1. Acceptance of Terms
By accessing or using RUNO ("the Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.
2. Description of Service
RUNO is a publishing and reading platform for original serialized fiction โ a home for independent authors and the readers who follow them. We provide the tools (chapter editor, story bible, release scheduling, analytics, reader feed, library, comments, forums) and authors provide the writing.
All novels and chapters on RUNO are user-generated content, written and uploaded by the people credited as their authors. RUNO is not the publisher of those works and does not pre-screen submissions. We operate a notice-and-takedown system, an in-app Report button on every page, and a moderation team that acts on valid reports.
The Service includes everything available through runo.ink: the reader, author tools, community forums, reading lists, comments, reviews, tipping, and notification systems.
3. User Accounts
You must be at least 13 years old to create an account. If your local law requires a higher age to consent to terms like these, a parent or legal guardian must agree on your behalf. You're responsible for keeping your credentials safe and for everything that happens under your account, so don't share your login. If you think your account has been compromised, contact us right away.
One account per person. Provide accurate information when signing up and keep it current. Don't impersonate someone else. Accounts are tied to you personally and can't be sold, rented, or transferred.
4. Your Content
You retain ownership of everything you publish on RUNO ("Your Content").
You are responsible for what you publish. By posting Your Content you represent and warrant that you have all rights necessary to publish it on RUNO and that doing so does not infringe any third party's intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other rights. Only upload writing that is your own original work, or work you have explicit permission to publish. Do not upload content that:
- Infringes on any third party's intellectual property rights, including copyrighted novels, manga, anime, or any work you did not create
- Contains sexual content involving minors or any other illegal material
- Harasses, threatens, dehumanises, or incites violence against individuals or groups
- Promotes self-harm, suicide, or eating disorders without appropriate safety framing
- Misrepresents who you are (impersonation of another author or RUNO staff)
- Violates any applicable law or regulation
We have the right โ but not the obligation โ to monitor, edit, or remove any content on the Service at any time, with or without notice, in our sole discretion. Repeated violations will result in account suspension or termination. Removed content may continue to be retained internally for moderation, dispute, and law-enforcement purposes; we don't guarantee that we can restore it.
5. License You Grant Us
By posting Your Content to RUNO, you grant RUNO a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable (only to our service providers and affiliates acting on our behalf), revocable license to host, store, transfer, display, perform, reproduce, modify (only to the extent necessary to format Your Content for display, generate previews, or serve it efficiently), translate (where you opt in to translation features), and distribute Your Content as necessary to operate, promote, and improve the Service. You also grant us an irrevocable license to retain backups and operational copies of Your Content.
By posting Your Content publicly on RUNO, you grant other users a non-exclusive license to access and view Your Content as the Service permits โ for example, to read it, quote it in reviews and comments, and add it to their personal libraries.
If you delete Your Content or your account, we'll stop displaying it within a reasonable time, but cached copies, backups, and copies others have legitimately accessed may continue to exist.
6. Intellectual Property
Authors retain all rights to their original works. RUNO respects intellectual property rights and responds to valid DMCA takedown requests. See our DMCA Policy for how to file a notice.
The RUNO name, logo, and platform design are property of RUNO and may not be used without permission.
7. Prohibited Conduct
Don't:
- Scrape, crawl, harvest, or use any automated means (bots, spiders, scrapers) to access the Service or extract data, except for public-search-engine indexing in compliance with our robots.txt
- Frame, mirror, or otherwise replicate any part of the Service to make it appear to be your own product
- Reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble any part of the Service except where applicable law expressly permits this and you've notified us first
- Circumvent access controls, paywalls, rate limits, or any security feature
- Use information you obtain from the Service to build a competing product or service
- Impersonate other users, authors, or RUNO staff
- Spam, phish, distribute malware, or send unsolicited messages or offers to other users
- Manipulate ratings, rankings, follows, votes, or any engagement metric
- Collect or harvest personal information about other users without their consent
- Interfere with the Service's normal operation, including overloading our infrastructure or attacking other users
If we determine you've broken these rules, we may take any action we consider appropriate without notice, including: warning you, removing Your Content, restricting features on your account, suspending or terminating your account, blocking your IP, recovering reasonable costs caused by the breach, and disclosing information to law enforcement where we are required or permitted to do so.
8. Reporting & Moderation
RUNO is a user-generated content platform. We rely on our community to flag content that breaks these Terms. Every novel, chapter, comment, forum thread, and user profile on RUNO has a Report button โ use it.
When you submit a report, our moderation team reviews it within a reasonable time. Depending on the severity and the nature of the violation we may:
- Remove the content or hide it from public surfaces
- Issue a warning to the account responsible
- Suspend the account temporarily or permanently
- Refer the matter to law enforcement where required by law
You can also block any user from your profile or any of their comments โ once blocked, you no longer see each other anywhere on RUNO. For copyright in particular, see the DMCA Policy โ a formal DMCA notice is the fastest way to get copyrighted material removed.
Filing knowingly false reports to harass another user is itself a violation of these Terms and may result in account suspension.
9. Repeat Infringer Policy
In accordance with Section 512(i) of the DMCA, RUNO will terminate accounts of users who are determined to be repeat infringers in appropriate circumstances. A user is considered a repeat infringer if they are the subject of two or more valid copyright takedown notices, or if they have otherwise repeatedly infringed the rights of others. We may also terminate accounts after a single egregious violation (for example, sexual content involving minors).
10. Coins, Tipping & Payments
RUNO offers a virtual-currency feature ("Coins") that readers can purchase and spend to unlock premium chapters or to tip authors. The following terms apply to Coins and any fees you pay on the Service.
Purchasing Coins. Coins are purchased through third-party payment processors (for example, Stripe, Apple In-App Purchase, or Google Play Billing). All prices are stated at checkout in the applicable currency. By completing a purchase you authorise the payment processor and RUNO to charge the listed amount, including any applicable taxes.
Coins have no monetary value off-platform. Coins are a limited, revocable licence to access digital content on RUNO. They are not currency, not redeemable for cash, not transferable between accounts, and cannot be inherited. You don't own the Coins themselves โ RUNO retains all rights in the Coin system.
Refunds. All Coin purchases and tips are final and non-refundable, except where required by applicable consumer-protection law or by the rules of the payment processor (Apple, Google, Stripe). For purchases made through Apple or Google, refund requests are handled by Apple or Google directly under their store policies.
Tips to authors. When you send a tip, the Coin amount (less any platform fee disclosed at the time) is credited to the author's payout balance. Tips are not refundable once delivered. RUNO does not guarantee any particular response, behaviour, or content from an author in exchange for a tip.
Author payouts. Authors receive payouts of their accumulated balance subject to a minimum payout threshold and the requirements of our payout processor (which may include identity verification, tax forms, and country-of-residence restrictions). Payouts are not available to authors located in jurisdictions subject to comprehensive sanctions. RUNO is not the payout processor and is not liable for delays or rejections caused by the processor.
Pricing changes. We may change Coin prices and the cost of premium content at any time, with reasonable advance notice for ongoing premium subscriptions. Promotional pricing applies only to the user it is offered to.
Suspended accounts. If we suspend or terminate your account for breach of these Terms, any unspent Coins are forfeited and any pending payouts may be withheld pending review.
11. Feedback
If you send us feedback, suggestions, or ideas about the Service, you grant RUNO a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to use those ideas without any obligation or compensation to you. You waive any moral rights in feedback to the extent permitted by law. We're not obliged to keep feedback confidential.
12. Third-Party Links and Services
The Service may contain links to third-party websites and integrate third-party services (for example, OAuth providers, payment processors, embedded media). We don't control those third parties and we're not responsible for their content, policies, or practices. Your interactions with them are governed by their own terms.
13. Termination
We may suspend or terminate your account at any time if you breach these Terms. You can delete your own account at any time from your profile settings. When an account is deleted, your published content may remain accessible unless you remove it individually before closing the account.
Sections 4 (Your Content), 5 (License You Grant Us), 11 (Feedback), 14 (Disclaimer), 15 (Liability), 16 (Indemnity), 18 (Governing Law) and 19 (General) survive termination.
14. Disclaimer
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, or non-infringement.
We don't guarantee that the Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or that any defect will be corrected. User-generated content reflects the views of its authors, not RUNO. By using the Service you may be exposed to content you find offensive, inaccurate, or objectionable; you use the Service at your own risk.
Some jurisdictions don't allow disclaimers of implied warranties, so the above may not apply to you in full.
15. Limitation of Liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, RUNO and its officers, directors, employees, and agents are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, including loss of profits, goodwill, data, or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to your use of the Service.
RUNO's aggregate liability for any and all claims relating to the Service is limited to the greater of (a) the total amount you paid to RUNO in the twelve (12) months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) one hundred US dollars (US$100).
Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law (for example, liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or for fraud).
16. Indemnity
You agree to defend, indemnify, and hold harmless RUNO and its officers, directors, employees, contractors, affiliates, and agents from and against any claim, demand, loss, liability, damage, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or related to: (a) your access to or use of the Service; (b) Your Content; (c) your breach of these Terms or violation of any law; or (d) your infringement or violation of any third party's rights. We reserve the right to assume the exclusive defence and control of any matter subject to indemnification, in which case you agree to cooperate with our defence.
17. Apple App Store
If you access RUNO through an Apple iOS application, the following additional terms apply, and override anything inconsistent in these Terms:
- These Terms are between you and RUNO only, not with Apple. RUNO โ not Apple โ is solely responsible for the application and the Service.
- Apple has no obligation to provide any maintenance or support for the application.
- If the application fails to conform to any applicable warranty, you may notify Apple, who will refund the purchase price (if any) of the application; to the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation.
- Apple is not responsible for addressing any product-liability claim, claim that the application fails to conform to applicable legal or regulatory requirements, or claim arising under consumer-protection or similar law.
- Apple is not responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement, or discharge of any third-party claim that the application infringes that third party's intellectual property rights.
- You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a US Government embargo or designated as "terrorist supporting", and are not on any US Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
- Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms and may enforce them against you.
18. Governing Law and Disputes
These Terms are governed by the laws of the country in which RUNO is established, without regard to conflict-of-laws principles. The courts of that country have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or in connection with these Terms or the Service, except that either party may seek injunctive or equitable relief in any court of competent jurisdiction to protect its intellectual-property or confidential-information rights.
If you are a consumer resident in a jurisdiction whose law grants you the benefit of mandatory consumer-protection rules, those rules apply notwithstanding the choice of law above.
No class actions. To the extent permitted by law, you and RUNO each agree to resolve disputes only on an individual basis and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, or representative proceeding.
19. General
These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the DMCA Policy, are the entire agreement between you and RUNO regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements between us on the subject. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect, and the invalid provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted by law.
Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver of that right. You may not assign or transfer these Terms or your rights under them without our prior written consent; any attempted assignment in breach is void. RUNO may assign its rights and obligations under these Terms freely, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, or sale of assets.
Notices to you may be made by posting on the Service or by email to the address associated with your account.
20. Changes to Terms
We may update these terms from time to time. Material changes will be announced on the platform. Continued use of the Service after changes take effect means you accept the updated terms.