Terms of Service

These Terms cover what Smriti does, what we ask of you, who owns your story (you do), what happens if we ever introduce paid services (you stay free), and the legal ground rules that let us offer this service. By creating an account, starting a biography project, or contributing to one at Smriti, you agree to these Terms.

These Terms work together with our Privacy & Rights policy, which explains how we collect, store, and protect your information. Where these Terms mention data handling, the Privacy Policy has the details.

1. Who We Are and What Smriti Does

Smriti is operated by Nihanth Munukutla. You can reach us anytime at smriti.agent@gmail.com.

Smriti helps families create biographies. We send guided questions by email, collect answers in writing or by voice, and use artificial intelligence (including the Claude API and Sarvam AI) to help synthesise those responses into a written biography, which can be viewed digitally and downloaded as a PDF.

Three kinds of people use Smriti, and these Terms apply to all of them:

• The Subject — the person whose life story is being told.
• Contributors — family members and friends who share memories and answers.
• The Project Owner — the person who starts and manages a biography project.

When these Terms say “you,” they mean anyone using Smriti in any of these roles.

2. Your Account and Responsibilities

Smriti works because people bring real stories to it in good faith. In return, we ask that you:

• Be at least 13 years old, or use Smriti with a parent or guardian's consent.
• For contributors under 18: a parent or guardian must consent to their participation. We request this consent in good faith — we don't ask for documentation, but by inviting or allowing a minor to contribute, you certify that this consent exists.
• Keep your account secure. You're responsible for your login credentials and for activity that happens under your account. If you think someone else has accessed it, tell us right away.
• Provide accurate information, both about yourself and in the stories you share.
• Have permission for what you share. If you upload photos, recordings, or stories involving other people, you're responsible for having the right to share them — including the Subject's consent to have their story told.

3. Free Today — and Our Promise If That Changes

Smriti is currently FREE for all users. We don't collect payment information, and there is nothing to buy.

We plan to introduce new paid services in the future, such as printed biographies and enhanced features. Here is our promise, and we mean it:

In practice, that means:

• We will never automatically enroll you in a paid service or convert your free account into a paying one.
• Pricing and terms for any new paid service will be disclosed clearly before it launches and before any charge applies. You'll always know exactly what you're paying for before you pay anything.
• When paid services launch, payments will be processed securely through Stripe. We still won't store your payment details ourselves.
• If you'd rather not participate in future paid services at all, you can simply not opt in — or delete your account at any time.

4. Your Story Belongs to You

The Subject retains all rights to their life story. Contributors keep the rights to the memories and materials they submit. By using Smriti, you give us only the limited permission we need to operate the service — to process your responses, transcribe your recordings, synthesise your biography, and generate your PDF. How we handle that data is covered in the Privacy Policy.

Biographies created with Smriti are for personal use only.

If you'd ever like to do something commercial with a biography — say, publish a memoir based on it — the story is yours, but the Smriti-generated biography itself isn't licensed for that. Write to us and we'll talk about it.

5. Prohibited Content

Life stories are honest, and honest stories can be complicated. But some things have no place on Smriti:

• Abusive, threatening, or harassing content directed at anyone
• Privacy or rights violations — sharing someone's private information without consent, or content that infringes another person's rights, including copyright
• Illegal content, spam, or fraud of any kind
• Sexual content

If we detect prohibited content, we aim to remove it within 7 days of detection — sooner for severe cases. This timeline is a guideline we work toward in good faith, not a guarantee. We may also suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules, as described in Section 8.

6. Community Guidelines

Beyond the hard rules above, we ask everyone on Smriti to remember that biographies involve real people — often people who aren't in the room when the story is told.

• Be respectful of everyone mentioned in a story. Honesty is welcome; cruelty is not.
• Don't commercially exploit someone else's story or likeness without their consent.
• Trust us to moderate thoughtfully. We reserve the right to moderate content and enforce these guidelines at our discretion. When content needs to come down, our removal timeline is up to 7 days, as described above.

We'd much rather resolve a concern with a conversation than an enforcement action. If a story involving you feels wrong, contact us and we'll work through it together.

7. Data Retention and Deletion

• Retention is at our discretion. We do not guarantee any minimum retention period, and we may delete inactive user data at any time.
• You can request deletion of your data at any time. When you do, we'll delete it within the timeframe specified in our Privacy Policy.
• Download before you delete. Finished biographies can be downloaded as PDFs — please save your copy before requesting deletion, because deletion is permanent.
• After you request deletion, we are not liable for the loss of that data. Once it's gone, we can't bring it back, and that's by design — deletion should mean deletion.

8. Termination

• We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms, including the content rules in Sections 5 and 6.
• You can delete your account at any time, for any reason, no questions asked.
• When an account ends — whether you close it or we do — your data is handled according to our Privacy Policy and any deletion request you make.
• No refunds apply, because there is currently nothing to refund — Smriti is free. If paid services launch in the future, their refund terms will be disclosed with them.

9. Service Provided “As Is” and Limitation of Liability

We work hard to make Smriti reliable and to make every biography something your family treasures. Legally, though, we have to be clear about what we can and cannot promise:

• Smriti is provided “AS IS” and “as available.”
• We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free. Outages happen, bugs happen, and AI-generated content can contain mistakes.
• We do not warrant the accuracy, completeness, or quality of any biography or transcription the service produces. You are responsible for reviewing your biography before relying on it or sharing it.

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• Because Smriti is currently free, our total liability to you is capped at $0 — the amount you have paid us to use the service.
• We are not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages, including emotional distress, lost time, lost data (see Section 7), or lost opportunities arising from your use of Smriti.

10. Indemnification

You are responsible for the content you submit to Smriti. If a claim is brought against Nihanth Munukutla or Smriti because of content you submitted — or because you broke these Terms — you agree to indemnify and hold us harmless from that claim, including reasonable legal costs.

In plain terms: if you upload a photo you didn't have rights to, or share a story that violates someone's privacy, that's on you, not us. Contributors certify that the stories and materials they submit are, to the best of their knowledge, accurate and lawful. Smriti is not liable for user-submitted content.

11. Dispute Resolution

If you have a concern or dispute about Smriti or your biography project, please contact us first:

Email: smriti.agent@gmail.com

We will respond within 48 hours and work to resolve the issue in good faith. Most problems — a story that needs correcting, a question about your data, a disagreement between family members about a project — get solved with a conversation, and that's always where we'd like to start.

These Terms are governed by California law. Any legal dispute would be resolved in California courts of competent jurisdiction.

12. Changes to These Terms

• We may update these Terms from time to time as Smriti grows.
• If we make material changes, we will notify active users by email before the changes take effect.
• Continued use of Smriti after changes take effect means you accept the updated Terms.
• We encourage you to check the Terms periodically. The current version is always available at this page.