Akordly — Terms of Service

Effective date: 2026-04-23 Last updated: 2026-04-23

1. Who we are

Akordly (also referred to as "the Service", "we", "us", or "our") is an online tool that analyzes audio you provide and returns estimated chord charts, section markers, and — where you enable them — lyric transcriptions, so you can practice playing music.

The Service is operated by an individual based in Israel. You can reach us at hello@akordly.net for general questions, privacy@akordly.net for privacy requests, copyright@akordly.net for copyright matters, and abuse@akordly.net to report misuse.

2. Acceptance of these Terms

By creating an account, signing in, or otherwise using the Service, you agree to these Terms of Service (the "Terms"), our Privacy Policy, our Acceptable Use Policy, and our Copyright Policy. If you don't agree, don't use the Service.

If you're using the Service on behalf of an organization, you confirm you have authority to bind that organization to these Terms, and "you" refers to both you and the organization.

3. Eligibility

To use Akordly you must be at least 16 years old. If you're under 16, don't create an account and don't upload anything — the Service is not intended for you, and we will terminate accounts we learn belong to users under 16.

You must also be legally capable of forming a binding contract in your country of residence, and not barred from receiving the Service under the laws of any country that applies to you, including export-control and sanctions laws.

4. Your account

Accounts are created through Firebase Authentication (Google or email sign-in). You are responsible for:

  • keeping your login credentials secure,
  • the accuracy of the information you give us, and
  • everything that happens under your account.

One person, one account. You may not share your account or let someone else use it. Tell us immediately if you think your account has been compromised.

5. What the Service does — and what it doesn't

Akordly estimates chords, sections, and lyrics from audio using automated machine-learning models. These estimates are best-effort and frequently imperfect. Do not rely on Akordly as a source of ground-truth musical arrangements, authoritative lyrics, licensed sheet music, or professional transcription. Estimates are for your personal practice only.

We may add, change, or remove features at any time. We may also impose usage limits on free and paid tiers.

6. Your content

"Your Content" means audio files you upload, YouTube URLs you submit, and any other material you provide to the Service.

You keep ownership of Your Content. You do not transfer any copyright or other ownership to us by using Akordly.

To operate the Service, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, process, analyze, transcribe, transcode, and transmit Your Content, solely to provide the Service to you and to operate and improve it. This license ends when the relevant content is deleted from our systems (see the Privacy Policy for retention periods).

We do not train foundation models on Your Content. We do not sell Your Content. We do not share Your Content with other users — there is no public feed, no shared library, and no browse or discovery feature.

7. Your representations about Your Content

Every time you upload audio or submit a URL, you represent that:

  • you own the content, or you have all the rights, licenses, and permissions needed to upload it and have us process it for the purpose described in these Terms;
  • your use of the Service complies with applicable copyright, neighboring-rights, trademark, privacy, and publicity laws in your country and in the countries where rightsholders reside;
  • the content does not violate our Acceptable Use Policy; and
  • you are solely responsible for the consequences of your upload.

If you cannot make these representations truthfully for a particular piece of content, don't upload it.

8. YouTube ingestion

If you paste a YouTube URL, we fetch the audio through automated tooling solely to analyze it on your behalf. You represent that you have the right to do this under the laws that apply to you and under YouTube's own terms. We do not store the source video, re-upload it, or make it available to anyone else — we use it only to produce your chord/lyric analysis. Audio pulled from YouTube is cached server-side briefly and then purged (see the Privacy Policy).

Some videos (region-locked, embed-disabled, age-gated, or otherwise restricted) cannot be processed. We'll surface an error and not proceed.

9. Lyrics

Lyrics are hidden by default. The first time you reveal lyrics, we ask you to confirm you have the right to view them for your own personal practice; we record that acceptance and don't ask again. A per-song eye icon and a global toggle let you control lyric visibility afterwards.

10. Prohibited uses

Your use of the Service is governed by the Acceptable Use Policy, which is incorporated into these Terms by reference. Violations may result in content removal, account suspension, or termination.

11. Paid plans

We offer, or may offer, paid subscription plans with additional features or higher usage limits ("Paid Plans").

  • Billing. Paid Plans are billed through a third-party payment processor. We do not see or store your full payment card details.
  • Auto-renewal. Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each billing period at the then-current price until you cancel. You can cancel anytime from your account settings; cancellation takes effect at the end of the current period.
  • Price changes. We may change prices on at least 30 days' notice. The new price applies to your next renewal.
  • Refunds. Except where required by law, fees are non-refundable. If you live in the EU, UK, or Israel, you may have a statutory right of withdrawal that is preserved by applicable law; by starting to use a Paid Plan feature during the withdrawal period, you may waive that right where the law permits.
  • Taxes. Prices exclude applicable taxes unless stated otherwise. You are responsible for any taxes your jurisdiction imposes on your purchase, except those based on our net income.
  • Failed payment. If a payment fails and isn't cured within a reasonable grace period, we may suspend or terminate the Paid Plan.

12. Free tier

Free-tier access is provided on an "as-available" basis and may be limited, changed, or withdrawn at any time. We are not required to preserve free-tier features or pricing.

13. Our intellectual property

The Service, including its software, models, UI, branding, the "Akordly" name, and all associated trademarks, is owned by us or our licensors. Nothing in these Terms transfers any of that to you. You may not copy, reverse-engineer, decompile, scrape at scale, or build a competing service using our code, models, or outputs.

14. Third-party services

Akordly depends on third-party services, including but not limited to Google Firebase (authentication, database), audio-analysis models we host, and external ASR providers for lyric transcription. Those services have their own terms and privacy practices; your use of Akordly is subject to them where relevant, but your contract for the Service itself is with us.

YouTube is a separate platform we do not control. Your use of YouTube content is subject to YouTube's own terms; we make no representation that YouTube permits your specific use of their content.

15. Suspension and termination

By you. You can delete your account at any time from account settings. On deletion we remove your account record, your transcriptions, any server-side caches, and signal your browser to wipe the locally cached audio.

By us. We may suspend or terminate your access — with or without notice — if:

  • you breach these Terms, the Acceptable Use Policy, or the Copyright Policy;
  • we're required to by law or valid legal process;
  • your use creates a security, abuse, or legal-liability risk; or
  • you're identified as a repeat infringer under our Copyright Policy.

Sections of these Terms that by their nature should survive termination (ownership, the license you granted us, disclaimers, liability limits, indemnification, governing law, and dispute resolution) will survive.

16. Disclaimers

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE". TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND ANY WARRANTY OF ACCURACY, COMPLETENESS, OR RELIABILITY OF CHORD, SECTION, OR LYRIC OUTPUTS.

Machine-generated chord charts and lyrics are estimates and will contain errors. They are not a substitute for official sheet music, publisher-approved lyrics, or professional transcription services.

Nothing in this section limits any warranty that cannot be excluded under the law that applies to you as a consumer.

17. Limitation of liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW:

  • We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenues, data, goodwill, or opportunity, arising out of or related to the Service — even if we've been told those damages were possible.
  • Our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service in any twelve-month period is capped at the greater of (a) the amount you paid us for the Service in that twelve-month period, or (b) USD 100.

Some jurisdictions don't allow certain limitations of liability. If you live in such a jurisdiction, the above limits apply only to the maximum extent the law allows, and nothing in these Terms limits our liability for fraud, gross negligence, willful misconduct, death or personal injury caused by our negligence, or for any other liability that cannot be excluded by law.

18. Indemnification

You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold us harmless from any claim, demand, loss, liability, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to:

  • Your Content, including any claim that it infringes or violates third-party rights;
  • your use of the Service in violation of these Terms or applicable law; or
  • your breach of the representations in Section 7.

This does not apply to the extent a claim arises from our own willful misconduct or gross negligence, or where the law otherwise prohibits indemnification.

19. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms. When we do, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top and, for material changes, give you reasonable notice (by email or in-product notice) before the change takes effect. If you don't agree to the updated Terms, stop using the Service and delete your account before the change takes effect; continued use after the effective date means you accept the update.

20. Governing law and venue

These Terms, and any dispute arising from them or from your use of the Service, are governed by the laws of the State of Israel, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. The exclusive venue for any dispute is the competent courts of Tel Aviv-Yafo, Israel.

If you are a consumer resident in the EU, UK, or another country whose law guarantees you the right to bring claims in your local courts or to have your local consumer-protection law apply, nothing in this section takes that right away.

21. Dispute resolution

Before filing any formal claim, please contact us at hello@akordly.net so we can try to resolve it directly. Most issues can be settled that way within 30 days.

If we can't, claims go to the courts named above, except where mandatory consumer-protection rules give you a different venue.

22. Export control and sanctions

You may not use the Service in, or export or re-export any Akordly software or data to, any country subject to comprehensive sanctions administered by the United States, the European Union, the United Kingdom, or Israel, or to any person or entity on a restricted-party list maintained by those authorities.

23. Miscellaneous

  • Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, AUP, and Copyright Policy, are the whole agreement between you and us about the Service.
  • Severability. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest remains in effect.
  • No waiver. If we don't enforce a right on one occasion, that's not a waiver of the right.
  • Assignment. You may not assign these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
  • Relationship. No partnership, employment, or agency is created by these Terms.
  • Notices. We give you notices via the email address on your account or through the Service. You give us notices at hello@akordly.net.
  • Language. These Terms are drafted in English. Translations are provided for convenience; the English version controls.

24. Contact