Captions API Terms

These API Terms of Service (the “Terms”) describe your rights and responsibilities when accessing our publicly available application programming interfaces (“APIs”) and all guidelines or other documentation provided by Captions for use in connection with the APIs (the “Documentation”). These API Terms are incorporated into the Captions Terms and Conditions, which can be found at https://www.captions.ai/legal/terms (“Captions T&Cs”) as well as the AI Creator Terms, which can be found at https://www.captions.ai/terms/ai-creators, and any applicable policies for use of the Captions services that we post on those services (collectively, the “Captions Agreements”). If a conflict exists between these Terms and the Captions Agreements, these Terms take priority. Any terms not defined herein shall have the meaning set forth in the applicable Captions Agreement.

These Terms form a binding agreement between you and us. As used in these API Terms, "we," "our" and "us" refer to Captions LLC and "you," and "your," refer to the individual, company, or legal entity that you represent and any affiliates it may have. These Terms apply to all developers, customers, and users building applications or other functionality that interact with our APIs (“Apps”). These Terms do not grant you any right to access or use any non-public Captions APIs, which would be governed by a separate agreement with Captions.

If you are accepting these Terms on behalf of or in your capacity as an employee, consultant, or other service provider of a company or other legal entity, you represent and warrant that you have the legal authority to bind such entity to these Terms.

By clicking "Generate API Key" (or taking a similar action) or by using or accessing our APIs, you agree to be bound by these Terms.

Captions may, in its sole discretion, modify or update these Terms (including any referenced policies, terms, or their URLs) from time to time, and so you should review this page periodically. If we make a material change to these Terms, we will notify you as required by law. Your continued use of the APIs after any such change constitutes your acceptance of the new Terms. If you do not agree to any of these terms or any future Terms, do not use or access (or continue to access or use) the APIs.

1. Generating & Accessing Your API Key.  You can generate, re-generate, and access your API key in the API Dashboard, which can be found in your Captions account settings. Captions maintains sole discretion to determine all features and operations of the API Dashboard.

2. Use of the APIs. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a non-exclusive, worldwide, revocable, non-transferable, and non-sublicensable right to use the APIs and Documentation to integrate certain aspects of the Captions Service (as that term is defined in the Captions T&Cs) into your Apps. You may not use our APIs for any other purpose without Captions’ prior written consent. These Terms do not grant you the right to distribute or resell the Captions Service or create any binding commitment on behalf of Captions. You may charge a standard overall fee for your Apps; however, you may not directly or indirectly charge users for use of, or access to, the functionality provided by our APIs without Captions’ prior express consent in writing.

3. User Content. As between the parties, you own all rights in and to your User Content used in connection with the APIs. You grant Captions a limited license in your User Content in order to operate, provide, improve, troubleshoot and debug the APIs or the Services, including any artificial intelligence/machine learning models used therein.

4. Feedback. You may choose to provide us with suggestions and feedback on our APIs, Documentation, API Dashboard, or the Captions Service. If you do so, you grant us an unlimited, irrevocable, perpetual, sublicensable, transferable, royalty-free license to implement, use, and commercially exploit any such feedback or suggestions for any purpose without any obligation or compensation to you. Any modifications to the APIs, Documentation, API Dashboard, the Captions Service, or other products or services derived from or as a result of, such feedback shall be the sole and exclusive property of Captions, together with all intellectual property and other rights therein.

5. Your Responsibilities. Without limiting your express obligations in these Terms, you are solely responsible, at your own expense, for how you develop, operate, and support your App(s) and for your own relationships with the users of your App. In connection with your use of our APIs, you represent, warrant, and will ensure that you (or any person acting on your behalf):

• comply with all applicable local, state, national and international laws and regulations, including, without limitation, all applicable export controls laws, and maintain any licenses, permits, and other permissions that may be necessary to use our APIs and to develop, implement, and publish your App;
• possess all right, title, and interest necessary to grant the licenses granted to us in these Terms and full power and authority to enter into and perform your obligations herein without violating any other agreement;
• have all necessary rights to disclose information you or your users provide to Captions and will not provide any information or materials to Captions that are not true, accurate, and complete or that violate, misappropriate, or infringe upon the intellectual property rights of any third party, including patent, copyright, privacy, and publicity rights;
• maintain a user agreement and/or privacy policy for your App that complies with applicable laws and regulations and is prominently identified or located where users access or discover your App;
• notify your users that Captions is not responsible for the privacy, security, or integrity of personal data or other user content processed by your App;
• will promptly notify us in writing via email to legal@captions.ai of any breaches of your user agreement or privacy policy that impact or may impact users of Captions’ APIs or the Captions Service; and
• comply with any requirements or restrictions imposed on usage of user content and personal data by the owner or controller of such content.

6. Restrictions. You (and any person acting on your behalf) will not:

• use the APIs in violation of our Service Rules, Acceptable Use Policies, and any other applicable policies that we post on the Captions Service;
• make requests or calls to our APIs that (i) exceed any rate limits set forth in the Documentation, or (ii) use our APIs in a manner that impacts the stability of Captions' servers or the behavior of other applications using our APIs;
• engage in any activity that (i) compromises, breaks, or circumvents any of our technical processes or security measures associated with our APIs or the Captions Service or (ii) poses a security vulnerability to other users;
• monitor, create or disclose any statistical or benchmarking analysis or other metrics regarding the availability, performance, or functionality of our API’s, the Captions Service, or any other tool or platform developed or maintained by Captions;
• state, suggest, or otherwise communicate that Captions endorses you or your App, or that there is a relationship or affiliation with or sponsorship between you or a third party and Captions, other than as contemplated by these Terms;
• copy, sell, rent, lease, transfer, assign, sublicense, disassemble, decompile, modify, alter, attempt to reverse engineer (except to the limited extent expressly authorized under applicable statutory law) or otherwise derive the source code, trade secrets, or know-how of our APIs or the Captions Service;
• access our APIs or Documentation in order to replicate or compete with our APIs or any aspect of the Captions Service;
• take any action that would subject the Captions Service to any third-party terms, including without limitation any “open source” software license terms;
• attempt to cloak or conceal your or your App’s identity when accessing our APIs or the Captions Service;
• share your access keys, tokens, or developer credentials with any third party or use or attempt to enable any unauthorized means of accessing our API or the Captions Service; or
• use our APIs in connection with any activity that constitutes, promotes or is used primarily for the purpose of dealing in: (i) spyware or any other malicious programs or code or (ii) activities that, in Captions’ sole judgment, are offensive or might harm Captions’ business or its reputation.

7. Ownership and Proprietary Rights. You retain ownership rights in your App (excluding any pre-existing intellectual property rights incorporated therein belonging to Captions or any third party), and we own and will continue to own our APIs, the Documentation, and the Captions Service, including all related intellectual property rights therein. All our rights not expressly granted by these Terms are hereby retained.

8. Usage Limitations. Captions may monitor and limit the number of network calls that your App may make to our APIs. Captions may change such usage limits at any time without notice, including by instituting technical measures to prevent over-usage.

9. Usage Credits.  

• Unless otherwise agreed to between you and Captions, Captions may require you to prepay for your API calls by subscribing to an API plan that will provide you credits sufficient to cover your usage on a monthly basis (“Usage Credits”). You may also have the option of purchasing additional Usage Credits if your desired monthly usage exceeds the amount of Usage Credits providing by your API plan (“Top-Up Usage Credits”). Pricing for API plans and Top-Up Usage Credits will be specified in our Pricing Page, as may be updated from time to time.
• Subscriptions to API plans will be billed on a recurring basis as described in the Captions T&Cs.
• Captions may, in its sole discretion, offer you free credits as part of a promotion or when you create a Captions account (“Promotional Credits”).
• Usage Credits, Promotional Credits and any other credits Captions offers (“Credits”) are non-refundable. Credits are not legal tender or currency of any kind and have no cash value.
• Usage Credits provided by your API plan are only valid for the month when they are issued. Top-Up Credits can be used at any time.
• Promotional Credits expire at the time indicated when issued (or otherwise one calendar year from when issued if no time is specified).
• You can check your Credit balance in the API Dashboard.
• You may not transfer or sell Credits, whether paid for or provided as part of a promotion, to any other person or entity, and Credits may only be used by you.

10. Suspension. If we believe, in our sole discretion, that you have violated or attempted to violate any term, condition, or the spirit of these Terms, we may temporarily or permanently revoke the licenses granted to you in these Terms, with or without notice to you. This includes, but is not limited to, revoking your ability to use our APIs.

11. Termination. Your licenses with respect to our APIs will continue until they are terminated by either party as set forth herein. You may terminate each such license at any time by discontinuing use of our APIs.

12. Disclaimer of Warranties. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR APIs ARE PROVIDED ON AN “AS IS” BASIS, WITH NO WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, AND CAPTIONS AND ITS THIRD-PARTY LICENSORS EXPRESSLY DISCLAIM ANY AND ALL REPRESENTATIONS, WARRANTIES, CONDITIONS AND GUARANTEES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTY OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AVAILABILITY, SECURITY, TITLE AND/OR NON-INFRINGEMENT. CAPTIONS MAKES NO REPRESENTATION, WARRANTY OR GUARANTEE RELATED TO RELIABILITY, ACCURACY OR COMPLETENESS OF OUR APIs, THAT CAPTIONS WILL CONTINUE TO OFFER THE APIs, OR THAT USE OF OUR APIs WILL BE SECURE, TIMELY, UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE, OR MEET YOUR REQUIREMENTS OR EXPECTATIONS. YOUR USE OF OUR APIs IS AT YOUR OWN DISCRETION AND RISK, AND YOU WILL BE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ANY DAMAGE THAT RESULTS FROM THE USE OF ANY CAPTIONS APIs INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, ANY DAMAGE TO YOUR COMPUTER SYSTEM OR LOSS OF DATA.

You acknowledge and agree that you are solely responsible, and that Captions has no responsibility or liability of any kind, for the content, development, operation, support, or maintenance of your App.

13. Limitation of Liability. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT SHALL CAPTIONS, ITS AFFILIATES, AGENTS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, SUPPLIERS OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, PUNITIVE, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL OR EXEMPLARY DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION DAMAGES FOR LOSS OF PROFITS, GOODWILL, USE, DATA OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THESE TERMS OR USE OF OUR APIs WHETHER BASED ON BREACH OF CONTRACT, BREACH OF WARRANTY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, PRODUCT LIABILITY OR OTHERWISE), OR ANY OTHER PECUNIARY LOSS, WHETHER OR NOT CAPTIONS HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. IN NO EVENT WILL OUR AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATED TO THESE TERMS OR USE OF OUR APIs (WHETHER IN CONTRACT OR TORT OR UNDER ANY OTHER THEORY OF LIABILITY) EXCEED THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO CAPTIONS HEREUNDER OR $100.00, WHICHEVER IS GREATER.

SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THE EXCLUSION OF CERTAIN WARRANTIES OR THE LIMITATION OR EXCLUSION OF LIABILITY FOR INCIDENTAL OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES. ACCORDINGLY, SOME OF THE LIMITATIONS IN SECTIONS 12-14 MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU. IN THESE JURISDICTIONS, CAPTIONS’S LIABILITY WILL BE LIMITED TO THE GREATEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW.

14. Indemnification. You agree to release and defend, indemnify and hold harmless Captions and its subsidiaries, agents, licensors, managers, and other affiliated companies, and their employees, contractors, agents, officers and directors, from and against any and all claims, damages, obligations, losses, liabilities, costs or debt, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney’s fees) arising from or related to your use of the APIs or your breach of any obligation, representation, warranty, covenant or other provision contained in these Terms, your user agreement with users, or your privacy policy.

If you are a California resident, you waive California Civil Code Section 1542, which provides:

A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party.

If you are not a California resident, you waive your rights under any statute or common law principle similar to Section 1542 that governs your rights in the jurisdiction of your residence.

15. Confidential Information. "Confidential Information" means non-public elements of our APIs, the Services, and any other information disclosed by us that is marked as confidential or proprietary or that you should reasonably understand to be confidential or proprietary. Confidential Information does not include any information that: (a) is or becomes generally known to the public; (b) was known to you before its disclosure hereunder or (c) is received from a third party, in each case without breach of an obligation owed to us or anyone else. You will (i) maintain Confidential Information in confidence (using at least the same measures as for your own confidential information, and in any case no less than reasonable care) and not divulge it to any third party and (ii) only use Confidential Information to fulfill your obligations under these Terms. If you are compelled by law to disclose Confidential Information, you must provide us with prior notice of such compelled disclosure (to the extent legally permitted) and reasonable assistance, at our cost, if we wish to contest the disclosure. In the event of actual or threatened breach of confidentiality, we will have the right, in addition to any other remedies available to it, to seek injunctive relief to protect our Confidential Information.

16. Remedies. You acknowledge that your breach of these Terms may cause irreparable harm to us, the extent of which would be difficult to ascertain. Accordingly, you agree that, in addition to any other remedies to which we may be legally entitled, we will have the right to seek immediate injunctive relief in the event of a breach of these Terms by you or any of your officers, employees, consultants, or other agents.

17. Attribution. You agree to conspicuously label any App with the words "Powered by Captions,” and comply with (i) other attribution requirements set forth here and (ii) any branding requirements that we may provide to you from time to time. At no time will you imply that Captions endorses the content or App or falsely attribute any such content or App.

Captions may waive certain of these requirements for enterprise customers.  To contact Captions about an enterprise agreement, please email us at hello+api@captions.ai.

18. General Terms

• Beta Programs. You may be invited to participate in review and/or testing of pre-release versions of new and/or modified or enhanced Captions APIs or related tools, which may be identified as “alpha,” “beta,” “preview,” “pre-release,” “early access,” or “evaluation” products (each, a “Beta Product”, and each program for evaluating such Beta Product, a “Beta Program”). You acknowledge and understand that participation in any Beta Program is not required and is at your own risk, and that Beta Products are made available on an “as is” basis without warranties (express or implied) of any kind, and may be discontinued or modified at any time. Beta Products are for evaluation, development, and testing purposes only, and are not for production use, not supported, not subject to availability or security obligations, and may be subject to additional terms. We will have no liability for any harm or damage arising out of or in connection with Beta Products. The Beta Products, including without limitation your assessment, use, or testing of any Beta Product, or any other interaction with any Beta Product, are Confidential Information of Captions.
• Modifications to APIs; Documentation. Captions may make changes to our APIs from time to time. We will endeavor to give notice of these changes; however, you acknowledge and agree that modifications may be implemented at any time and without any notice to you. You further acknowledge that parts of our APIs may be undocumented.
• Relationship of the Parties. You and Captions are independent contractors and these Terms do not create a partnership, franchise, joint venture, agency, fiduciary, or employment relationship between the parties. You do not have any authority to assume or create any obligation for or on behalf of Captions, express or implied, and you will not attempt to bind Captions to any contract without its express consent. There are no third-party beneficiaries to these Terms.
• Force Majeure. Under no circumstances will Captions or its licensors or suppliers be held liable for any delay or failure in performance resulting directly or indirectly from an event beyond its reasonable control.
• Assignment. These Terms, and any rights or licenses granted hereunder, may not be assigned or delegated by you, whether by operation of law or otherwise, without the prior written consent of Captions. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may assign these Terms in their entirety, without Captions’ prior written consent, to a corporate affiliate of yours or in connection with a merger, acquisition, corporate reorganization, or sale of all or substantially all of your assets. Any purported assignment in violation of this section is void. These Terms, and any rights or licenses granted hereunder, may be assigned or delegated by Captions without restriction. Subject to the foregoing, these Terms will bind and inure to the benefit of the parties, their respective successors and permitted assigns.
• Severability. If any provision of these Terms is found by a court of competent jurisdiction to be invalid, the parties nevertheless agree that the court should endeavor to give effect to the parties’ intentions as reflected in the provision and that the other provisions not deemed to be invalid will remain in full force and effect.
• Export Control and Economic Sanctions Compliance. You represent and warrant that you are not named on any U.S. government list of prohibited or restricted parties, nor are you owned or controlled by or acting on behalf of any such parties. You agree that you will not access or use our APIs in any manner that would cause any party to violate any U.S. or international embargoes, economic sanctions, or export control laws or regulations.
• No Waiver. Captions’ failure to exercise or enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.
• Survival. In addition to any provisions herein that by their nature should survive indefinitely, Sections 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16 and all of the subsections of Section 17 will survive any termination or expiration of these Terms.