Terms of Service

Welcome to DFS Academy. These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a legal agreement between you and DFS Academy regarding your use of dfsacademy.org and the DFS Academy app (together, the “Service”). By creating an account or using the Service, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy.

1. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under 18, you may use the Service only with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian, who agrees to be bound by these Terms on your behalf.

2. Your account

You are responsible for everything that happens on your account, including keeping your password confidential. Don't share your account with anyone else. If you think someone has gained access to your account, email hi@dfsacademy.org immediately.

3. Subscriptions and billing

DFS Academy is offered as a monthly or annual subscription, processed by Stripe. By starting a subscription, you authorize us (through Stripe) to charge your payment method the listed price on a recurring basis until you cancel.

• Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period.
• You can cancel at any time from Settings → Manage Subscription, which opens Stripe's billing portal. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current paid period; you keep access until then.
• Prices may change. We will give you reasonable advance notice (typically by email) before any price change takes effect on your subscription, and you can cancel before the new price applies.
• Taxes, where applicable, will be added at checkout.

Refunds: see our Refund Policy.

4. Content and intellectual property

DFS Academy and its lessons, videos, audio, software, graphics, and other content (the “DFS Content”) are owned by DFS Academy or its licensors and are protected by copyright and other laws. You get a limited, non-transferable, non-exclusive license to use the DFS Content for your personal, non-commercial musical study while your account is in good standing.

You may not:

• Copy, redistribute, post, stream, or resell the DFS Content.
• Use the DFS Content to train machine-learning models.
• Scrape, mirror, or download in bulk.
• Remove watermarks, attributions, or copyright notices.

Anything you create or upload — recordings, beats, notes, posts — remains yours. You grant DFS Academy a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, display, and back up that content as needed to operate the Service.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Use the Service for anything illegal or to violate anyone else's rights.
• Post harassing, hateful, or sexually explicit content.
• Upload malware, attempt to break or probe our security, or interfere with anyone else's use of the Service.
• Impersonate another person or misrepresent your affiliation with anyone.
• Use bots, scrapers, or automated tools to access the Service without our written permission.

We may suspend or terminate your account if we believe you have violated these Terms.

6. Community

The community features (posts, comments) are moderated. We may remove content that violates these Terms and may ban repeat offenders without notice. Be kind — this is a learning community.

7. Third-party services

The Service relies on third-party providers (Supabase, Stripe, Resend, Vercel, Cloudflare). Their terms apply to the parts of the Service they handle. We are not responsible for outages or actions of those third parties.

8. Disclaimer

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available,” without warranties of any kind, express or implied. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any specific musical or educational outcome will result from using it.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, DFS Academy will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or any loss of profits or revenues, even if we have been advised of the possibility. Our total liability for any claim arising out of or related to the Service will not exceed the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, or $100 USD, whichever is greater.

10. Termination

You can close your account at any time by emailing hi@dfsacademy.org. We may suspend or terminate your account for violations of these Terms. On termination, the licenses granted to you end and we may delete your data subject to legal retention obligations described in our Privacy Policy.

11. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute will be resolved in the state or federal courts located in Los Angeles County, California, and you and DFS Academy consent to that jurisdiction.

12. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will post the new version here and update the “Last updated” date. If you continue using the Service after a change, you accept the updated Terms.

13. Contact

Email hi@dfsacademy.org with any questions about these Terms.