Terms of Use

1. Agreement and Eligibility

These Terms are a binding agreement between you and LifeVen LLC, a Washington limited liability company ("LifeVen," "we," "us"), covering your use of ClayTrace. Using ClayTrace means you accept them and the ClayTrace Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the app. You are contracting with LifeVen, not with Apple or Google.

You must be legally able to enter this agreement. If you are under the age of majority where you live, a parent or guardian must accept these Terms for you and stays responsible for your use. ClayTrace is not directed to anyone under 13, or under 16 in the EEA, the UK, and Switzerland.

2. License and Ownership

LifeVen grants you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to install and use ClayTrace on devices you own or control, for lawful personal or internal professional record-keeping, under the applicable app-store usage rules. Nothing is sold to you.

ClayTrace — its software, design, text, databases, built-in catalogs, reference content, trademarks, and all related intellectual-property rights — belongs to LifeVen or its licensors. Except where the law expressly permits, you may not copy, modify, translate, rent, sell, sublicense, distribute, reverse engineer, decompile, defeat security features, extract source code or substantial database content, or create derivative works. If you send us suggestions, we may use them freely, without attribution or payment.

3. Your Records and Content

You own the pottery records and media you add. You confirm you have the rights needed to store, use, export, or share that content and that it breaks no law and no one else's rights.

ClayTrace stores app records and app-managed media locally, and LifeVen operates no cloud backup for them. You are solely responsible for device security and for any backups you keep. Deleting records, clearing app data, uninstalling, losing a device, storage corruption, an operating-system change, or device failure can cause permanent data loss. LifeVen has no obligation, and usually no technical ability, to recover it.

LifeVen claims no license to content that stays on your device. If you choose to use an optional service that cannot work without it — cloud backup, sync, a sharing link, printing, or something you ask us to process — you grant us a limited, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, transmit, reformat, and display that content solely to run that service, for as long as it takes to run it. It does not let us publish your content, use it in advertising, or sell it.

4. Acceptable Use

You may not use ClayTrace to:

• violate any law, regulation, studio rule, contractual duty, or third-party right;
• store unlawful, infringing, defamatory, abusive, or malicious content;
• introduce malware, interfere with the app, bypass access controls, or probe for vulnerabilities;
• present ClayTrace output as professional, safety, chemical, or regulatory certification; or
• use the app or its content to build, benchmark, or train a competing product without written permission.

5. Purchases and Subscriptions

Some features are free and some require payment. We may add, change, or withdraw paid features, subscriptions, one-time purchases, and offers at any time, and may make a free feature paid or a paid feature free. Nothing here promises that ClayTrace or any feature stays free, stays available, or stays unchanged. The price, billing period, renewal terms, and taxes that apply to you are the ones the app store shows before you confirm, and they vary by country and over time.

All purchases are made through and billed by the Apple App Store or Google Play under their terms; payment is charged to your store account at confirmation, and we never see your card number. A purchase is tied to the store account and platform used to make it, so a purchase on one platform does not unlock the app on the other.

Subscriptions renew automatically for periods of the same length at the then-current price until you cancel. Your account is charged within 24 hours before each period ends, so auto-renewal must be turned off at least 24 hours before then. Manage or cancel any time in your app-store account settings; cancelling stops future renewals but does not cancel or refund the current period.

A free trial, where offered, is granted by the app store, which also decides who is eligible — usually once per store account. Unless you cancel at least 24 hours before it ends, it becomes a paid subscription automatically, and any unused part of a trial is forfeited if you subscribe early.

A one-time purchase does not renew and has no scheduled expiry, and can normally be restored through the same store account and platform. It is not a promise that LifeVen, ClayTrace, any feature, or availability in your country continues forever, or that every future feature is included. It covers what was described when you bought it.

Refunds, cancellations, and billing disputes are handled by the app store that sold you the item, under its policies; if a purchase is refunded or reversed, the paid access goes with it. None of this limits consumer rights you cannot waive where you live. And if paid access ends for any reason, the records you already made are not deleted, and the free Export and Restore stay available so you can take a complete copy with you.

6. Features We May Add

We may later offer optional extras — an account, cloud backup or sync, sharing links, automated or AI-assisted features, integrations you connect yourself, or physical products such as prints. Each is optional, may be priced separately, may come and go, may be limited to certain countries or devices, and may carry additional terms shown to you first. Automated or AI-assisted output is informational, can be wrong, and is never professional advice — check anything you act on. Anything labeled preview, beta, or experimental is provided as-is and may change or disappear without notice. A physical product is governed by the order terms at checkout and is never included in an app purchase.

7. Changes, Availability, and Termination

We may add, remove, restrict, suspend, or discontinue any feature or the app itself, change compatibility requirements, require an update, or stop supporting a device, operating system, language, region, or store. We may end this license if you breach these Terms, and you must then stop using and delete the app; we owe no refund for a termination caused by your breach, unless the law or the app store requires one. We are not responsible for outages, store removal, device incompatibility, or changes made by Apple, Google, operating-system providers, studios, or other third parties.

If we materially and negatively change a paid feature you are currently paying for, and the change is ours to control, we will give reasonable notice where practicable. Where your country's law gives you a right to terminate and get a refund for such a change — as EU and UK law does for paid digital content — that right applies.

8. Pottery, Materials, and Safety

ClayTrace is a record-keeping and learning tool. Built-in values, catalogs, skill and milestone content, comparisons, and your own entries are informational only. They are not glaze chemistry, food-safety advice, kiln instructions, firing or material compatibility advice, hazard communication, or certification of any result.

Ceramic materials, glazes, kilns, tools, and firing involve heat, electricity, sharp equipment, dust, fumes, chemicals, burns, and fire. You are solely responsible for verifying information, following manufacturer instructions and studio rules, using proper protection and ventilation, and getting qualified guidance. Never rely on ClayTrace for a safety-critical decision.

9. Third-Party Services and Copyright

ClayTrace may interact with device cameras, photo pickers, sharing destinations, app stores, operating-system backup services, and external links. Those are run by third parties under their own terms and privacy practices, and LifeVen is not responsible for their availability, security, content, conduct, or data handling.

LifeVen does not host your records. If we ever host content through an optional service and you believe it infringes your copyright, email claytrace@lifeven.com identifying the work, the material, and where to find it, with your contact details and a statement made in good faith and under penalty of perjury that you are the owner or authorized to act for them. We may remove such material and terminate repeat infringers.

10. Disclaimer of Warranties

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, CLAYTRACE IS PROVIDED "AS IS," "AS AVAILABLE," AND "WITH ALL FAULTS." LIFEVEN DISCLAIMS ALL EXPRESS, IMPLIED, AND STATUTORY WARRANTIES, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AND QUIET ENJOYMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE APP OR ANY CONTENT IS ACCURATE, COMPLETE, SECURE, UNINTERRUPTED, OR ERROR-FREE, THAT RECORDS WILL BE PRESERVED, OR THAT ANY POTTERY RESULT WILL BE ACHIEVED.

11. Liability and Indemnity

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, LIFEVEN AND ITS OWNERS, AFFILIATES, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS, AGENTS, AND LICENSORS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST DATA, MEDIA, PROFITS, REVENUE, GOODWILL, OPPORTUNITIES, MATERIALS, STUDIO TIME, OR POTTERY RESULTS, EVEN IF ADVISED THEY ARE POSSIBLE. OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO CLAYTRACE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF THE AMOUNT YOU PAID FOR CLAYTRACE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE, OR TEN U.S. DOLLARS (US $10).

Nothing here excludes liability that cannot lawfully be excluded, such as liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud. Some places do not allow certain exclusions; there, the limits above apply as far as the law permits and the rest of these Terms stands.

To the extent the law allows, you will indemnify LifeVen against claims, damages, losses, and reasonable legal costs arising from your unlawful or negligent use of ClayTrace, your content, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of someone else's rights. We may control the defense and settlement of any covered claim.

12. Disputes

Talk to us first. Before starting anything formal, email claytrace@lifeven.com with your name, a description of the problem, and what you want, and give us 30 days to sort it out. Most things end here.

Then arbitration, individually. Except for small-claims matters and claims about misuse of intellectual property, an unresolved dispute goes to binding individual arbitration with the American Arbitration Association under its Consumer Arbitration Rules. Each side pays the fees those rules allocate to it — they cap what a consumer pays — and bears its own legal costs. Arbitration happens on documents, by phone, or by video; an in-person hearing takes place only if the arbitrator says one is necessary, somewhere we both agree.

No class actions. YOU AND LIFEVEN WAIVE TRIAL BY JURY AND ANY CLASS, COLLECTIVE, CONSOLIDATED, MASS, OR REPRESENTATIVE PROCEEDING. An arbitrator may award relief only to the individual bringing the claim. If this waiver is unenforceable for a particular claim, that claim goes to court and the rest stays in arbitration. If 25 or more similar demands are filed with the help of the same firm or organization, they are handled in batches of up to 50, one arbitrator and one set of fees per batch, with time limits paused for demands awaiting a batch — this applies to both sides equally.

Opting out. Email claytrace@lifeven.com within 30 days of first accepting these Terms with your name and a clear statement that you opt out. It is free and changes nothing else. This section survives termination.

Law and courts. Washington law governs, without its conflict-of-law rules, and the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply. Where arbitration does not apply, the state and federal courts in King County, Washington have exclusive jurisdiction.

If you live outside the United States, this paragraph wins over anything above that conflicts with it. Nothing in these Terms removes mandatory consumer protections of your home country, including rights about digital-content quality and any right to cancel. The arbitration agreement and class waiver do not apply where they are prohibited where you live; there you may sue in your local courts, and we may sue you only there. Choosing Washington law does not deprive you of protections your home law does not let you give up.

13. App Store Terms

Apple.If you got ClayTrace from Apple, these Terms are between you and LifeVen, not Apple. LifeVen — not Apple — is responsible for the app, its maintenance and support, product claims, and intellectual-property claims. If the app fails to conform to a warranty, you may tell Apple and Apple may refund the purchase price; Apple has no other warranty obligation. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them. Your license is limited to Apple-branded products you own or control, under Apple's Usage Rules, including Family Sharing where it applies.

Google. If you got ClayTrace from Google Play, the Google Play Terms of Service also apply. Google is not a party to these Terms and is not responsible for the app or any claim about it, and handles refunds under its own policies. If a term here conflicts with the store rules that apply to your purchase, the store rules govern that conflict.

14. General

These Terms and the Privacy Policy are the whole agreement about ClayTrace. If a provision is unenforceable it is narrowed to the minimum extent needed and the rest stands; not enforcing something is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms; we may, in connection with a merger, financing, or sale of assets. Ownership, disclaimers, liability, indemnity, disputes, and this section survive termination. Apart from Apple, these Terms create no rights for anyone else, and the English version controls.

We may update these Terms by posting a new version and changing the date above; material changes apply going forward, and where the law requires your consent we will ask instead of relying on continued use. We may send notices through the app, this website, or an email address you gave us, and those count as writing.

We are not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including natural disasters, outages, and changes to a platform or store we depend on. You confirm you are not located in a U.S.-embargoed country or on a U.S. restricted-party list, and will not use or export ClayTrace in breach of export-control or sanctions law.

15. Contact

ClayTrace is provided by LifeVen LLC, a Washington limited liability company, in Washington, United States. A mailing address is available on request where the law requires it. Questions, complaints, and claims go toclaytrace@lifeven.com.