Heard Terms of Service

Document key: heard-terms
Version: 1.6.0
Last updated: November 2, 2026
Effective date: November 2, 2026
Canonical URL: https://discoverheard.com/terms

These Terms are an agreement between you and Justin Lauinger, the current individual publisher of Heard ("Heard," "we," "us," or "our"). They cover the Heard app, websites, application programming interfaces, audio feeds, and related services, together called the "Service."

These Terms become binding when you actively select an acceptance option in Heard that links to this exact version. Receiving or playing a public audio link alone does not mean you have agreed. If you do not agree, do not create or use an account or submit content.

The Community Guidelines are part of these Terms. The Privacy Policy explains our data practices; it is not blanket consent to every use of your information. The Copyright Policy and Child Safety Standards explain their specialized procedures and standards.

1 Who can use Heard

You must be at least 18, located in the United States, able to form a binding contract, able to understand the English-language Service and policies, and legally allowed to use the Service.

Heard is not for children or teenagers. Anyone under 18 may not create or use an account, upload content, or otherwise use Heard. Report underage use through the contact route in our Child Safety Standards.

The initial release is intended for the United States only. You may not use Heard from a place where doing so would break applicable law.

2 Your account

Account features require an active account that you have signed in to. You agree to provide accurate account and profile information, keep your email current, and use only an account you are authorized to use. Protect your password, linked Apple or Google account, verification codes, and other sign-in credentials. Tell us promptly if you think your account has been compromised.

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

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

Some published audio and public profile information can be accessed without signing in. A visitor who has not agreed to these Terms is not bound by them. Applicable law and the rights of Heard and creators may still restrict copying, misuse, unauthorized access, infringement, and interference with Heard.

3 Permission and rules for using Heard

Subject to these Terms, you have personal, limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable permission to use Heard for its intended purposes.

You may not:

Copy, sell, rent, sublicense, or commercially exploit the Service unless we expressly allow it.
Reverse engineer, decompile, or try to extract source code, except where applicable law prevents 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 Heard, introduce malware, or access someone else's account or nonpublic data.
Use bots or automation to manipulate discovery, identity, moderation, or Service operation.
Use Heard content or output to build biometric identifiers, clone a voice, train a generative model, or create an unauthorized dataset.

You must follow the Community Guidelines. Prohibited content and conduct include pornography or sexual material; child sexual exploitation, abuse, or grooming; credible threats; targeted harassment; hateful abuse; doxxing; unlawful recordings; deceptive impersonation; rights infringement; dangerous or illegal activity; fraud; spam; and attempts to defeat safety controls. There is no mature-content area in the initial Service. Being an adult does not create an exception.

If you download Heard from Apple's App Store, Apple's Standard Licensed Application End User License Agreement governs the app license unless Heard later supplies an approved custom agreement. These Terms govern your account, the hosted Service, user content, and community conduct. Apple's standard agreement controls any conflict about the iOS app license. You must also follow applicable app-store, device, network, and internet-service terms.

4 What creators must know before uploading

"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 possible publication. It excludes private support messages, safety or privacy reports, copyright notices or counter-notices, and product feedback. Those are handled under the Privacy Policy, the relevant specialized procedure, and Section 10 below.

Each time you submit Creator Content, you represent and warrant that:

You are eligible to use Heard and authorized to submit from the account.
You prepared the submission through a supported Heard flow and your submission information is accurate.
You own the content or hold every permission, license, consent, and release needed for Heard and listeners to use it as these Terms describe, including worldwide public delivery.
You have permission for included music, recordings, scripts, performances, trademarks, names, private information, voices, and likenesses.
Making and sharing the recording complies with applicable consent, wiretap, publicity, privacy, intellectual-property, and other laws.
The recording 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.
The content is not confidential, breaks no duty you owe someone else, and follows these Terms and the Community Guidelines.

Supported flows accept human-created, AI-generated, AI-assisted, imported, and synthetic-voice audio with accurate source information and all required rights and permissions. You may record in Heard, select audio or video through Files, or choose a video through the system Photos picker. Heard extracts the selected video's audio on your device and uploads only the audio after you submit and grant the required permission. Choose Human, AI-generated, or AI-assisted truthfully and confirm your rights to the audio and every identifiable person's voice. Heard does not currently require you to name an AI provider or model.

Do not misstate how content was made, label generated or synthetic content as human, clone or imitate an identifiable real person's voice without authorization, or use generated or altered audio to deceive listeners about who spoke or what happened.

Before accepting an upload, Heard presents the applicable policies and creator confirmations and records the accepted versions and submission-specific declaration. A material change may require fresh acceptance before another creator action. Publishing these Terms does not itself enable uploads or public distribution.

Heard does not currently pay creators or collect subscription fees. We do not promise royalties, revenue sharing, audience size, ranking, promotion, or continued availability. You remain responsible for your own payments, permissions, and obligations to participants and rights holders; this does not transfer Heard's legal obligations to you. Submitting content does not make you Heard's agent or authorize commitments on our behalf.

Keep your own lawful copy of audio you want to preserve. Heard is not a backup or archive. Uploading, saving a draft, or publishing does not promise permanent storage or change our privacy, deletion, preservation, or other legal obligations.

5 Ownership and permission to handle your content

You keep your ownership rights in Creator Content. These Terms do not transfer ownership to 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 it and its associated title, category, handle, display name, and profile information. We may do so only as reasonably necessary to:

Receive and process your submission and provide the post and Service features you request.
Publish an approved post and maintain playback, compatibility, accessibility, integrity, and security.
Transcribe and assess a submission for safety with the separate OpenAI permission in Section 7.
Review and enforce these Terms and the Community Guidelines, investigate reports, and comply with law.

We may sublicense these rights only to providers and distribution partners that help with those purposes. We may let users access and play approved public content through Heard for personal, noncommercial use. This does not authorize extraction, downloading, republication, model training, sale, or other reuse.

This license does not allow us to sell your content as a standalone work, clone your voice, create a biometric voiceprint, or train a generative-AI model on it. A materially different use requires a separate, clear agreement or consent and an updated privacy disclosure.

The license lasts while content is available through Heard or being processed, then ends within our normal deletion process. It continues only as needed for:

Private uploads kept in restricted security and abuse-review storage during their disclosed retention period.
Minimized or pseudonymized operational or acceptance records detached from the active sign-in account and current public APIs.
Material preserved privately under an approved operating procedure for fraud prevention, safety, a legal claim, a valid legal hold, or legal compliance.

These exceptions do not permit continued public distribution after removal. Copies other people made do not extend Heard's license or give those people additional rights.

6 Publication, editing, and removal

Uploading does not guarantee publication. Submissions arrive privately, undergo 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.

An approved, published post's audio, title, category, publication time, and public creator identity may be accessible to anyone, including through a direct public audio link. Although accounts and the initial app release are limited to the United States, public audio links are not currently restricted by country. Public content therefore needs worldwide hosting, streaming, and distribution rights. Content with country-limited rights remains private unless Heard implements and verifies matching geographic controls.

Available creator controls may let you edit, unpublish, or delete a post. A material edit may return it to private review before the public version changes. Authorized removal blocks new Heard playback and queues Heard's original and content-delivery-network copies for deletion. Heard's internal technical target is to deny access within five minutes, including requests for portions of the audio. Other people may record, copy, cache, or redistribute public content; our controls cannot erase those independent copies.

7 Review and enforcement

Each submission requires your explicit permission to share audio with OpenAI for transcription and the resulting text for safety moderation. Before you choose, Heard identifies what will be shared, who receives it and why. Heard records OpenAI permission separately from policy acceptance. You must make an affirmative choice for each new submission; accepting earlier Terms does not give this permission. You must also separately confirm your rights to the content and permission to use participants' voices. OpenAI permission does not mean moderation approval or guarantee publication. Declining does not prevent listening.

Heard may use technical checks, automated transcription and moderation, and human review. Automated systems can make mistakes; they do not replace human review for flags, reports, uncertainty, unsupported results, or failures. We need not publish content and cannot guarantee we will identify every violation.

Technical processing, moderation, and publication are separate steps. Approval does not guarantee publication or certify legality, accuracy, safety, or complete licensing. A source label records the creator's declaration; it does not independently verify authorship or voice consent.

Restoration is possible only if no separate policy, safety, rights, or legal ground prevents it, and may require a new public copy and URL. Before publishing creator content, Heard must have procedures and trained staff in place to handle rights complaints, notices and counter-notices, repeat infringers, and legal holds.

Depending on the circumstances, we may:

Delay or stop uploads or keep submissions private.
Reject, limit, hide, or remove content.
Restrict features or uploading, or suspend or terminate accounts.
Preserve records or notify affected people.
Report to providers, rights holders, 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 protecting Heard or others. Decisions may reflect context, severity, intent, harm, prior behavior, and legal obligations. Similar-looking cases may have different outcomes.

8 Blocking, muting, and reporting concerns

Blocking and muting are personal controls, not reports to Heard. Blocking removes each signed-in account from the other's signed-in profile, search, feed, and content views. It cannot prevent access while signed out, through an anonymous access point or direct public link, or to existing copies. Muting removes a creator from your feed but leaves their profile and search result visible. Neither control protects you outside Heard.

Use a signed-in reporting control when available, or email non-emergency concerns to support@discoverheard.com. We are not staffed around the clock and do not promise a particular response or resolution time unless law requires it. This does not extend legal notice, removal, preservation, or response deadlines. Heard is not for emergencies. For immediate danger, contact 911 or the appropriate local emergency service.

9 Privacy and outside services

By using Heard, you acknowledge the Privacy Policy. This does not provide blanket consent for data uses requiring a separate choice by law. The policy explains local files, account sessions, public content, providers, and deletion.

Heard may request microphone access when you choose to record. Denying it prevents recording; it does not authorize collection of other device data.

Heard relies on outside infrastructure and may link to services we do not control. Those services have their own terms and privacy policies. Heard is not responsible for outside content or services, except for responsibilities applicable law places on us for providers we select.

10 Heard's rights, copyright complaints, and feedback

Heard or its licensors own the Service's software, design, branding, and Heard-supplied content. They are protected by law. Section 3 grants the only rights these Terms give you in them. Do not use Heard's names, marks, logos, or branding to suggest sponsorship or endorsement without written permission.

For copyright complaints, follow the Copyright Policy. Repeat-infringer strikes require human-reviewed, upheld takedowns, not raw allegations. We remove strikes after retraction or a successful challenge. Ordinarily, three upheld strikes in 12 months lead from warning to creator suspension to account termination. Court orders, deliberate large-scale infringement, repeated evasion, or re-uploading removed material may justify faster action after documented owner review.

If you voluntarily send product suggestions, you keep ownership but give Heard non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free permission to use them to develop and improve Heard without payment. This does not allow public disclosure of personal information or grant additional rights in audio posts. Do not submit someone else's confidential information.

You may make honest reviews, lawful complaints, reports to regulators or law enforcement, and other legally protected communications. Heard claims no ownership of consumer reviews and imposes no penalty or indemnity obligation merely for making these communications.

11 Service changes, account deletion, and ending access

Heard may add, change, suspend, or discontinue features, content, storage, eligibility, or access. No feature, post, feed position, public link, or content is promised to remain available. We will try to give reasonable notice of changes materially affecting your rights or requiring action, unless urgent safety, security, legal, or technical needs prevent it.

You may stop using Heard at any time. To permanently delete your account, use Settings → Account Actions → Delete account:

If Apple is connected, the current iPhone app requires Apple confirmation and revokes that connection before deletion, even if you also use a password or Google.
Otherwise, verify with your current Heard password or a Google identity already linked to the account.
Explicit confirmation is also required. Deletion is irreversible.

The public account-deletion page supports email/password accounts without an Apple connection. If neither supported route works for you, contact support for a separately verified route.

After a valid request, Heard removes the active sign-in account and identifying fields, removes posts from current Heard APIs and playback eligibility, and queues public audio for deletion from its origin and content-delivery network. Private audio for a submission that has reached a final, closed status becomes eligible for scheduled deletion under disclosed retention and legal-hold rules. Limited stable identifiers and minimized or pseudonymized policy, revocation, audit, security, legal-compliance, or deletion records may remain; they are not necessarily anonymous. The deletion page and Privacy Policy provide the controlling detail.

Heard may suspend or end access for violations, risk or legal exposure, or if continuing the Service becomes infeasible. Provisions that by their nature should continue will survive, including ownership, licenses needed to complete deletion or legal preservation, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnity, and general terms.

12 What Heard does and does not promise

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. WE DO NOT WARRANT UNINTERRUPTED, SECURE, OR ERROR-FREE SERVICE, OR ACCURATE, SAFE, AVAILABLE, OR PRESERVED CONTENT.

User content reflects the speaker's views. Hosting, recommending, labeling, or reviewing it does not itself endorse its claims or speaker. Moderation does not guarantee factual accuracy or rights clearance. Heard does not provide medical, mental-health, legal, financial, emergency, or other professional advice. It is no substitute for qualified advice or emergency services.

Warranty exclusions apply only where law permits. They do not override express commitments in these Terms or the Privacy Policy, or statutory duties.

Use playback controls only when safe and lawful. Do not record or interact with the app while driving or doing anything else that requires your attention.

13 Limits on liability

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

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HEARD'S TOTAL LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO THE SERVICE WILL NOT EXCEED THE GREATER OF $100 U.S. OR WHAT YOU PAID HEARD FOR THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM.

These limits do not cover liability that cannot lawfully be limited. Law may restrict exclusions involving intentional misconduct, gross negligence, personal injury, confidentiality, privacy, intellectual property, or consumer rights. No non-waivable right or remedy is excluded.

14 Responsibility for third-party claims

To the extent permitted by law, you will defend, indemnify, and hold harmless Heard and its providers against third-party claims, damages, losses, and reasonable costs, including attorneys' fees, arising from Creator Content, your unlawful Service use, or your material breach of these Terms. This means covering those claims and costs, except to the extent they result from Heard's own unlawful conduct.

Heard will give reasonably prompt notice when practicable and may control the defense with its chosen counsel. You will cooperate reasonably. Heard will not require you to admit liability or fund a settlement imposing nonmonetary obligations on you without your consent, which you may not unreasonably withhold.

15 Updates to these Terms

We may update these Terms for changes in law, Heard, or our practices. Published Terms identify their version and effective date. For material changes, we will give reasonable notice through Heard, email, or another appropriate channel. Creators may need to accept the new active policies before uploading again.

Changes apply going forward from their effective date unless law requires otherwise. Publishing an update does not rewrite earlier acceptance records or establish agreement to new obligations. When a material change requires your agreement, we will present it for affirmative acceptance before applying it to you. Privacy acknowledgments and OpenAI permission for a submission do not replace contract acceptance. No update retroactively removes a claim or non-waivable right.

16 Other contract terms

An unenforceable provision will be enforced to the maximum lawful extent; the rest remains effective. Not enforcing a provision does not waive it. You may not transfer your account or these Terms without written permission. Heard may transfer these Terms to a verified successor during a reorganization, financing, merger, acquisition, or transfer of the Service, subject to applicable notice and privacy obligations.

These Terms, incorporated policies, and feature-specific terms you accept form the entire agreement about the Service and replace prior agreements on the same subject. They do not waive non-waivable legal rights.

There is no binding-arbitration clause, class-action waiver, chosen governing law, or exclusive venue in these Terms. Applicable law and ordinary forum rules govern.

17 Contact

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