Terms and conditions

My Life Tales (“My Life Tales”, “we”, “us” or “our”) helps families record life stories in the storyteller’s own voice and bring them together in a hardcover book. These terms and conditions apply to our website, the recording platform and all orders and agreements between you and My Life Tales.

By using our website, creating an account or placing an order, you agree to these terms. Please read them carefully. This text is meant as clear information and is not legal advice.

We may update these terms from time to time, for example when our service or the law changes. The most recent version is always on this page, with the date of the last change.

We will announce important changes that affect an ongoing agreement in advance, by email or through a notice on the platform. If you keep using our service after a change, you accept the updated terms.

To provide our service we process personal data, including voice recordings and transcripts. You can read how we handle it in our privacy policy, which also explains your rights under the UK General Data Protection Regulation (UK GDPR).

My Life Tales regularly sends the storyteller a question, records the spoken answers, turns them into readable text with the help of technology and editing, and gathers the stories into chapters that you can have printed as a book.

Within a book we distinguish roles. The organiser places the order, manages the project and invites others. The storyteller answers the questions and so provides the stories. There may also be readers or co-organisers who help put the project together. One project can include several storytellers.

We do our best to keep the service available and reliable, but we may carry out maintenance or change features. We do our best to keep interruptions as short as possible.

To place an order or manage an account you must be at least 18 years old. Storytellers may be older or younger; storytellers who are minors need consent and supervision from a parent or guardian.

You confirm that the information you give us is accurate and complete and that you are entitled to enter into the agreement.

To manage a project you create an account. In many cases a storyteller can record stories through a personal invitation link without creating an account.

You are responsible for looking after your access and for everything that happens through your account or invitation link. If you notice that someone else has access without permission, please let us know as soon as possible. An account or link is personal and not transferable.

My Life Tales works with a one-off purchase. The My Life Tales book costs £49, including access to the recording platform to collect the stories. You can also order optional extras, such as an e-book, extra copies or additional products. There is no subscription and there are no recurring charges.

Current prices are shown on our website and include VAT for consumers, unless stated otherwise. Any delivery charges are shown before you complete your order. The agreement is formed as soon as we have confirmed your order.

Payment is handled by our payment service provider (Mollie) using the payment methods offered there. We may change prices and our range, but a change does not affect an order you have already placed and we have confirmed.

A book is printed to order and to your specifications, based on the stories and photos collected at that moment. Before we print, you get the chance to check and approve the content.

We aim for careful and timely delivery. Delivery times given are indicative and start once you have approved the book for printing. If there is a delay or a problem with delivery, we will contact you to find a solution together. The risk of damage or loss passes to you when you, or a recipient you have named, receive the book.

You can order My Life Tales as a gift for someone else. With a gift order you can choose a delivery moment; we then send the recipient the invitation to start telling stories at the moment you chose.

As the buyer you remain responsible for payment and for the accuracy of the recipient’s details. When accepting the invitation, the recipient agrees to these terms for their own use of the platform.

As a consumer you generally have a legal right to cancel within 14 days of entering into the agreement, without giving a reason. If you want us to start providing the digital service during this period, we ask for your express consent. Our cancellation page explains how cancelling works.

The printed book is made to measure and to your specifications. Under the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 there is no right to cancel such products once production has started. We tell you this clearly and ask you to approve the book before we go to print.

On top of your statutory rights, we offer a 30-day money-back guarantee on the service, from the moment of purchase. If you are not satisfied, contact us within that period at info@mylifetales.com and we will find a suitable solution or refund together. If a delivered book is damaged or contains a mistake on our part, we will of course put it right free of charge.

You use My Life Tales for personal, non-commercial purposes and in accordance with the law. You do not add content that is unlawful, threatening, hateful, misleading or otherwise inappropriate, nor content you do not hold the rights to or for which you do not have permission from the people involved.

You may not exploit the service or the books commercially, copy or disrupt the platform or attempt to obtain its source code, get around security, or collect data by automated means. In case of misuse we may remove content and suspend or end access.

The stories, recordings, photos and other content you add remain yours. So that we can make your book and provide the service, you give us a limited, worldwide, royalty-free licence to store, process, transcribe, edit and display this content, only as far as needed to provide the service to you.

To turn recordings into text we use technology, including speech recognition and language models. We use your recordings and transcripts only to make your book and run the platform, and never to train third-party models without your explicit consent.

You confirm that you are entitled to add this content and grant this licence, and that the content does not infringe anyone else’s rights. If you give others access to a project, they can also view the shared content as far as needed to work on the book.

The platform, the software, the design of the books, our texts, logos and house style remain the property of My Life Tales or its licensors. You receive a limited, non-exclusive and non-transferable right to use them within the limits of these terms.

Nothing in these terms transfers any of My Life Tales’s intellectual property rights to you, except the right to use the book you ordered and your own content for personal purposes.

To provide the service we work with carefully chosen partners, such as a hosting provider, a transcription and language technology service, a printer and a payment service provider. The use of some third-party services may be subject to additional terms from those parties.

We are not responsible for the content, operation or terms of third-party services and websites over which we have no control.

If you share ideas or suggestions with us, we may use them freely to improve our service, without payment or credit in return. Sharing feedback is of course voluntary.

We may develop the service further and add, change or remove features. We do so with the quality of your book in mind and try to avoid adverse effects on ongoing projects.

If you believe that content on our platform infringes your copyright or another right, or is otherwise unlawful, please report it to info@mylifetales.com. Describe as precisely as possible which content it concerns, why it infringes or is unlawful, and how we can reach you.

We assess reports carefully and may remove or block access to content that we consider infringing or unlawful.

You can stop using the service at any time by deleting your account or contacting us. We may end the agreement or suspend access in case of misuse or a serious breach of these terms, where possible after a warning.

After the agreement ends you can ask us to delete your data and content, except what we are required by law to keep. Provisions that by their nature are meant to continue after the agreement ends, such as those on intellectual property, liability and governing law, remain in force.

We provide the service with care. As far as the law allows, our liability for loss is limited. We are not liable for indirect loss or for loss of content due to causes beyond our reasonable control. Our total liability is limited to the amount you paid for the order concerned.

These limitations do not apply to loss caused by intent or gross negligence on the part of My Life Tales, nor to death or personal injury caused by our negligence, nor where liability cannot be excluded or limited under mandatory law. Nothing in these terms limits your statutory rights as a consumer.

If you are unhappy about something, please contact us first at info@mylifetales.com. We take your complaint seriously and will try to find a solution with you.

If we cannot resolve it between us, the dispute can be brought before the competent court. As a consumer living in the United Kingdom, you may always bring proceedings in the courts of the part of the UK where you live.

These terms and all agreements with My Life Tales are governed by Dutch law. As a consumer you also keep the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of the country where you live.

If a provision of these terms is invalid or unenforceable, the other provisions remain fully in force, and we replace the invalid provision with a valid one that comes as close as possible to its purpose.

If we do not enforce a provision, or not straight away, this does not mean we waive our rights. You may not transfer your rights and obligations under the agreement to someone else without our permission; we may do so, for example in a business takeover, without affecting your rights. Together with your order and our privacy policy, these terms form the entire agreement between you and My Life Tales.

If you have questions about these terms, you can reach us at info@mylifetales.com. We are happy to help.

My Life Tales is a brand of Akemy, registered at Keizersgracht 452, Amsterdam. Further company details are available on request.