These terms are an agreement between you and Spencer Carlson ("Sophon", "we") covering the Sophon iOS app and this website. By using either, you agree to them. If you don't agree, please don't use Sophon.

Who can use Sophon

You must be at least 13 years old, and old enough to form a binding contract where you live. If you're using Sophon on behalf of an organization, you're agreeing on its behalf.

What Sophon does

Sophon is a podcast player. It fetches publicly available podcast feeds and episodes directly from the publishers who host them, transcribes episodes on your device, identifies likely advertising segments, and can skip past them during playback on your device. We don't host, alter, redistribute, or remove advertising from anyone's audio files — the original episode is delivered to you exactly as the publisher serves it, and any skipping happens locally, the same as pressing a skip button yourself.

Your account

You sign in with Apple to create your account, which lets your library sync across your devices. You're responsible for activity that happens through your account and devices. Tell us promptly if you think your account has been misused.

Subscriptions and billing

Sophon offers a free tier with a monthly limit on automatically skipped episodes, and a paid subscription that removes that limit. Prices, limits, and any free trial are shown in the app before you buy.

Subscriptions are sold and billed through your Apple ID. They renew automatically at the then-current price until you cancel, and you can cancel any time in your Apple account settings — cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. If you start a free trial and don't cancel before it ends, it converts to a paid subscription. Because Apple processes the payment, refunds are handled by Apple under their policies, not by us. We may change prices or the contents of a tier with reasonable advance notice; changes never apply retroactively to a period you've already paid for.

Acceptable use

Don't use Sophon to break the law or infringe anyone's rights. Don't attempt to disrupt, overload, reverse-engineer, or gain unauthorized access to our systems; don't scrape or resell our service or data; don't submit deliberately false ad markers or otherwise try to poison the shared detection data; and don't use Sophon to redistribute podcast content in ways the publisher hasn't permitted.

Contributions you make

If you enable contribution, Sophon shares the ad boundaries it detected or that you corrected, along with the supporting data described in the Privacy Policy. By contributing you grant us a worldwide, royalty-free license to use that data to operate and improve ad detection for all Sophon users, including training our detection models. You can stop contributing at any time in the app's settings.

Podcast content isn't ours

Podcasts, artwork, and feed metadata belong to their creators and rights holders. We make no claim to them and we aren't responsible for their content, accuracy, or availability. If you're a rights holder with a concern about how your feed appears in Sophon, contact us at hello@sophonpod.com and we'll address it.

Detection isn't perfect

Ad detection is automated and probabilistic. It will sometimes miss an ad or skip a moment that wasn't one, which is why markers are visible and adjustable during playback. Sophon is provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind to the fullest extent the law allows, and we don't promise uninterrupted or error-free service.

Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Spencer Carlson is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost data, revenue, or profits. Our total liability for any claim relating to Sophon is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or twenty-five US dollars. Some jurisdictions don't allow these limits, in which case they apply only as far as the law permits.

Ending the agreement

You can stop using Sophon at any time by deleting the app. You can delete your account and its data from Settings → Account in the app, or by emailing us. We may suspend or end access if you materially breach these terms or if we're required to by law. Terms that by their nature should survive termination — licenses in contributed data, disclaimers, liability limits — do.

Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. If a change is material we'll update the date at the top of this page and, where appropriate, tell you in the app. Continuing to use Sophon after a change means you accept the updated terms.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Nothing here takes away consumer-protection rights you have under the mandatory law of your own country.

Apple

Apple is not a party to these terms and has no responsibility for the app or its support. Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these terms and may enforce them against you.

Contact

Questions about these terms? Email hello@sophonpod.com.