Terms of Service

Agreement

By using any Forester service you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you use a service on behalf of an organisation, you agree for that organisation and confirm you are allowed to. If you do not agree, do not use the services.

You must be at least 13 years old, or the minimum age to consent to online services where you live if that is higher (16 in parts of the EU). Paid plans and running a node require you to be an adult able to enter a contract.

The services

Forester Share lets you send files with a link. Files travel directly between devices when they can (peer to peer over WebRTC) and are otherwise stored temporarily on our relay and storage network so the link keeps working after you close your browser.

Pro Vault is a paid plan for keeping files long term within a storage quota.

The storage mesh is made of storage nodes: computers run by Forester and by members of the community, which hold encrypted pieces of stored files. Our servers coordinate the mesh, check that nodes really hold what they claim, and keep extra copies when a node goes away.

The services are in active development and offered as a beta. Features can change, and some may be limited or unavailable at times.

Accounts

You can send and receive files without an account. Signing in (currently with Google) is needed for Pro Vault, API keys, the Dashboard and linking a storage node. You are responsible for activity under your account and your API keys. Keep them secret and tell us promptly if you think one has been misused.

Your content

You keep all rights to the files you upload. You give us a limited licence to store, copy, encrypt, split, transmit and display them only as needed to run the services for you and the people you share them with, including storing encrypted pieces on storage nodes. This licence ends when the files are deleted, except for copies we must keep briefly to complete a deletion or meet a legal obligation.

You are responsible for what you upload and share, and for having the right to share it. Anyone with a share link, and its password if you set one, can download what it points to.

Acceptable use

Do not use any Forester service to:

• share child sexual abuse material or any content that sexualises minors. We report it to the relevant authorities.
• infringe anyone's copyright, trademark or other rights.
• distribute malware, phishing pages or anything designed to harm devices or deceive people.
• share content that is illegal where you or your recipients are, including non-consensual intimate imagery and material that incites violence.
• harass, threaten or dox anyone.
• attack, overload, probe or reverse engineer the services or other users, or get around limits, quotas, payments or security.
• run a node that misreports what it stores, tampers with data, or tries to read data it holds.
• resell or operate the services as part of your own product at scale without our written permission (normal use of the public API is fine).

Reports and takedowns

Every share page has a Report this share link. If you believe something shared through Forester is illegal or infringes your rights, use it or email [email protected] with the share link, what is wrong, and how to reach you. Copyright notices should also identify the work, state that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorised, state that the notice is accurate, and be signed by the owner or someone authorised to act for them.

A report of child sexual abuse material blocks the share immediately while we review it. We may remove or block content, disable links and suspend accounts that we believe break these terms or the law, with or without notice. Where it is lawful and practical we tell the uploader, who can reply if they think we made a mistake.

Storage and availability

Free shares are temporary. Unless you choose otherwise when sharing, files are kept for 72 hours (up to 7 days where offered) and then deleted automatically. Peer-to-peer transfers only work while the sender's browser is open.

We work to keep stored files safe, including keeping more than one copy where the network allows, but no storage is perfect. Do not use Forester as the only copy of anything you cannot afford to lose. Keep your own backups.

We do not promise that any service will be available at any particular time or without interruption. Current status is published at share.forester.dev/status.

Pro Vault and payments

Pro Vault is billed in advance, monthly or yearly, through our payment processor Stripe. Prices are live: they move with how full the storage network is, and the price and quota are shown before you pay. The price you subscribe at is fixed for the first 12 months, whatever the live price does. After that, your price at each renewal may follow the live price at the time, but it will never be more than 10% higher than what you paid for the previous 12 months. If the live price is lower, your price goes down with it. We will tell you at least 30 days before any increase takes effect, and you can cancel before it does. Subscriptions renew automatically until cancelled. You can cancel at any time, and access continues until the end of the period you have paid for.

Free trial

Accounts that have never had a Pro Vault subscription can start one with a free trial of the length shown at checkout, one trial per person. Checkout asks for a payment card but charges nothing at the start. When the trial ends, the subscription continues at the locked price and the first payment is taken, unless you cancel before the trial ends. Cancelling during the trial costs nothing. We may refuse or end trials that we believe are being misused, for example through multiple accounts.

If a payment fails, you have a 7 day grace period. During it your files stay available to download but new uploads are paused. If payment is still outstanding after the grace period, or a payment is disputed or reversed, the subscription is suspended.

After a subscription ends or is suspended, we keep your stored files for at least 30 days so you can download them or renew. After that we may delete them.

Payments are not refundable except where the law requires it or we agree otherwise. Prices include or exclude tax as shown at checkout.

Running a node

Anyone may run the Forester storage node software and link it to their account. If you do:

• you must own the computer and disk, or have permission to use them, and your internet provider's terms must allow it.
• your node stores encrypted pieces of other people's files. You cannot read them and must not try to. You are not given, and must not seek, any knowledge of what they contain.
• your node answers storage checks automatically. A node that fails checks, misreports its storage or goes offline for long periods may lose data placed on it, stop receiving data, or be unlinked.
• the software updates itself with releases signed by Forester unless you turn automatic updates off. You can always update from the Dashboard.
• you control how much space you lend and can stop at any time. Data on a node that leaves is copied elsewhere from other copies.

Earnings

Nodes may earn a share of Pro Vault revenue as described on the Dashboard at the time. Earnings first mature for 30 days, the window in which customer refunds and disputes can occur. Earnings tied to a refunded or disputed payment are reversed. Earnings are paid out only when payouts are available for your account and country. Until then they accrue to your balance. Earnings are not wages, and you are responsible for any tax on them. We do not guarantee any level of earnings, and the way they are calculated may change for future periods.

The API

You may use the public API with your own API keys within the rate limits we set. Do not share keys publicly. We may change or retire endpoints, and we try to give notice before breaking changes.

Suspension and ending

You can stop using the services at any time and can delete your shares. We may suspend or end your access if you break these terms, if we must do so by law, or if continuing would create risk or harm for others. We may also discontinue a service. Where we discontinue a paid service, we give reasonable notice and a chance to download your files.

Disclaimers

The services are provided "as is" and "as available". To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including fitness for a particular purpose, merchantability, non-infringement and that the services will be uninterrupted, secure or error free, or that data will never be lost. Nothing in these terms limits rights you have under consumer law that cannot be limited.

Limits of liability

To the fullest extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data or goodwill, arising from the services. Our total liability for any claim relating to the services is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim and 50 US dollars.

Some places do not allow these limits, so they may not all apply to you. We do not exclude liability we cannot lawfully exclude, such as for fraud or for death or personal injury caused by negligence.

Indemnity

If someone brings a claim against us because of content you shared, your node, or your breach of these terms or the law, you agree to cover our reasonable costs and losses from that claim, to the extent the law allows.

Changes

We may update these terms. The effective date at the top always shows the current version. For material changes we give notice on the site or by email at least 14 days before they apply, unless the change is needed sooner for legal or security reasons. Continuing to use the services after a change applies means you accept it.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of New Zealand, and disputes go to its courts, except where consumer law where you live gives you the right to bring a claim locally or apply local law.

Contact

Forester Christensen, a sole trader in New Zealand trading as Forester
Email: [email protected]