These Terms of Service (the “Terms”) govern access to and use of serial.link by authors and other professional users. By creating an author account or using the author platform, you agree to these Terms.
Please read the Privacy Policy, which explains how serial.link handles personal data.
1. Operator and scope
serial.link is operated by MALATRAIT HUGO, entrepreneur individuel, SIREN 892852989, SIRET 89285298900011, whose registered address is 7 rue du Collège d’Annecy, 84000 Avignon, France (“serial.link,” “we,” “us,” or “our”).
These Terms cover the serial.link marketing website and the author dashboard, hosting, publishing, membership-management, and related services (the “Service”). They do not serve as the terms between an author and readers of that author’s storefront.
2. Professional eligibility and acceptance
The Service is offered only for professional or business activity, including activity carried out by an independent or individual author. It is not offered to consumers acting wholly outside their trade or profession.
You may create an account only if you:
- are at least 18 years old;
- have legal capacity to enter into these Terms;
- use the Service for a professional purpose; and
- have authority to bind any business or organisation on whose behalf you act.
You must provide accurate information and keep it current. We may ask for reasonable evidence that you meet these conditions.
The Service is not available where providing or using it would breach applicable trade, export-control, or economic-sanctions laws. Availability of billing or payout features may also depend on the countries supported by our payment providers.
3. Accounts and security
You are responsible for activity carried out through your account and for maintaining control of your email account, sign-in codes, connected payment accounts, and devices. Tell us promptly at contact@serial.link if you suspect unauthorised use.
Your account is personal to you or the organisation you are authorised to represent. You must not sell, transfer, or assign it, or allow another person to use it, without our written permission. You must not share access in a way that compromises the Service or bypasses plan limits. We may suspend access while investigating a credible security or abuse risk.
You must keep your account email current because we use it for authentication and important Service or legal notices.
A subdomain supplied by serial.link is a revocable routing identifier, not a domain name or other property transferred to you. A requested subdomain, site name, or pen name must not impersonate another person, infringe rights, or mislead readers. We may refuse, reserve, suspend, or reassign an identifier where reasonably necessary for security, legal compliance, infringement, impersonation, infrastructure, or account closure. We will give reasonable notice where the circumstances allow.
4. The Service
serial.link lets authors create a branded fiction website, publish free and paid advance chapters, connect supported payment services, and manage reader memberships. Features may change as the product develops. We may add, change, or discontinue features where reasonably necessary for security, legal compliance, third-party changes, or product development.
You remain responsible for deciding whether the Service is suitable for your activity and for keeping your own copies of material you cannot afford to lose. Unless we expressly agree otherwise, the Service does not include bespoke development, legal advice, tax advice, or guaranteed data recovery.
5. Author subscription and billing
Access to paid features may require an author subscription. The current price, billing period, included features, any trial, taxes, renewal terms, and cancellation information are shown at checkout. Those checkout disclosures apply to the order and may change for future orders or renewals, subject to applicable law and advance notice where required.
Author subscription checkout and payment are handled by Polar, which acts as merchant of record. Your payment is also subject to the terms and notices shown by Polar at checkout. Polar may calculate taxes, issue invoices, and administer payment-related refunds or disputes. You authorise recurring charges until cancellation where the checkout is presented as recurring.
You can cancel through the available billing portal. Unless the checkout or mandatory law says otherwise, cancellation stops future renewals and access continues until the end of the paid period. Charges already incurred are non-refundable except where required by law or expressly stated at checkout.
We may suspend paid features if payment is overdue, reversed, or fraudulent. We will use reasonable efforts to give notice and an opportunity to resolve an ordinary payment failure.
6. Your storefront, readers, and payments
Each author storefront represents the author, not serial.link. When you offer a membership or other paid access to readers:
- you are the seller or merchant in relation to the reader;
- the reader’s contract is with you, even when serial.link provides the technical storefront;
- you decide and are responsible for your offer, price, renewal disclosures, promised benefits, cancellation rules, reader support, and lawful refunds;
- you must provide reader-facing terms, privacy information, and any other legally required disclosures;
- you are responsible for applicable consumer, e-commerce, tax, accessibility, advertising, and content laws; and
- you must comply with Stripe’s terms and the rules of any other connected payment provider.
Reader payments are processed through your connected Stripe account. serial.link is not a bank, payment institution, escrow service, collection agent, or guarantor of reader payments. Stripe may delay, withhold, reverse, or refuse transactions under its own terms or applicable law.
You are responsible for reader billing disputes, chargebacks, refunds, payment-provider fees, negative balances, and payout eligibility relating to your storefront. serial.link may provide technical records or support but does not decide disputes between you and a reader and does not guarantee their outcome. We do not endorse or verify an author’s content, claims, or offers merely because they appear on a serial.link-hosted storefront.
You appoint serial.link to process reader personal data on your behalf only as needed to provide the Service. The Data Processing Addendum in the Appendix applies to that processing.
7. Your content and licence to serial.link
You retain ownership of content you upload or publish. You represent that you have the rights and permissions needed to use, reproduce, distribute, sell access to, and otherwise make that content available through the Service.
You grant serial.link a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, reproduce, format, transmit, display, and technically adapt your content only to operate, secure, support, and improve the Service. We may sublicense those rights only to infrastructure providers and contractors to the extent needed to provide the Service. This licence lasts while the content is hosted and for the limited backup and legal-retention periods described in the Privacy Policy.
Lawful mature fiction is permitted. You are responsible for appropriate warnings, age restrictions, and compliance with the laws that apply to your content and audience.
8. Prohibited content and conduct
You must not use the Service to:
- break the law or facilitate unlawful activity;
- publish sexual content involving minors or anyone presented as a minor, child sexual abuse material, non-consensual intimate imagery, or content that sexually exploits a person;
- publish content that is unlawful because it is defamatory, threatening, hateful, or incites violence or terrorism;
- infringe intellectual-property, privacy, publicity, confidentiality, or other rights;
- impersonate another person or mislead readers about who operates a storefront or what they are buying;
- distribute malware, phishing, spam, or deceptive communications;
- harass, threaten, defraud, or unlawfully discriminate against others;
- copy, rent, resell, sublicense, frame, or mirror the author dashboard or Service except as expressly allowed by us;
- reverse engineer, decompile, disassemble, or try to derive non-public source code or underlying technology, except to the limited extent applicable law expressly permits despite this restriction;
- probe, disrupt, overload, or bypass the security, access controls, rate limits, or plan limits of the Service;
- scrape or access the Service by automated means in a manner that harms the Service or other users; or
- use reader data for a purpose incompatible with the notice and lawful basis you gave those readers.
We do not generally review author content before publication and, except where the law requires otherwise, have no obligation to proactively monitor it. We may investigate and remove or restrict content, storefronts, or accounts where we reasonably believe these Terms, provider rules, or the law have been breached. Where appropriate and lawful, we will explain the material reason and provide a way to contest the decision by emailing contact@serial.link.
We may access, preserve, and disclose relevant content and account information where reasonably necessary to comply with law or legal process; investigate or enforce these Terms; address fraud, security, or technical issues; respond to support requests; or protect the rights, property, or safety of serial.link, users, or the public. Personal data remains subject to the Privacy Policy.
9. Reports and rights complaints
To report illegal or infringing content, email contact@serial.link with:
- your name and contact details;
- the exact URL or other information that identifies the material;
- a clear explanation of the legal or rights issue;
- for alleged illegal content, the legal basis and country concerned where reasonably possible;
- supporting information reasonably available to you; and
- if you act for someone else, evidence of your authority.
By submitting a report, you confirm in good faith that the information is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge. Knowingly false or abusive reports may themselves breach these Terms. We may preserve and disclose relevant information where legally required. We may suspend or terminate accounts responsible for repeated or serious infringement.
10. Intellectual property belonging to serial.link
The Service, software, visual identity, and documentation—excluding author content—belong to serial.link or its licensors. These Terms give you a limited, revocable, non-transferable right to use the Service for your professional activity. They do not transfer our intellectual property to you.
Feedback is voluntary. If you give us feedback, you permit us to use it without restriction or payment, provided we do not identify you publicly without permission.
11. Third-party services
The Service depends on third parties, including Cloudflare, PlanetScale, Resend, Polar, and Stripe. Their services and terms may affect availability or particular features. You are responsible for maintaining any third-party account that you connect and for complying with its terms.
Third-party eligibility, verification, sanctions screening, country availability, reserves, and payout restrictions may prevent or delay a feature even if the rest of the Service is available. We do not control those decisions.
Links to third-party websites are provided for convenience and do not mean we endorse or control them.
12. Privacy and confidential information
Our Privacy Policy explains how we process personal data as a controller. When we process reader personal data on your behalf, the Appendix governs that processing.
Each party may receive non-public information that is confidential by its nature or circumstances. The receiving party will use reasonable care to protect it and use it only for the relationship under these Terms, except where disclosure is authorised or required by law. This does not cover information that is public without breach, independently developed, or lawfully received without a duty of confidence.
13. Availability, maintenance, and beta features
We aim to provide a reliable Service but do not promise uninterrupted or error-free operation. Maintenance, incidents, internet failures, provider failures, abuse prevention, and events outside our reasonable control may affect availability.
Neither party is responsible for delay or failure caused by an event beyond its reasonable control, provided the affected party takes reasonable steps to limit the impact and resumes performance when reasonably possible. This does not excuse payment obligations already due.
Features labelled beta, preview, or experimental may be incomplete, change materially, or be withdrawn. Do not rely on them for critical operations without your own safeguards.
14. Suspension, termination, and account closure
You may stop using the Service and request account closure by emailing contact@serial.link. Cancellation of billing and deletion of data are separate actions unless the interface expressly combines them.
We may suspend or terminate access immediately for a serious security risk, unlawful conduct, material breach, non-payment, or conduct that could harm readers, third parties, or the Service. For other remediable breaches, we will normally give reasonable notice and an opportunity to cure.
On closure, your right to use the Service ends. We aim to remove active account data and hosted content within 30 days of a verified closure request; backup copies expire within 90 days. We may retain limited information where required for legal claims, fraud prevention, accounting, or other legal obligations. You should export or copy anything you need before closure.
Sections that by their nature should survive termination—including payment obligations, intellectual property, confidentiality, disclaimers, liability, disputes, and the Data Processing Addendum—continue to apply.
15. Warranties and disclaimers
We will provide the Service with reasonable care and skill. Except for that commitment and rights that cannot lawfully be excluded, the Service is provided “as is” and “as available.” We do not guarantee particular revenue, readership, discoverability, search ranking, payment outcome, legal compliance, or uninterrupted availability.
You are responsible for your content, business decisions, reader relationships, backups, and compliance obligations.
16. Liability
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for fraud, fraudulent misrepresentation, wilful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by negligence where applicable.
Subject to that rule, neither party is liable for indirect or consequential loss, or for loss of profit, revenue, business opportunity, anticipated savings, goodwill, or data, except to the extent such loss was reasonably foreseeable and directly caused by a breach for which exclusion is prohibited.
Subject to the same rule, serial.link’s total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to the Service and these Terms is limited to the fees paid or payable by you for the Service during the 12 months immediately preceding the event giving rise to the claim. If you paid no fees in that period, the cap is EUR 100.
17. Indemnity
You will indemnify serial.link against third-party claims, damages, and reasonable costs arising from your content, storefront offers, reader contracts, unlawful use of reader data, or breach of Sections 6–8, to the extent caused by your act or omission. We will give prompt notice, allow reasonable participation in the defence, and will not settle a claim in a way that admits your fault or imposes non-monetary obligations on you without consent.
18. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms to reflect changes to the Service, law, security, or our business. The current version and effective date are published here. We will give reasonable advance notice of material changes where practicable and request renewed acceptance where required. Changes do not retroactively reduce rights already accrued.
We may deliver Service and legal notices through the dashboard or to the current email address on your account. You consent to receiving those notices electronically. This does not replace any form of notice that mandatory law requires by another method.
19. Governing law and disputes
These Terms are governed by French law, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before filing a claim, each party should make a good-faith attempt to resolve it by contacting contact@serial.link. Courts with jurisdiction under applicable French procedural law have jurisdiction over disputes.
The parties are independent contractors. These Terms do not create a partnership, joint venture, franchise, employment, fiduciary, or general agency relationship, and neither party may bind the other. The limited data-processing appointment in the Appendix and the roles of payment providers described above are not changed by this paragraph.
If any provision is unenforceable, the remainder stays effective. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent; we may assign them as part of a reorganisation, transfer of the Service, or change of legal entity, with notice where required. These Terms, their Appendix, and checkout disclosures form the agreement about the Service and replace prior discussions on the same subject.
20. Publisher, hosting, and contact
Publisher and Service operator: MALATRAIT HUGO, entrepreneur individuel
SIREN: 892852989
SIRET: 89285298900011
Registered address: 7 rue du Collège d’Annecy, 84000 Avignon, France
Publication director: Hugo Malatrait
Contact: contact@serial.link
Hosting provider: Cloudflare, Inc., 101 Townsend Street, San Francisco, California 94107, United States; telephone +1 650 319 8930.
Appendix — Data Processing Addendum
This Data Processing Addendum (“DPA”) forms part of the Terms when serial.link processes personal data on behalf of an author in connection with that author’s storefront and readers.
A.1 Roles and instructions
The author is the controller and serial.link is the processor for reader personal data processed to provide the Service. Each party will comply with the data-protection laws that apply to it, including the GDPR where applicable.
serial.link will process personal data only on the author’s documented instructions in these Terms, the author’s use and configuration of the Service, and support requests, unless Union or Member State law requires otherwise. If legally permitted, we will inform the author before processing required by law. We will promptly tell the author if we believe an instruction infringes applicable data-protection law.
A.2 Processing details
- Subject and purpose: hosting and presenting the author’s storefront; reader authentication; follows and preferences; membership access; subscription and payment-status administration; transactional communication; support; security; and related operation of the Service.
- Duration: for the term of the author’s use of the Service, plus deletion, backup, and legal-retention periods described in the Privacy Policy.
- Data subjects: prospective, current, and former readers or members; people who contact the author through supported features; and authorised storefront collaborators if introduced later.
- Personal data: identity and contact data such as email, name, or nickname; authentication and technical data; follows and preferences; subscription, entitlement, transaction-reference, and billing-country data; support communications; and other data the author submits or causes readers to submit through the Service.
- Special-category data: not intentionally required by the Service. The author must not instruct serial.link to process it unless the parties first put appropriate safeguards in place.
A.3 Confidentiality and security
serial.link ensures that people authorised to process personal data are bound by confidentiality and access it only as needed. We maintain technical and organisational measures appropriate to the risk, including access controls, encryption in transit, managed infrastructure protections, authentication safeguards, logging, backups, and procedures for security incidents. Security measures may evolve without reducing the overall level of protection materially.
A.4 Subprocessors
The author gives general written authorisation for serial.link to use subprocessors needed to operate the Service. Current core subprocessors are identified in the Privacy Policy. We will require subprocessors to protect personal data under obligations materially equivalent to this DPA and remain responsible for their performance as required by applicable law.
We will provide notice of a material new subprocessor before it begins processing where reasonably practicable. An author may raise a reasonable, documented data-protection objection by emailing contact@serial.link. The parties will try in good faith to resolve it; if no reasonable alternative is available, either party may terminate the affected Service.
A.5 International transfers
Where reader personal data is transferred outside the European Economic Area, serial.link will use a lawful transfer mechanism, such as an adequacy decision or the European Commission’s Standard Contractual Clauses, together with supplementary measures where appropriate.
A.6 Assistance and incidents
Taking into account the nature of processing and information available to us, serial.link will reasonably assist the author with:
- responding to requests from data subjects;
- security, breach-notification, data-protection impact assessment, and regulator-consultation duties; and
- information reasonably necessary to demonstrate compliance with Article 28 GDPR.
We will notify the author without undue delay after becoming aware of a personal-data breach affecting reader personal data and provide available information reasonably needed for the author’s assessment and notifications. The author remains responsible for determining whether and how to notify readers or authorities.
A.7 Deletion and return
At the end of the Service, at the author’s choice and subject to available functionality, serial.link will delete or return reader personal data and delete remaining copies, unless law requires retention. Active-system deletion and backup expiry follow the periods in the Privacy Policy. The author should obtain any needed export before closure and may contact us for reasonable assistance.
A.8 Audits
On reasonable written request, serial.link will provide information needed to demonstrate compliance with this DPA. If that is insufficient, the author may conduct an audit no more than once annually, or after a relevant breach, subject to reasonable advance notice, confidentiality, security safeguards, minimal disruption, and reimbursement of reasonable costs. The parties may satisfy this requirement through current independent reports or certifications where available.
A.9 Author obligations
The author is responsible for having a lawful basis and giving required notices and choices to readers; issuing lawful instructions; responding to data-subject requests; configuring the Service appropriately; and not uploading unnecessary or unlawfully collected personal data. The author must notify serial.link before using the Service for processing that presents unusual high risks.