Terms of Use

1. What Aravien is

Aravien is an editorial cross-media discovery service. It organises film, television, anime, literature, music, and essays into pathways, regional lenses, and adjacency routes; it presents editorial commentary, curated recommendations, and — where relevant — suggestions of real-world places that extend a cultural thread. Aravien is informational. It is not a marketplace, a streaming service, a ticketing platform, or a professional advisor.

Editorial text, ranking logic, rationales, and pathway structures are authored or generated by Aravien. Factual metadata about specific works, creators, and places is sourced from third parties (including Wikidata, MusicBrainz, OpenLibrary, TVMaze, Google Places, and others). Where a recommendation links to a third-party page or service, that page or service is operated by a third party under its own terms.

2. Who may use the service

To use Aravien you must be able to form a binding contract under the law of your jurisdiction and must not be barred from using the service under the law of any jurisdiction that applies to you. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction, you may use Aravien only with the consent and supervision of a parent or legal guardian who accepts these Terms on your behalf. You may not use Aravien if access to it has been previously suspended or terminated by us.

Certain features — for example, saving items to your personal shelf — are only available to signed-in members. Other features are available to anonymous visitors. We may limit, change, or withdraw any feature at any time.

3. Accounts and security

Aravien accounts are created through Google sign-in. By signing in you authorise us to receive the profile information Google shares for that purpose (typically your email, name, and avatar). For a fuller description of what we receive and store, see our Privacy Policy. Your use of Google sign-in is also governed by Google’s terms and privacy policy.

You are responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. You agree to: (a) keep your Google credentials secure; (b) not share access to your Aravien session with anyone; and (c) promptly notify us at [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL] if you suspect unauthorised access. We may suspend or revoke sessions and require re-authentication at any time.

You may close your account at any time. On closure, we will delete or anonymise your account-bound data (including shelf contents) in accordance with our data-retention practices and applicable law, except where we are required or permitted to retain specific records.

4. Acceptable use

When using Aravien you agree not to, and not to attempt to:

• use the service in violation of any applicable law, regulation, court order, or the intellectual-property or privacy rights of any person;
• interfere with, disrupt, probe, or impair the service, its infrastructure, rate limits, security features, or the experience of other users;
• scrape, harvest, or systematically extract the editorial content, ranking signals, rationales, pathway structures, or catalog in bulk, whether manually or by automated means, except via a documented interface we expressly make available and within its documented limits;
• reverse-engineer, decompile, or attempt to derive the source code, ranking weights, thresholds, or internal scoring of the service, except to the extent that such restriction is prohibited by applicable law;
• misrepresent your identity, impersonate another person, or fabricate signals intended to manipulate editorial or ranking outputs;
• use the service to generate, train, or fine-tune a competing model or dataset without our prior written permission;
• use the service to transmit malware, spam, or any content that is unlawful, defamatory, harassing, or that infringes the rights of others; or
• circumvent, disable, or otherwise interfere with security-related features of the service, or features that enforce limitations on use.

We may investigate suspected violations and cooperate with law enforcement as we deem appropriate.

5. Intellectual property

The Aravien service, including its editorial text, rationales, pathway structures, ranking and adjacency outputs, trade dress, design system, logos, and software, is owned by [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] or its licensors and is protected by copyright, trademark, and other intellectual-property laws. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the service for your own non-commercial, personal informational use.

No rights are granted by implication. All rights not expressly granted are reserved. Names, titles, cover art, posters, screenshots, and other marks that belong to third parties are used for identification and editorial commentary and remain the property of their respective owners.

6. Your shelf and member content

Aravien provides a private shelf surface on which signed-in members can save references to works, pathways, regions, and essays, and store their own short notes. Items saved to a shelf and notes you create are intended to be visible only to the member who created them. Aravien does not currently operate public profiles, public comment threads, reviews, uploads, or any other feature that broadcasts member content to other members or to the general public.

For the notes, tags, and similar member-generated text that you create (“Member Content”), you retain ownership. You grant [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, transmit, back up, display to you, and operate your Member Content for the sole purpose of providing the service to you. You represent and warrant that you have the right to grant this licence and that your Member Content does not infringe the rights of any third party.

If Aravien adds any feature that publishes Member Content beyond the person who created it, those features will be introduced with additional terms specific to publication, and participation in those features will be opt-in.

You are responsible for your Member Content. We are not obliged to monitor Member Content, but we reserve the right to remove or disable access to any Member Content that we reasonably believe violates these Terms, applicable law, or the rights of others.

7. Editorial voice and accuracy

Aravien publishes editorial commentary, cultural claims, adjacency relationships, and recommendations. This content reflects editorial interpretation and opinion. It is provided for informational and cultural-discovery purposes and should not be read as a statement of fact, a professional recommendation, or an endorsement by any third party. Where a cultural or regional claim is qualified in the interface (for example, marked as “qualified” or accompanied by a provenance note), that qualification is a load-bearing part of the claim.

We make reasonable efforts to keep factual metadata accurate, but we cannot guarantee that every date, credit, location, language tag, or descriptor is complete or current. If you believe a specific claim is inaccurate, please contact us at [LEGAL CONTACT EMAIL].

8. Third-party content, services, and links

Aravien incorporates and links to third-party services and datasets. These include, without limitation: Google (for sign-in and for the Google Places and Google Maps services), YouTube (for trailer previews), Wikidata, MusicBrainz, OpenLibrary, TVMaze, Cover Art Archive, and Wikipedia. When you interact with embedded third-party media or click an external link, you leave the Aravien environment or are served content hosted by a third party under its own terms and privacy practices.

We do not control third-party services and do not endorse their content. We are not responsible for the availability, accuracy, quality, or terms of any third-party content, page, dataset, or service. Your use of such third-party services is at your own risk and subject to the terms of those services.

Metadata sourced from open-licensed catalogs is used in accordance with each catalog’s licence terms. Attribution and provenance are provided where required.

9. Real-world place recommendations

Some Aravien surfaces recommend real-world places (for example, a cinema, a bookshop, a live-music venue, a cultural institution, or a restaurant) that extend the cultural context of a work, pathway, or region. These recommendations are provided for informational and editorial purposes only. They are not endorsements, are not paid placements, and are not guarantees that a venue is open, safe, accessible, lawful to enter, or fit for any particular purpose.

Place data is supplied by Google Places and may be incomplete or out of date. If a real-world recommendation depends on your approximate location, that location is transmitted to our service only for the duration of that request and is not stored with your account; see our Privacy Policy for how the nearby flow handles location, and note that your use of Google’s services in this flow is also governed by Google’s own terms and privacy policy. You are solely responsible for your own travel, safety, health, and compliance with local law.

10. Moderation, suspension, and termination

We may, at our sole discretion and without liability to you: (a) investigate any suspected violation of these Terms; (b) remove or disable access to any content we reasonably believe violates these Terms, applicable law, or the rights of others; (c) suspend, rate-limit, or terminate your access or your account with or without notice; and (d) decline to provide the service to any person or in any jurisdiction. Grounds for suspension or termination include, without limitation, breach of these Terms, suspected fraud, repeated infringement of intellectual-property rights, abuse of the service, and risk to Aravien or other users.

On termination, your licence to use the service ends and we may delete or retain your account-bound data as permitted or required by law and our retention practices. Sections that by their nature should survive termination (including Sections 5, 6, 12–17) survive.

11. Copyright and DMCA

Aravien respects the intellectual-property rights of others and complies with applicable copyright law, including the U.S. Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If you believe content on Aravien infringes your copyright, please follow the process set out in our Copyright / DMCA Policy. That policy is incorporated into these Terms by reference. We will terminate the accounts of repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances.

12. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE.” TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] AND ITS AFFILIATES, LICENSORS, AND SUPPLIERS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, TITLE, ACCURACY, AND QUIET ENJOYMENT.

We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, secure, or error-free; that editorial content is accurate, complete, or current; that rankings, recommendations, or adjacencies are suitable for any purpose; that third-party data or embeds will remain available; or that any real-world place still operates, is lawful to visit, or is safe for you specifically. Nothing in these Terms excludes any warranty that cannot lawfully be excluded.

13. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL [LEGAL ENTITY NAME], ITS AFFILIATES, OR ITS LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS, WHETHER BASED ON CONTRACT, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), STRICT LIABILITY, OR ANY OTHER THEORY, AND WHETHER OR NOT WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.

OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SERVICE OR THESE TERMS WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US FOR THE SERVICE IN THE TWELVE (12) MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM, OR (B) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (USD 100.00).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain exclusions or limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. In that case, our liability is limited to the smallest extent permitted by applicable law.

14. Indemnification

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] and its officers, directors, employees, contractors, and agents from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable attorneys’ fees) arising out of or relating to (a) your use of or access to the service; (b) your violation of these Terms; (c) your Member Content; or (d) your violation of any third-party right, including any intellectual-property or privacy right. We may assume exclusive defence and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defence.

15. Changes to the Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will revise the “Last updated” date at the top of this page. If a change is material, we will take reasonable steps to notify signed-in members (for example, by email to the address associated with your Google sign-in or by in-product notice). Changes take effect when posted unless we indicate otherwise. Your continued use of the service after the changes take effect constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms.

16. Governing law and venue

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or the service are governed by the laws of [GOVERNING LAW], without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You and we each agree to submit to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts located in [VENUE] for the resolution of any such dispute, except that we may seek injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, any claim must be brought in an individual capacity and not as a plaintiff or class member in a purported class or representative proceeding.

17. Miscellaneous

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, the Copyright / DMCA Policy, and any other policy referenced in the service, are the entire agreement between you and us about the service and supersede any prior agreement on that subject. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our prior written consent; we may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets. Nothing in these Terms creates an agency, partnership, joint venture, or employment relationship.

18. Contact

Legal notices to [LEGAL ENTITY NAME] should be sent to:

Copyright notices must additionally follow the process in our Copyright / DMCA Policy.