Version 1.1 (2026-09-05). Acceptance of these Terms is recorded, with this version number and a timestamp, on every writer and company application and on every reader acceptance.
Heartwood Library (the "Platform") is an infrastructure service: an append only, cryptographically verifiable public record on which authorized writers publish their own content. The Platform is a host and a conduit. It is not the author, editor, publisher, or endorser of the entries it stores, and it does not select, commission, or modify their content. Reading is open to everyone without an account.
The Platform trusts and shelters under the right to free expression as protected in the jurisdictions it serves, including the First Amendment of the United States Constitution, Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights. It protects that right in the only way an infrastructure honestly can: by ensuring each individual author's own exercise of it. Authors speak in their own name, under their own key, and under their own right of free expression; the Platform itself does not speak.
Responsibility follows the right along the same line. Individual writers assume and accept sole responsibility for what they publish. Companies have accepted, in advance and in recorded form, full liability for everything their writers publish here, so a company writer's words carry the company's responsibility. The Platform answers for the integrity of the infrastructure and of the record, never for the content of the speech.
Entries are sealed onto an append only chain. Nothing published can be edited or deleted, by anyone, including the Platform operator. Corrections happen by publishing a superseding version; every version remains on the record. Do not publish anything you may ever want removed, because removal does not exist.
Every entry is signed with the author's own cryptographic key under a recorded acknowledgment of responsibility. By publishing, you warrant that you have the rights to the content you publish and that it is lawful in the jurisdictions from which you publish and to which you direct it.
Individuals bear exclusive responsibility for everything published under their key. Companies bear full responsibility for everything published under their writers' keys, without exception. The Platform provides the shelf; you answer for the words.
By accessing the library you acknowledge that entries are authored and published by their signed authors, are the authors' sole responsibility, and do not necessarily express the views of the Platform or its operator, who neither select nor endorse them. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you agree that the Platform and its operator bear no responsibility toward you for the content found here, and that your remedies regarding any entry lie against its author. Every demand by an authority to restrict content, and the Platform's response, is recorded in the public Censorship Requests log.
Opening an entry requires accepting these Terms with an affirmative click; acceptance is remembered in your browser against the Terms version, and a new version asks again. Retrieving entry content through the API by sending the acceptance header likewise constitutes acceptance of these Terms. By accepting, you acknowledge that you are aware that acceptance releases the Platform and its operator from any responsibility for the content you are about to read. No account is created and reading is not profiled; the acceptance itself is recorded as evidence (time, Terms version, network address, browser identifier).
To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, you release the Platform, its operator, and its personnel from any liability arising out of the content you publish, and you agree to indemnify, defend, and hold them harmless against any claim, demand, damages, fine, or expense (including reasonable legal fees) brought by any third party or authority in connection with content published under your key or, for companies, under your writers' keys.
You understand that mandatory law limits contractual releases: this clause does not, and cannot, waive rights of third parties, criminal law, or consumer protections that apply regardless of contract.
Having accepted these Terms before reading, you covenant not to bring claims against the Platform or its operator over the existence, availability, or effects of content that these Terms place under its authors' sole responsibility. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, if you nonetheless bring such a claim and it fails or is barred by these Terms, you agree to compensate the Platform's reasonable costs of defending it, including legal fees, and the Platform reserves the right to pursue that compensation. Nothing in this Section limits rights that mandatory law makes non-waivable, and nothing in it applies to claims unrelated to author published content.
The Platform never deletes speech. It applies exactly three measures, all documented in public, signed moderation records:
(a) Refusal before sealing: submissions containing other people's personal data are refused outright, because publishing personal data on a permanent record is irreversible harm. (b) Gating: content matching sensitive categories of the public content policy is published behind a notice, and remains fully readable. (c) Withholding: where the Platform obtains actual knowledge that specific content is illegal under the law of a jurisdiction it serves, that content is withheld from display; the sealed record of its existence (title, hashes, block position) remains public, so withholding can never be silent. Moderation decisions never depend on the opinions expressed.
Writing requires an application, email verification, and the operator's approval, which verifies accountability and never opinions. You are solely responsible for safeguarding your private key; entries signed by your key are attributed to you. Individual writing is free. Company registration requires a fee by tier and an email address on the company's own domain; fees are stated at application time and frozen for the application.
Anyone may report an entry through the report mechanism on its page. Reports are reviewed by the operator; substantiated notices of illegal content are acted on expeditiously through gating or withholding as required by the applicable law. The moderation response is recorded publicly and permanently.
Demands by public authorities to restrict content are processed under the Platform's published framework (gating and withholding; deletion does not exist), must be lawful, specific, and properly served, and are recorded, together with the Platform's response, in the public Censorship Requests log. The Platform reserves all rights to challenge demands it considers unlawful under the constitutional and human rights law of the demanding jurisdiction, including Article 13 of the American Convention on Human Rights and Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights, and to seek recovery of costs and damages caused by demands later found unlawful, to the extent the law allows. These Terms record the basis on which the Platform responds to public authority; they do not purport to restrict its lawful exercise.
The chain stores only what authors chose to publish. Application and subscription data (including emails) is stored off the chain, is never published, is used only to operate the service, and is deleted on request where the law provides for erasure. Unsubscribing deletes the subscription record entirely.
The Terms acceptance log (time, Terms version, network address, browser identifier) is likewise stored off the chain and is never published. It exists solely as evidence that acceptance occurred and is retained while legal claims could arise, a retention that data protection law permits for the establishment and defense of legal claims. It is not used to profile reading.
Content reports are recorded with their time, network address, and browser identifier. These evidence fields support the processing of the notice and the prevention of abusive reporting, are stored off the chain, are visible only to the operator, and are never published.
The service is provided as is, without warranties of any kind. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Platform's aggregate liability for any claim is limited to the fees you paid in the twelve months before the event giving rise to the claim, and to zero where you paid none.
These Terms are versioned; material changes produce a new version, and your acceptance is always recorded against a specific version. Governing law and venue: [PLACEHOLDER: to be set with counsel, per operating entity].