Terms of Use

1. Provider and contact

The provider of the app, and your contractual partner, is:

This address is also the single point of contact under Articles 11 and 12 of Regulation (EU) 2022/2065 on digital services (the Digital Services Act, DSA) — for users as well as for the authorities of the Member States, the European Commission and the European Board for Digital Services. You can write in German or English. Every message is read and answered by a person; none of it is automated.

2. Scope and contract

2.1 What these terms cover

These terms apply to using the app with all its features, including the online ones: the backup of your profile on the server, the Community, and the "Request a New Feature / Report a Bug" form. What data this involves is set out in the privacy policy; it is not part of these terms.

2.2 How the contract is formed

The contract of use between you and the provider is formed when you agree to these terms in the app; until then you can back out at any time. The contract language is German, and this English version is a translation. The provider does not keep a copy of the contract text for you individually, but the version in force is always on this page, where you can save or print it. The provider has not signed up to any code of conduct.

2.3 Cost

The app contains no in-app purchases and no advertising, and you pay nothing for its online features. The provider processes the data you enter in order to provide the app and its features to you; that data is not sold and not used for advertising. If the app is paid on the App Store, you buy it from Apple, and that purchase — including any right of withdrawal — is governed by Apple's terms. The cost of your internet connection is yours.

2.4 Requirements and age

You need an iPhone running the iOS version stated on the App Store, and an internet connection for the online features. If you are a minor, you need the consent of your parents or other guardians to use the app. If you are under 16, you may not set a username or a profile picture, or publish exercises, without their consent (see section 9 of the privacy policy).

2.5 Apple and the App Store

You get the app from the App Store. Your right to use it on your devices comes from Apple's Licensed Application End User License Agreement (the "Standard EULA"); these terms supplement it. Where the Standard EULA excludes warranty or liability further than section 9 does, section 9 applies between you and the provider. Apple is not a party to these terms and is not responsible for the app, its content or its maintenance.

3. What the app does

3.1 A practice aid

The app plays singing exercises, shows you through the microphone which note you are singing, scores your runs, and lets you write your own exercises, adjust them and swap them with others in the Community.

It works out scores, your skill level and the exercises' difficulty ratings automatically. These are pointers, not verdicts: how accurately pitch is detected depends on the device, the microphone and the surroundings. The app does not promise any particular progress.

The app is no substitute for singing lessons, or for advice from a doctor or a speech therapist. Stop if singing hurts, and have it checked by a doctor if your voice stays hoarse or painful.

3.2 Availability

The online features depend on a server (privacy policy, section 4). The provider aims to keep them running without interruption but cannot promise that at all times — for instance during maintenance, when the server's operator has a fault, or in events beyond the provider's control. What the app can do without the server is unaffected.

3.3 Further development

The provider may change the app through updates where there is a valid reason — such as new features, new iOS versions, security, a change in the law or requirements set by Apple — provided this costs you nothing and you are told about the change clearly. If a change restricts your access to the app, or its usability, more than insignificantly, it is announced in advance, and you may then terminate the contract within 30 days. Any duty the law places on the provider to supply updates remains unaffected.

4. Device identifier and backup

The app works without an account. It recognises your device by a randomly generated identifier in your iPhone's Keychain and keeps a backup of your profile on the server under that identifier; there is no password (privacy policy, sections 2.1, 2.2 and 7).

The backup is meant to save your work across a reinstall. Whether it does also depends on your device keeping the identifier — when you move to a new iPhone, for instance, that is not guaranteed. So it is best to also back up the exercises that matter to you, with "Settings ▸ Backup ▸ Export Exercises".

5. The Community

5.1 What is public

Everyone who uses the app can see in the Community:

• your username, your profile text, your profile picture and — if you switch it on — the date you joined;
• every exercise whose visibility you set to "Public", with its name, description, notes and syllables, your username and the time it was published;
• how often a public exercise has been liked, downloaded and sung, and the difficulty rating the server works out from everyone's scores.

5.2 What others can do with your exercises

Others can sing your public exercises, download them into their own library, change them there, export them and publish them again themselves — then under their name, not yours. If you set an exercise back to "Private" or delete it, it disappears from the Community. Copies that others have already downloaded stay in their app, however, and the rights to them under section 6.3 continue.

5.3 Technical rules

• Each username can be taken only once. If you reset yours, it becomes free for others.
• A public exercise has to last at least 10 seconds, counting all its repetitions, and no two of your public exercises may have the same name.
• The exercises that come with the app cannot be published.

5.4 Order and suggestions

The order in which the Community lists exercises is set by the sort order you pick there. "New for You" on the Home tab suggests popular public exercises that suit your skill level. Content is removed or restricted only under sections 7 and 8.

6. Rights in content

6.1 Your content stays yours

You keep whatever rights you have in your username, profile text, profile picture and exercises. You grant only the rights of use below, each of them non-exclusive and free of charge.

6.2 To the provider

So that the Community can work, the provider may store everything you publish, reproduce it, make it available to the public in the app and adapt it technically for that purpose — for instance by scaling images down or creating previews — worldwide, and also through service providers such as the server's operator. This right ends as soon as you delete the content, set the exercise back to "Private" or reset your profile. Copies that others have downloaded under 6.3, however, the provider may go on storing for those people and keeping in their backups.

6.3 To everyone who uses the app

For every exercise you make public, you grant everyone who uses the app the right, unlimited in time and place, to download it, sing it, change it, export it and share it — changed or unchanged — with others who use the app, including through the Community. Your name does not have to be given when they do. Others get no rights in your profile; they can only view it in the app.

6.4 Only what you may publish

Only publish what you hold the necessary rights to. In the EU, melodies and lyrics are protected until 70 years after their authors' death, so rebuilding a well-known song as an exercise and sharing it can infringe someone else's rights. As a profile picture, use only an image you are allowed to use, and show other people in it only with their consent.

If you culpably infringe third-party rights with content you have published, you indemnify the provider against those parties' justified claims, including reasonable costs of legal defence.

6.5 The provider's content

The exercises, texts, sounds and graphics that come with the app are protected; you may use them in the app and adapt them for yourself. Some of the Book Lessons are based on articles from Wikipedia and Wikibooks and are then, as stated under each lesson, licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0; texts by the U.S. National Institute on Deafness and Other Communication Disorders are in the public domain. Those texts are governed by their respective licences.

7. Rules of conduct: zero tolerance

The Community is meant to be a place where everyone dares to sing. That is why there is zero tolerance for objectionable content and for attacks on others: whoever posts such things is excluded from the Community (section 8.3).

Not allowed — in usernames, profile texts, profile pictures, exercise names, descriptions and syllables:

• anything illegal, such as insults, defamation, threats, incitement to hatred, symbols of unconstitutional organisations or calls to commit crimes;
• pornographic, sexually suggestive or otherwise unsuitable content for children and young people — and, without exception, anything that sexualises minors;
• hate against people because of their origin, skin colour, religion, beliefs, disability, age, sex or sexual identity, and the glorification of violence;
• harassing, bullying, exposing or intimidating others, and publishing other people's personal data without their consent;
• posing as another person, as the provider or as an official part of the app;
• content that infringes other people's copyright, trademarks or personality rights;
• advertising, spam and referrals to other offers.

Also not allowed:

• accessing, changing or deleting other people's backups, profiles or exercises;
• talking to the server other than through the app, fetching or posting content automatically, or manipulating likes, downloads, runs or scores;
• disrupting the service, for instance with mass requests or harmful data.

8. Reports and moderation

8.1 Reporting

If you come across content in the Community that breaks these terms or is illegal, report it. Anyone can report, including people who do not use the app:

• in the app under "Settings ▸ Request a New Feature / Report a Bug" — with "Feedback" as the type and "Community" under "Where in the app" — or
• by e-mail to contact@you-can-sing.net.

Give the username and, if it concerns an exercise, the exercise's name. Describe what breaks the rules and — if you consider the content illegal — why. Give your name and e-mail address, and confirm that your information is accurate and complete to the best of your knowledge. Without an e-mail address your report is handled just the same; you simply get no reply. Reports of depictions of child sexual abuse need no name or e-mail address.

8.2 Review

If you gave an e-mail address, the provider confirms receipt. The provider reviews every report personally, carefully and impartially: reports of objectionable content or abusive behaviour within 24 hours, all others — for instance about copyright — without undue delay. Where you can be reached, you are then told the decision and how you can challenge it. Decisions on individual content are always made by a person; no automated moderation tools are used at present.

8.3 Measures

If content is illegal or breaks these terms, the provider may

• remove it or hide it from others,
• reset a username, a profile text or a profile picture,
• exclude the public identifier under which the content was published from the Community, temporarily or permanently. The profile and all exercises published under that identifier are then removed, and nothing more can be published under it.

Which measure is taken depends on how serious the breach is, whether it was intentional and whether it has happened before. Whoever posts objectionable content or attacks others is excluded. For a lesser breach, such as an exercise name that is unsuitable by mistake, removing the content may be enough. If content suggests a criminal offence that threatens people's life or safety, the provider informs the law enforcement authorities.

8.4 Reasons and objections

If a measure is taken against your content, you are told the reasons where the provider can reach you — and since the app has no accounts, that is often not the case. You can therefore always ask by e-mail whether, and why, a measure was taken.

If you believe a measure, or the decision on your report, was wrong, you can object by e-mail within six months. The provider then reviews the matter again and reverses an unjustified measure as far as possible. You may go to court regardless.

9. Warranty and liability

The statutory rules apply to defects in the app.

The provider is liable without limitation for intent and gross negligence, for injury to life, body or health, under the German Product Liability Act, and where a guarantee has been given.

For slight negligence, the provider is liable only for the breach of an essential contractual obligation — one whose fulfilment makes the proper performance of the contract possible in the first place and on which you may regularly rely — and then only for the foreseeable damage typical of the contract. Beyond that, liability for slight negligence is excluded. These limitations also benefit the people the provider engages to perform the contract.

The provider does not adopt other users' content as the provider's own; whoever published it is responsible for it.

10. Term and termination

The contract runs for an indefinite period. You can terminate it at any time without notice, for instance by e-mail; if you simply stop using the app, you have no further obligations.

Keep in mind: deleting only the app leaves your backup and your public content on the server. Remove them first with "Settings ▸ Reset ▸ Delete Everything" — section 10 of the privacy policy describes exactly what that deletes.

The provider can terminate the contract with four weeks' notice, for instance when the online features are discontinued; you are told so in the app. Both sides keep the right to terminate without notice for good cause. For the provider, good cause includes in particular a serious or repeated breach of section 7.

11. Changes to these terms

The provider may change these terms for the future where there is an objective reason — such as new features, a change in the law or requirements set by Apple. You are told about significant changes in the app before they take effect, and asked for your consent. If you do not consent, the previous terms continue to apply to you; the provider may then terminate the contract under section 10. Changes that do not put you at a disadvantage, such as clarifications of wording, apply without consent. The date at the top shows when this page was last changed.

12. Final provisions

German law applies. If you use the app as a consumer and your habitual residence is in another country, you keep the protection that the mandatory provisions of that country's law give you.

The provider is neither willing nor obliged to take part in dispute resolution proceedings before a consumer arbitration board.

If a provision of these terms is invalid, the rest of the contract remains valid; the statutory provisions take the place of the invalid one.

The provider details required under § 5 DDG are in the Impressum.