Terms of Use

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Unknown Tales is a collaborative writing platform where readers become authors. By creating an account or contributing content, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use the service.

1. Who can use Unknown Tales

You must be at least 13 years old to use Unknown Tales. If you are under 18, you confirm that a parent or guardian has consented to your use of the service. You may hold only one account; creating duplicate accounts is not permitted.

2. Content licence

When you submit content to the platform — including stories, chapters, and paths (branching choices) — you license that content to the world under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International (CC BY-SA 4.0) licence. In plain terms:

  • You keep the copyright to what you write.
  • Anyone may read, share, and build upon your work, provided they credit you and release any derivative work under the same licence.
  • Your work may not be repackaged for sale, exclusively licensed to a publisher, or used to train a commercial AI model without your separate permission.

By submitting content you confirm that you hold the rights to it and that publishing it here does not infringe anyone else's copyright.

Full details, including what the licence rules out and how attribution works, are in our Content Licence page.

3. Attribution

Your username is displayed as the author of all content you submit to the platform (including stories, chapters, and paths) and serves as your CC BY-SA attribution. These bylines are the canonical attribution record on this platform.

4. Account closure and your content

You may close your account at any time. When you do, your email address and password are erased and you will no longer be able to log in. Your account profile will show a closed state rather than your full profile. Stories, chapters, and paths you have published remain in the story tree: they are part of a shared, collaboratively-built work and other authors may have written continuations that depend on them. Your username is retained as the attribution string on that content so that the CC BY-SA licence requirement is fulfilled. No other personal information is kept after closure.

5. Acceptable use

You must not submit content that:

  • is illegal under English law or the law of your own jurisdiction;
  • sexualises or exploits minors in any way;
  • constitutes harassment, targeted abuse, or hate speech;
  • is substantially or wholly AI-generated prose presented as your own writing;
  • includes an AI-generated image uploaded as a story icon;
  • identifies, exposes, or is designed to harm a real, named private individual (doxxing through fictional framing is still doxxing);
  • impersonates another person or organisation.

Unknown Tales is a platform for collaborative fiction. Keep it creative, keep it collaborative, keep it legal.

AI tools may assist with brainstorming, outlining, or light editing, but the prose you publish must be human-authored and any story icon you upload must be human-made. See our AI Policy for the full rule and how we enforce it.

6. Moderation

We reserve the right to remove any content or suspend any account that breaches these terms, at our discretion. We will try to notify you of moderation actions where practicable, but we are not obliged to do so. We have no obligation to store or preserve your content indefinitely.

7. Disclaimer and limitation of liability

Unknown Tales is provided on an “as is” basis. We make no warranties about uptime, accuracy, or fitness for any particular purpose. We are not responsible for content submitted by users. To the fullest extent permitted by English law, our total liability to you for any claim arising from your use of the service is limited to £100.

8. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make a material change we will notify registered users by email at least 14 days before the change takes effect. Continued use of the service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

9. Governing law

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. Any dispute shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

10. Contact

Questions about these terms? Email us at daniel@unknowntales.net.