Cordelia Terms of Use

Cordelia records people's life stories and preserves them. These terms set out what we owe you, what you agree to, and — because this service holds irreplaceable material about real people — where the limits of our responsibility lie.

1 · The agreement

By creating an account or using Cordelia, you agree to these terms and to our Privacy Policy, which is part of this agreement. If you do not agree, do not use the service. If you use Cordelia on behalf of an organization, you confirm you have authority to bind it.

2 · Who may use Cordelia

You must be 18 or older to hold a Cordelia account. The person whose story is being recorded — the subject — may be any adult who has agreed to participate. Cordelia is not directed to children, and you may not create an account for a child.

Cordelia is offered in the United States. We make no claim that it is appropriate or available elsewhere.

3 · Beta service

Cordelia is currently in a limited beta. Features may change or disappear, sessions may fail, and we may need to make changes that affect stored material. We will treat beta participants' recordings with the same care as any other, but you should not treat Cordelia as your only copy of anything irreplaceable during this period.

4 · Your account

You sign in with a one-time code sent to your phone or email rather than a password. You are responsible for keeping access to that phone number or mailbox secure, since anyone who controls it can sign in as you. Tell us promptly if you believe someone else has accessed your account.

5 · Text messages

If you sign in with a phone number, you agree to receive a one-time verification code by SMS for each sign-in request. This is the only text message Cordelia sends. Message and data rates may apply. Reply STOP to opt out or HELP for help; opting out means you will need to sign in by email instead.

We do not share, sell, or provide your mobile phone number or messaging consent data to third parties or affiliates for marketing or promotional purposes. Consent to receive a sign-in code is given for that purpose alone and is not bundled into any other agreement. See section 3 of the Privacy Policy for the full messaging terms.

6 · Your content

The recordings, transcripts, photographs, and stories in a Legacy belong to you and the people who contributed them. We do not claim ownership of them.

You grant PI Innovations a limited licence to host, store, encrypt, transcribe, process, and display that material solely to provide the service to you — including sending it to the providers named in our Privacy Policy for transcription, speech synthesis, and AI processing. This licence exists so the service can function; it does not permit us to publish your material, sell it, or use it to train models for anyone else's benefit, and it ends when the material is deleted.

7 · Recording other people

This is the obligation we most need you to read.

Cordelia records conversations. Before recording anyone, you must have their agreement. Some states require the consent of every person being recorded, and it is your responsibility to obtain it. Do not record someone who has not agreed, and stop if they ask you to.

A life story will inevitably mention people who are not present and cannot consent. That is expected, and we keep such material inside the private Legacy. But you agree not to use Cordelia to build a record about someone who has asked you not to, and not to share material about a third party outside the Legacy without a proper basis for doing so.

8 · Sponsors and subjects

A Legacy usually has a sponsor — often an adult child — who sets it up and manages it, and a subject whose story it holds. The sponsor's control is administrative. It does not make the subject's stories the sponsor's property, and it does not entitle the sponsor to override choices the subject has recorded about how their material may be used.

Where a subject has recorded directions about sharing, outputs, or use of their voice, those directions bind the service and survive a change of sponsor.

9 · What the AI produces

Cordelia uses AI to conduct conversations, transcribe them, and organize what was said. AI output can be wrong. Transcripts may misheard words, summaries may misstate what someone meant, and the biographer may ask an inapt question. Nothing Cordelia produces is a verified factual record, and it is not professional, medical, legal, financial, or therapeutic advice.

Where Cordelia produces a synthesized voice or a conversational representation of a person, it is a reconstruction, not the person. It must not be presented as authentic speech by that person to anyone who might reasonably be misled, and must not be used to authorize anything, impersonate anyone, or defeat a voice-based security check.

10 · Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• record anyone without their agreement, or continue after they withdraw it;
• upload material you have no right to, or that infringes someone's rights;
• use the service to harass, defame, defraud, or impersonate anyone;
• use a synthesized voice or reconstruction to deceive anyone about who is speaking;
• attempt to access another person's Legacy, or to circumvent access controls, rate limits, or encryption;
• scrape, resell, or redistribute the service or its output; or
• use the service unlawfully.

11 · Intellectual property

The software, design, prompts, and brand — including the names Cordelia and PI Innovations — belong to PI Innovations, LLC. These terms grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable right to use the service. They grant no rights in our software or brand.

12 · Disclaimers

Cordelia is provided “as is” and “as available.” To the fullest extent permitted by law, we disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, that recordings will be free of defects, or that AI output will be accurate.

We take retention seriously and design for it, but no storage system is infallible. You should keep your own copy of anything you cannot bear to lose.

13 · Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, PI Innovations will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages, or for lost data, lost profits, or lost recordings, arising out of your use of the service.

Our total liability for any claim relating to the service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or one hundred US dollars ($100).

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so parts of this section may not apply to you. Nothing here limits liability that cannot lawfully be limited.

14 · Suspension and termination

You may stop using Cordelia at any time and ask us to delete your account. Because a Legacy may hold material contributed by several people, we will explain what deletion affects before carrying it out.

We may suspend or terminate access if you breach these terms, if required by law, or if continuing would put other people's material at risk. Where we can do so safely, we will give you an opportunity to retrieve your material first.

15 · Changes

We may update these terms. If we do, we will update the effective date above and publish the new version at this URL. Material changes will be reflected before they take effect; continuing to use the service after that means you accept them.

16 · Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. Any dispute will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Washington, and you and PI Innovations each consent to their jurisdiction.

17 · Contact

Questions about these terms? Reach us at:

See also: Privacy Policy