tellrest

Terms of Service

1 · Who we are, and accepting these terms

tell.rest is operated by Not Rest Inc., a Delaware (USA) corporation, at 3200 Park Center Drive, 14th Floor, Costa Mesa, CA 92626, USA ("we", "us"). By using the site you agree to these Terms. If you don't agree, please don't use it.

2 · What tell.rest is

A free, donation-funded public library of short, AI-generated documentary stories, each researched from cited sources and narrated. There are no accounts — nothing to sign up for, and nothing to log into. You ask for a topic or open an existing story; that's the whole product.

3 · The stories are AI-generated — not professional advice

• Stories are produced by automated AI systems from live research. They may contain errors, omissions, or out-of-date information. Cited sources are provided so you can check the original material; please verify anything that matters.
• Nothing here is professional advice — not medical, legal, financial, psychological, safety, or other professional advice. Do not rely on a story for any decision that needs a qualified professional.
• Stories are documentary and general-audience (a 16+ content ceiling — see our Safety & ratings page); they are not a substitute for primary sources or expert guidance.

4 · Using the ask box responsibly

When you ask the library a topic or a follow-up ("tell the rest"):

• Don't submit other people's personal information, or anything confidential, in your prompt. Prompts are processed to generate a story and may be logged for abuse prevention and quality; treat them as non-private.
• Don't try to make the library produce content it refuses (see Safety), don't attempt to break, overload, or scrape the service beyond what robots.txt allows, and don't use it for anything unlawful.
• The library may refuse a topic; a refusal isn't a judgment of you, just of fit.
• Public submissions (wishes, dedications, study notes). A study note, a wish (a topic for the public wishing well), or a donor dedication ("lit for ___") is published publicly and may travel inside a story's offline copy. You're responsible for what you submit and must not include other people's private information — a memorial dedication you are entitled to make is the one exception. By submitting, you grant us a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, display, and distribute it as part of the library; everything public is safety- and relevance-gated, and we may hide or remove anything reported or that breaches these terms.

5 · Intellectual property

• The stories. Story text, narration, and images are generated by AI. We do not assert, and will not enforce, any copyright we may hold in the generated stories — you may freely read, copy, and share them (that's exactly what the offline "take a copy" / "send a story" feature is for).
• Our brand & software. The name "tell.rest", the wordmark and logo mark, the site design, and the underlying software are ours and are not licensed to you by these terms. Don't pass your project off as ours.
• Source materials. Cited third-party sources remain the property of their owners; we link to them, we don't relicense them.

6 · Donations

• Donations are entirely voluntary and support a for-profit product. They are not tax-deductible and are not a charitable contribution. The same framing appears at the Stripe checkout.
• Payments are processed by Stripe under Stripe's own terms; we never receive your card details. Donations are generally non-refundable; if something went genuinely wrong, contact us at [email protected].
• A donation buys no goods, services, account, or special access — every story is free to everyone regardless.
• A donation can fund a specific wish from the public wishing well; once funded, that story is built and published free for everyone. Lighting a wish ties the payment to an anonymous wish id, never to your identity.
• A donation doesn't guarantee a particular story — a topic that fails our Safety gate is refused, and a duplicate is served from the existing story; the donation still supports the library either way.
• We keep open, anonymous books: public totals of what's raised and the funding "float", with no donor names or identifying amounts. Any dedication you add is public (see §4); your payment identity stays with Stripe.

7 · Availability, permanence, and "as is"

• The service is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind. We may change, pause, or discontinue features at any time.
• We intend to keep published stories available for a long time (the "decade pledge" / Internet Archive copies) — this is a good-faith commitment, not a contractual guarantee of uninterrupted availability.

8 · Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, or for any reliance on AI-generated content; our aggregate liability is limited to the amount you paid us (for a free service, that is nothing). Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes any liability that cannot be limited or excluded under applicable law.

9 · Indemnification

You agree to cover us for claims arising from your misuse of the ask box — for example, submitting other people's personal data or unlawful prompts.

10 · Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms; material changes will be noted on this page with a new date. Continued use means acceptance.

11 · Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. If you are a consumer, nothing in these Terms deprives you of the mandatory protections of the law where you live.

12 · Contact

Questions, corrections, or legal notices: [email protected].