may update these terms as Incipit evolves. When we make significant changes, we will notify you through the service or via email. Continued use of Incipit after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

If you have questions about these terms, contact us at the email address provided in your account settings or through the Incipit website.