Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of these terms

By accessing or using ChainKu (the “Service”), available at chainku.art, you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service (“Terms”). If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

These Terms apply whether you use ChainKu anonymously or with an account.

2. Who we are

ChainKu is operated by brickwahl, based in Europe (“we”, “us”, “ChainKu”). You can contact us at info@chainku.art.

3. What ChainKu is

ChainKu is a platform for collaborative haiku writing. A haiku is built one line at a time by different people: one person starts a haiku by writing its first line, others propose subsequent lines, and the initiator selects which proposals become part of the haiku. Completed haiku are published in a public archive readable by anyone.

We may change, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. The Service is provided as an evolving project and may contain bugs or be unavailable from time to time.

4. Eligibility

You must be at least 16 years old to use ChainKu. By using the Service you confirm that you meet this age requirement. If you are below the age of digital consent in your country, you may use the Service only with the involvement of a parent or guardian.

5. Anonymous use and accounts

You may use ChainKu anonymously. Anonymous identity is stored locally in your browser and is not an account; if you clear your browser data, you lose access to anonymous contributions and history tied to that browser.

If and when accounts are offered, you may create one using your email address and a chosen public username. You are responsible for the activity that occurs under your account. Usernames are permanent and cannot be changed. You must not choose a username that impersonates another person, organization, or ChainKu itself, or that is offensive. We may reclaim or remove usernames that violate these rules.

6. Your content and the license you grant

This section governs the text you contribute (lines of haiku) and any other content you submit (“Your Content”).

6.1 You keep authorship

You retain authorship of the original lines you write. We do not claim to be the author of Your Content.

6.2 The license you grant us

By submitting Your Content, you grant ChainKu a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, reproduce, display, publish, and distribute Your Content. This includes:

• displaying Your Content within the Service and its public archive;
• generating shareable images and previews of completed haiku (including for social media);
• including completed haiku in compilations, collections, or printed or digital editions produced by ChainKu (for example, downloadable collections or prints).

6.3 Collaborative works are permanent once completed

ChainKu haiku are collaborative works. Once a line you wrote becomes part of a completed haiku, that haiku is a joint work created together with other contributors. You agree that:

• your contribution to a completed haiku may remain published as part of that haiku indefinitely, even if you later stop using the Service or delete your account;
• if you delete your account, your authored lines in completed haiku will be anonymized (your username removed and replaced with “anonymous”) rather than deleted, because deleting them would destroy works that other people co-authored. Pending (not-yet-completed) contributions may be removed.

This permanence applies only to completed haiku. Lines that are not part of a completed haiku are not subject to this clause.

6.4 You are responsible for what you submit

You represent that Your Content is your own original work, does not infringe anyone else's rights, and does not violate these Terms or any law.

7. Acceptable use

You agree not to use ChainKu to submit or do any of the following:

• content that is unlawful, hateful, harassing, defamatory, or that incites violence;
• content that is sexually explicit, or that sexualizes or endangers minors;
• spam, advertising, or automated/bulk submissions;
• content that infringes intellectual property or privacy rights of others;
• impersonation of others;
• attempts to break, overload, scrape, reverse-engineer, or circumvent the security or rate limits of the Service.

8. Moderation and removal

ChainKu has no obligation to monitor content, but we may review, remove, hide, or refuse any content, and suspend or block any user or device, at our discretion, particularly to address violations of these Terms or legal requirements. Because of the collaborative and anonymous nature of the Service, removal of content is best-effort.

If you believe content on ChainKu infringes your rights or violates these Terms, contact us at info@chainku.art.

9. ChainKu's intellectual property

The Service itself — including its name, logo, design, code, and the compilation and arrangement of content — belongs to ChainKu and is protected by intellectual property laws. These Terms do not grant you any right to use the ChainKu name or logo without permission, except as needed to use the Service normally.

10. Privacy

Your use of ChainKu is also governed by our Privacy policy, which explains what data we collect and how we handle it. Please read it.

11. Disclaimers

The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, to the maximum extent permitted by law. We do not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, or that content submitted by users is accurate, lawful, or appropriate.

12. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, ChainKu and its operator will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, or consequential damages arising from your use of the Service. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law (including liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence, and consumers' mandatory statutory rights).

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date and, where appropriate, notify users. Continued use of the Service after changes means you accept the updated Terms.

14. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access (and, where applicable, your account) if you violate these Terms. Section 6.3 (permanence of completed collaborative haiku) survives termination.