Terms of Service
Your writing is yours, before, during and after Shiro. These terms set out the rest: how the plans work, what you can expect from us, and what we ask of you. They apply when you create a Shiro account or buy something from us.
Who You’re Dealing With
Shiro and Shiro Cloud are provided by Qualia LP, a limited partnership based in Ontario, Canada (2967 Dundas St. W. #436B, Toronto, ON M6P 1Z2). “We” means Qualia LP. You can reach us at [email protected].
The desktop app is open source. Its code comes with its own licences, MIT or AGPL-3.0 depending on the package, and those licences, not these terms, govern what you may do with the code. These terms cover your account and the services we run: Shiro Cloud, the web and phone apps, hosted AI, the plugin gallery and this website. Our privacy policy explains what we do with personal information.
Your Account
You need to be at least 13 to have an account, and old enough to enter a contract where you live to buy anything. Keep your sign-in email secure, because whoever controls it can sign in as you. Tell us at once if you think someone else has got into your account.
You may delete your account at any time from You › Profile › Delete account. It is erased 30 days later, unless you sign in before then.
Your Writing Stays Yours
You keep every right to what you write and upload, and to what you make with Shiro’s help. We claim no ownership of it.
To run the service, you allow us to store, copy, sync, back up and process your content, only as needed to provide Shiro to you and to the people you choose to share it with. That permission ends when the content is deleted from Shiro Cloud and from our backups.
We don’t train AI models on your writing, and we don’t read your projects except to provide the service, to keep it secure, or when you ask us to help with something specific.
The AI
Shiro’s AI suggests; you decide. What it produces can be wrong, unoriginal or close to existing text, and it is your call what goes into your book. Check facts, quotations and anything that could raise rights questions before you publish.
When you use your own key, your requests go to that provider under its terms. When you use hosted AI, we send them to the providers listed in our privacy policy. In both cases the provider’s own usage policies apply to what you ask for.
Plans and Payments
The pricing page lists the plans, what each includes and what it costs. The free account stays free.
- Billing. Plans are billed monthly or yearly, in advance, through Stripe. Prices are shown before tax, and tax is added at checkout where it applies.
- Renewal. A plan renews automatically at the end of each period until you cancel.
- Cancelling. You can cancel at any time from You › Plan and usage › Manage billing. Your plan keeps running to the end of the period you paid for, and then your account moves to the free plan. Your projects stay yours: local projects are untouched, and cloud projects can still be downloaded.
- Refunds. If you’re not happy with a new subscription, write to us within 14 days of the first payment and we will refund it in full. After that, payments for a period that has started aren’t refunded, except where the law requires it.
- Credits. Each plan includes a monthly AI allowance at the price the model providers charge, which resets each month. Credits you buy on top of it never expire, and aren’t refunded once used.
- Changes in price. If a plan’s price changes, we will tell you at least 30 days before your next renewal at the new price, and you can cancel before then.
- Fair use. Each plan includes a storage allowance and a daily limit on agent and API calls. These limits are there to keep the service healthy for everyone, not to catch you out, and we will write to you before acting on anything unusual.
Nothing in these terms takes away rights you have under the consumer protection law where you live.
Sharing, Readers and Co-Authors
When you invite co-authors, send review links to beta readers or collect readers for a pen name, you decide who gets access, and you are responsible for having their agreement to be contacted. Co-authors you invite can see and, depending on their role, change the parts of the project you share with them.
Plugins
Plugins and skills in the gallery are listed by Shiro or by other writers and developers. Every listing goes through automated checks, and those that can reach the network or show their own pages are also reviewed by hand. Still, a plugin made by someone else is their work, and its own licence and terms apply. If you publish a plugin, you confirm you have the right to share it, and you allow us to list and distribute it in the gallery for as long as it stays published.
What We Ask of You
Use Shiro lawfully, and don’t use it to:
- break the law, or infringe someone else’s copyright, trademark or privacy;
- harass, threaten or deceive people, including through review links, invitations or reader emails;
- send spam, or email people who didn’t agree to hear from you;
- spread malware, probe or overload our systems, or get around limits, plans or security;
- resell Shiro Cloud or hosted AI as your own service.
We may remove content or suspend an account that breaks these rules. Unless the matter is urgent or illegal, we will tell you first and give you a chance to fix it, and you will always be able to download your projects.
Our Part
We work to keep Shiro Cloud available, your projects intact and your data safe: cloud projects have history and nightly backups. But no service is perfect, and Shiro is provided as it is, without a promise that it will never fail or lose anything. Keep your own copies of work that matters, which a local project or Download as vault makes easy.
To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of Shiro, or from being unable to use it, including lost work, income or opportunities. Where the law doesn’t allow this exclusion, including the consumer protection law where you live, our liability is only what the law requires.
When Things End
You can stop using Shiro and delete your account at any time. We can end these terms or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks them, with notice except where the law or safety requires otherwise. If we ever stop offering Shiro Cloud, we will give you at least 30 days’ notice to download your projects, and stop charging for plans from the day we announce it. Local projects and the desktop app keep working without it.
Changes to These Terms
We may update these terms as Shiro changes. For a change that matters, we will email account holders before it takes effect. If you keep using Shiro after that, the new terms apply; if you don’t agree, you can cancel and delete your account.
Law and Disputes
These terms are governed by the laws of Ontario and of Canada that apply there. If we disagree about something, write to us first; most things are settled that way. Otherwise, the courts of Ontario will decide, unless the law where you live gives you the right to go to your own courts.