These terms cover your use of Tellby, run by Richard Simms at tellby.app. By creating an account or inviting a storyteller, you’re agreeing to them. If anything here is unclear, contact us before you rely on it — see the bottom of this page.
What Tellby is
Tellby is a voice-first tool for recording an older relative’s life stories and turning them into memory cards and letters the family can keep. An organiser sets up sessions, a storyteller talks, and nothing reaches the wider family until the organiser has reviewed and approved it.
Who can use it
You must be at least 18 to create an organiser account. By inviting a storyteller, you’re confirming you have a genuine relationship with them and the standing to have the consent conversation honestly and without pressure — Tellby’s consent flow depends on that being real, not a formality. Storytellers themselves have no age limit; Tellby is built with older storytellers specifically in mind.
Consent is not optional
A storyteller must give clear, spoken consent before any recording happens, and that consent can be withdrawn at any time — see the Privacy policy for exactly how that works. Recording someone without their knowledge, or pressuring a storyteller into consenting, is a breach of these terms and grounds for immediately removing an account.
Your stories belong to your family
We don’t claim ownership of anything a storyteller says or any story generated from it. You’re granting Tellby a limited license to store, process, and display that content back to the people the organiser has approved — nothing more. If an account is deleted, that license ends along with it, subject to the deletion process described in the Privacy policy.
AI-written content can be wrong
Memory cards and letters are drafted by AI from the session transcript. We ground every claim in what was actually said, but AI writing can still misphrase something, misattribute a detail, or miss context a family member would catch. That’s exactly why the organiser reviews and approves each story before anyone else sees it — please actually read it, not just click approve. Tellby isn’t a substitute for talking to your storyteller directly if something in a story seems off.
Payment
Every storyteller gets one free preview session. Unlocking a full memoir — 12 sessions plus letters — is a one-time payment of A$179 per storyteller, processed by Stripe. We don’t store your card details, and pricing is shown in Australian dollars unless stated otherwise. There’s no recurring subscription or auto-renewal.
Refunds
If something goes wrong on our end — a payment that didn’t unlock what it should have, for example — contact us and we’ll make it right, including a refund where that’s the fair outcome. Nothing here limits any consumer guarantee you’re entitled to under the Australian Consumer Law, which can’t be excluded.
Acceptable use
You agree not to use Tellby to:
- Record anyone without the consent this service is built to require.
- Impersonate someone else, or set up a storyteller profile for a person who hasn’t agreed to it.
- Attempt to access another family’s stories, recordings, or account data.
- Use the service in a way that could harm, disable, or overburden Tellby or the providers it relies on.
Availability
We aim for a generated story to be ready within about ten minutes of a session ending, but Tellby is an early-stage product run by a small team and we can’t guarantee uninterrupted availability. We’ll do our best to give notice of any change that meaningfully affects how the service works.
Ending your account
You can stop using Tellby and ask us to delete your account at any time. We may suspend or remove an account that breaches these terms, in particular the consent requirements above.
Liability
Tellby is provided as-is. To the extent the law allows, we’re not liable for indirect or consequential loss arising from your use of the service, and our total liability for any claim is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim. Nothing in these terms excludes a guarantee or right that Australian Consumer Law says can’t be excluded.
Governing law
These terms are governed by the laws of Victoria, Australia.
Changes to these terms
If we make a material change, we’ll update this page and change the date at the top. Continuing to use Tellby after a change means you accept the updated terms.
Contact
Questions about these terms: email [email protected].