Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your access to and use of AudioScholar, a web-based audio-summarization tool for medical literature operated by Dr. Nikhil Shah at the University of Alberta ("we", "us", "the service").

By creating an account, signing in, or using any part of the service, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the service.

2. Description of Service

AudioScholar accepts user-uploaded peer-reviewed medical papers and operator-configured PubMed queries, and produces short audio summaries and audio briefings using AI text generation and text-to-speech. Output is delivered via the web app, by email, and as downloadable MP3 audio files.

The service is currently in pre-launch / early-beta and is offered free of charge during this period. Features, quotas, pricing, and availability may change.

3. Eligibility

You must be 18 years of age or older. The service is intended for medical professionals, researchers, students of medicine, and other adults engaged with the peer-reviewed medical literature. By using the service you represent that you meet these criteria.

4. Your Account

You are responsible for keeping your account credentials (email, password, or third-party identity) secure. You are responsible for all activity on your account. Notify us immediately at nshah1@ualberta.ca if you suspect unauthorized access. One account per person; do not share credentials.

5. Acceptable Use

You may:

• Upload peer-reviewed medical literature you authored or for which you hold the necessary rights
• Create subscriptions to PubMed-indexed topics and specialties for your own use
• Listen to, share, and download generated audio for educational and research purposes
• Share generated audio links with colleagues for non-commercial educational use

You must not:

• Upload Protected Health Information (PHI) or any patient-identifiable data
• Upload copyrighted material for which you do not have the necessary rights or permissions
• Upload material that is unlawful, defamatory, or infringes the rights of others
• Use the service to provide medical advice to patients or to make clinical decisions about specific patients
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, scrape, or misuse the service or any third-party API the service depends on
• Use the service to harass, defame, or harm any person
• Resell, sublicense, or redistribute the service without our written permission
• Bypass quotas, security controls, or rate limits

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these rules.

6. AI-Generated Content

AudioScholar relies on third-party AI models (Google Gemini for text, Google Cloud TTS for audio) to generate output from your uploads and from public literature databases. AI output is not deterministic, may contain factual errors, and may not faithfully reflect the source material.

You are responsible for verifying the accuracy of any AudioScholar output against the original source before relying on it. Do not use AudioScholar output as a primary source for clinical decisions, patient care, prescribing, diagnosis, or any other use where errors could cause harm.

7. No Medical Advice

Nothing produced by AudioScholar constitutes medical advice, professional opinion, or clinical decision support. The service is an educational and reference tool only. Clinical decisions must be made by appropriately credentialed practitioners using their own judgement, the original source materials, and current standards of care — never on the basis of an AI-generated audio summary alone.

8. PHI and Health Privacy

Do not upload PHI. The service is not HIPAA-compliant and is not configured to handle PHI under PIPEDA, the Health Information Act (Alberta), or equivalent legislation in your jurisdiction. If PHI is uploaded in error, source files are deleted from our servers within 24 hours by an automated cleanup process; however, you remain responsible for any compliance consequences of the upload.

9. Intellectual Property

Your content. You retain all ownership of papers you upload. By uploading, you grant AudioScholar a limited, non-exclusive license to process the upload to generate the requested audio summary, and to store the generated audio and transcript on your behalf within the service. Your uploaded source files are deleted from our storage 24 hours after upload by an automated process.

Generated content. Audio summaries and transcripts generated by AudioScholar from your uploads or from your subscriptions are made available to you within your account. You may listen, download, and share within the limits of these Terms. AudioScholar does not assert ownership over the substantive content (which derives from the underlying papers, owned by their authors and publishers).

Service IP. The AudioScholar name, branding, software, infrastructure, and prompt-engineering remain our property.

10. Service Availability

The service is provided on a best-effort basis. We do not guarantee uptime, latency, or feature availability. Scheduled and unscheduled downtime may occur. Generation may fail due to upstream API errors, source-data limitations, or our own bugs. We will work to improve reliability over time but make no service-level guarantees during the current pre-launch / early-beta period.

11. Termination

You may stop using the service at any time. To delete your account and associated data, email nshah1@ualberta.ca with "Delete my account" in the subject line. We will process the request within 30 days.

We may suspend or terminate your account at any time for violation of these Terms, abuse of the service, or for operational reasons. Where practical, we will give notice; in cases of clear or repeated abuse, we may act without prior notice.

12. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

The service is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, reliability, and non-infringement.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, AudioScholar, Dr. Nikhil Shah, and the University of Alberta accept no liability for any direct, indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or exemplary damages arising out of or in connection with your use of the service, including but not limited to clinical decisions made based on AudioScholar output, financial losses, missed information, AI hallucinations, downtime, data loss, or third-party API failures.

Total cumulative liability for any claim arising under these Terms is capped at the greater of (a) the amount you paid for the service in the 12 months preceding the claim (currently $0 during the free launch period), or (b) CAD $100.

Some jurisdictions do not allow limitation of incidental or consequential damages; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless AudioScholar, Dr. Nikhil Shah, and the University of Alberta from any claim, damage, or liability arising from (a) your violation of these Terms, (b) your upload of content you did not have rights to, (c) your use of AudioScholar output for clinical decision-making in violation of Section 7.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. Material changes will be communicated by email to your account address. Continued use after a material change constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the most recent revision.

15. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Province of Alberta, Canada, and the federal laws of Canada applicable in Alberta. Disputes arising under these Terms are subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of Alberta, except where local consumer-protection law provides otherwise.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms, account requests, abuse reports, and feedback:

Email: nshah1@ualberta.ca
Subject prefix: AudioScholar — [your topic]