Terms of Service

Effective date: September 14, 2026 · Version 1.0

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Synema Co, Inc. ("Synema," "we," "us") governing your use of the Synema websites, applications, and services (the "Services"). Our Privacy Policy explains how we handle information and is part of these Terms.

Plain-language summaries appear in boxes like this throughout. They are for readability only — the full text controls.

1. The Services

Synema is a video production platform for professional teams: media storage and organization, AI-assisted analysis (transcription, tagging, people and scene recognition, search), collaborative review and sharing, AI-assisted editing ("StoryCuts"), and export to professional editing tools. The Services are designed for professional and commercial use.

2. Accepting these Terms

2.1 Acceptance. You accept these Terms by affirmatively selecting the acceptance control when creating an account. The signup screen presents conspicuous links to these Terms and the Privacy Policy next to the statement: "By creating an account you agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy, including the agreement to arbitrate disputes and the waiver of jury trial and class actions in Section 17, subject to its exceptions and 30-day opt-out." You may also accept by clicking to accept these Terms wherever they are presented to you. Merely browsing the website or viewing a public share link does not by itself create an agreement to arbitrate (§2.4). If you use the Services on behalf of a company or organization, you represent that you have authority to bind it, and "you" includes it.

2.2 Record of acceptance. We record the version of the Terms you accepted, when you accepted it, and the acceptance screen you were shown.

2.3 Changes. We may update these Terms. For material changes — including changes to pricing terms, the content license, or dispute resolution — we will give at least 30 days' notice by email or in the Services and ask you to accept the updated Terms before continuing to use your account. For minor changes we will post the updated Terms and notify you by email or in-product notice; continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. Changes do not apply retroactively to disputes that arose before the change.

2.4 Visitors and share-link recipients. If you view content through a Synema share link or otherwise use the Services without an account, the Sections of these Terms that by their nature apply to visitors — including §10.3 (share-link access), §11 (copyright), §12 (acceptable use), §14 (disclaimers), and §15 (limitation of liability) — apply to your access. The arbitration agreement and class-action waiver in §17 apply to a visitor only if the visitor affirmatively accepts these Terms, and any contractual provision binds a visitor only to the extent an enforceable agreement has been formed with them; independently applicable law — copyright, privacy, and computer-access laws included — applies to every visitor regardless.

2.5 Eligibility. You must be at least 18 years old.

3. Your account

You are responsible for safeguarding your credentials, for all activity under your account, and for ensuring that people you invite comply with these Terms. Keep your email address current — it is how we send legally required notices. You may not transfer your account without our consent.

4. Workspaces, team members, and guests

4.1 Roles. An account owner administers a workspace and chooses each person's role. Team members (billable seats) get access per their role (admin, editor, or viewer). Guests are invited to specific projects. Workspace admins can see and manage content and membership across the workspace, including content uploaded by other members.

4.2 Departures. Content uploaded into a workspace remains available to the workspace when the uploader's access ends. As between workspace participants, the account owner controls the workspace's content.

5. Plans, billing, and cancellation

5.1 Plans. Paid subscriptions are billed monthly or annually, as shown at checkout, through our payment processor (Stripe). The current plans, their prices, and what each includes are listed on our pricing page, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. Prices exclude applicable taxes. Price and plan changes apply prospectively only, with the notice described in §2.3 — never mid-billing-period.

5.2 Metered usage. Plans include defined limits on storage and AI processing ("Usage Limits"), stated on the pricing page along with how each limit is measured.

5.3 Cancellation. You may cancel at any time; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Except where required by law, fees are non-refundable. Canceling automatic renewal does not close your account or start any deletion clock: paid access continues through the period you have paid for, and the export window in §13.2 begins only when your account is actually closed or terminated.

5.4 Plan changes. Upgrades take effect immediately with prorated charges; downgrades take effect at the next billing period.

5.5 Exceeding limits. If you exceed a Usage Limit we will notify you. We will never silently move you to a more expensive plan. Depending on your plan, we may [pause new uploads / bill metered overage at the rates on the pricing page / require an upgrade to continue adding content]. Your existing content remains accessible while your subscription is active. Metered and overage charges are billed only at the rates and measurement rules you accepted at checkout or subsequently accepted under §2.3, applied prospectively from the billing period in which they take effect and subject to any continuing founding-price commitment.

5.6 Founding pricing. Early customers may be offered founding prices. Founding pricing remains in effect [for as long as the subscription remains continuously active / for N months], as stated in the offer.

5.7 Beta and early access. We may offer features or the Services as a beta or early-access program, at no cost or reduced cost, "as available." Beta features may change, break, or be discontinued, and may have usage limits. We will give notice before ending a free beta period; continuing after it may require a paid subscription.

5.8 Trials. Free trials, if offered, convert to a paid subscription at the end of the trial unless canceled first; trial terms will say whether payment information is required, and conversion happens only on the terms shown when you start the trial: the billing interval, first charge date, and price.

6. Your Content and our license

6.1 Ownership. You retain all rights to the video, audio, images, documents, and other materials you upload to the Services ("Your Content"). These Terms give us no ownership of Your Content.

6.2 License to operate the Services. So we can run the Services, you grant Synema a worldwide, non-exclusive, revocable, royalty-free license — sublicensable only to the service providers we use to operate the Services (see the subprocessor list in our Privacy Policy) — to host, store, cache, reproduce, transmit, transcode, adapt (for example, generating proxies, transcripts, and the edited outputs you request), display and perform Your Content through the sharing you authorize, distribute the exports and downloads you authorize, and otherwise process Your Content, solely to the extent necessary to provide, secure, and support the Services you and your workspace use. This includes, for example: storing files with our storage provider, generating proxies and thumbnails, transcribing audio, analyzing content with the AI providers named in our Privacy Policy, and displaying content to the people you share it with. This service license does not include using Your Content to improve systems that serve other customers — that use is governed exclusively by §7.3.

6.3 Termination of license. This license ends for any item of Your Content when it is deleted from the Services (after the trash window and any residual backup period described in §13), and ends entirely when your account is closed and Your Content is deleted per §13. Revocation is exercised by deleting content or closing the account; an individual member's departure does not revoke the workspace's rights under §4.2.

6.4 Sharing grant. When you add content to a shared workspace or project, or share it by link, you grant the people you share it with permission to view and, where their role allows, use and edit it within the Services — and, where their role and your sharing choices permit, to download or export it and use it outside the Services for the purposes you authorize. Providing download access does not grant republication or other rights beyond your authorization.

6.5 AI outputs. Synema assigns to you all right, title, and interest in the outputs the Services generate from Your Content (transcripts, edits, StoryCuts, exports). Synema retains all rights to the underlying software, models, prompts, and systems. Outputs of automated analysis may be inaccurate — see §7.6 and §14.

6.6 Exported content. Once content is exported or downloaded out of the Services, we have no control over or responsibility for it.

6.7 Confidentiality. We treat nonpublic Your Content and other nonpublic business information you give us as confidential: we protect it with reasonable care, use it only as these Terms authorize, and disclose it only to personnel and providers who need it and are bound by confidentiality obligations, to the workspace members, guests, and recipients you authorize through the Services, or as legally required under this section. Your authorizing a limited disclosure does not otherwise remove the information's confidential status. If we are legally compelled to disclose it, we will limit the disclosure to what is required and give you prior notice where legally permitted. These duties survive termination and, for trade secrets, continue for as long as the information remains a trade secret.

7. AI processing and learning

7.1 AI processing is core to the Services. When you upload content, automated systems analyze it: transcription, scene and content analysis, face detection and person identification, voice/speaker identification, and editorial analysis. This is how search, people tagging, and StoryCuts work. Faces our system classifies as incidental to a shot are detected but not biometrically processed — the classification mechanism, its limits, and how to verify it are described in our Privacy Policy §6. By uploading content you instruct us to perform this processing. Our Privacy Policy describes it in detail, including the biometric processing involved in identifying people.

7.2 Learning that stays in your workspace. The Services adapt to your workspace as part of normal operation: the people index your team confirms, corrections you make to labels and transcripts, your editing choices and preferences. This workspace-level learning is used only to operate and improve your own workspace's results and is part of providing the Services.

7.3 Improving Synema for everyone. Different rules for different kinds of data:

(a) Editing-activity data — on by default, with an off switch. We use editing-activity data — the actions your team takes in the editor, such as edits made (cuts, reorders, trims), story structures chosen, suggestions accepted or rejected, and completion signals — to improve the editorial systems that serve all customers. Before any such use, we apply measures designed to remove direct identifiers and prevent the data from being reasonably linked back to a person, account, workspace, or specific content; we never use your footage, audio, images, transcripts, face or voice identifiers, or people-index entries for this purpose; qualifying records carry action types, structural categories, and coarse measurements rather than free text, prompts, exact timecodes, or references to specific content; we do not attempt to re-identify this data and require the same of anyone who receives it. Only records satisfying both conditions — the limited content just described AND no reasonable linkability — enter this tier; a record failing either is excluded from it and remains governed by subsection (b). Subsection (a) is a limited exception to subsection (b) for qualifying records only, and the Google-data exclusion in (d) always controls. You can turn this off at any time in workspace settings; opting out never degrades your service.

(b) Your Content — opt-in only. We do not use Your Content — your footage, audio, images, and transcripts — or data derived from it, to train, re-train, fine-tune, or otherwise improve the models and editorial systems that serve other customers, unless you have expressly opted in through a workspace setting or written agreement. If you opt in, the scope of what is used (for example, editorial-structure patterns rather than the content itself) is described at the point of consent, and you may withdraw consent for future use at any time. Participation is a separate, optional program in which Synema acts as an independent controller for the defined purpose, under a supplemental notice describing scope, purposes, retention, and withdrawal. A workspace opt-in does not by itself establish consent from the people depicted in the content: content containing identifiable people is eligible only where the legally required basis and subject notices exist (§8).

(c) Face and voice identifiers — never. Biometric identifiers are never used beyond your workspace (see our Privacy Policy).

(d) Google Drive imports — never, regardless of settings. Information obtained through Google APIs — including content imported from Google Drive and data derived from it — is never used to train, develop, or improve models or systems that serve other customers. Neither the editing-activity default nor a workspace opt-in overrides this exclusion (Privacy Policy §5.3).

We may also use aggregated, de-identified data — data processed with reasonable measures so it is not reasonably linkable to an identified person or customer (for example, feature usage counts and performance metrics) — to operate and improve the Services. We maintain and use such data in de-identified form, do not attempt to re-identify it except solely to test whether our de-identification measures work, and require any recipient to maintain the same protections. Security-incident investigations use separately governed identifiable records, not this data.

7.4 Third-party AI providers. The third-party AI providers we use to process Your Content are listed in our Privacy Policy. We use Anthropic's commercial API and Google's paid Gemini tier under terms that do not permit them to train on your content, and we maintain ElevenLabs' account-level training opt-out. We do not submit Your Content through provider configurations that permit training on it, and we verify these protections before changing providers or configurations.

7.5 Human review. Processing is automated. Synema personnel access Your Content only to provide support you request, investigate abuse or security incidents, or as required by law — and for content imported from Google Drive, support access additionally requires your documented permission covering the specific files inspected (Privacy Policy §5.3).

7.6 Review AI output. AI-generated transcripts, labels, identifications, and edits can be wrong, and generated output may not be unique. You are responsible for reviewing outputs before relying on or publishing them. Automated person identification is an organizational aid, not an identity verification: do not use it as evidence that a particular person appears in footage without human confirmation.

8. People in your footage; your responsibilities

8.1 Rights in Your Content. You represent and warrant that you own or have the necessary rights to Your Content, and that your use of it with the Services does not violate any law or third-party right.

8.2 People appearing in footage. You represent and warrant that you have obtained all consents, releases, and permissions required from individuals identifiable in Your Content — including for their name, image, voice, likeness, and performance — sufficient to permit the processing described in §7 and the Privacy Policy.

8.3 Biometric laws. Some jurisdictions (for example the Illinois Biometric Information Privacy Act) require notice to and written consent from individuals before biometric identifiers such as face geometry or voice prints may be collected. The Services generate face and voice identifiers from footage to power people search within your workspace. Where such laws apply to individuals in your footage, you are responsible for providing the required notice and obtaining the required consent before uploading, and you will do so as our customer on whose behalf the processing is performed. Where such laws apply, a general appearance or model release is not sufficient by itself: the written consent must specifically cover biometric data collection — identifying the collection of face and voice identifiers, its purpose, and the retention term (stated in our Privacy Policy §6). Do not enable or use people-identification features for footage whose subjects you cannot lawfully process.

When you create an account or a workspace, you will be asked to confirm that you are authorized to use facial scanning and recognition on the footage you upload, and we keep a record of that confirmation. Each upload then requires you to choose, before processing begins, either (a) to confirm that the footage was not filmed in Illinois and does not depict Illinois residents, and that you have obtained written or electronic consent for biometric data collection from every individual depicted, where such consent is legally required, and can deliver that consent on demand; or (b) to decline face and voice processing for that upload, in which case no biometric processing occurs for its content. Face and voice identification is not offered for Illinois accounts. We record your choice with each upload.

Your obligations under this Section apply equally when you share content or workspace access with others (§10) — share only with people you are authorized to disclose it to — and to any transfer of your account or workspace, where the recipient must have the same authority you attested to.

You will keep records sufficient to demonstrate the notices and consents this Section requires and, on reasonable request, provide them to us in connection with a complaint, regulator inquiry, or legal obligation. We may suspend or disable people-identification features for particular content or workspaces where we reasonably believe the required authorization has not been obtained.

8.4 Sensitive data. Do not upload Protected Health Information or other data subject to sector-specific regulation (HIPAA, GLBA) unless covered by a separate written agreement with us. Do not upload payment card numbers or government identifiers within content you ask us to process.

9. Google Drive import

If you connect Google Drive, we request read-only access and use it solely to list and download the files and folders you select for import. We never modify or delete anything in your Drive. You can disconnect Google Drive at any time in settings or via your Google account permissions; disconnecting stops further access but does not remove content already imported.

10. Sharing and collaboration

10.1 You control sharing. Sharing is off until you invite someone or create a link. You choose what to share, with whom, and can revoke guest access or disable links at any time.

10.2 Public links. A public link makes the linked file or folder viewable by anyone who has the link, without a Synema account, subject to any password or expiration you set. You are responsible for where links you create end up, and for what the people you share with do with the content outside the Services.

10.3 Share-link recipients. If you access content via a share link: the content belongs to the customer who shared it, not Synema; you may use it only as the sharer permits; and you may not circumvent passwords, expiration, or other access controls.

10.4 Collaboration content. Comments and other collaboration inputs are part of the workspace's content. We do not monitor them and are not responsible for content exchanged between users, but we may remove content or restrict access where these Terms are violated.

11. Copyright (DMCA)

We respond to copyright infringement notices under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. Send notices containing the elements of 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3) to our designated agent: Copyright Agent, Synema Co, Inc., 1711 Carpenter St., Philadelphia, PA 19146, dmca@synema.co. If your content was removed by mistake, you may send a counter-notice under §512(g). We terminate repeat infringers' accounts in appropriate circumstances.

12. Acceptable use

You may not use the Services to:

We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate this section (§16).

13. Storage, retention, and deletion

13.1 Trash. When you delete content, it moves to trash for 7 days, during which you can restore it. After the trash window — or, if you empty trash, at the next automated purge run — the files, together with the data derived from them (transcripts, embeddings, and face and voice identifiers), are permanently deleted from our production systems, and metered storage billing for them stops when that purge completes. Residual copies in encrypted database backups are overwritten by backup rotation within 30 days (§13.2), and specific records may be retained only where §13.3 applies.

13.2 Account closure. When your account is actually closed or a termination becomes effective — canceling automatic renewal does not begin this window (§5.3) — you will have 30 days to export Your Content (except in cases of unlawful content or serious abuse, where we may suspend access immediately). After the export window, Your Content is deleted per §13.1. Deleted media files are removed from primary storage by the purge; residual copies of database records in encrypted backups are overwritten by backup rotation within 30 days.

13.3 Retention for legal reasons. We may retain specific content where required by law, legal process, or to investigate serious abuse, for as long as that necessity exists — only to the extent applicable law allows, and never extending a biometric-destruction deadline except as biometric-privacy law expressly permits.

13.5 Backups are your job. The Services are a working library, not an archival guarantee. Maintain independent backups of your original media. Subject to §15, we are not liable for loss of content.

14. Disclaimers

THE SERVICES ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED OR ERROR-FREE OPERATION. AI-GENERATED OUTPUTS — INCLUDING TRANSCRIPTS, LABELS, PERSON IDENTIFICATIONS, AND EDITS — MAY BE INACCURATE, INCOMPLETE, OR NON-UNIQUE, AND DEFICIENCIES IN SOURCE MEDIA ARE LIKELY TO BE REFLECTED IN RESULTS; OUTPUTS MUST BE REVIEWED BY YOU BEFORE USE. THE SERVICES AND OUTPUTS ARE NOT LEGAL, FINANCIAL, OR PROFESSIONAL ADVICE.

15. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW: (a) NEITHER PARTY IS LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, OR GOODWILL; AND (b) SYNEMA'S TOTAL LIABILITY UNDER THESE TERMS SHALL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF $100 OR THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID TO SYNEMA IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. NOTHING IN THIS SECTION EXCLUDES OR LIMITS LIABILITY FOR FRAUD, WILLFUL MISCONDUCT, GROSS NEGLIGENCE, OR ANY LIABILITY THAT CANNOT LAWFULLY BE LIMITED OR EXCLUDED.

16. Termination

You may stop using the Services and close your account at any time in settings. We may suspend or terminate your access for material breach of these Terms, unlawful content, risk to the platform or other users, or non-payment — with notice and an opportunity to cure where practicable, and with the export window in §13.2 except in cases of serious abuse. Sections that by their nature survive (including §6.5-6.6, §11, §13-15, §17-18) survive termination.

17. Dispute resolution; arbitration

17.1 Talk to us first. Before filing any claim, you and we each agree to send the other a written Notice of Claim (to the address in §19, or your account email) and attempt in good faith to resolve the dispute informally for 60 days. The 60-day period tolls any applicable limitations period, and either party may seek emergency or temporary equitable relief where necessary to prevent imminent harm while it runs. Nothing in this Section prevents a protective filing to preserve a claim or a complaint to a regulator.

17.2 Arbitration. Except as provided below, any dispute arising out of these Terms or the Services shall be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association under its Commercial Arbitration Rules — or its Consumer Arbitration Rules whenever the AAA's own classification and administration requirements apply them — before a single arbitrator, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania or remotely by videoconference. Judgment on the award may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

17.3 Exceptions. Either party may (a) bring an individual claim in small-claims court, or (b) seek injunctive or equitable relief in court for intellectual-property infringement or unauthorized access.

17.4 Class-action waiver. DISPUTES MUST BE BROUGHT IN AN INDIVIDUAL CAPACITY ONLY, NOT AS A PLAINTIFF OR CLASS MEMBER IN ANY CLASS, CONSOLIDATED, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING.

17.5 Coordinated filings. If 25 or more substantially similar individual demands are brought against Synema by the same or coordinated counsel, they will be administered under the AAA's applicable Mass Arbitration Supplementary Rules. Administrative coordination does not authorize class arbitration and does not bind non-participating claimants on the merits, and no claimant is required to await the resolution of another claimant's case as a prerequisite to filing or pursuing their own. Limitation periods are tolled for a compliant demand from its submission until its arbitration commences. Any bellwether arrangement beyond the AAA's rules requires the affected parties' written agreement after the dispute arises. We will not impose fees on you beyond what the applicable AAA rules and law permit.

17.6 Framework. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this arbitration agreement. Statutory limitation periods are not shortened by these Terms. We pay the arbitration costs that applicable law and the AAA rules require us to bear. If an update to these Terms materially expands your arbitration obligations, a new 30-day opt-out window applies to that change. Disputes found non-arbitrable — and disputes where arbitration has been waived or opted out of — proceed in the state or federal courts sitting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, subject to any mandatory venue rights and the small-claims exception.

17.7 Opt-out. You may opt out of arbitration (§17.2, §17.4-17.5) by emailing legal@synema.co, stating your name, account email, and intent to opt out — within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, or, for an update that materially expands your arbitration obligations (§17.6), within 30 days of accepting that update. A timely opt-out from such an expansion rejects the expansion and leaves the previously accepted arbitration terms in effect; an earlier valid opt-out remains effective unless you separately and expressly agree to arbitrate. Opting out does not affect any other part of these Terms.

18. General

Governing law. These Terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, excluding its conflict-of-law rules. Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control. Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets, with notice to you. Entire agreement; severability; waiver. These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the entire agreement; if a provision is unenforceable, the rest remain in effect; failure to enforce is not a waiver. Notices. We send notices to your account email; legal notices to us go to the address below.

19. Contact

Synema Co, Inc. 1711 Carpenter St., Philadelphia, PA 19146 legal@synema.co · support@synema.co