Terms of Service

Your Content: You retain all rights to the articles, reviews, photos, and other content you create on the platform. By publishing content, you grant Community News a non-exclusive, worldwide license to display, distribute, and promote your content within the Service, including generating audio versions of published articles.

AI-Generated Content: Articles drafted by AI from public government meeting transcripts are owned by the community newsroom that commissioned them. Authors who edit and submit AI-drafted articles for review are credited as co-authors.

Photos: You retain ownership of photos you upload. By uploading to the community gallery, you grant a license for display on the platform, use as article cover images, and AI analysis for tagging and moderation.

Community Record: Published articles remain part of the community record. If you delete your account, your published articles may be retained with anonymized attribution to preserve the community archive.

Community News operates a credit-based compensation model. See How It Works for a full explanation. Key terms:

• Reading an article transfers credits from the reader to the author
• Authors earn credits for publishing articles, reviewing, and other contributions
• Subscribers receive monthly credits and can earn additional engagement credits
• Users can tip authors with credits
• Credits have no cash value and cannot be exchanged for currency
• Credits may not be sold, traded, or transferred outside the platform

No paywall: All content is accessible to all users. Users with a positive credit balance enjoy an ad-free experience. Users with a negative balance see advertisements.

Subscriptions: Paid monthly via Stripe. Cancel anytime through your Stripe customer portal. Upon cancellation, your subscription remains active until the end of your current billing period. Earned credits remain in your account. Refunds are handled on a case-by-case basis; contact [email protected].

Articles submitted for publication go through a peer review process. Each community sets its own approval threshold. Reviewers are expected to evaluate content in good faith for accuracy, relevance, and quality.

Uploaded photos are automatically screened by AI for content moderation. Photos flagged by AI may be held for manual review by platform administrators.

We reserve the right to remove content that violates these Terms, regardless of its review status.

AI-assisted features are provided as tools to aid content creation, including article drafting, text-to-speech audio, photo analysis, and content classification. AI-generated content may contain errors, omissions, or inaccuracies. All AI-drafted articles are clearly labeled and must pass community peer review before publication.

We do not guarantee the accuracy, completeness, or reliability of AI-generated content. Community reviewers and authors are responsible for verifying facts before approving publication.

Published articles may be converted to audio using text-to-speech technology. Audio versions are derivative works of the published article. Authors with content role access can set their preferred TTS voice in their profile settings.

Standard audio (OpenAI TTS) is available to all users. Premium audio (ElevenLabs) is available to active subscribers.

You may delete your account at any time. Active subscriptions should be canceled before account deletion. We may suspend or terminate your account if you violate these Terms or engage in conduct that is harmful to other users or the platform.

Upon termination, your right to use the Service ceases immediately. Published articles may be retained as part of the community record per Section 4. Remaining credits are forfeited upon account deletion.

Any disputes arising from these Terms shall first be addressed through good faith negotiation for a period of 30 days. If unresolved, disputes shall be settled by binding arbitration in Anchorage, Alaska.

You agree to resolve disputes on an individual basis and waive any right to participate in a class action lawsuit or class-wide arbitration.