Legal

Terms of Service

For the Nova federation operated at nova.thebugreport.dev.

Effective date

DECIDE: the date this goes live

Service

Nova at nova.thebugreport.dev

Operator

DECIDE: legal name and address

Contact

bug@thebugreport.dev

1. Acceptance

By uploading to, retrieving from, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

2. What the Service is

The Service stores and retrieves digital content on a federated storage architecture. Encrypted copies of uploaded content are distributed across volunteer-operated storage nodes. Those nodes hold ciphertext only; the coordinator holds the keys required to decrypt content for delivery.

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". See sections 8 and 9.

3. Uploading, and the absence of accounts

This deployment accepts anonymous uploads. There is no registration, no account, and no credential to safeguard. In exchange, there is no account-scoped way to enumerate, edit, or bulk-delete what you have uploaded — an upload is identified by its content address and nothing else.

You are responsible for what you upload from your connection. To request removal of something you uploaded, contact the address in section 17 with the URL or content identifier.

DECIDE whether to keep anonymous uploads open indefinitely or to gate them behind the beta once volume justifies it. The coordinator supports both; this clause assumes the former.

4. Acceptable use

You may not, and may not encourage others to:

• Upload content that infringes the intellectual property rights of others.
• Upload child sexual abuse material or non-consensual intimate imagery. The Service performs perceptual-hash scanning at upload against configured blocklists; matches are rejected before any bytes are persisted.
• Upload content that violates applicable law in DECIDE: governing jurisdiction or where the content originates.
• Use the Service to harass, threaten, or impersonate any person.
• Attempt to circumvent authentication, rate limits, moderation, or technical protections.
• Interfere materially with the operation of the Service or others' use of it.

DECIDE whether to add or remove categories to match this federation's norms. The template's example: an academic host might explicitly permit scholarly fair-use quoting.

5. Ownership and licence

You retain ownership of what you upload. By uploading, you grant a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store the content in encrypted form on infrastructure operated by us and our federated storage partners, to transmit and display it as needed to deliver the Service, and to generate technical derivatives such as resized copies as required to render it.

The licence terminates when the content is deleted. Deletion is implemented as cryptographic erasure of the per-blob key, which renders the stored bytes unreadable even though they may persist on volunteer disks for up to 30 days while the unpin propagates.

6. Takedown procedure

We respond to notices of claimed copyright infringement complying with the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act (17 U.S.C. § 512) and analogous statutes elsewhere.

Designated agent: DECIDE: register an agent with the U.S. Copyright Office, or state that this deployment is not a U.S. safe-harbour claimant

To submit a notice, send a written communication to the designated agent or submit one at /legal/dmca containing the elements required by § 512(c)(3): identification of the work, identification of the material with enough detail to locate it (the content identifier is ideal), your contact information, a good-faith statement, an accuracy statement, and your signature.

A takedown may be actioned by tombstoning the content, which crypto-shreds its key and broadcasts an unpin across the federation. If you believe a takedown was issued in error, you may submit a counter-notification complying with § 512(g)(3) to the same agent.

7. Repeat infringers

We act against sources that repeatedly infringe. The threshold is DECIDE: strikes valid takedowns within DECIDE: window. Appeals in writing to bug@thebugreport.dev.

Note that section 3 removes accounts, so "account termination" from the template does not apply as written. DECIDE what enforcement actually means here — source-address blocking is the available lever, and it is a weak one.

8. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND. WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY ARISING FROM COURSE OF DEALING.

We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure. Distributed storage carries operational risks including temporary loss of donor capacity, the need to re-replicate content, and the possibility of permanent loss in events exceeding the configured replication factor.

9. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING FROM YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE THE SERVICE.

Aggregate liability for all claims will not exceed DECIDE: liability cap.

The Service is free, so the template's "or the amount you paid us" limb resolves to zero and the stated figure becomes the only cap.

10. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the operator and the federation's donor storage partners from any claim arising from content you upload or from your use of the Service in breach of these Terms. We may assume exclusive defence of any such matter, in which case you will cooperate.

11. Suspension

We may remove content or block access at our discretion, with or without notice, for breach of these Terms. Sections 5, 8, 9, 10, and 13 survive.

12. Privacy

Highlights, with the full policy at DECIDE: a Nova-specific privacy policy, or extend the main site's:

• Content is stored encrypted; donor nodes have no access to plaintext.
• Source IP addresses are retained for 30 days for moderation and security, then discarded.
• We do not sell user data.
• We run no third-party analytics. The Service loads no external assets.

To exercise data-subject rights, contact bug@thebugreport.dev.

13. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of DECIDE: jurisdiction, without regard to conflict-of-laws provisions. Disputes will be resolved exclusively in the courts of DECIDE: venue.

DECIDE between mandatory arbitration, court litigation, or a hybrid.

14. Changes

We may modify these Terms. Material changes will be announced at DECIDE: announcement channel at least DECIDE: notice period before taking effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

15. Severability

If any provision is held invalid or unenforceable, the remainder stays in force.

16. Entire agreement

These Terms, with the privacy policy referenced in section 12, are the entire agreement between you and the operator regarding the Service.

17. Contact

All of the above: bug@thebugreport.dev.