The agreement
behind the studio.

01 / WHO WE ARE

Who we are

Tarkovsky is run by Tarkovsky AI LLC, a Delaware limited liability company (“Tarkovsky”, “we”, “us”). You can reach us at hello@tarkovsky.ai.

These terms cover the Tarkovsky studio at tarkovsky.ai, the earlier versions of the studio we keep online, the field guide, and any API or tool we offer with them. Together we call these the “Service”.

“You” means the person who uses the Service. If you use it for a company or another organisation, “you” also means that organisation, and you confirm that you may accept these terms for it.

The Privacy Notice explains how we handle personal information. Read it with these terms.

02 / ALPHA

Tarkovsky is an Alpha release

Tarkovsky is still being built. That means:

• Features change. They move, change or disappear, sometimes without notice.
• Things break. A generation, a render or a save can fail.
• Work can be lost. We keep backups, but we do not promise that we can restore any project, file or version.
• Export what you care about. The Export tab gives you the project file, the script, the media in a ZIP, timelines for other editing software and rendered films. Keep copies outside Tarkovsky.
• No service level. We do not promise any uptime. We may limit or pause parts of the Service while we fix or change them.

If we decide to shut the Service down, we will tell you at least 30 days before, where we can, so you can export your work. We will refund the credits you bought and have not used.

The disclaimers and limits in sections 11 and 12 apply in full to an Alpha release.

03 / ACCOUNTS AND ELIGIBILITY

Accounts and eligibility

• You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of majority where you live if that is higher. Tarkovsky is not for children.
• You must be able to make a binding contract. You must not be barred from using the Service by the laws of the United States or of the place where you live, including sanctions laws.
• You sign in through Auth0 with a verified email address. Keep your details accurate and current.
• An account is for one person. Do not share your sign-in. To work with others, invite them to a project or to your account as editors or viewers.
• Keep your sign-in and your API keys safe. You are responsible for what happens in your account, and for what the people you invite do with the access you give them. If you think someone used your account without permission, tell us at once.
• Collaborators. When you invite someone to your account, the generations they run through it are paid from your credits. When you invite someone to one project only, they pay for their own. The owner of a project decides who can see and edit it. Anything you add to a shared project can be seen by its members.

04 / CREDITS, PAYMENT AND REFUNDS

Credits, payment and refunds

Plans and credits

• Tarkovsky has a Free plan and paid plans. Each plan has limits on projects, storage and collaborators. The current plans and prices are on the Credits page. Prices are in US dollars. Taxes are added where they apply.
• A new account gets 100 welcome credits, once. A paid plan adds its monthly credits each time the monthly payment goes through. You can also buy credit packs. A pack gives you 100 credits for each US dollar you pay.
• Credits pay for generations that run on Tarkovsky’s own accounts with model providers.

How a generation is priced

• One credit buys one US cent of model use at our price. Our price is what the model provider charges us, plus 35%. So each US dollar a provider charges for your generation costs 135 credits.
• Before a paid generation runs, Tarkovsky shows what it is expected to cost and the most it can cost. When you start it, we hold the most it can cost from your balance.
• When it finishes, we charge what it actually cost, at our price. We never charge more than the hold. The rest goes back to your balance.
• If the generation fails, or the model gives back nothing usable (for example an empty or cut-off answer), we release the hold and charge nothing.
• If we cannot tell whether a generation ran, for example because a provider stopped answering, the hold stays under review until we know. We never charge and retry on our own.
• If you use your own API key, the provider bills you directly under your agreement with it, and we charge no credits for that request.

Subscriptions

• A paid plan renews every month until you cancel. We charge the payment method you gave at checkout.
• You can cancel at any time in the billing portal on the Credits page. Your plan stays until the end of the month you paid for. We do not refund part of a month.
• If we change the price of your plan, we will tell you at least 30 days before the new price applies to you. You can cancel before then.

About credits

• Credits are not money. They have no cash value. You cannot sell or transfer them, and you can use them only on Tarkovsky.
• Credits do not expire at present. If we introduce an expiry, we will tell you at least 30 days before, and it will not apply to credits you bought before we told you.
• Credits left when your account closes are lost, except as section 10 says.

Refunds

• Within 14 days of buying a credit pack, you can ask for a full refund of it if you have not spent credits since you bought it.
• If a generation charged you for a result that failed, or charged you twice, tell us within 30 days and we will put the credits back.
• Consumers in the EU and the UK can withdraw from a purchase within 14 days. Because you ask us to make your credits or plan available at once, we refund the part you have not used.
• Apart from this, payments are not refundable, unless the law says they must be.
• To ask for a refund, email hello@tarkovsky.ai from the address of your account.

Payments, refunds and chargebacks

• Stripe processes payments. Your card details go to Stripe, not to us. Checkout may name a company that processes payments for us; that name can appear on your statement.
• If a payment is refunded or disputed (a chargeback), we restrict billing on your account while we review it. You cannot spend credits or buy more until it is resolved. We may remove the credits that the refunded or disputed payment paid for.
• If you think a charge is wrong, please write to us before you dispute it with your bank. We will look at it quickly.

05 / YOUR CONTENT

Your content, and the licence you give us

“Your content” is everything you put into Tarkovsky: scripts, briefs, notes, prompts, directions, chat messages, uploaded images, video, audio and documents, and the choices you make in a project.

• You keep your rights. We do not own your content.
• The licence. You give us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, store, copy, process, send, show, convert, resize, render and otherwise adapt your content, and to send it to model providers and our other service providers. We use this licence only to:
  • run the Service for you and for the people you share a project with;
  • make what you ask for, such as a still, a take, a voice, a music cue, a check or a render;
  • keep the Service secure, prevent abuse and follow the law; and
  • improve Tarkovsky as section 09 says, unless you opt out.
• The licence lasts while your content is in the Service. It ends when you delete the content or close your account, except for copies in backups until those backups expire, and anything the law requires us to keep.
• You have the rights. You promise that you have the rights to everything you upload or ask a model to use. That includes permission from every person whose face, voice or likeness is in it. Using it in Tarkovsky must not break the law or anyone’s rights.
• Do not put anything into Tarkovsky that you are not allowed to share with us and our providers, such as someone else’s confidential material.
• We do not look at your projects except to give you support you ask for, to investigate abuse, a security problem or a legal claim, or when the law requires it. Automated systems, such as a model provider’s safety filters, check some content as part of making what you ask.
• Feedback. If you send us ideas or feedback, we may use them without paying you or owing you anything.

06 / OUTPUTS

Outputs

“Outputs” are what the Service makes for you: drafts and notes written by a model, stills, takes, voices, music, checks, edits and rendered films.

• Yours. Between you and us, outputs are yours, to the extent the law and the model providers’ terms allow. We give you any rights we have in them.
• The law is unsettled. In some countries, including the United States, material a model makes without enough human authorship may not be protected by copyright. We do not promise that you can register or enforce rights in an output.
• Not unique. A model can give other people the same or similar results. Their outputs are theirs.
• You clear the rights. Check every output before you publish, show or sell it. You are responsible for making sure it does not infringe anyone’s copyright, trademark, privacy or right of publicity; for releases from real people and places; for licences for music and other material; and for any rule that requires AI-made content to be labelled where you publish it.
• Do not remove or hide a watermark or other provenance signal that a model provider adds, where the law or the provider’s terms require it to stay.
• Outputs can be wrong, strange or offensive. A model’s checks and notes are suggestions, not professional advice.

07 / THIRD-PARTY MODELS

Third-party models and services

• Tarkovsky makes things by sending your requests to model providers. Today these include OpenRouter, which passes requests to video, image and language models from companies such as Google, Anthropic, OpenAI, xAI and MiniMax, and ElevenLabs, for voices, music and transcription. With your own API key you can also use OpenAI, Anthropic, xAI, Google, OpenRouter, MiniMax and ElevenLabs directly. The Models page shows what is available.
• Each provider’s own terms and usage policies also apply to what you ask it to do, and you must follow them. A provider may refuse a request, or change, limit or withdraw a model at any time.
• We choose, and may change, the models and providers behind each feature. We are not responsible for a provider’s service or output, or for what it does with data under its own terms, beyond what the Privacy Notice says.
• When you connect your own API key, you are responsible for your account with that provider and for its charges. We store your key encrypted and use it only for the requests you make in Tarkovsky.
• The other services we rely on, such as hosting, sign-in, payments and email, are listed in the Privacy Notice. Stripe’s terms apply to payments.

08 / ACCEPTABLE USE

Acceptable use

You must not use Tarkovsky to make, upload, store or share anything, or to do anything, that:

• is illegal where you are or where it will be seen, or helps someone break the law;
• shows a minor in a sexual way, or sexualises minors in any way. We report child sexual abuse material to the National Center for Missing & Exploited Children and to the police;
• is an intimate or sexual image of a real person who has not agreed to it, including one that is generated or altered;
• impersonates a real person, or depicts a real person in a way they have not agreed to: for example a deepfake meant to deceive, a false endorsement, or a sexual, violent or defamatory depiction;
• infringes someone’s copyright, trademark, privacy or right of publicity, or uses material you have no right to use;
• harasses or threatens people, or incites violence or hatred against them for who they are;
• contains or spreads malware, or is used for phishing, fraud or spam;
• abuses the Service: overloading it, getting around its security or rate limits, testing it for weaknesses without our permission, scraping it or reaching it by automated means other than an API or tool we offer for that, or copying it to build a competing product;
• gets around credits, plan limits or payment: for example opening extra accounts to collect welcome credits, sharing an account to avoid seat limits, or using a billing error to get credits. If you find a billing bug, tell us. Credits that come from one are not yours, and we may remove them;
• breaks a model provider’s usage policy.

We may refuse a request, remove content or suspend an account that breaks these rules (section 10).

Reporting content

To report content, email hello@tarkovsky.ai with a link to it or a description, and why it should be removed.

If you own a copyright, include: the work; where it appears in Tarkovsky; your contact details; a statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorised; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and that you own the right or may act for its owner. We handle these notices, and counter-notices, as the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act describes where it applies, and we close the accounts of repeat infringers.

09 / IMPROVING TARKOVSKY

Improving Tarkovsky for everyone

• Tarkovsky is building a Director that learns from the films made in the studio, so it gets better for everyone. It learns abstract lessons: which model suits which kind of shot, what made a retake necessary, and which checks were right.
• A lesson never keeps your script text, the names of characters or people, faces, voices, or any of your media. A lesson is a general rule, not a copy of your work.
• The choice is “Use my films to improve Tarkovsky for everyone”. It is ticked when you first see it, in the welcome box. You can untick it there, or at any time in Account (the circle with your initial, top right).
• If you opt out, we never use your films for this. Opting out applies from then on. The lessons already learned keep nothing that identifies you or your work, so there is nothing of yours to take out of them.
• A shared project is used only if its owner and every collaborator who can edit it have left the choice on.
• Opting out changes nothing else. The studio works the same.
• In the European Union and the United Kingdom, we rely on our legitimate interest in improving Tarkovsky for this, with this notice and an easy opt-out. The Privacy Notice explains this, and your right to object.
• Separately from this choice, we use records of how the Service runs, such as errors, costs and which features are used, to keep it working, to fix it and to estimate what a generation will cost.

10 / SUSPENSION AND TERMINATION

Suspension and termination

• You can stop using Tarkovsky at any time. To close your account and delete your data, email hello@tarkovsky.ai from the address of your account. Cancel any paid plan first, in the billing portal.
• We may suspend or limit your account, or remove content, if we reasonably believe that you broke these terms or the law, that your use puts the Service, other people or us at risk, or that the law or a provider requires it. We may also do so while a refunded or disputed payment is reviewed.
• We will tell you why, unless the law or safety prevents it, and give you a chance to respond where that is reasonable.
• We may close your account for a serious or repeated breach, after notice where that is reasonable.
• If we close your account without cause, or end the Service, we refund the credits you bought and have not used, and give you at least 30 days to export your work where we can.
• When your account closes, your right to use the Service ends and unused credits lapse, except as this section says. Sections 05 (for the end of the licence), 06 and 11 to 17 continue to apply.

11 / DISCLAIMERS

Disclaimers

• The Service is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent the law allows, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title and non-infringement, and any warranty that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure or free of errors, or that your content will be kept safe and never lost.
• We do not promise that outputs will be accurate, original, lawful to use or fit for your purpose.
• Some places do not allow these disclaimers. There, they apply only as far as the law allows, and you keep your legal rights as a consumer.

12 / LIMITATION OF LIABILITY

Limitation of liability

• To the fullest extent the law allows, neither Tarkovsky AI LLC nor its members, managers, staff or suppliers is liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenue, data, content or goodwill, arising from or about the Service or these terms, even if we were told it could happen.
• To the fullest extent the law allows, our total liability for all claims arising from or about the Service or these terms is limited to the greater of (a) the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the event that gave rise to the claim, and (b) US$100.
• These limits apply whatever the legal theory, whether contract, tort (including negligence) or anything else.
• They do not limit liability that the law does not allow to be limited, such as liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence. If you are a consumer in the EU or the UK, nothing in these terms limits our liability where the law of your country does not allow it.

13 / INDEMNITY

Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you will defend and indemnify Tarkovsky AI LLC and its members, managers and staff against any claim by a third party, and the losses, damages and reasonable costs (including legal fees) that come from it, to the extent the claim arises from your content, your use of outputs, your breach of these terms, or your breach of the law or of anyone’s rights.

We will tell you about such a claim promptly and let you control the defence. We may take part with our own lawyers at our own cost. You may not settle a claim in a way that admits fault for us without our agreement.

14 / CHANGES

Changes to these terms

• We may change these terms, for example when we add features, when the law changes, or when Tarkovsky leaves Alpha. Each version has a number and a date at the top.
• For a material change, we will tell you at least 14 days before it takes effect, by email or in the studio, unless the law or the need to stop abuse requires it sooner.
• When a new version takes effect, the studio asks you to accept it before you continue. Until you do, you cannot create projects, run generations or buy credits.
• If you do not accept, stop using the Service and email us. We will help you export your work and close your account. If you close it because of a material change, we refund the credits you bought and have not used.
• A change does not apply to a dispute that arose before it.

15 / GOVERNING LAW AND VENUE

Governing law and venue

• These terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, United States, without regard to its rules on conflict of laws.
• Any dispute arising from or about these terms or the Service will be heard only in the state or federal courts located in New York County, New York. You and we agree to the jurisdiction of those courts.
• Before you start a claim, please email us and give us 30 days to try to resolve it. Most problems can be fixed quickly.
• If you are a consumer in the EU or the UK, you also keep the protection of the mandatory laws of your country, and you may bring a claim in the courts where you live.
• Either of us may ask any competent court for urgent relief to protect intellectual property or confidential information.
• The United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods does not apply.

16 / GENERAL

General

• These terms and the Privacy Notice are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
• If a court finds part of these terms invalid, the rest still applies.
• If we do not enforce a right at once, we have not given it up.
• You may not transfer these terms without our agreement. We may transfer them to a company that takes over Tarkovsky or its business, and we will tell you.
• Neither of us is responsible for a delay or failure caused by events beyond reasonable control.
• We send notices by email to the address of your account, or in the studio. You send notices to hello@tarkovsky.ai.

17 / CONTACT

Contact

Tarkovsky AI LLC · hello@tarkovsky.ai

For a question about these terms, a refund, a report of content or a problem with your account, email us. Please write from the address of your account, so we know it is you.