Terms of Service

Status: DRAFT — pending final legal review. These terms reflect crate's intent for the v1.0 API customer relationship; the language will be finalized by counsel and an effective date set before any paying customer signs. By creating an account, completing checkout, or using a ck_live_* key, you agree to these draft terms; we'll notify you 30+ days before any material change. The DRAFT label reflects pending counsel review — it does not delay these terms' binding effect on your use of the service. Material changes are recorded in the legal changelog.

Last updated: 2026-07-02 (draft) · Effective date: TBD

These terms (the "Terms") are the agreement between you and [ENTITY — to be completed on formation: a Delaware limited liability company, registered address to be listed here] ("Hosaka", "we", "us") for authenticated use of the crate-api at crate.hosaka.fm/api/* (the "Service"). If you use the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have authority to bind that organization, and "you" means the organization.

1. Service description

crate-api is a public, paid API for the hosaka music catalogue: faceted search, master + artist/label enrichment, batch enrichment, and facet snapshots. The base product is deterministic (database-backed) and involves no AI processing of your requests. Optional AI features are addressed in §9. For the avoidance of doubt: the Service provides data about music — not audio streaming, music licensing, or rights clearance. You must not rely on the data as the basis for sample clearance, rights negotiation, or licensing decisions; verify independently with the relevant rights holder or society. The Service is offered to business and professional customers only; by signing up you represent that you are at least 18 and using the Service for business or professional purposes.

2. Your license to the data

Subject to these Terms and your plan limits, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license during your subscription to: (a) call the API; (b) use, display, and analyze API responses within your own products, services, and internal systems; and (c) create and use derived works (aggregations, scores, features) that do not reproduce the underlying catalogue in bulk.

Machine learning: you MAY use API responses to train or evaluate internal models, engines, and analytics (including LLMs and recommender systems). You may NOT (i) train a model whose purpose or effect is to substitute for the Service or reproduce the catalogue, or (ii) distribute, sell, or provide third-party access to model weights or artifacts trained primarily on crate data. This clarifies and supersedes any implication of §4/§5.

This license does not grant rights in third-party content referenced by responses (see §8). All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

3. Ownership

As between the parties: we own the Service, the catalogue compilation, our enrichment and derived signals, and all associated intellectual-property rights (including, where applicable, EU/UK database rights in the catalogue as a whole); you own your applications and anything you build with the responses (subject to §2). If you send us feedback, we may use it without restriction or obligation. "Hosaka" and "crate" are our names and marks; don't use them except for the attribution in §4 or with permission. Attribution does not imply our endorsement of your product or services.

4. Attribution

Data displayed publicly that was retrieved via the crate-api must credit "Hosaka / crate" with a link to crate.hosaka.fm, at a reasonable prominence for the display context. Internal-use applications (engines, models, analytics) are exempt. If we notify you of missing attribution, you have 14 days to cure before it is a breach; persistent non-attribution after the cure period may result in suspension under §15.

5. Redistribution boundary

Per-query results may be cached client-side for ≤24 hours.
You may NOT republish the data in a form that substitutes for the API — e.g. mirroring the catalogue, republishing large exports as a dataset, or making the data available to third parties in raw form.
You may NOT use the API to bootstrap or train a competing music-data product (no scraping the catalogue to build a clone; see the ML boundary in §2).
You MAY use API responses to enrich your own product as long as the underlying response data is not exposed in raw form to third parties.

If uncertain about a use case, email legal@hosaka.fm before launching.

6. Fair-use ceiling

Published rate limits are firm. The Sync-tier "fair-use" soft floor is a courtesy, not a contractual guarantee. We may throttle individual keys or temporarily suspend access to protect the service.

7. No SLA in v1.0

The Service is provided without a contractual uptime commitment. We target ≥99.5% monthly availability as an engineering goal, but this is not a warranty or SLA and no credits or remedies attach to it. A contractual SLA is a Sync-tier conversation (jani@hosaka.fm).

8. Data quality + third-party rights

Catalogue data is aggregated from multiple sources, with different provenance:

Public-domain / CC0 sources: Discogs monthly data dumps (CC0) and MusicBrainz core data (CC0/public domain).
Hosaka-derived signals: compilation structure, enrichment, network analysis, temporal spines, and frequency facets, produced by us.
Aggregated public-web data: radio playlists, club/event listings, music-press mentions and short excerpts, and links collected from publicly available sources. This material may be protected by copyright or subject to the source's own terms. We grant no rights in it beyond the license in §2, and we do not warrant that your further use of it (in particular republication of press excerpts) is licensed by the original source.
Artwork: responses contain links only (e.g. Bandcamp CDN and Cover Art Archive URLs). We do not host or license the images; fetching and displaying them is between you and the linked source.

WE DO NOT WARRANT THE ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR ABSENCE OF ERRORS IN THE DATA, AND IT MUST NOT BE YOUR SOLE BASIS FOR DECISIONS WITH LEGAL OR FINANCIAL CONSEQUENCES. Catalogue responses include freshness.* fields that disclose data lag (snapshot-backed endpoints carry a stale flag instead). Content-rights concerns: see §19.

9. AI features (optional, opt-in)

Two features use a third-party AI model (Anthropic Claude) and are not part of the base product:

Natural-language search — GET /api/v1/search?nl=true.
Wayfind — /api/v1/wayfind/*.

You invoke these explicitly; the base API never sends your data to an AI provider (they are also disabled service-wide unless the operator enables them). When you use them, your query text is sent to Anthropic for processing (PII-redacted first; not persisted by us; not used by Anthropic for model training) — see the Privacy Policy §4 and Sub-processors.

No warranty on AI output. NL interpretations and wayfind answers are model-generated and may be inaccurate, incomplete, or unavailable. They are a convenience layer, provided "as is," and must not be your sole basis for a decision.
Your inputs. You must not submit to the AI features any third-party personal data you are not entitled to process, or any unlawful content. You are responsible for the queries you send.

10. Privacy + data protection

Our handling of your personal data (account, billing, usage) is governed by our Privacy Policy. Where your use involves EEA/UK personal data, our Data Processing Addendum — including the EU Standard Contractual Clauses and UK Addendum — automatically forms part of these Terms. The catalogue data the API returns is primarily data about musical works and releases; it includes artist names and public professional information, which may be personal data in some contexts — you are responsible for your own jurisdiction's data-law compliance (GDPR, CCPA, etc.) in how you use the responses. Artists with concerns about their data can use the channel in §19 or email privacy@hosaka.fm.

11. Payment + billing

Self-serve subscriptions are billed monthly via Stripe and renew automatically each month until cancelled; you can cancel at any time via the Stripe Customer Portal, effective at the end of the current billing period. Overage (when enabled) is charged in arrears at the rates published on the pricing page, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference; your spend cap (if set) bounds overage charges. Sync-tier is invoiced under separate contract. Payment failure triggers a 7-day grace window, after which keys are suspended (API returns 402); a successful payment restores access. Cancellation revokes all keys (revoked keys cannot be reactivated; you can mint new keys while your account remains active). Fees are non-refundable except where required by law.

Price changes: we may change prices or plan limits with at least 30 days' notice (email + this site); changes take effect at your next renewal after the notice period. If you don't agree, cancel before the change takes effect.

12. Fees + taxes

All fees are stated in US dollars (USD) and are exclusive of taxes. You are responsible for all applicable value-added tax (VAT), goods-and-services tax (GST), sales tax, and similar indirect taxes, and for any withholding — if law requires you to withhold, you will gross up so we receive the stated amount. EU/UK business customers may be subject to reverse-charge rules; where we are required to collect tax, it will appear on your Stripe invoice.

13. Free tier

The free tier is offered as-is for evaluation and small projects, with no card and no payment. We may change its limits, suspend it, or withdraw it at any time. Free-tier accounts inactive for 12+ months may be closed after email notice.

14. Beta features

Features labelled beta, preview, or draft (including any feature while these Terms are marked DRAFT) are provided for evaluation, may change or be withdrawn without notice, may have reduced or no support, and are provided without any warranty or liability to the maximum extent permitted by law.

15. Suspension + termination

We may suspend or terminate access for: violation of §2/§5 (license/redistribution), repeated rate-limit abuse, attempted unauthorized access, non-payment, or where required by law. Where practical we will notify you and give you a chance to cure. You may terminate at any time via the Stripe Customer Portal or by emailing your account contact (Sync tier).

Effects of termination: your license (§2) ends and all keys are revoked. For 30 days after termination (except termination for your material breach) you may email support@hosaka.fm to request an export of your account data (usage records; there is no stored content of yours beyond that). Sections 3, 8, 12, 16, 17, 18, 21 and 22 survive termination.

16. Warranties + liability

THE SERVICE AND ALL DATA ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE", WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, OR UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (a) NEITHER PARTY IS LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, OR DATA; AND (b) HOSAKA'S TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY UNDER THESE TERMS IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (i) US $100 AND (ii) THE FEES YOU PAID US IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE FIRST EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. Without limiting §8, we are not liable for losses caused by your reliance on the accuracy or completeness of catalogue data.

What we don't exclude: nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited by applicable law — including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or either party's payment obligations. Australia: our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law; to the extent permitted by law, our liability for failure to comply with such a guarantee is limited, at our option, to supplying the services again or paying the cost of having them supplied again. Where you have non-waivable statutory rights as a business customer in your jurisdiction, these Terms do not reduce them. If, notwithstanding §1, you use the Service as a consumer, mandatory consumer protections of your place of residence remain unaffected to the extent they cannot be contractually waived.

17. Your indemnity

You will defend and indemnify Hosaka against third-party claims, and resulting damages and reasonable costs, arising from: (a) your applications and how you use API responses (including republication of third-party content referenced in them); (b) your violation of these Terms; or (c) your violation of law or third-party rights. We will notify you promptly of any claim and may participate in the defense at our expense; you won't settle a claim imposing obligations on us without our consent.

18. Export controls + sanctions

You represent that you (and the organization you act for) are not located in, organized under the laws of, or ordinarily resident in a country or territory subject to comprehensive US sanctions, and are not on any US or other applicable restricted-party list (including the OFAC SDN list). You may not use the Service in violation of US export-control or sanctions law, or permit access by anyone described above.

19. Content complaints + takedown

If you believe content surfaced by the Service (e.g. a press excerpt or a linked image) infringes your rights, email legal@hosaka.fm with: the material's location (endpoint + identifier), your right in it, and your contact details. We review promptly and remove or de-index material where appropriate. For US copyright claims, include the elements of a DMCA §512(c)(3) notice.

20. Changes to these terms

Material changes are announced with 30+ days notice via email + this page, and recorded in the legal changelog. Non-material changes (clarifications, formatting, typos) may be made without notice. Continued use after the effective date of a change is acceptance. Changes to §21 (Governing law + disputes) apply only to disputes arising after the change's effective date — never retroactively.

21. Governing law + disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, excluding its conflict-of-laws rules (and excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods).

Arbitration. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules, seated in Wilmington, Delaware, in English, before one arbitrator; hearings may be held by videoconference. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction. Class waiver: disputes are resolved only on an individual basis — class, collective, and representative proceedings are waived to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Carve-outs: either party may (a) bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and (b) seek injunctive or equitable relief in a court of competent jurisdiction for infringement or misuse of intellectual property or breach of §2/§5. If mandatory law in your home jurisdiction gives you non-waivable rights to a different forum or law, nothing here removes them. For matters governed by the Standard Contractual Clauses incorporated via the DPA, the SCCs' own governing-law and forum provisions prevail over this section.

22. General

These Terms (with the documents they incorporate: the Privacy Policy, DPA, Sub-processor list, legal changelog, and pricing page) are the entire agreement and supersede prior drafts, including the retired draft at /docs/terms. Order of precedence in case of conflict: (1) the Standard Contractual Clauses + UK Addendum (for the transfers they govern), (2) the DPA, (3) these Terms, (4) the incorporated pages (pricing, sub-processors). If a provision is unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary and the rest stands (severability). A failure to enforce is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent (not unreasonably withheld); we may assign to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or asset sale. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond reasonable control (force majeure), except payment obligations. Notices to us: legal@hosaka.fm; to you: your account email. The parties are independent contractors. We may identify you as a customer only with your prior written consent (publicity).

Effective date: to be set on v1.0 ship. Contact: legal@hosaka.fm (legal), privacy@hosaka.fm (privacy), support@hosaka.fm (everything else). See also: Privacy Policy · Sub-processors · DPA · Legal changelog.