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Heard Terms of Service

Document key: heard-terms
Version: 1.0.0
Last updated: September 5, 2026
Effective date: September 5, 2026
Canonical URL: https://discoverheard.com/terms

These Terms of Service are an agreement between you and Justin Lauinger, the current individual publisher of Heard ("Heard," "we," "us," or "our"). They govern your access to and use of the Heard mobile application, websites, application programming interfaces, audio feeds, and related services (collectively, the "Service").

Please read these Terms carefully. These Terms become binding when you affirmatively accept a Heard control that links to this exact version. Merely receiving or playing a public audio URL does not establish acceptance. If you do not agree to these Terms, do not create or use an account or submit content.

The Community Guidelines are part of these Terms. The Privacy Policy describes Heard's data practices and is not blanket consent to every data use. The Copyright Policy and Child Safety Standards describe specialized procedures and standards.

1. Who may use Heard

You may use Heard only if all of the following are true:

  • you are at least 18 years old;
  • you are located in the United States;
  • you can form a binding contract with us;
  • you can understand the English-language Service and policies; and
  • applicable law does not prohibit you from using the Service.

Heard is not directed to children or teenagers. A person under 18 may not create an account, use an account, upload content, or otherwise use the Service. If you learn that a person under 18 is using Heard, contact us as described in the Child Safety Standards.

The initial release is intended for the United States only. You may not use the Service from a location where doing so would violate applicable law.

2. Your account

Heard's account-based features require an active authenticated account. You agree to:

  • provide accurate account and profile information;
  • keep your sign-in credentials confidential;
  • use only an account you are authorized to use;
  • promptly tell us if you believe your account has been compromised; and
  • keep your email address current so that you can receive account and policy notices.

You are responsible for activity conducted through your account to the extent permitted by law. Do not share credentials, impersonate another person or organization, misrepresent an affiliation, create an account for a person under 18, or evade a suspension or restriction.

Handles and display names are part of the Service, not property rights. We may reject, reclaim, or modify them when reasonably necessary to prevent impersonation, infringement, deception, confusion, or abuse.

Some published Heard content and associated public profile information may be accessible without signing in, including through public audio URLs. These Terms do not bind a visitor who has not assented to them. Applicable law and the rights of Heard and the creator may still restrict copying, misuse, unauthorized access, infringement, or interference with the Service.

3. Limited permission to use the Service

Subject to these Terms, Heard gives you a personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable permission to access and use the Service for its intended purposes.

You may not:

  • copy, sell, rent, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service except as expressly allowed by us;
  • reverse engineer, decompile, or try to extract source code except to the extent applicable law does not allow that restriction;
  • scrape, crawl, index, harvest, or download content at scale without written permission;
  • bypass access, rate, safety, moderation, or technical controls;
  • probe or disrupt the Service, introduce malware, or access another person's account or nonpublic data;
  • use bots or automation to manipulate discovery, identity, moderation, or service operation; or
  • use Heard content or Service output to build biometric identifiers, clone a voice, train a generative model, or create an unauthorized dataset.

If you download Heard through Apple's App Store, Apple's Standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement governs the license to the downloaded application unless Heard later supplies an approved custom EULA. These Terms separately govern your Heard account, the hosted Service, user content, and community conduct. If the two conflict about the license to the iOS application, the Apple Standard EULA controls that issue.

4. Community rules

You must follow the Community Guidelines. Among other things, Heard does not allow sexual or pornographic material, child sexual exploitation or abuse, grooming, credible threats, targeted harassment, hateful abuse, doxxing, unlawful recordings, deceptive impersonation, rights infringement, dangerous or illegal activity, fraud, spam, or attempts to defeat safety controls.

The initial Service has no mature-content area. Being an adult does not create an exception to the content rules.

5. Creator Content

"Creator Content" means audio posts and the titles, descriptions, categories, handles, display names, profile information, and other material you submit for a creator profile or potential publication. It does not include a private support message, safety or privacy report, copyright notice or counter-notice, or product feedback. Heard handles those submissions under the Privacy Policy, the applicable specialized procedure, and Section 7 below.

You keep ownership

As between you and Heard, you keep the ownership rights you have in Creator Content. These Terms do not transfer ownership of Creator Content to Heard.

License needed to operate Heard

When you submit Creator Content, you give Heard a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, copy, inspect, decode, encode, transcode, normalize, cache, reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, stream, display, and make limited technical adaptations of that content, together with the associated title, category, handle, display name, and profile information, solely as reasonably necessary to:

  • receive and process your submission;
  • operate and provide the post and Service features you request;
  • make an approved post available to the public;
  • maintain playback, compatibility, accessibility, integrity, and security;
  • review and enforce these Terms and the Community Guidelines;
  • investigate reports; and
  • comply with law.

We may sublicense these rights only to service providers and distribution partners that help us perform those purposes. We may also let users access and play approved public Creator Content through Heard for personal, noncommercial use; that access does not authorize them to extract, download, republish, train on, sell, or otherwise reuse it. We may not sell Creator Content as a standalone work, clone your voice, create a biometric voiceprint, or train a generative-AI model on Creator Content under this license. Any such materially different use would require a separate, clear agreement or consent and an updated privacy disclosure.

The license lasts while Creator Content is available through or being processed for the Service. It then ends within the normal deletion process, except to the limited extent that:

  • a private upload remains in Heard's restricted security and abuse-review quarantine during its disclosed retention period;
  • minimized or pseudonymized operational or acceptance records remain, detached from the active authentication account and current public APIs;
  • we must preserve material in restricted private custody for fraud prevention, safety, a legal claim, a valid legal hold, or compliance with law under an approved operating procedure; or
  • another person independently copied, downloaded, cached, or shared content while it was public.

Public content

If Heard approves and publishes a post, the audio, title, category, publication time, and associated public creator identity can be accessed by other people and may be delivered through a direct public audio URL. After an authorized removal, Heard queues its own origin and CDN copies for deletion and uses an internal five-minute technical denial target, including byte-range access. Other people may record, copy, cache, or redistribute what they can access, and Heard cannot remove those third-party copies.

Although accounts and the initial app release are limited to the United States, Heard's public audio URLs are not currently restricted by the listener's country. Public-v1 content therefore requires rights sufficient for worldwide hosting, streaming, and distribution. Content with only U.S. or other country-limited rights remains private unless and until Heard implements and verifies matching geographic delivery controls.

Supported creator controls may allow a creator to edit, unpublish, or delete a post. A material edit may return the post to private review rather than changing the public version immediately. Removal blocks new Heard playback and queues the public object for origin and CDN deletion. These controls cannot erase copies independently made while the post was public.

Creator promises

Each time you submit content, you represent and warrant that:

  • you are eligible to use Heard and are authorized to submit from the account;
  • you created the recording through a permitted Heard flow and all submission information is accurate;
  • you own the content or have every permission, license, consent, and release needed for Heard and other users to use it as described here, including the worldwide public delivery described above;
  • you have permission for any music, sound recording, script, performance, trademark, name, private information, voice, or likeness included in it;
  • making and sharing the recording complies with consent, wiretap, publicity, privacy, intellectual-property, and other applicable laws;
  • it does not intentionally feature a minor's voice or identifying, location, schedule, contact, health, sexual, or other sensitive information unless Heard has expressly approved a separate guardian-consent and child-safety process;
  • it is not confidential and does not violate a duty you owe another person; and
  • it complies with these Terms and the Community Guidelines.

Heard permits human-created, AI-generated, AI-assisted, imported, and synthetic-voice audio through a supported flow when its provenance is accurately identified and you hold all required rights and permissions. You may not misstate how content was made. You may not clone or imitate an identifiable real person's voice without that person's authorization, or use generated or altered audio to deceive listeners about who spoke or what occurred.

The creator flow accepts supported recordings made in Heard or selected through the operating system's document picker. It requires a truthful Human, AI-generated, or AI-assisted source choice and confirmation that you own or have permission to use the audio and every identifiable person's voice. Heard does not currently require an AI provider or model. Do not falsely label generated or synthetic content as human.

Before an upload is accepted, Heard presents the applicable policies and creator confirmations. A material change may require you to accept a new version before another creator action. Heard records the accepted version and the submission-specific declaration. Publication of these Terms does not by itself enable creator uploads or public distribution.

Uploading does not guarantee publication. A submission is received privately, undergoes technical processing, and may remain private pending review. Technical inspection is not content approval. Heard may hold, reject, restrict, remove, or decline to publish content.

Heard does not currently pay creators, collect subscription fees, or promise royalties, revenue sharing, audience size, ranking, promotion, or continued availability.

6. Heard content and intellectual property

The Service, including its software, design, branding, and content supplied by Heard, is owned by Heard or its licensors and is protected by law. Except for the limited permission in Section 3, no rights are granted to you.

You may not use Heard's names, marks, logos, or branding in a way that suggests sponsorship or endorsement without written permission.

If you believe material on Heard infringes copyright, follow the Copyright Policy. Heard uses human-reviewed upheld takedowns rather than raw allegations as repeat-infringer strikes, removes strikes after a retraction or successful challenge, and ordinarily escalates from warning to creator suspension to account termination across three upheld strikes within 12 months. A court order, deliberate large-scale infringement, repeated evasion, or re-upload of removed material may justify faster action after documented owner review.

7. Feedback

If you voluntarily give us product ideas or feedback, you authorize Heard to use them without restriction or compensation. This does not give Heard rights in audio posts or other content submitted for publication.

8. Review, safety, and enforcement

Heard may use technical checks, automated transcription/moderation, and human review to evaluate submissions, protect the Service, and enforce its rules. Automated systems can make mistakes and do not replace human review for flags, reports, uncertainty, unsupported results, or failures. We are not required to publish content and do not guarantee that we will identify every violation.

Heard separates technical processing, moderation decisions, and publication. An approval does not guarantee publication. A removed item can be restored only when no independent policy, safety, rights, or legal ground prevents restoration, and restoration may require a new public object rather than reviving an old URL. Rights intake, notice, counter-notice, repeat-infringer, trained staffing, and legal-hold operations must be active before Heard publishes creator content.

Depending on the circumstances, Heard may:

  • stop or delay an upload;
  • keep a submission private;
  • reject, limit, hide, or remove content;
  • restrict account features or uploading;
  • suspend or terminate an account;
  • preserve relevant records;
  • notify affected people; or
  • report conduct or content to a service provider, rights holder, the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children, or law enforcement when appropriate or legally required.

We may act without advance notice when reasonably necessary for safety, security, legal compliance, or protection of the Service or others. We may consider context, severity, intent, harm, prior behavior, and legal obligations. Similar-looking cases can have different outcomes.

Blocking and muting are personal safety controls, not reports to Heard. Blocking removes each signed-in account from the other's authenticated profile, search, feed, and content surfaces. Because published posts and audio URLs are public, blocking cannot prevent access while signed out, through an anonymous endpoint or direct URL, or to copies already made. Muting suppresses a creator from your feed but does not hide that creator's profile or search result. These controls do not protect you outside Heard.

Use an authenticated in-app reporting control when it is available. You may also report a non-emergency concern to support@discoverheard.com. Heard does not guarantee a particular response or resolution time and is not staffed 24 hours a day. Do not use Heard for emergencies. If someone is in immediate danger, contact 911 or the appropriate local emergency service.

9. Privacy

Our Privacy Policy explains how Heard handles personal information. By using the Service, you acknowledge that policy. The Privacy Policy is a disclosure, not a blanket consent to uses that require a separate choice under applicable law.

The Service may request microphone access when you choose to record a post. Denying microphone access prevents recording but does not authorize Heard to collect other device data. Details about local files, account sessions, public content, providers, and deletion appear in the Privacy Policy.

10. Third-party services

Heard relies on third-party infrastructure and may link to services that Heard does not control. Third-party services are governed by their own terms and privacy policies. Heard is not responsible for third-party content or services, but this does not limit any responsibility that applicable law places on Heard for the providers it selects.

You must also comply with applicable app-store, device, network, and internet-service terms when using Heard.

11. Changes to the Service

Heard is evolving. We may add, change, suspend, or discontinue features, content, storage, eligibility, or access. We do not promise that any feature, post, feed position, public URL, or item of content will remain available.

We will try to give reasonable notice when a change materially affects your rights or requires action, unless an urgent safety, security, legal, or technical reason prevents advance notice.

12. Account deletion and termination

You may permanently delete your account through Settings → Account Actions → Delete account or the public account-deletion page. The process requires recent password authentication and an explicit confirmation. Account deletion is irreversible.

After a valid deletion request, Heard removes the active authentication account and identifying fields, removes posts from current Heard APIs and playback eligibility, and queues associated public audio for origin and CDN deletion. Private terminal audio becomes eligible for scheduled deletion under the disclosed retention and legal-hold rules. Limited stable identifiers and minimized or pseudonymized policy, revocation, audit, security, legal-compliance, or deletion records may remain and are not necessarily anonymous. The account-deletion page and Privacy Policy provide the controlling detail.

You may stop using the Service at any time. Heard may suspend or terminate access if you violate these Terms, create risk or legal exposure, or if continuing the Service is no longer feasible. Sections that by their nature should survive termination—including ownership, licenses needed to complete deletion or legal preservation, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and general terms—will survive.

13. Disclaimers

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." HEARD DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, QUIET ENJOYMENT, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. HEARD DOES NOT WARRANT THAT THE SERVICE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, ERROR-FREE, OR THAT CONTENT WILL BE ACCURATE, SAFE, AVAILABLE, OR PRESERVED.

User content reflects the speaker's views, not Heard's. Heard does not provide medical, mental-health, legal, financial, emergency, or other professional advice. Do not rely on Heard as a substitute for qualified advice or emergency services.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions. In that case, the exclusions apply only to the extent permitted by law.

14. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HEARD AND ITS SERVICE PROVIDERS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, GOODWILL, OR OPPORTUNITY, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE, EVEN IF ADVISED THAT SUCH DAMAGES WERE POSSIBLE. THIS EXCLUSION APPLIES REGARDLESS OF THE THEORY OF LIABILITY.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HEARD'S TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF (A) ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS OR (B) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID HEARD FOR THE SERVICE DURING THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

These limits do not apply to liability that cannot lawfully be limited. Applicable law may also limit the enforceability of exclusions involving intentional misconduct, gross negligence, personal injury, confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, or consumer rights. Nothing in these Terms excludes a right or remedy that cannot be waived.

15. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Heard and its service providers from third-party claims, damages, losses, and reasonable costs, including attorneys' fees, arising from Creator Content, your unlawful use of the Service, or your material violation of these Terms. You do not have this obligation to the extent a claim results from Heard's own unlawful conduct. Heard will provide reasonably prompt notice of a covered claim when practicable. Heard may control the defense with counsel of its choice, you will cooperate reasonably, and Heard will not require you to admit liability or fund a settlement imposing nonmonetary obligations on you without your consent, which may not be unreasonably withheld.

16. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms to reflect changes in law, the Service, or our practices. The top of this page will identify the version and effective date. If a change materially affects users, we will provide reasonable notice through the Service, email, or another appropriate channel. Creators may be required to affirmatively accept a new active policy set before uploading again.

Changes apply prospectively from their effective date unless law requires otherwise. Continued use after an effective update constitutes acceptance only to the extent permitted by law and supported by an appropriate notice or assent flow.

17. General terms

If a provision is unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum lawful extent and the remaining provisions will remain in effect. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not transfer these Terms or your account without our written permission. Heard may transfer these Terms to a verified successor as part of a reorganization, financing, merger, acquisition, or transfer of the Service, subject to applicable notice and privacy obligations.

These Terms, together with the incorporated policies and any feature-specific terms you accept, are the entire agreement about the Service and replace prior agreements about the same subject. They do not waive rights that applicable law says cannot be waived.

These Terms do not include a binding-arbitration provision, class-action waiver, selected governing-law provision, or exclusive-venue provision. Applicable law and ordinary forum rules govern.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to:

Justin Lauinger, current individual publisher of Heard
Email: support@discoverheard.com
Website: Heard Support

The support address is active and operated by Heard's individual publisher but is not staffed 24 hours a day. Copyright notices must use the complete designated-agent contact in the Copyright Policy.