Terms of Service

1. Who we are

Readence is operated by Gere Lajos e.v., a sole proprietor established in Hungary, European Union. You can reach us at hello@gerelajos.hu.

2. License to use the app

Subject to these terms, we grant you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to install and use Readence for your own, non-commercial reading. You may not copy, modify, reverse-engineer, resell, or redistribute the app except as permitted by applicable law.

3. Your account

You are responsible for maintaining the security of your account and for all activity under it. You must provide accurate information and keep it up to date. You must be at least 16 years old to use Readence. We are established in Hungary, where the age of digital consent under Article 8 of the GDPR is 16, and parts of Readence (in particular advertising) rely on your consent — so we cannot offer the service to anyone younger.

4. Your content and uploaded files

Readence lets you add your own book files. Those files stay on your device, we store only their title, metadata, cover image, and a content hash (see our Privacy Policy).

You are solely responsible for the files you add. You represent that you own or have the necessary rights to any file you add to Readence and that adding it does not infringe anyone’s rights or break any law. You must not use Readence to store, share, or distribute content you are not entitled to use.

5. Public-domain catalog

Readence offers a curated catalog of public-domain and freely-licensed works. Each source keeps its own licence; we do not apply a single licence to all of them.

• Standard Ebooks dedicates each of its editions to the public domain under CC0 1.0. That dedication covers the edition, not the underlying work: Standard Ebooks clears texts against the United States public domain, which is a publication-date rule, while Hungary and the rest of the EU protect a work for the author’s life plus seventy years. The two disagree by decades — A Farewell to Arms was published in 1929 and is public domain in the US, but Hemingway died in 1961, so in Budapest it is protected until 2032. We therefore check these titles one by one against the EU term as well, and the ones that are still in copyright here are excluded from the catalog until the year they are free — fourteen titles at the time of writing.
• The Hungarian Electronic Library (MEK) is a library, not a public-domain corpus: part of its collection is published with the rightsholder’s permission, and a translation carries its own copyright term separate from the original work. We therefore review MEK titles one by one and list only those we have confirmed are free to distribute.

These works are provided as-is; their availability may change over time, and we may remove a title if its rights status turns out to be unclear. Please respect the terms and trademarks associated with each source.

6. Acceptable use & social features

Readence includes social features. When you use them you agree to be respectful and lawful. In particular, you must not:

• harass, threaten, bully, or abuse other people;
• post illegal, infringing, hateful, or sexually exploitative content;
• impersonate others or misrepresent your affiliation;
• spam, scrape, or attempt to disrupt or break the service.

You can report other users from within the app once you have signed up for an account, and block them whether or not you have. We may remove content or suspend accounts that violate these terms.

7. Subscriptions & auto-renewal

Readence is free to use, supported by ads. Readence Plus is an optional subscription that removes ads: $2.99 per month or $19.99 per year, with a 7-day free trial on the annual plan. Subscriptions are sold and billed by Apple through your App Store account. Payment is charged at confirmation of purchase.

• The free trial converts automatically into a paid annual subscription when it ends, unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the end of the trial period.
• Subscriptions renew automatically unless you turn off auto-renewal at least 24 hours before the end of the current period.
• Your account is charged for renewal within 24 hours before the end of the current period, at the price disclosed at purchase.
• You can manage or cancel your subscription at any time in your App Store account settings. Deleting the app — or deleting your Readence account — does not cancel a subscription.

The prices above are the United States reference prices. The paywall in the app shows the authoritative price for your region, in your local currency and including any applicable taxes, as set by the App Store. Refunds are handled by Apple in accordance with the App Store’s policies.

8. Disclaimers

Readence is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that content will always be available.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Gere Lajos e.v. shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for any loss of data or profits, arising from your use of Readence. Nothing in these terms limits liability that cannot be limited under applicable law, including your mandatory statutory rights as a consumer.

10. Termination

You may stop using Readence at any time. You can delete your account from inside the app, on the Settings → Account → Delete account row; it erases the account together with the personal data attached to it (see section 9 of our Privacy Policy). If you would rather we did it for you, email hello@gerelajos.hu. Deleting your account does not cancel an active App Store subscription — cancel that in your App Store account settings, or it will continue to bill. We may suspend or terminate your access if you breach these terms or use the service unlawfully. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination (such as ownership, disclaimers, and limitation of liability) will continue to apply.

11. Changes to these terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the “last updated” date above and, where appropriate, notify you in the app. Continued use after changes take effect means you accept the updated terms.

12. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Hungary and the European Union. Mandatory consumer-protection rules of your country of residence continue to apply where relevant.

13. App Store (Apple) terms

Readence is distributed through the Apple App Store. The following terms apply to your use of the app obtained from the App Store and, for that purpose, prevail over anything in these Terms that conflicts with them.

• This agreement is with us, not Apple. These Terms are concluded between you and Gere Lajos e.v. only. Apple is not a party to them and is not responsible for Readence or its content.
• Scope of the licence. The licence granted in section 2 is a non-transferable licence to use Readence on any Apple-branded device that you own or control, as permitted by the Usage Rules in the Apple Media Services Terms of Service, including any sharing rules Apple makes available.
• Maintenance and support. We are solely responsible for providing maintenance and support for Readence. Apple has no obligation whatsoever to furnish any maintenance or support services.
• Warranty. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Apple has no warranty obligation with respect to Readence. If the app fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple and Apple will refund the purchase price of the app, if any; beyond that, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever. Any other claims, losses, liabilities, damages, costs, or expenses attributable to a failure to conform to a warranty are our responsibility.
• Product claims. We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claim relating to Readence, including product-liability claims, any claim that the app fails to conform to a legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer-protection or privacy law.
• Intellectual property claims. If a third party claims that Readence, or your possession and use of it, infringes their intellectual property rights, we — not Apple — are responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement, and discharge of that claim.
• Export and legal compliance. You represent and warrant that you are not located in a country that is subject to a U.S. Government embargo or that has been designated as a “terrorist supporting” country, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties. You must also comply with all applicable third-party terms of agreement when using Readence.
• Apple as third-party beneficiary. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and upon your acceptance Apple has the right — and is deemed to have accepted the right — to enforce these Terms against you as a third-party beneficiary.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms? Email hello@gerelajos.hu.