Terms of Service

1. Key terms

In these terms:

• HoloTalk or the service means the HoloTalk website, live sessions, uploaded-recording transcription, summaries, follow-up answers, emails and related features we provide.
• Account holder means a person who has created an account.
• Host means an account holder who creates, runs or schedules a session or uploads a recording.
• Attendee means a person who joins a session to read its captions, including on a projector or other shared screen, or who asks for a session's summary by email.
• Session means a live captioning session or an uploaded recording processed by HoloTalk.
• Your content means speech captured in your sessions, recordings and documents you upload, session titles, glossaries, questions you ask and other material you give us.
• Output means captions, transcripts, translations, summaries, answers, proposed glossary terms and other material HoloTalk generates from your content.
• Credits means the units in your account that pay for the service.
• Consumer has the meaning it has in the Australian Consumer Law.

2. Accepting these terms

2.1You accept these terms when you create an account (the registration form asks you to agree to them), when you accept them in the service after a change, or when you otherwise use HoloTalk. If you do not agree to them, please do not use HoloTalk.

2.2You must be at least 18 years old, or use HoloTalk with the permission and supervision of a parent or guardian who accepts these terms on your behalf.

2.3If you use HoloTalk for an organisation, such as your employer, a council, a school or a community group, you confirm that you are authorised to accept these terms on its behalf, and "you" includes that organisation.

2.4These terms are available in several languages. If a translation differs from the English version, the English version applies.

3. Your account

3.1You must register with an email address that is yours and keep your account details accurate.

3.2You must keep your password and sign-in links secure and not share them. If you think someone else has used your account, change your password and tell us promptly.

3.3You are responsible for activity under your account, except to the extent it results from our failure to take reasonable care to keep HoloTalk secure.

3.4An account is for one person, and you must not share it with anyone else. You must not create several accounts to receive a signup bonus or referral reward more than once.

3.5An account created automatically for an attendee who opens the link in a summary email has no password until its holder sets one. These terms apply to it in the same way.

4. The service

4.1HoloTalk transcribes speech captured by a host's microphone or contained in an uploaded recording, translates it into the languages the host chooses, shows captions on attendees' devices and shared screens, writes session summaries, emails them to the host and to attendees who ask for them where the host allows it, answers follow-up questions about a session, and proposes glossary terms from documents a host imports.

4.2To do this, your content is processed by the artificial intelligence, hosting, email and payment providers named in our Privacy Policy, some of which are located outside Australia.

4.3We may change, add or withdraw features to improve HoloTalk, to keep it secure, to respond to changes by our providers or to comply with the law. If a change would materially reduce a feature you pay for, we will tell you at least 30 days before it takes effect, except where an urgent change is needed for security or legal reasons, and clause 9.4 applies to plans paid for in advance.

5. Availability, providers and limits

5.1We provide HoloTalk with due care and skill. HoloTalk relies on the internet, on the devices and networks of hosts and attendees and on third-party providers, so it may at times be slow, interrupted or unavailable, for example during maintenance or when a provider fails. We do not offer a service level agreement or guarantee uninterrupted availability, except as clause 13 provides.

5.2To keep sessions running when a provider is unavailable, HoloTalk may automatically send a task to an alternative provider named in our Privacy Policy. The provider handling a task may therefore vary.

5.3HoloTalk applies limits to protect the service and its users, such as the length of a session, the number of sessions a host can run at once, the number of attendees a session admits and the number of requests in a period. The limits that apply to you are shown in the service or explained when you reach them.

5.4We may pause or limit live sessions, uploads or other processing where this is reasonably necessary to protect HoloTalk, its users or its providers, for example during a provider outage, when our daily processing capacity is reached, or to stop misuse. Time during which a live session is paused is not charged. We will show the reason in the service where we can.

5.5A host's speaker console keeps a limited amount of audio while its connection is down and sends it when the connection returns, and audio saved on the speaker's device during a longer outage is transcribed after the session ends. This reduces, but cannot remove, the risk of losing speech during network problems.

6. Credits

6.1Credits pay for what HoloTalk does: minutes of live captions and translation, transcribing uploaded recordings, translating transcripts, summaries and their translations, follow-up questions and glossary proposals. The prices in credits are shown in the service, including on the Account page.

6.2The rate for live captions depends on the attendee limit the host sets for a session (the most attendees it admits), which the host chooses and can change at any time. Each minute is charged at the highest limit in force during that minute, whether or not that many people attend.

6.3Before a session starts or a recording is uploaded, the service shows what it needs in credits. If your balance runs out during a live session, captions pause until you add credits; attendees stay connected. If your balance does not cover a summary when a session ends, we still produce the summary and charge only the credits you have, and your balance never goes below zero. A follow-up question is charged when it is asked and the credits are returned if no answer can be produced.

6.4You can obtain credits by buying a credit pack or a plan (clauses 8 and 9), from a signup bonus or referral reward (clause 11), by redeeming a gift card (clause 10), or from us by arrangement.

6.5Credits from credit packs, gift cards, signup bonuses, referral rewards and our grants do not expire while your account exists. A plan's monthly credits expire as clause 9.3 describes. A plan's monthly credits are used before your other credits.

6.6Credits have no cash value and cannot be transferred to another account, sold or exchanged for money, except as clause 12 provides or the law requires.

6.7We may remove credits that were added by mistake, or that were obtained in breach of these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, for example by creating several accounts or using disposable or alias email addresses to receive several bonuses or rewards. We will tell you if we do so and why.

6.8If you think credits were charged in error, please contact us. If we find an error, we will correct your balance.

7. Prices and payment

7.1Prices are in Australian dollars and are shown before you pay. Please check your order on the payment page before you confirm it. The amount shown at checkout is the total you pay.

7.2Where GST applies, the price shown includes it. While we are not registered for GST, no GST is charged and our receipts are not tax invoices; once we are registered, receipts for purchases from then on will be tax invoices.

7.3Payments are processed by Stripe. We do not see or store your card details. Your payments are listed on the Account page, each with its receipt where Stripe provides one, and you can ask us for proof of any purchase.

7.4We may change the prices of credit packs and plans, and the prices in credits of what the service does. A change applies only to purchases and work after it takes effect. It does not change credits already in your account, work already done or the price of a plan you already have, except as clause 9.5 provides.

8. Credit packs

8.1A credit pack is a one-off purchase. Its credits, including any bonus credits shown at purchase, are added to your account once the payment is confirmed, and they do not expire while your account exists.

9. Plans

9.1A plan is a subscription. It renews automatically at the end of each billing period (a month, a quarter or a year, as you choose) and is charged to your payment method until you cancel it.

9.2A plan adds its monthly credits each month, including when it is billed quarterly or yearly.

9.3Monthly credits you have not used carry over to the next month and then expire at the end of that month. Credits from other sources do not expire (clause 6.5).

9.4We will not reduce the monthly credits of a plan during a billing period you have already paid for.

9.5The price of your plan does not change while you keep it unless we give you at least 30 days' notice by email before the new price applies to your next billing period. You may cancel before then, and you will not be charged the new price.

9.6You can cancel your plan at any time online, from the Account page. The plan then ends at the end of the billing period already paid for and is not charged again. You keep your unused monthly credits until they expire under clause 9.3, and all other credits.

9.7If you switch to another plan, the new plan applies from your next payment. Switching between monthly, quarterly and yearly billing starts a new billing period straight away and is charged in full.

10. Gift cards

10.1A gift card is a code for a stated amount in Australian dollars, which adds the number of credits shown on the card when it is redeemed. It can be redeemed until the expiry date shown on it, which is at least three years after the card is issued.

10.2No fees are charged for a gift card after it is issued.

10.3A gift card can be redeemed by a verified account that has completed registration, once per account. A card issued for several redemptions can be redeemed by as many different accounts as it states.

10.4Credits added from a gift card do not expire while your account exists. A gift card cannot be exchanged for cash, except where the law requires.

10.5Please keep your gift card code safe. We store only a fingerprint of each code and cannot recover a code that is lost.

11. Signup bonus and referral rewards

11.1A signup bonus is given once per person and once per mailbox after the email address is verified and registration is complete (a username, a password and these terms accepted). Variants of an address that reach the same mailbox, such as a "+tag" or dots in a Gmail address, count as one mailbox. Addresses at disposable or mail-forwarding (alias) services do not receive a bonus.

11.2A referral reward is given to both accounts when someone new to HoloTalk registers with your invite code or link and both accounts are verified and have completed registration. It is given once per mailbox of the new account, never for an account of your own or for a mailbox that already had an account, and within daily limits; a reward over a limit is added on a later day.

11.3The amounts of the signup bonus and the referral reward are shown when you register and on the Account page. We may change or stop bonuses and rewards for registrations after the change. A change does not affect credits already added.

12. Refunds and cancellation

12.1Your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, including to a refund for a major failure, are set out in clause 13 and are not limited by this clause.

12.2Apart from those rights, we do not give refunds if you change your mind about a purchase, including for unused credits.

12.3If we charged you in error, we will refund the amount charged in error.

12.4We will refund the price of the purchased credits left unused in your account and, for a plan billed in advance, the price of the remaining part of the billing period in proportion to the time left, if:

1. (a)we close your account or stop providing HoloTalk other than because of your breach of these terms (clause 18.3); or
2. (b)you close your account because you do not accept a change to these terms that is materially adverse to you (clause 21.3).

If you cancel your plan because you do not accept a price increase notified under clause 9.5, the new price is never charged and the period already paid for continues until it ends.

12.5Refunds are made to the payment method used for the purchase.

12.6If a payment is refunded or reversed, for example disputed with your bank, the credits it bought that you have not used are removed, in proportion to the amount refunded or reversed. If the payment was for a plan, the monthly credits it would still have added in later months are not given.

12.7To ask for a refund, or about a charge, contact us using the details in clause 25.

13. Australian Consumer Law

13.1Our services come with guarantees that cannot be excluded under the Australian Consumer Law. For major failures with the service, you are entitled: to cancel your service contract with us; and to a refund for the unused portion, or to compensation for its reduced value. You are also entitled to be compensated for any other reasonably foreseeable loss or damage. If the failure does not amount to a major failure you are entitled to have problems with the service rectified in a reasonable time and, if this is not done, to cancel your contract and obtain a refund for the unused portion of the contract.

13.2Nothing in these terms excludes, restricts or modifies any consumer guarantee, right or remedy you have under the Australian Consumer Law or any other law that cannot be excluded, restricted or modified.

14. Hosts' responsibilities

14.1Before a session starts, and before you upload a recording, you must tell everyone whose speech may be captured that what they say will be transcribed, translated and may be summarised using artificial intelligence services, some of them outside Australia, and obtain any consent the law requires, including under the surveillance devices, listening devices and privacy laws of the Australian states and territories. The Acceptable Use Policy includes a notice you can use.

14.2You are responsible for your sessions: for their content, for who you share a join code, invitation link or projector link with, for the addresses you ask us to send invitations to, and for whether attendees may ask for the session's summary by email. You must share a session's transcript, translations and summary only with people who took part in it, or as the Acceptable Use Policy otherwise allows.

14.3You must only ask us to email invitations to people you are entitled to contact about your session.

14.4You must not represent output to others as human, accredited or certified interpreting, translation or captioning, and you must not use HoloTalk as the only means of communication where an error could put anyone's health, safety, legal rights or access to essential services at risk (clause 15).

15. Automatically generated output

15.1Output is generated automatically by artificial intelligence. Although we take care in how HoloTalk works, output can be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed or out of context, for example when speech is unclear, names are unusual, several people speak at once or the audio is poor. A glossary of names and terms improves, but does not guarantee, how they are recognised and translated.

15.2Please check important output before you rely on it. Do not rely on output alone for medical, legal, financial, safety-related or other decisions where an error could cause harm. Where accuracy is critical, use a qualified interpreter, translator or captioner.

15.3Output is not reviewed by a person before it is shown, and it does not represent our views.

16. Your content and output

16.1You keep any rights you have in your content. As between you and us, you may use output made for you for any lawful purpose.

16.2You grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, copy, transcribe, translate, summarise and otherwise process your content and output, and to send them to the providers named in our Privacy Policy and to the people you choose to share them with, only to provide HoloTalk to you, to support you, to keep HoloTalk secure, to prevent misuse and to comply with the law. The licence ends when the content is deleted, except for copies we must keep by law.

16.3We do not use your content or output to train artificial intelligence models, and we do not sell it.

16.4You confirm that you have the rights and consents needed for us to process your content as these terms describe.

16.5How long content is kept, and how to have it deleted, is explained in our Privacy Policy. A host can delete a session and its content at any time.

16.6If you send us feedback or suggestions, we may use them without obligation to you.

17. Our intellectual property

17.1HoloTalk, its software, design and text, and the HoloTalk name and marks, are owned by us or our licensors. The Holodata name and marks belong to Holodata.

17.2We grant you a non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to use HoloTalk in accordance with these terms while your account is open, or while you take part in a session. You must not copy, modify or reverse engineer HoloTalk except as the law permits.

18. Suspending or closing an account

18.1You can stop using HoloTalk at any time. To close your account and have its data deleted, contact us; you must first cancel any active plan. Credits left in an account cannot be used once it is closed, and clause 12 applies.

18.2We may suspend or close your account, or end your access to a session, if we reasonably believe that:

1. (a)you have materially breached these terms or the Acceptable Use Policy, or repeatedly breached them;
2. (b)your account is being used for fraud, to obtain credits by deception or for other unlawful activity;
3. (c)continuing would expose any person, HoloTalk or our providers to a risk of harm or legal liability; or
4. (d)the law or a regulator requires it.

Where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you before we act, give our reasons and give you an opportunity to respond or to fix the problem. We may suspend access without prior notice where there is an urgent risk of harm or a legal requirement.

18.3We may stop providing HoloTalk, or close accounts generally, by giving at least 30 days' notice by email. Clause 12.4(a) then applies.

18.4If we close your account under clause 18.2, credits obtained in breach of these terms are removed (clause 6.7). We will refund the price of your other unused purchased credits, less any amount you owe us.

18.5Clauses 6.6, 12, 13, 16, 17, 19, 20, 23 and 24 continue after your account is closed.

19. Liability

19.1Clause 13 and this clause 19 must be read together. Nothing in this clause limits liability that the law does not allow to be limited, including under the consumer guarantees, or our liability for fraud, wilful misconduct, or death or personal injury caused by our negligence.

19.2If the service is not of a kind ordinarily acquired for personal, domestic or household use, our liability for a failure to comply with a consumer guarantee is limited, where the law allows, to supplying the service again or paying the cost of having it supplied again.

19.3Subject to clauses 19.1 and 19.2, we are not liable for loss that was not reasonably foreseeable, and our liability for any loss is reduced to the extent that it was caused or contributed to by your breach of these terms, your negligence, or the acts or omissions of your attendees.

19.4Subject to clauses 19.1 to 19.3, if you use HoloTalk for a business or an organisation, our total liability to you in connection with HoloTalk is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim, and we are not liable to you for lost profits, lost revenue or lost business opportunity.

20. Indemnity

20.1If you use HoloTalk for a business or an organisation, you indemnify us against loss, liability and reasonable costs we incur because of a claim by a third party arising from your breach of clause 14.1 (notice and consent) or of clause 3 of the Acceptable Use Policy (content).

20.2Your liability under clause 20.1 is reduced to the extent the loss was caused or contributed to by our breach of these terms, our negligence or our wilful misconduct.

21. Changes to these terms

21.1We may change these terms for one or more of the following reasons: to reflect a change in the law or a regulator's guidance, to reflect a change to HoloTalk or to our providers, to address a security or misuse risk, to make the terms clearer, or to reflect a change in prices made under clause 7.4.

21.2We will publish the updated terms with the date they take effect. If a change is materially adverse to you, we will tell you by email and in the service at least 30 days before it takes effect, and ask you to accept it before you next host or buy. Other changes take effect when they are published.

21.3If you do not accept a change that is materially adverse to you, you may close your account before it takes effect and clause 12.4(b) applies.

22. Events beyond our reasonable control

We are not liable for a delay or failure to perform caused by events beyond our reasonable control, such as a widespread failure of the internet, power or a cloud provider, a natural disaster, or an act of government, provided we take reasonable steps to limit the effect, including switching to alternative providers where available. This clause does not limit your rights under clause 13.

23. Complaints and disputes

23.1If you have a complaint, please contact us first (clause 25). We will acknowledge it within 2 business days and aim to respond within 10 business days, or tell you why we need longer.

23.2This clause does not limit your right to contact a consumer protection agency or the Office of the Australian Information Commissioner, or to take a claim to a court or tribunal, including a tribunal in your state or territory.

24. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws in force in New South Wales, Australia. The courts of New South Wales and the federal courts of Australia have non-exclusive jurisdiction over disputes about these terms or HoloTalk.

25. Contact and notices

25.1Contact us at:

25.2We send notices under these terms to the email address of your account and may also show them in the service. You agree to receive notices and other communications from us electronically.

26. General

26.1If any part of these terms is invalid or unenforceable, that part is read down or severed to the extent necessary, and the rest of the terms continue to apply.

26.2If we do not enforce a right under these terms, we have not waived it.

26.3You may not transfer your rights under these terms without our written consent. We may transfer our rights and obligations to a person who takes over the operation of HoloTalk, if we tell you and your rights under these terms are not reduced.

26.4These terms and the Acceptable Use Policy are the whole agreement between you and us about HoloTalk. This does not limit any right you have under the law in relation to statements made before you entered into it.

26.5Headings and examples are for convenience and do not limit the clauses they appear in.