piuda Terms of Service

Last updated: May 25, 2026 Effective date: May 25, 2026 Version: v1.8.1

⚠️ Important Notice

This service is not officially offered to users in the United States, the European Union (EU), the European Economic Area (EEA), the United Kingdom (UK), or any other country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region. Users residing in or accessing the Service from these excluded regions are not permitted to register, purchase, or use the Service. See Section 4 and Section 25C for details.

These Terms of Service (hereinafter, "these Terms") set forth the rights, obligations, and responsibilities between Passion Factory Corporation (hereinafter, "the Company") and the User in connection with the use of the piuda service (hereinafter, "the Service") provided by the Company.

piuda is an AI-based research support service designed to assist academic research. piuda does not replace the researcher's academic judgment, research design, compliance with research ethics, verification of citations, determination of whether to disclose AI use, or responsibility for the final research output.

If the User accesses piuda or uses the Service, the User shall be deemed to have agreed to these Terms. However, matters that require separate consent or separate notice under applicable laws — such as personal information processing, cross-border transfer of personal information, cookies and similar technologies, marketing communications, third-party integrations, paid payments, and institutional contracts — shall be handled by the Company through separate procedures.

The Service is available in countries or regions other than the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region. The Company does not individually enumerate all countries where the Service is available; details regarding eligible service regions and excluded regions are set forth in Section 4 and Section 25C.

Key Notices

This summary is provided to help the User's understanding; specific rights and obligations shall be governed by the body provisions.

Ownership of User Content Rights to user content uploaded, entered, written, or generated by the User — including papers, research notes, ideas, drafts, and data — shall, in principle, belong to the User or the rightful right-holder. The Company shall process user content only to the extent necessary to provide the Service.

Local-Processing Principle for Original PDFs Under the current service design, original PDF files uploaded by the User shall, in principle, be stored and processed on the User's device and shall not be persistently stored on the Company's servers. Even where AI analysis is required, only the minimum data necessary to provide the Service — such as text parsed from the paper, metadata, and analysis parameters — rather than the original PDF file itself, may be transmitted to the server or to the AI processing path. However, this may be otherwise provided where synchronization, sharing, backup, or integration features are explicitly enabled by the User in the future, or where a separate contract, statutory obligation, or security necessity exists; in such cases, the Company shall follow the necessary notice or consent procedures.

No Data Sale and No Use for AI Training The Company does not sell user content and does not disclose user content for advertising purposes. The Company shall take reasonable contractual and technical measures to ensure that user content is not used for training, retraining, fine-tuning, distillation, or building evaluation datasets for general-purpose AI models of the Company or of the AI processing providers used by the Company.

AI Gateway and ZDR Limitations The Company may route LLM and embedding calls through an AI Gateway designated by the Company or an equivalent relay channel. To the extent possible, the Company shall prioritize the use of Zero Data Retention or equivalent data-retention-restricted AI processing endpoints. However, the method of processing and any temporary retention may vary depending on the AI Gateway's routing, model fallback, caching, rate limits, error diagnosis, security, statutory obligations, and technical constraints of the relevant features or models.

Local-First Storage for Free type Research data of the Free type shall, in principle, be stored in the local storage of the User's device and shall not be persistently stored on the Company's servers. However, some data may be transiently transmitted or processed to the extent necessary to provide the Service — including AI analysis execution, account operation, error diagnosis, security, abuse prevention, legal compliance, and synchronization, sharing, backup, or integration features explicitly enabled by the User.

Service Analytics and Error Tracking The Company may use analytics and error-tracking tools for purposes such as service quality improvement, feature usage analysis, security, abuse prevention, error tracking, and stability monitoring. Where such tools may process or transfer identifiable information — including user identifiers, behavioral events, device and browser metadata, and IP addresses — across borders, the Company shall follow separate notice or consent procedures in accordance with applicable laws, and the details shall be set forth in the Privacy Policy.

Obligation to Review AI Output AI output may contain errors, omissions, hallucinations, misattribution of sources, and non-existent literature, figures, or statistical values. The User must directly verify original texts, actual citation information, research-ethics standards, and the standards of the User's institution and relevant journals before using AI output.

Responsibility for Final Output Sample sentences, summaries, analyses, comments, and research-direction suggestions provided by piuda are reference materials. The content included in final theses, research proposals, reports, presentations, and submissions must be directly reviewed, revised, and finalized by the User.

Exclusion of Official Service in the United States, EU/EEA, UK, and Other Excluded Regions The United States, EU member states, EEA member states, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region are not official service regions. The Company may restrict registration, payment, or use of the Service by users in excluded regions based on reasonable criteria — including IP addresses, access location, payment country, billing address, institutional email domain, and residence information entered by the User.

Restriction on Minor Registration The Company currently does not permit minors to register or use the Service. Users in the Republic of Korea must be at least 19 years of age, users in Japan must be at least 18 years of age, and users in other eligible service regions must be at least the age of majority under the laws of their region in order to use the Service.

Copyright and Rights to Research Materials piuda is not a repository for unlawful distribution or sharing of papers, academic materials, datasets, or copyrighted works. The User must hold the necessary rights, permissions, consents, or legal grounds with respect to materials the User uploads.

1. Company Information

1.1 Basic information of the Company

Trade name: Passion Factory Corporation (주식회사 열정팩토리)
English name: Passion Factory Corporation
Representative: Jeonghoon, Lee
Address: 161 Hakdong-ro, Gangnam-gu, Seoul, Republic of Korea
Business registration number: 114-87-18004
E-commerce business report number: 2022-서울강남-00382
Telephone: +82-70-7756-1070
Email: [email protected]
Hosting and major infrastructure providers:
- Google Cloud (Google LLC)
- Cloudflare (Cloudflare, Inc.)
- Redis Cloud (Redis Ltd.)
- Other cloud and infrastructure providers used by the Company for service operation
Details concerning the list of major data processors currently in use, the purpose of processing, the items processed, the location of processing, the destination countries of transfer, retention periods, and sub-processing arrangements — including matters related to processing entrustment and cross-border transfer — are set forth in the Privacy Policy.

1.2 In these Terms, "the Company," "we," and "us" refer to Passion Factory Corporation.

1.3 In these Terms, "piuda" or "the Service" means the AI-based research support platform, website, applications, related features, tools, content, APIs, and ancillary services provided by the Company.

1.4 Specific matters relating to personal information processing — including hosting providers, locations of data processing, processors, cross-border transfer of personal information, and retention periods — are set forth in a separate Privacy Policy.

1.5 Because the Company currently does not treat the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, or any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region as an official service region, these Terms shall not be construed as representing or warranting that the Company has already satisfied all service-provision requirements under specific regional legal regimes such as DMCA Safe Harbor, GDPR Article 27 representative designation, UK GDPR representative designation, SCCs, the UK IDTA, or the UK Addendum.

2. Purpose and Nature of the Service

2.1 piuda is an AI-based research assistance service that helps researchers understand research materials faster and more systematically, discover research gaps and logical weaknesses, and elaborate research ideas.

2.2 piuda helps the User structure academic papers and research materials that the User has registered, and explore research gaps, potential logical connections, new research directions, and the differentiation and supplements of ideas through cross-paper analysis.

2.3 piuda may provide all or part of the following features.

Paper registration based on PDF files or DOI
Extraction of paper metadata, abstracts, research questions, theoretical background, variables, methodologies, major findings, and limitations
Construction and management of the User's library
Analysis of commonalities, differences, contradictions, and methodological connections among registered papers
Exploration of research gaps, new research directions, and analytical combinations
Review of differentiation, evidentiary strength, and feasibility of research ideas
Provision of supplementary comments on research proposals, research questions, hypotheses, methodologies, and outlines
Search and enrichment of academic metadata using academic search APIs, DOI, paper IDs, search terms, etc.
Export or backup of papers, research notes, and analysis results
Other research support features additionally provided by the Company

2.4 Core Modes

Discovery Mode — A feature that performs cross-analysis of registered papers, derives meaningful analytical combinations, and proposes research insights that can be derived from each combination.

Validate & Enrich Mode — A feature that evaluates the differentiation, evidentiary strength, and feasibility of research ideas entered by the User or selected from Discovery, and suggests directions for development.

Research Proposal Mode — A feature that provides comments on methodological flaws, logical leaps, and areas requiring supplementation in the process of developing a validated idea into a research proposal.

2.5 piuda does not replace the researcher's independent judgment, academic responsibility, compliance with research ethics, review by supervisors, co-researchers, and affiliated institutions, journal peer review, or legal, medical, or ethical consultation.

2.6 piuda is a tool that helps organize papers, perform cross-analysis, explore research gaps, validate ideas, and supplement research proposals. The User shall bear responsibility for selecting materials to be analyzed, determining research questions and methodologies, verifying citations, statistics, and sources, reviewing, revising, and finalizing the final sentences and conclusions, and deciding whether to disclose AI use and comply with research ethics.

3. Definitions

3.1 "User" means any individual or legal entity that accesses or uses the Service.

3.2 "Account" means the login account that the User creates to use the Service.

3.3 "Library" means the set of papers, DOIs, metadata, and research materials that the User uploads, registers, enters, or integrates with the Service.

3.4 "User Content" means all content that the User uploads, registers, enters, writes, stores, or generates within the Service. This includes PDF files of papers, DOIs, paper metadata, research ideas, research notes, drafts of research proposals, analysis requests, prompts, comments, datasets, tables, images, and attached materials. However, the method of storage and transmission of the original PDF files shall follow the local-processing principle for original PDFs set forth in these Terms, the storage method by membership type, in-service notices, and the Privacy Policy.

3.5 "AI Output" means all output that the Service's AI features generate based on the User's input or user content. This includes summaries, analytical combinations, insights, scores, research gaps, research directions, research questions, hypotheses, methodology comments, supplementary suggestions, sample sentences, and structured data.

3.6 "Processor" or "Data Processor" means third-party service providers that the Company uses to provide the Service, including cloud, CDN, AI processing, AI Gateway, security, authentication, analytics, error tracking, email, payment, and academic search APIs.

3.7 "Local Vault," where provided, means a feature that allows the User to designate sensitive research materials or unpublished PDFs as local-storage targets and exclude them from server synchronization.

3.8 "ZDR" is the abbreviation of Zero Data Retention and means a processing method whereby the external AI processing provider does not retain request and response data, or deletes such data immediately after processing, and is restricted from using such data for model training. However, the scope of ZDR may vary depending on the AI processing provider, model, endpoint, AI Gateway, technical constraints of each feature, security or error-diagnosis needs, statutory obligations, or separate contractual terms.

3.9 "AI Gateway" means a relay service or equivalent technical path used by the Company so that LLM or embedding requests are not delivered directly to external AI processing providers but are instead handled through routing, model fallback, caching, rate limit management, usage management, and security control.

3.10 "Organization Workspace" means a collaboration space managed at the unit of an institution, school, lab, company, or organization through the Academy/Business type or team features.

3.11 "Administrator" means a User who holds, within an Organization Workspace, the authority to invite or remove members, configure permissions, set the scope of content access, configure security settings, and manage payment or data.

3.12 "Paid Services" means paid products or services such as the Pro type, the Academy/Business type, or subscriptions, credits, additional features, and institutional licenses provided for a fee by the Company.

3.13 "Automatic Renewal" means a method by which the Paid Services are automatically extended and billed at each defined payment cycle until the User cancels.

3.14 "Eligible Service Regions" or "Official Service Regions" means countries or regions other than the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region through its homepage, pricing pages, signup screens, legal notices, in-service announcements, or separate contracts. The Company may not individually enumerate all eligible service countries.

3.15 "Excluded Regions" means countries or regions that the Company currently does not treat as official service regions, and as of the effective date of these Terms includes the United States, EU member states, EEA member states, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region.

4. Eligible Service Regions and Excluded Regions

4.1 The Service is available in countries or regions other than the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region. The Company does not individually enumerate all eligible service countries, and excluded regions may be announced through these Terms, in-service notices, signup screens, payment screens, legal notices, or separate contracts.

4.2 The United States, EU member states, EEA member states, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region are not currently official service regions of the Company. Users residing in such excluded regions or seeking to use the Service from such excluded regions may not register, make paid payments, conclude institutional contracts, or use the Service until the Company separately announces official opening or removal of the exclusion.

4.3 The Company may restrict registration, payment, paid subscription, institutional contracts, or use of the Service by users in excluded regions based on reasonable criteria such as IP addresses, access location, payment country, billing address, country code of telephone number, institutional email domain, residence information entered by the User, location of affiliated institution, or other reasonable factors.

4.4 Where it is confirmed that the User is a resident of an excluded region or is using the Service from an excluded region, the Company may take necessary measures in accordance with applicable laws and these Terms, including refusal of account creation, restriction of use, cancellation of subscription, refund processing, provision of an opportunity to export data, and deletion of the account.

4.5 The User shall not use VPNs, proxies, false addresses, false payment information, false institutional information, or other circumventing means to evade the excluded-region restrictions.

4.6 The mere fact that the Company has not been able to immediately and technically block circumventing registration or use by users in excluded regions shall not be construed to mean that such region has been changed to an official service region, or that the Company has decided to offer the Service to users in such region. In addition, even if a specific country or region is not individually enumerated in the excluded-region list, the Company may restrict use in such country or region in accordance with applicable laws, payment-network policies, policies of cloud and AI processing providers, security and risk-management standards, or business reasons.

4.7 Where the Company in the future adds the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, or other excluded regions as official service regions or removes them from the excluded-region list, the Company shall, prior to official opening, review necessary legal and operational measures and inform the users in such region of the major terms applicable to them through in-service notices, amendment of the Terms, posting or amendment of the Privacy Policy, payment-screen notices, or separate contracts.

4.8 This Section is not intended to unfairly restrict rights that are mandatorily guaranteed under applicable laws to users in excluded regions, but is intended to clarify the regions in which the Company currently does not officially provide the Service.

5. Eligibility, Registration, and Account Management

5.1 The User may create an account to use the Service by providing the information the Company requires, such as email address, name or display name, password, and social login information.

5.2 The User must provide accurate and current information and shall not create an account using false information or another person's information.

5.3 The User may create an account and use the Service only in eligible service regions. Users in excluded regions may not create accounts or use the Service.

5.4 The User shall manage the User's login information and account security directly. If unauthorized use, theft, or any security breach of the account is suspected, the User must immediately notify the Company.

5.5 The User shall bear responsibility for damages arising from theft of the account, password leakage, or unauthorized use by third parties caused by the User's intent or negligence. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

5.6 The Company shall restrict registration and use of the Service by minors until the infrastructure for processing legal-guardian consent — including email verification, identity-verification integration, and procedures for confirming and withdrawing legal-guardian consent — is fully established. Accordingly, the User must meet the following minimum age requirements.

Republic of Korea: at least 19 years of age
Japan: at least 18 years of age
Other eligible service regions: at least the age of majority under the laws of the relevant country or region

5.7 The Company may restrict registration, payment, or use of the Service by minors based on reasonable criteria such as IP addresses, access location, payment country, billing address, date of birth entered by the User, identity-verification information, or other reasonable factors.

5.8 Where the Company in the future permits use by minors or introduces the infrastructure for processing legal-guardian consent, the Company shall, prior to official implementation, amend these Terms and separately inform users of the registration procedure, legal-guardian consent procedure, protective measures, applicable age range, and applicable regions. The restriction on minor registration in this Section may be lifted or relaxed upon the effective date of such amended Terms.

5.9 Where the Company becomes aware that a minor has registered by falsely representing the minor's age or by representing to be an adult without the consent of a legal guardian, the Company may, in accordance with applicable laws and these Terms, take the following measures.

Immediate suspension or termination of the relevant account
Guidance on the handling of stored data upon request of the minor or the legal guardian
Where paid payments exist, review of refund processing in accordance with applicable laws, payment-method policies, and the Company's refund policy
Reasonable cooperation with the legal guardian's requests for access, correction, deletion, or withdrawal of consent

6. Consent Procedures and Separate Policies

6.1 The Company may, at the time of account registration, paid payment, activation of specific features, cross-border transfer of personal information, third-party integrations, service analytics tools, error-tracking tools, or provision of optional features, separately obtain consent or confirmation for each of the following items in the manner required by applicable laws.

Agreement to these Terms of Service
Confirmation of and agreement to the Privacy Policy
Separate consent to or separate notice of the cross-border transfer of personal information
Notice of or consent to the entrustment of personal-information processing and provision to third parties
Consent to or settings for the use of cookies and similar technologies
Notice of or consent to the use of service analytics, error tracking, and security monitoring tools
Consent to receive marketing communications
Separate consent required for optional features or third-party integrations
Confirmation of or consent to paid payments, automatic renewal, free trials, and restrictions on withdrawal of subscription

6.2 Consent to receive marketing communications is optional, and even if the User does not consent to receive marketing communications, basic use of the Service shall not be restricted.

6.3 Where the User refuses essential consent or confirmation procedures necessary for personal-information processing, cross-border transfer, third-party processing, external AI processing, service analytics, or error tracking, all or part of the Service may be restricted. In such cases, the Company shall, to the extent possible, inform the User in advance of the scope of the Service to be restricted.

6.4 Where, in the course of service analytics or error tracking, identifiable information — such as user identifiers, behavioral events, device and browser metadata, and IP addresses — may be processed or transferred across borders, the Company may proceed with separate notice or consent procedures in accordance with applicable laws. The Company shall, where necessary, retain and manage separate consent records.

6.5 Specific matters relating to the collection, use, retention, transfer, destruction of personal information, the User's rights, processors, cross-border transfers, and the use of cookies and similar technologies are set forth in a separate Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy.

6.6 Where these Terms and the Privacy Policy or Cookie Policy conflict, matters concerning personal-information or cookie processing shall be governed by the relevant policy.

6.7 The Company shall manage these Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Cookie Policy, the cross-border transfer consent screens, the paid-payment screens, the subscription-cancellation screens, and the pricing pages for each membership type so that their content is consistent.

6.8 The effectuation of these Terms and the provision of the Paid Services are conditioned on the separate posting of the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, the mandatory consent screens, the pricing pages, and the subscription management and cancellation screens being substantially consistent with these Terms in the actual operating environment. If the Privacy Policy or Cookie Policy is not in effect on the effective date of these Terms, the Company shall postpone the effectuation of these Terms or separately announce the effective date.

6.9 Matters concerning personal-information or cookie processing shall be governed primarily by the Privacy Policy or Cookie Policy, and matters directly relating to payment — such as the actual payment amount, payment cycle, taxes, automatic renewal, free trials, and refund restrictions — shall be governed primarily by the content displayed on the payment screens or pricing pages. However, the Company shall reasonably manage such information so that material matters are not displayed inconsistently to the User.

7. Ownership of User Content, License, and Responsibility for Academic Materials

7.1 The User shall continue to hold rights to the user content that the User uploads, registers, enters, writes, or generates in the Service. The Company does not acquire ownership of user content.

7.2 Rights to third-party works contained in user content — including academic papers, monographs, reports, datasets, images, tables, and appendices — shall belong to the original right-holders of such works. The User must hold the lawful authority to upload such content to the Service or to use it for analysis.

7.3 The User grants the Company a license to store, process, analyze, transform, display, transmit, back up, extract metadata from, generate embeddings from, perform AI analysis on, and process through data processors the user content, to the extent necessary for the Company to provide the Service. However, under the current service design, original PDF files shall, in principle, be stored and processed on the User's device, and even where AI analysis is required, only the minimum data necessary to provide the Service — such as text parsed from the PDF, metadata, and analysis parameters — rather than the original PDF file itself may be transmitted to the server, the AI Gateway, or the AI processing provider.

7.4 The foregoing license is non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide, and limited to the purpose of operating the Service. If the User deletes content or the account, the foregoing license shall terminate. However, where there are legitimate grounds — such as statutory retention obligations, dispute response, security, prevention of fraudulent use, or backup-deletion cycles — the Company may temporarily retain certain information to the extent necessary.

7.5 The Company shall not use user content for the following purposes.

This provision is a master provision concerning the Company's principles of no-training, no-sale, and no-disclosure, and shall be supplemented by Sections 10.3, 10.4, 10.5, and 17.2.7.

Sale of user content
Disclosure of user content for advertising or marketing purposes
Use of user content for training, retraining, fine-tuning, distillation, or building evaluation datasets for the Company's general-purpose AI models
Provision of user content for training, retraining, fine-tuning, distillation, or building evaluation datasets for general-purpose AI models of AI processing providers used by the Company
Disclosure to third parties without the User's consent
Use beyond the scope of service provision

The Company shall take reasonable contractual and technical measures to implement the foregoing no-training and no-sale principles. However, the method of data processing may vary depending on specific features, models, AI Gateways, membership types, error diagnosis, security, statutory obligations, or separate contractual terms, and specific matters shall be set forth in the Privacy Policy, in-service notices, or separate contracts.

7.6 The User must hold the lawful rights or authority to use the content the User uploads. In particular, where the User uploads paid papers, copyrighted academic materials, unpublished research materials, materials of co-researchers, internal institutional materials, or materials containing third parties' personal information or sensitive information, the User must secure the necessary rights, permissions, consents, and legal grounds.

7.7 piuda is not a repository for the unlawful distribution or sharing of papers, academic materials, datasets, or copyrighted works. Where any objection, claim, or dispute arises from copyright holders, publishers, research institutions, co-researchers, or third parties in connection with materials uploaded by the User, the User shall, in principle, bear responsibility therefor. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

8. Limitations of AI Features, Researcher Responsibility, and Disclosure of AI Use

8.1 piuda is a research assistance service and does not replace the essential acts of research and the responsibility of the researcher.

8.2 The User must directly perform the following.

Selection of papers and materials to be included in the analysis
Final determination of the research subject and research questions
Final judgment of the research design, methodology, variables, data, and analytical methods
Verification of the accuracy, completeness, sources, citations, statistics, and logic of AI output
Review, revision, and finalization of final theses, dissertations, research proposals, research funding applications, presentations, and reports
Compliance with the standards of the affiliated institution, journals, research funding agencies, supervisors, co-researchers, IRBs, or research-ethics committees
Where disclosure of the use of AI tools is required, the decision as to whether and how to disclose under such standards

8.3 piuda assists with the following.

Extraction and structuring of metadata of registered papers
Organizing commonalities, differences, contradictions, and potential connections among multiple papers
Exploration of research gaps and new analytical combinations
Review of the differentiation, evidentiary strength, and feasibility of research ideas
Suggesting logical weaknesses, methodological flaws, and points requiring supplementation in research proposals or drafts
Structuring, summarizing, and suggesting directions for improvement of content written or entered by the User

8.4 AI output may have the following limitations.

Content that is inconsistent with the facts
Inaccurate summaries of original papers
Non-existent literature, authors, DOIs, figures, research results, or statistical values
Misattribution of sources or citation errors
Errors in variable relationships, research design, or statistical interpretation
Failure to reflect the latest research trends
Insufficient disciplinary context
Incomplete judgment regarding research ethics, IRBs, journal submission guidelines, or institutional regulations

8.5 Sample sentences, summaries, comments, structured results, or other AI output provided by piuda are reference materials to assist the User's review and judgment. Sentences, citations, analyses, claims, conclusions, and research-ethics-related judgments included in the final academic output must be directly reviewed, revised, and finalized by the User, and the User shall bear responsibility therefor.

8.6 Where the User includes or references AI output in theses, research proposals, dissertations, reports, presentations, research funding applications, journal submissions, or other materials submitted externally, the User must directly verify and comply with any obligation to disclose AI use applicable under the relevant journal, institution, laws, or research-ethics standards.

8.7 The Company does not warrant the accuracy, completeness, currency, or academic validity of AI output, or the probability of acceptance to specific journals, of being selected for research funding, of passing thesis review, or of the absence of plagiarism or research misconduct.

8.8 AI output does not constitute academic, legal, medical, financial, or other professional advice. The User shall not rely solely on AI output for important decisions.

9. Personal Information, Sensitive Information, and Research Data

9.1 Detailed matters concerning the Company's processing of personal information shall be governed by a separate Privacy Policy.

9.2 The User must verify whether the materials uploaded to the Service contain third parties' personal information, sensitive information, medical information, clinical information, location information, biometric information, interview content, survey responses, transcripts, images, or identifiable information of research subjects.

9.3 Before uploading materials containing personal information or sensitive information, the User must complete the measures required by applicable laws and institutional regulations — including any necessary consents, de-identification, pseudonymization, institutional approval, IRB approval, and research-ethics-committee approval.

9.4 With respect to human-subject research, clinical research, medical data, sensitive interview materials, and unpublished research data, the User must take appropriate safeguards such as the use of Local Vault, de-identification, minimal uploading, and separate backups.

9.5 Before uploading materials whose external processing or AI analysis is restricted under NDAs, research agreements, internal security policies of affiliated institutions, joint-research agreements, or pre-patent strategies, the User must ensure the necessary approvals and authority.

9.6 Without the Company's prior written consent, the User shall not upload to the Service personal information of EU/EEA or UK residents, personal information subject to the GDPR or UK GDPR, sensitive information subject to U.S. state personal-information protection laws, HIPAA-protected health information (PHI), or other data requiring special regulatory compliance.

9.6.1 Where the Company subsequently becomes aware of a violation of Section 9.6, the Company may take necessary measures — including suspension of processing of the relevant data, restriction of access, deletion, suspension of the account, and notification of the violation — taking into account applicable laws, security needs, protection of third-party rights, operational risks of the Service, and the policies of data processors. In urgent cases for the prevention of security incidents, legal compliance, protection of third-party rights, or prevention of the spread of harm, the Company may take such measures without prior notice.

9.6.2 Where the Company takes measures pursuant to the preceding paragraph, the Company shall, to the extent legally permissible and not inappropriate for security reasons, subsequently notify the User and inform the User of the reasons for the deletion of the data and any necessary follow-up measures. Where the urgency is low and technically possible, the Company may provide the User with a reasonable opportunity to export or back up the data.

9.6.3 The deletion, access restriction, or suspension of processing of data in violation of Section 9.6 may result in data loss, interruption of analysis, or disadvantages in the use of the Service. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

9.7 Where the User is required to upload data described in the preceding paragraph, the User must, in advance, secure the necessary legal grounds, consents of data subjects, institutional approvals, de-identification or pseudonymization, data processing agreements, and cross-border-transfer safeguards, and may be required to conclude a separate written contract with the Company.

9.8 The User shall bear responsibility for matters arising from the upload, without lawful authority, of third parties' personal information, sensitive information, confidential information, unpublished research materials, or unauthorized materials. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

9.9 Specific matters concerning the cross-border transfer, processing entrustment, third-party provision, retention, and destruction of personal information are set forth in the Privacy Policy. Where applicable laws require separate consent or separate notice, the Company shall follow such procedures.

9.10 piuda is not a medical or clinical data management system designed with assumptions of special regulatory compliance such as HIPAA, 21 CFR Part 11, or Good Clinical Practice (GCP). Where uploading or processing of such data is required, the User must, in advance, conclude a separate contract with the Company or confirm suitability.

10. Data Processors, Subcontractors, and Third-Party Integrations

10.1 The Company may use third-party data processors or subcontractors in categories including cloud infrastructure, CDN, database, cache, AI Gateway, AI processing, PDF processing, payment, authentication, analytics, error tracking, security monitoring, and academic search APIs, in order to provide the Service. Details concerning the list of major data processors currently in use, the purpose of processing, items processed, location of processing, destination countries of transfer, retention periods, and sub-processing arrangements are set forth in the Privacy Policy.

10.2 In the performance of certain features — such as AI analysis, cloud storage, security, authentication, analytics, error tracking, payment, and academic search — the User's data may be transferred to and processed by data processors located outside the country. Specific matters are set forth in the Privacy Policy, in-service notices, or separate contracts.

10.3 The Company shall, to the extent possible, require the following from data processors, or take contractual and technical measures to that effect.

Processing of data in accordance with the Company's instructions
Prohibition of use of data beyond the purpose of service provision
Maintenance of appropriate technical and managerial protective measures
Prohibition of use of user content for AI model training
Restriction on sub-processing or third-party provision without the Company's approval
Notification of and cooperation in the event of security incidents
Deletion or return of data upon contract termination or achievement of the processing purpose
Implementation of protective measures in accordance with applicable laws and the Privacy Policy

10.4 The Company may route LLM and embedding calls through an AI Gateway designated by the Company or an equivalent relay channel. The AI Gateway may be used for model routing, model fallback, caching, rate-limit management, usage management, incident response, and security control. The User may not directly select an individual AI provider, and the Company may automatically select or change AI processing providers based on task type, features, performance, cost, stability, and security criteria.

10.5 The Company shall, to the extent possible, prioritize the use of ZDR or equivalent data-retention-restricted AI processing endpoints. However, the method of processing may vary depending on the AI Gateway's routing, caching, rate limiting, and error diagnosis, features, models, membership types, technical constraints, security, or statutory obligations. Specific processing matters — such as whether the AI processing provider retains data, retention period, whether data is used for training, location of processing, and exceptions — are set forth in the Privacy Policy, in-service notices, or separate contracts.

10.6 With respect to the PDF analysis feature, under the current service design, original PDF files shall, in principle, be stored and processed on the User's device. Even where AI analysis is required, only the minimum data necessary — such as parsed text, metadata, and analysis parameters — rather than the original PDF file itself, may be transmitted to the server, the AI Gateway, or the AI processing provider. Where synchronization, sharing, backup, or integration features are explicitly enabled by the User in the future, or where a separate contract exists, the relevant feature or contractual conditions shall apply.

10.7 The Company may use academic search APIs or similar services for purposes such as paper search, DOI verification, academic metadata enrichment, preprint verification, and search of domestic and international academic materials. In such cases, in principle, only information necessary to perform the search — such as search terms, DOI, and paper IDs — shall be transmitted, and the Company shall take reasonable measures so that the User's personal information is not unnecessarily transmitted. Specific matters concerning the list of major academic search API providers currently in use, the purpose of processing, items processed, location of processing, and retention periods are set forth in the Privacy Policy.

10.8 The Company may use analytics and error-tracking tools for purposes such as service quality improvement, feature usage analysis, security, abuse prevention, error tracking, and stability monitoring. Such tools may process identifiable information including user identifiers, behavioral events, device and browser metadata, request URLs, error stack traces, and IP addresses. The Company shall apply reasonable masking and scrubbing measures so that sensitive information — such as emails, names, paper text, analysis-result text, API keys, authentication tokens, cookies, and Authorization headers — is not unnecessarily transmitted. Specific matters concerning the list of major analytics and error-tracking tools currently in use, the purpose of processing, items processed, location of processing, and retention periods are set forth in the Privacy Policy.

10.9 Where the use of service analytics or error-tracking tools requires consent to or separate notice of the cross-border transfer of personal information, the Company shall proceed with separate consent or notice procedures in accordance with applicable laws and, where necessary, retain and manage consent records. Detailed recipients, destination countries of transfer, items transferred, retention periods, and disadvantages from refusal are set forth in the Privacy Policy or separate consent screens.

10.10 The Company may provide authentication features such as email/password authentication, social login, session management, and token management. On the web, secure session management methods such as HTTP-only Secure Cookies may be used for security, and in desktop applications, secure storage methods such as the OS Keychain, Electron safeStorage, or equivalent may be used. The authentication methods provided may change depending on the actual implementation status, security policies, and policies of third-party providers.

10.11 The Company may, in the future, provide integration features with external services such as reference management tools, cloud storage, academic database APIs, document authoring tools, and collaboration tools. The specific list of integrable services may change, and the latest list shall follow in-service notices. Third-party integrations shall be activated only where the User explicitly grants authority.

10.12 The use of third-party services is subject to the terms and privacy policies of such third-party services. The Company shall not be liable for the outages, security incidents, policy changes, fee changes, data processing, data losses, or feature limitations of third-party services. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

11. Membership Types, Pricing Plans, and Storage Methods

11.1 The Service has the following three membership types.

Free type
Pro type
Academy/Business type

11.2 The features, usage limits, storage methods, scope of AI analysis, synchronization, collaboration features, and prices of each membership type are set forth on the Company's homepage, pricing pages, in-service notices, or separate contracts.

11.3 The Company may change the features, usage limits, and prices of each membership type in accordance with service operations, feature improvements, cost structure, technical circumstances, and beta operation status. Where there is a change unfavorable or material to the User, the Company shall provide prior notice in accordance with these Terms.

11.4 Free type

11.4.1 The Free type is a free membership type for individual researchers or first-time users. Free type users may use the basic features of piuda within the scope set by the Company at no separate cost.

11.4.2 The features, usage limits, and applicable scope of the Free type follow the Company's homepage, pricing pages, or in-service notices. The Company may, within a reasonable scope, adjust the limits of the Free type in accordance with service operations, feature improvements, cost structure, and technical circumstances, and where there is a change unfavorable or material to the User, the Company shall provide prior notice in accordance with Sections 11.3 and 24.

11.4.3 Research data of the Free type shall, in principle, be stored in the local storage of the User's device and shall not be persistently stored on the Company's servers. This may include uploaded original PDFs, extracted metadata, the library, analytical combinations, insights, research ideas, and comments.

11.4.4 Even in the Free type, certain data may be transmitted externally or processed/stored on the Company's servers in the following cases.

Where, to execute AI analysis, the minimum necessary data — such as text parsed from PDFs, metadata, and analysis parameters — is temporarily transmitted to the server, the AI Gateway, or AI processing endpoints
Where basic information necessary for account operation — such as email, login tokens, authentication information, and session information — is stored on the Company's servers
Where the User explicitly activates synchronization, sharing, export, backup, or integration features
Where the minimum necessary logs are processed for error diagnosis, incident response, security, abuse prevention, or legal compliance
Where certain usage information is processed for service analytics or error tracking within the scope of applicable laws and the Privacy Policy
Where information necessary for payment, customer support, prevention of fraudulent use, or compliance with legal obligations is processed

11.4.5 "Local storage" in the Free type means the default storage method intended to minimize the server storage of user data, and does not mean that no data shall be transmitted externally under any circumstances.

11.4.6 The risk of loss of Free type local data and the User's backup responsibility shall be governed by Section 19.3.

11.5 Pro type

11.5.1 The Pro type is a paid membership type for individual users conducting in-depth research, such as degree research.

11.5.2 The major features and limits of the Pro type follow the latest notices on the homepage or pricing pages.

11.5.3 Specific prices, payment currency, whether taxes (including value-added tax, sales tax, and withholding tax) are included, payment cycle, discount/promotion/country-specific pricing policies, payment-processor fees, and exchange rate application of the Pro type follow the content displayed on the Company's homepage, pricing pages, or payment screens.

11.5.4 Where these Terms and the content displayed on the pricing pages or payment screens differ, matters directly relating to actual payment shall be governed by the content displayed on the pricing pages or payment screens.

11.5.5 Analysis results, notes, memos, project data, and the like for which synchronization or cloud storage features are activated in the Pro type may be processed and stored on the Company's servers or on cloud infrastructure used by the Company. However, the storage and transmission method of original PDF files shall follow the local-processing principle for original PDFs set forth in these Terms, in-service notices, the Privacy Policy, or separate contracts.

11.6 Academy/Business type

11.6.1 The Academy/Business type is a membership type for licenses at the unit of institutions, teams, schools, labs, companies, or organizations.

11.6.2 Fees, payment methods, contract period, features provided, number of seats, administrator authority, data retention methods, security conditions, SSO, SLA, and the like are set forth in a separate contract between the Company and the relevant institution.

11.6.3 Institutional contracts for institutions located in the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, or any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region, contracts targeting users in such excluded regions, or contracts giving rise to special data-processing obligations under the laws of such excluded regions may not be concluded until the Company has separately completed official opening and legal/operational preparation.

12. Local Vault

12.1 The Local Vault feature may be provided in membership types designated by the Company, such as the Pro type or the Academy/Business type. Data designated by the User for the Local Vault shall, in principle, be stored on the local device and excluded from server synchronization.

12.2 Even with Local Vault data, where AI analysis is executed, the minimum data necessary for the analysis may be temporarily transmitted to the server, the AI Gateway, or ZDR or equivalent AI processing endpoints. In addition, Local Vault data may not be automatically synchronized with other devices, and the Company does not guarantee recovery of data stored only on local devices.

12.3 The risk of loss of Local Vault data and the User's backup responsibility shall be governed by Section 19.3.

13. Academy/Business Type and Organization Workspaces

13.1 The Company may provide personal-use workspaces as well as workspaces for teams, institutions, schools, labs, companies, or organizations.

13.2 The administrator of the Academy/Business type, or the administrator designated by the relevant institution or company, shall be responsible for inviting and removing members, configuring permissions, the scope of content access, payment, security settings, data management, and the communication of internal policies.

13.3 Content uploaded or generated within an Organization Workspace may be displayed to other members or administrators depending on permission settings. The User must understand that content within an Organization Workspace may be viewed, managed, exported, or deleted by the administrator or members with authority.

13.4 Intellectual property rights in content within an Organization Workspace shall, in principle, belong to the User who generated or uploaded the content or the rightful right-holder. However, the authority to access, use, retain, delete, transfer, and manage content within an Organization Workspace may vary depending on the internal policies of the relevant organization, administrator settings, separate contracts, or the relationship between the User and the organization.

13.5 Content generated or uploaded in the Academy/Business type may be classified as follows.

Organization Content Content generated for research or business purposes of an institution, school, lab, company, or organization, or uploaded to an Organization Workspace, shared space, joint project, account in the name of the institution, or space designated by the administrator. Organization content may be accessed, managed, exported, or deleted by the administrator of the relevant organization or members with authority, and the specific management method shall follow separate contracts, the organization's internal policies, administrator settings, and service policies.

Personal Content Content uploaded or generated by the User in a personal workspace or non-shared space and clearly separable from the organization's joint research or business purposes. Personal content shall, in principle, be managed by the relevant User. However, where there are legitimate grounds — such as statutory obligations, response to security incidents, lawful requests from investigative authorities, explicit consent of the User, separate contracts, or organizational policies — access or processing may take place to the extent necessary.

13.6 Even after a member withdraws from or is removed from an organization, organization content generated or uploaded by such member within the Organization Workspace may be retained in the Organization Workspace in accordance with separate contracts, organizational policies, or applicable laws.

13.7 Where personal content exists, the User may export such personal content within a reasonable period before the termination of authority. However, where there are legitimate grounds for restriction — such as statutory restrictions, security incidents, requests from investigative authorities, institutional contracts, or organizational policies — export may be restricted.

13.8 Users of teams, institutions, schools, labs, companies, or organizations must, before uploading joint-research materials, unpublished papers, internal institutional materials, research-subject information, or trade secrets, verify internal approval and authority.

13.9 Where these Terms and a separate contract concerning the Academy/Business type conflict, the relevant separate contract shall prevail. However, no separate contract shall unfairly restrict the rights guaranteed to the User under applicable laws.

14. Subscription, Payment, Withdrawal of Subscription, and Refund

14.1 The Free type may be used within the scope set by the Company at no separate cost.

14.2 The Pro type is a paid membership type for which the User pays a monthly flat fee. The monthly fee, features, usage limits, payment cycle, and excess-usage terms of the Pro type can be found on the Company's homepage or pricing pages.

14.3 The fees of the Pro type may be charged in advance on a monthly basis or on a payment cycle set by the Company. The User shall register a payment method and consent to recurring payments.

14.4 Where Paid Services are provided on an automatic renewal basis, the Company shall, before payment, clearly indicate the automatic-renewal conditions, payment cycle, price, whether taxes are included, whether charges will occur after the end of a free trial, the next payment date, cancellation method, and refund availability. The User must verify and consent to such conditions before payment.

14.5 Where a free trial is provided, the free-trial period, whether automatic payment will occur after the end of the free trial, the scheduled payment date, scheduled payment amount, and cancellation method shall be indicated on the payment screen or through in-service notices. If the User does not cancel the subscription before the end of the free trial, the Pro type fee may be charged in accordance with the disclosed conditions.

14.6 The User may cancel the Pro type subscription at any time, and cancellation shall take effect at the end of the current payment cycle. After cancellation, no further charges shall be made from the next payment date.

14.7 Even where the User cancels the subscription mid-month, the User may use the Pro type until the end of the current payment cycle, and except where the Company separately provides otherwise or applicable laws require otherwise, no pro-rata refund shall be provided for the remaining period.

14.8 Where the User, after the Pro type payment, has not used any paid features at all and requests a refund within 7 days from the payment date, the Company shall refund in accordance with applicable laws, payment-method policies, and the Company's refund policy. However, the actual refund method, timing, and amount may vary depending on the policies of payment processors, card companies, app stores, exchange rates, taxes, or fees.

14.9 In the following cases, withdrawal of subscription or refund may be restricted within the scope permitted by applicable laws.

Where the User, after the Pro type payment, has used paid features such as AI analysis, paper analysis, research-note generation, insight recommendations, or research analysis
Where the User has used all or part of the AI analysis credits, usage limits, or digital content provided
Where the provision of digital services or online services that are provided immediately has commenced
Where the User has been informed in advance of the grounds for restriction on withdrawal of subscription through the payment screen, pricing pages, or in-service notices
Other cases where restrictions on withdrawal of subscription or refund are permitted under applicable laws

14.10 The Company shall, through the paid payment screen, pricing pages, or in-service notices, display matters material to payment — such as grounds for restriction on withdrawal of subscription, refund availability, subscription-cancellation method, and the next payment date — so that the User can easily verify them.

14.11 Where paid features cannot be normally provided due to causes attributable to the Company, the Company shall provide reasonable measures such as refund, extension of use period, or restoration of credits in accordance with applicable laws and refund policies.

14.12 Where duplicate payments, clear payment errors, or charges due to system errors acknowledged by the Company are confirmed, the Company shall refund the amount or adjust it against the next payment amount.

14.13 Price changes shall, in principle, apply from the next payment cycle. Where there is a price change unfavorable or material to the User, the Company shall provide prior notice in accordance with these Terms.

14.14 The Academy/Business type is provided in accordance with a separate contract concluded between the Company and the relevant institution, team, school, lab, company, or organization. The fees, payment methods, issuance of tax invoices, contract period, termination, refund, penalty, scope of service, and scope of support of the Academy/Business type are set forth in such separate contract.

14.15 Where a payment failure, non-payment, fraudulent payment, or payment-information error occurs, the Company may restrict the provision of paid features or suspend or terminate the account.

14.16 The User may cancel the subscription through methods designated by the Company, such as the in-service subscription management screen, the payment platform, app stores, or the customer-support email. Paid subscriptions concluded online shall, to the extent possible, be cancelable online.

14.17 The Company may use payment-processing services for domestic payments, overseas payments, refunds, and settlements. Specific matters concerning the list of major payment processors currently in use, the purpose of processing, items processed, location of processing, destination countries of transfer, and retention periods are set forth in the Privacy Policy. Transaction conditions such as payment amount, payment cycle, taxes, and refund availability shall be separately indicated on the payment screen or pricing pages.

15. Provision, Modification, Suspension of the Service, and Beta Features

15.1 The Company shall make reasonable efforts to provide the Service stably. However, the Company does not guarantee that the Service shall always be provided without interruption or operate without error.

15.2 The Service may be temporarily suspended, restricted, or modified for the following reasons.

Regular or emergency maintenance
Response to security incidents
Failure of third-party services such as servers, networks, cloud, CDN, AI Gateway, AI processing providers, analytics tools, and error-tracking tools
Laws, governmental orders, requests from investigative authorities
Force majeure such as natural disasters, war, terrorism, infectious diseases, power outages, and communication-network failures
Service improvements, feature renewal, business necessity
Termination of beta features or experimental features

15.3 Where material service changes or long-term suspensions are planned, the Company shall, to the extent possible, provide prior notice. However, in the event of urgent security issues or force majeure, the Company may provide notice after the fact.

15.4 The Company does not guarantee any specific level of uptime or response speed. For Academy/Business type customers who require a separate SLA, this shall be set forth in a separate contract.

15.5 The Company may provide all or part of the features of the Service as "Early Access," "Beta," "Preview," "Experimental Features," or other pre-release or verification-stage features.

15.6 The following may apply to Early Access, Beta, Preview, or Experimental Features.

Features, UI, analytical algorithms, scoring criteria, and processing methods may change
Accuracy, stability, availability, or performance of results may be lower than that of regular features
Temporary errors, irreproducibility of analytical results, feature limitations, or suspensions may occur
Content generated in beta features may not be fully compatible with or migrated to regular versions
The Company may modify, restrict, suspend, or remove features as operationally necessary

15.7 The Company does not guarantee the availability, accuracy, suitability, or continued provision of Early Access, Beta, Preview, or Experimental Features at a level equivalent to that of regular services. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

16. Intellectual Property Rights and Rights to AI Output

16.1 Rights to the piuda Service, logos, trademarks, UI/UX, software, algorithms, database structures, features, designs, documents, operational know-how, and other content provided by the Company belong to the Company or the rightful right-holder.

16.2 The User shall not, without the Company's prior written consent, reproduce, modify, distribute, sell, lease, reverse-engineer, decompile, crawl, scrape, or use the Service or any part thereof for unauthorized automation or creation of derivative services.

16.3 The "piuda" name and logo are trademarks or service marks of the Company. The User may not use them without the Company's prior written consent; mere mention to accurately describe the User's use of the Service is permitted.

16.4 AI Output generated based on the User's content may be used by the User within the lawful scope.

16.5 However, AI Output may be similarly generated for other users for the same or similar inputs, and the Company does not guarantee the originality of AI Output, the establishment of copyright, non-infringement of third-party rights, academic novelty, patentability, the possibility of publication in journals, or the possibility of being selected for research funding.

16.6 Before submitting or disclosing AI Output externally, the User must directly verify any plagiarism, accuracy of citations, copyright infringement, research-ethics violations, and whether disclosure of AI use is required (see Section 8.6).

16.7 Feedback, suggestions, and improvement ideas provided by the User to the Company may, unless otherwise separately agreed, be used by the Company for service improvement, product development, marketing, and operational improvement, and the Company shall bear no obligation of compensation therefor.

16.8 The User shall not, without the Company's prior written consent, use AI Output of the piuda Service for the training, retraining, fine-tuning, distillation, or building of evaluation datasets of other AI models or systems. A violation of this provision shall also constitute a prohibited act related to AI models and systems under Section 17.2.7.

17. Prohibited Acts

17.1 The User must use the Service in compliance with research ethics, the regulations of the User's affiliated institution, journal policies, the guidelines of research funding agencies, and any agreements with the User's supervisor or co-researchers.

17.2 The User shall not perform the following acts. The prohibited acts in this paragraph are classified by the nature of the matter as follows.

17.2.1 General Prohibited Acts

Acts that violate applicable laws or these Terms
Acts of impersonating others or providing false information
Acts that harm the reputation, credit, or business of the Company or third parties

17.2.2 Prohibited Acts Related to Circumvention of Regional Restrictions

Acts of attempting to circumvent excluded-region restrictions to register, pay, conclude institutional contracts, or use the Service
Use of circumventing means enumerated in Section 4.5
Acts of nullifying the Company's blocking measures or impeding identification of circumventing registrants

17.2.3 Prohibited Acts Related to Copyright and Academic Materials

Acts of infringing on other persons' accounts, personal information, research materials, papers, data, trade secrets, or intellectual property rights
Acts of uploading, analyzing, sharing, or redistributing papers, monographs, reports, datasets, or unpublished research materials without authority
Acts of using the Service as a paper repository, file-sharing service, means of unauthorized reproduction or distribution, or means of unlawful circulation of academic materials
Acts of collecting and uploading materials in a manner that violates the terms of use of academic databases, publishers, universities, or research institutions
Acts of uploading materials acquired by circumventing copyright-protection measures

17.2.4 Prohibited Acts Related to Research Ethics

Acts of using the Service for plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, false citation, data manipulation, generation of false research, or ghost-writing of papers, assignments, research proposals, or dissertations or other academic misconduct
Acts of generating or using non-existent papers, experimental results, statistical values, data, or research-subject information
Acts of misappropriating or analyzing without authority the research ideas, paper drafts, research data, or patentable information of others
Acts of falsely representing AI Output as the User's own independent academic results without review, or intentionally evading any applicable obligation to disclose AI use
Acts of using the Service to deceive journals, reviewers, research institutions, or research funding agencies

17.2.5 Prohibited Acts Related to Personal Information and Medical/Clinical Data

Acts of uploading personal information, sensitive information, or medical/clinical data without taking the prerequisite measures (consent, de-identification, pseudonymization, institutional approval, IRB approval, etc.) under Sections 9.2 through 9.5
Acts of uploading identifiable research-subject information or clinical-trial subject data without IRB approval and appropriate de-identification
Acts of uploading, without the Company's prior written consent, data requiring such consent under Section 9.6 (personal information of EU/UK residents, personal information subject to GDPR/UK GDPR, sensitive information subject to U.S. state personal-information protection laws, HIPAA-protected health information, etc.)

17.2.6 Prohibited Acts Related to Security and Service Abuse

Acts of uploading malicious code, viruses, spam, or harmful content, or of circumventing, attacking, or impeding the Service's security measures
Acts of accessing other users' accounts or data without authority, or creating multiple accounts for the purpose of circumventing or abusing usage limits
Acts of reselling, redistributing, or operating the Service on behalf of others without the Company's approval, or performing unauthorized scraping, crawling, or data extraction through automated tools

17.2.7 Prohibited Acts Related to AI Models and Systems (User-Side Corresponding Obligations)

This paragraph sets forth acts that are equally prohibited on the User side, corresponding to the Company-side master obligations of no-training and no-sale under Section 7.5.

Acts of reverse-engineering, decompiling, or reconstructing the Service, AI models, AI Gateway, prompts, algorithms, or system structure
Acts of using AI features to generate unlawful or harmful content
Acts of circumventing the Service's security policies, usage restrictions, safety mechanisms, or prohibited acts, or manipulating inputs, prompts, or system behavior for purposes of generating or disseminating false information, infringing on third-party rights, academic misconduct, or malicious automation
Acts of systematically inputting data for the purpose of training or retraining the Company's or the AI processing providers' general-purpose AI models, beyond legitimate research or learning purposes such as research verification, bias inspection, counterexample exploration, or methodology review
Acts of using piuda's AI Output, without the Company's prior written consent, for the training, retraining, fine-tuning, distillation, or building of evaluation datasets of other AI models or systems

17.3 Where a violation is suspected, the Company may take necessary measures such as deletion of content, restriction of features, suspension of the account, termination of the account, or reporting to relevant authorities. The Company shall, to the extent possible, provide prior notice; however, where prohibited by law or where urgency is required for security reasons, the Company may take measures without prior notice.

17.4 Responsibility for violations of academic integrity, omission of AI-use disclosure, plagiarism, fabrication, falsification, improper citation, and disputes regarding authorship shall lie with the User. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

18. Account Suspension and Termination

18.1 The User may, at any time, terminate the account through the account-deletion feature in the Service or by emailing [email protected].

18.2 Before terminating the account, the User must export data to be retained, deactivate third-party integrations, and settle any outstanding payment obligations.

18.3 The Company may suspend or terminate the account in the following cases.

Violation of these Terms
Circumventing registration or use in excluded regions
Engagement in unlawful acts or academic misconduct
Infringement of third-party rights
Payment failure or non-payment
Long-term inactivity
Where necessary for service operation or security
Service termination or business necessity
Where necessary to comply with applicable export controls, sanctions, embargoes, or trade-restriction laws

18.4 The Company shall, to the extent possible, provide prior notice. However, where notice is prohibited by law, where immediate measures are required for security reasons, or where there is a material violation, the Company may take measures without prior notice.

18.5 Upon termination of the account, the User's access to the Service may be terminated immediately, and user content shall be processed in accordance with the retention and deletion standards set forth in these Terms and the Privacy Policy.

18.6 Where the User has not accessed the Service for 12 months or more, the Company may classify the account as a dormant account.

18.7 The Company shall provide prior notice 30 days before the dormancy processing through reasonably available methods such as in-service notifications, the account screen, login pop-ups, banners, announcements, customer-support procedures, and, where an email-notice feature is provided in the future, the registered email.

18.8 Where the User does not access the Service even after such notice, the Company may convert the account into a dormant state. The processing, separate storage, deletion, and restoration procedures of dormant-account data shall be governed by the Personal Information Protection Act (PIPA) and related laws and the Company's dormant-account policy.

18.9 Where the Company restricts the User's access to data due to service termination, organization of long-inactive accounts, account termination, or termination of paid authority, the Company shall, except where impossible by law or urgently required for security, make efforts to provide a reasonable period for data export or backup.

19. Data Deletion and Retention

19.1 Where the User deletes content stored on the server or terminates the account, the Company shall delete the data from active systems within a reasonable period.

19.2 The general deletion standards are as follows.

Active systems: deletion within 30 days after a deletion request or account termination
Backup systems: deletion within 90 days after a deletion request or account termination
Information for which retention is statutorily required: retention for the period set forth in applicable laws
Information necessary for dispute response, security, prevention of fraudulent use, or accounting: retention for the period and to the extent necessary

19.3 Free type local data and Local Vault data are stored on the User's device. Accordingly, deletion of such data must be performed directly by the User, and the risks of data loss arising from device loss, app deletion, deletion of browser data, storage damage, or the User's fault shall lie with the User. The User must separately back up important research materials.

19.4 Due to technical characteristics, immediate deletion from backups, logs, caches, security records, analytics records, and error-tracking records may be difficult, and the Company shall take reasonable measures so that such data is not reused in the ordinary course of providing the Service.

19.5 Specific retention periods by data type — such as service-analytics records, error-tracking records, consent records, payment records, and security logs — are set forth in the Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, payment screens, or separate consent screens.

20. Copyright Infringement Reports and Handling

20.1 Copyright holders, publishers, academic societies, research institutions, authors, or other right-holders may, where they believe content within the Service infringes their rights, submit a rights-infringement report to [email protected] or to a separate dedicated email for copyright reports announced by the Company. Please indicate "저작권 침해 신고" or "Copyright Notice" in the email subject.

20.2 To the extent possible, a rights-infringement report should include the following information.

The name, affiliation, and contact information of the reporter
Identification information of the work or material alleged to have been infringed
A description of the content or act of use within the Service alleged to be infringing
The location, URL, or identification information of the allegedly infringing content
A statement that the reporter is the relevant right-holder or has been authorized by the right-holder to file the report
A statement that the contents of the report are true and that the reporter shall bear responsibility in the event of a false report
The signature or electronic signature of the reporter

20.3 Where a rights-infringement report is received, the Company may take necessary measures such as restricting access to or deleting the content, notifying the User, providing an opportunity for explanation, or restricting the account, in accordance with applicable laws, internal procedures, and service operation policies.

20.4 The User must, where requested by the Company in connection with a rights-infringement report, reasonably cooperate to prove the User's authority to upload or use the relevant content.

20.5 Users who repeatedly commit rights-infringement acts or for whom material infringement is confirmed may have their use of the Service restricted or their accounts terminated by the Company.

20.6 The Company currently does not treat the United States as an official service region. Accordingly, these Terms shall not be construed as guaranteeing or representing that the Company has satisfied the DMCA Safe Harbor requirements under U.S. copyright law.

20.7 However, the Company may receive rights-infringement reports from copyright holders, publishers, academic societies, research institutions, authors, or other right-holders and, where reasonably necessary, take measures such as restricting access to or deleting content, notifying the User, providing an opportunity for explanation, or restricting accounts of repeat infringers.

20.8 In addition to the general reporting procedures of this Section, in preparation for the possibility that some cloud, CDN, AI processing, analytics, or error-tracking service providers are U.S. legal entities or use infrastructure located in the United States and for potential circumventing users, the Company may separately register a DMCA Designated Agent with the U.S. Copyright Office, and may operate supplementary procedures such as counter-notice receipt procedures and repeat-infringer policies as necessary. Such registration or operation shall not be construed to mean that the Company treats the United States as an official service region, and shall not constitute official provision of the Service to U.S. users or a change to the excluded-region policy under Section 4. Where the Company decides in the future to officially provide the Service to U.S. users, the Company shall, prior to official opening, separately establish and announce the necessary additional operational procedures and public contact points.

20.9 Where the reporter has filed a false report, the reporter shall bear responsibility for any damages arising therefrom. This Section supplements the procedures for right-holders to exercise their rights under applicable laws and does not restrict right-holders from exercising their separate rights under applicable laws.

21. Disclaimer

21.1 The Service is provided "as is" and "as available."

21.2 The Company does not warrant that the Service is suitable for the User's specific purposes, free from errors, uninterrupted, always safe, or will accurately analyze every paper, discover every research gap, increase the likelihood of publication in journals, or fully prevent research-ethics or plagiarism problems.

21.3 The Company shall not be liable for the following matters. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

Damages arising from limitations of AI Output, insufficient review by the User, or research judgments
Damages relating to academic outcomes, such as paper-submission rejection, disadvantages in thesis review, rejection of research proposals, or non-selection for research funding
Damages arising from copyright, personal-information, or research-ethics violations of materials uploaded by the User
Damages arising from failures of third-party services, policy changes, data processing, or the User's negligent account management
Loss arising from device loss, deletion, or damage of local data or Local Vault data (see Section 19.3)
Restriction, modification, or suspension of the Service due to Early Access, Beta, Preview, or Experimental Features, or force majeure
Restriction on use of the Service, cancellation of payment, suspension of the account, or disadvantages in data processing resulting from use that circumvents excluded-region restrictions

21.4 Nothing in this Section or these Terms shall exclude or limit the Company's liability for intent or gross negligence, liability under personal-information protection laws, liability under mandatory consumer-protection laws, liability for death or personal injury caused by the Company's negligence, fraud, or other liabilities that cannot be limited under applicable laws.

22. Limitation of Liability

22.1 To the maximum extent permitted by applicable laws, the Company shall not be liable for indirect, special, incidental, or consequential damages, punitive damages, lost profits, lost research opportunities, data losses, reputational harm, or academic disadvantages.

22.2 The Company's total liability cap shall be classified by the User's membership type as follows.

In this Section, "Standard Cap" means USD 100 or its equivalent at the exchange rate as of the time of claim; for users in the Republic of Korea, KRW 150,000; and for users in Japan, JPY 15,000.

Free Type Users The greater of the amount actually paid by the User to the Company during the 12 months preceding the cause of claim or the Standard Cap

Pro Type Users The greater of the amount actually paid by the User to the Company during the 12 months preceding the cause of claim or the Standard Cap

Users Affiliated with an Academy/Business Institution The greater of the per-seat amount calculated by dividing the amount paid by the contracting institution to the Company during the 12 months preceding the cause of claim by the number of active seats of such institution, or the Standard Cap

22.3 For the Academy/Business type, the liability relationship between the contracting institution and the Company shall be separately set forth in the institutional contract.

22.4 Applying the greater of the amount actually paid during the 12 months preceding the cause of claim or the Standard Cap as the liability cap for Free type users is intended to guarantee a minimum meaningful remedy cap even where the free user suffers damages due to causes attributable to the Company. The Standard Cap is not a cap that operates unfavorably against the User, but functions as a minimum guaranteed cap aimed at protecting users even in free use. This paragraph shall not restrict any part of liability under mandatory laws or liability for the Company's intent or gross negligence under Sections 22.6 and 22.7.

22.5 The foregoing liability caps shall apply to the aggregate of all claims arising from the same set of facts and shall not be cumulatively applied per claim.

22.6 The foregoing limitations of liability shall not apply to the Company's intent or gross negligence, death or personal injury, fraud, liability under personal-information protection laws, liability under mandatory consumer-protection laws, or any other liability that cannot be limited under applicable laws.

22.7 Where mandatory consumer-protection laws, personal-information protection laws, digital-content-related laws, or unfair-terms regulations applicable to overseas users guarantee rights more favorable to the User than the limitations of liability in this Section, such mandatory laws shall prevail.

23. User's Indemnification Liability

23.1 Where the Company suffers damages due to violations of these Terms, violations of applicable laws, infringement of third-party rights, uploading of unauthorized materials, academic misconduct, or use that circumvents excluded-region restrictions, in each case caused by the User's intent or negligence, the User shall, to the extent permitted by applicable laws, indemnify the Company for the reasonable and direct damages incurred.

23.2 The damages in the preceding paragraph may include reasonable costs and damages incurred by the Company due to the following reasons.

Third-party claims of rights infringement arising from user content
Unauthorized uploading, analysis, sharing, export, or redistribution of academic papers or other third-party works
Unauthorized uploading of personal information, sensitive information, confidential information, or unpublished research materials
Legal or operational response costs arising from use that circumvents excluded-region restrictions
Violations of these Terms
Violations of applicable laws
Academic misconduct or violations of academic policies
Service-security breaches, abuse, or fraudulent use

23.3 Where the Company claims indemnification from the User, the Company shall reasonably prove the occurrence of damages, the User's grounds of liability, and the scope of damages.

23.4 This Section is not intended to impose excessive or unfair liability on the User and shall apply only to damages for which a reasonable causal connection with the User's grounds of liability is recognized.

23.5 Where the User is a consumer, this Section shall apply only to the extent permitted by applicable consumer-protection laws and laws related to the regulation of terms and conditions.

24. Amendment of these Terms

24.1 The Company may amend these Terms within the scope that does not violate applicable laws.

24.2 Where the Company amends these Terms, the Company shall provide notice at least 30 days before the effective date through reasonably available methods such as in-service announcements, pop-ups, banners, the account screen, and, where an email-notice feature is provided in the future, the registered email.

24.3 However, for minor amendments that do not substantively affect the User's rights or obligations — such as correction of typographical errors, refinement of expressions, change of the Company's contact information, change of cited article numbers, or correction of obvious errors — notice may be provided at least 7 days before the effective date.

24.4 For amendments unfavorable or material to the User, the Company may obtain separate consent as required by applicable laws.

24.5 Where the User continues to use the Service after the effective date of the amended Terms, the User may be deemed to have agreed to the amended Terms. However, where applicable laws require explicit consent, separate consent shall be obtained.

24.6 Where the User does not agree to the amended Terms, the User may notify the Company of the User's refusal before the effective date of the amended Terms and terminate use of the Service.

24.7 Where a Pro type user, in disagreement with an amendment unfavorable or material to the User, cancels the subscription before the effective date of the amendment, refund of the remaining period or termination of use procedures may be processed in accordance with applicable laws, payment conditions, and the Company's refund policy.

24.8 For Academy/Business type users or institutions, the application of, refusal of, termination of, refund for, or separate negotiation regarding amendments to the Terms shall be governed by these Terms and the relevant separate contract.

25. Region-Specific Additional Provisions

25.1 This Section may additionally apply to users in eligible service regions other than the Republic of Korea.

25.2 Where this Section conflicts with other provisions of these Terms, this Section shall prevail for users in such regions.

25.3 Nothing in this Section shall restrict any rights under consumer-protection laws, personal-information protection laws, digital-content-related laws, automatic-renewal subscription-related laws, or other mandatory laws in the User's country or region of residence that cannot be excluded by contract.

25A. Additional Provisions for Users in Japan

25A.1 This Section applies to users residing in Japan or using the Service from Japan.

25A.2 Nothing in these Terms shall restrict rights guaranteed to the User under the Consumer Contract Act of Japan, the Act on the Protection of Personal Information, the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions, electronic-commerce-related laws, or other mandatory laws.

25A.3 Liability for damages caused by the Company's intent or gross negligence, unilateral exemption of liability that is unfavorable to consumers, and provisions that allow the Company to unilaterally determine whether it is liable shall apply only to the extent permitted by Japanese law.

25A.4 Where the Company provides Paid Services to users in Japan, the Company shall clearly display, prior to payment, the price, whether taxes are included, the payment cycle, whether the subscription is automatically renewed, whether charges will occur after the end of a free trial, the cancellation method, refund availability, and business operator information.

25A.5 The processing, cross-border transfer, processors, retention periods, and procedures for exercising rights regarding the personal information of users in Japan are set forth in the Privacy Policy.

25A.6 Where Japanese-language Terms or a Japanese-language Privacy Policy is provided, the Japanese version may prevail for users in Japan. However, where otherwise provided in a separate notice or separate contract, such notice or contract shall apply.

25B. Other Eligible Service Regions

25B.1 These Terms shall also apply to users in other eligible service regions, namely countries or regions other than the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region. The Company may not individually enumerate all eligible service countries. However, where the mandatory laws of the relevant region guarantee rights more favorable to the User than these Terms, such mandatory laws shall prevail.

25B.2 The User represents and warrants that the User is not (i) subject to the Foreign Exchange Transactions Act or the Foreign Trade Act of the Republic of Korea, (ii) on the U.S. OFAC sanctions list, the BIS Entity List, or subject to the EAR (Export Administration Regulations), (iii) subject to sanctions or embargoes of the EU, UK, or UN, and (iv) will not use the Service in countries or regions to which such restrictions apply (e.g., Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Syria, Russian-occupied regions and other sanctioned countries or regions). The examples of countries, regions, laws, lists, or sanctions regimes set forth in this paragraph are intended to assist the User's understanding and are not intended to fix the latest sanctions, export-controls lists, or service-restriction criteria. The actual restricted subjects may vary depending on applicable laws, international sanctions, export controls, payment-network policies, policies of cloud and AI processing providers, and the Company's security and risk-management criteria.

25B.3 The Company may restrict or suspend the provision of the Service to specific countries, regions, individuals, or entities in accordance with applicable laws, international sanctions, export controls, payment-network restrictions, security needs, or business reasons.

25B.4 Where the User is unable to use the Service under applicable local laws, the User shall not use the Service.

25C. Provisions Related to Excluded Regions Such as the United States, EU/EEA, and UK

25C.1 The United States, EU member states, EEA member states, the UK, and any country or region that the Company expressly announces as an excluded region are not currently official service regions of the Company.

25C.2 These Terms shall not be construed as the Company providing the Service to users in such excluded regions or representing that the Company has already satisfied all service-provision requirements under the consumer, personal-information, digital-services, or copyright laws of such regions.

25C.3 The Company does not intentionally conduct advertising or marketing campaigns officially targeting such excluded regions, paid payments, institutional contracts, official opening of the Service, or localized official provision. However, due to search engines, social media, app stores, third-party platforms, press coverage, user sharing, regional-detection errors of advertising platforms, or technical limitations, information related to the Service may be incidentally and ancillarily exposed in such excluded regions. Such exposure shall not be construed to mean that the Company has designated such region as an official service region or has decided to provide the Service to users in such region.

25C.4 Where the Company in the future adds the United States, the EU/EEA, the UK, or other excluded regions as official service regions or removes them from the excluded-region list, the Company shall, prior to official opening, review necessary legal and operational measures and provide separate notice.

26. Dispute Resolution and Governing Law

26.1 Where a dispute arises between the Company and the User in connection with the use of the Service, the Company and the User shall, first, endeavor to resolve the dispute through good-faith consultation via the customer center.

26.2 Before filing a formal claim, the User agrees to contact the Company and attempt informal dispute resolution for at least 30 days. The contact is [email protected].

26.3 Users in the Republic of Korea may use the following procedures.

Step 1: Attempt at resolution through the Company's customer center
Step 2: Mediation through related organizations such as the Korea Consumer Agency or the Electronic Commerce Dispute Mediation Committee
Step 3: Dispute resolution through the competent court

26.4 These Terms shall be interpreted and applied in accordance with the laws of the Republic of Korea.

26.5 Lawsuits between the Company and users in the Republic of Korea shall be subject to the competent court under the Civil Procedure Act and other applicable laws.

26.6 For users in eligible overseas service regions, these Terms shall also be interpreted under the laws of the Republic of Korea. However, mandatory rights under the consumer-protection laws, personal-information protection laws, and digital-services-related laws of the relevant country or region shall not be restricted by these Terms.

26.7 Where the Academy/Business type, an institutional contract, a data-processing addendum, or another separate contract separately provides for the governing law, jurisdiction, arbitration, or dispute-resolution method, such separate contract shall prevail.

27. General Provisions

27.1 These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Cookie Policy, paid-plan conditions, region-specific additional provisions, and separate contracts constitute the entire agreement between the Company and the User in connection with the use of the Service.

27.2 Even if any part of these Terms is invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions shall remain in effect.

27.3 Failure of the Company to exercise a right under these Terms shall not be deemed a waiver of such right.

27.4 The User may not assign rights or obligations under these Terms to a third party without the Company's prior written consent.

27.5 The Company may transfer rights and obligations under these Terms in the event of mergers, divisions, business transfers, business assignments, or M&A as necessary.

27.6 The Company shall not be liable for failure to perform its obligations due to causes beyond the Company's reasonable control, such as natural disasters, war, terrorism, infectious diseases, governmental measures, power outages, communication-network failures, cloud failures, CDN failures, AI Gateway failures, AI processing provider failures, or analytics and error-tracking tool failures. However, if there is intent or negligence on the part of the Company, applicable laws shall apply.

27.7 Notices from the Company to the User shall be made through reasonably available methods such as in-service notifications, the account screen, pop-ups, banners, announcements, and, where an email-notice feature is provided in the future, the registered email.

27.8 Notices from the User to the Company shall be sent to the email address set forth in these Terms.

27.9 Where these Terms are provided in both Korean and English, the Korean version shall prevail for users in the Republic of Korea, and the English version shall prevail for users in other eligible service regions. However, where region-specific additional provisions, separate contracts, or local laws provide otherwise, such provisions shall prevail.

27.10 Where translations for specific regions are provided, such translations are intended to assist the User's understanding. However, where the Company has formally notified users in a specific region that the relevant language version is the official Terms, the relevant language version may prevail.

28. Contact

Service inquiries / Customer support [email protected]

Legal inquiries [email protected] Email subject: Legal Notice

Privacy inquiries [email protected] Email subject: Privacy Inquiry

Telephone +82-70-7756-1070

These Terms of Service are premised on the User having read, understood, and agreed to these Terms by using piuda.

By using piuda, you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service.

The Korean version of these Terms of Service governs in case of any discrepancy with this English translation.