TERMS OF SERVICE & RULES

1. About This Platform

DebateHero is an educational and entertainment platform that allows users to engage in simulated debates and conversations with language model representations of historical figures. The platform is operated by Voices of History Foundation ("Voices of History," "we," "us" or "our") and is available at debatehero.com and related subdomains.

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are an agreement between you and Voices of History. By creating an account or using the platform in any way, you agree to these Terms and to the Community Rules below. If you do not agree, do not use the platform.

2. The Nature of Our Figures

2.1 Historical Figures Only

All figures depicted on DebateHero are historical persons who are deceased. We do not simulate, impersonate, or create representations of any living person, any person whose estate retains active legal representation over their likeness or intellectual property, or any public figure whose estate has formally objected to a simulation of their person.

2.2 Generated Content Is Speculative

Conversations with these figures are fictional reconstructions generated by a large language model. They are not statements or communications of the actual historical person, are not endorsed by or affiliated with any estates or heirs of the depicted persons, and are intended for educational, critical, and entertainment purposes only.

The model may express views inconsistent with the historical record. It may speculate, extrapolate, or be factually incorrect. Do not treat these responses as authoritative historical scholarship.

2.3 No Defamation

We do not intend to defame, misrepresent, or damage the reputation of any person, living or deceased. If you believe any content on the platform misrepresents a historical figure in a harmful or defamatory way, contact us at legal@debatehero.com.

3. Eligibility

You must be at least 13 years old to use this platform. If you are under 18, you must have permission from a parent or legal guardian. Quick match is only for users 18 and older (see Section 5.4). Teachers who invite students represent that they are authorized to do so on behalf of their institution and that student users in their cohort meet the age requirement.

4. Accounts

You are responsible for keeping your account credentials secure and for the activity on your account. You may not share your account or allow others to use it. Account or collection access may change as the service evolves.

5. Acceptable Use

5.1 You May

Use the platform for personal learning, classroom instruction, research, and entertainment. Share screenshots or excerpts of conversations with appropriate attribution and context. Provide feedback on the responses you receive.

5.2 You May Not

Use the platform to generate content designed to harass, defame, or harm any person, living or deceased. Attempt to make the system produce content that impersonates a living person in a harmful or misleading way. Use the platform to generate disinformation or content designed to deceive others into believing its output is authentic historical record. Scrape or reproduce the platform's content at scale for commercial purposes without written permission. Attempt to reverse engineer or manipulate the system. Share login credentials or access codes with unauthorized users. Submit content that infringes anyone else's copyright or other rights.

5.3 Academic Integrity

You are responsible for complying with your institution's academic integrity policies when using content generated by this platform in academic work.

5.4 Live Debates With Other People

Live debates are recorded (your voice, and your camera when it is on) to make a replay. Before each one you agree to the recording by pressing “Agree and join”; a guest who joins from an invite link agrees to these Terms and the Privacy Policy the same way. Quick match pairs you with a stranger, uses your camera and microphone, and is only for users 18 and older; you confirm your age before your first quick match. Either player may share the replay as a public watch page; it shows your camera only if you turn on “Show my camera in duel videos” in Settings.

In a live debate you may not harass, threaten or bully the other player, use hate speech or slurs, show or describe sexual content, or record or rebroadcast the other player outside the platform. You can report or block a player from the debate or its result; a blocked player is not matched with you again. We review reports, and we may remove videos and suspend or close accounts that break these rules.

6. Access Without an Account

Some features can be used without an account. Without signing in, you can read the platform's public pages, play Arguable, and watch shared debates, watch pages and clips. As a guest, without signing up, you can play the Daily a limited number of times each day and join a live debate from an invitation link (see Section 5.4). Every other feature, including quick match, liking or commenting on clips, and purchases, requires an account. Some collections require an access code, and access codes are not transferable.

These Terms apply to all use of the platform, with or without an account. We may change which features are available, and to whom, as we develop the platform.

7. Your Content

7.1 What You Own

You keep ownership of the content you submit to the platform: your messages, comments, voice and camera video, and your part of the debate recordings, replays, clips and watch pages made from them (“Your Content”). As between you and us, we own the figures' responses and the other content the platform generates, such as scores, judgments and summaries, to the extent any rights exist in them. You may use the figures' responses for personal, educational, and noncommercial purposes consistent with these Terms.

7.2 The License You Give Us

You grant Voices of History a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to host, store, process, reproduce and display Your Content, including to make replays, clips and watch pages from it. We and the service providers acting for us use this license only to operate, provide and improve the platform, and to share Your Content as you direct, for example when you share a debate or a replay. In a live debate with another person, the other player may also share the replay as a watch page (see Section 5.4), and a clip from that debate is posted to the public Clips feed only if every player in the debate agrees.

This license ends when Your Content is deleted from the platform, except for copies kept in backups for a limited period or kept because the law requires it. The Privacy Policy explains when content is deleted.

7.3 Your Responsibility

You are responsible for Your Content. You confirm that you have the rights needed to submit it and to grant this license, and that it does not break these Terms or the law.

8. Our Intellectual Property

The platform, its design, software, and model configurations are owned by Voices of History. The historical figures' names and their historical writings may be in the public domain, but our specific configurations, interfaces, and derivative content are proprietary. These Terms do not give you any right to use our names, logos or trademarks.

9. Copyright Complaints

We respect copyright and respond to notices of claimed infringement under the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (“DMCA”). Send notices and counter-notices to our designated copyright agent at legal@debatehero.com.

9.1 Notice of Infringement

If you believe content on the platform infringes your copyright, your notice must include: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the copyrighted work you claim is infringed; (c) identification of the material you claim is infringing, with information reasonably sufficient for us to locate it, such as its web address; (d) your name, address, telephone number and email address; (e) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; and (f) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner's behalf. We respond to a valid notice by removing or disabling access to the material, and we make reasonable efforts to notify the user who submitted it.

9.2 Counter-Notice

If your content was removed and you believe it was removed by mistake or misidentification, you may send a counter-notice that includes: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the material that was removed and where it appeared before removal; (c) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you have a good-faith belief that the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification; and (d) your name, address and telephone number, and a statement that you consent to the jurisdiction of the federal district court for the judicial district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, any judicial district in which we may be found) and that you will accept service of process from the person who sent the original notice or that person's agent. After we receive a valid counter-notice, we forward it to the person who sent the original notice. We may restore the material 10 to 14 business days after we receive the counter-notice unless that person tells us they have filed a court action to restrain the alleged infringement.

9.3 Repeat Infringers

We terminate, in appropriate circumstances, the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe copyright.

10. Privacy

We do not sell your personal data. Conversation data may be used to improve the platform. See the Privacy Policy for the full picture of what we collect and who processes it. Contact us at support@debatehero.com with any privacy questions.

11. Termination

You may stop using the platform at any time, and you may delete your account at any time in Settings. We may suspend or end your access to the platform, and remove Your Content, if you break these Terms or the Community Rules, or if the law requires us to.

Sections 7.1, 7.3, 8, 12, 13, 14, 16 and 17, and any other provision that by its nature should survive, continue to apply after your use of the platform ends. Section 7.2 continues to apply until Your Content is deleted as described there.

12. Disclaimers

THE PLATFORM IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE." TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE MAKE NO WARRANTIES ABOUT THE ACCURACY OF GENERATED CONTENT OR THE UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY OF THE PLATFORM, AND WE ARE NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR THE CONDUCT OF OTHER USERS.

13. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, VOICES OF HISTORY FOUNDATION AND ITS OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA OR GOODWILL, ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR YOUR USE OF THE PLATFORM, EVEN IF WE HAVE BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF THOSE DAMAGES.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS ARISING FROM OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE PLATFORM IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (A) THE AMOUNTS YOU PAID US FOR THE PLATFORM IN THE 12 MONTHS BEFORE THE CLAIM AROSE AND (B) US$100. SOME JURISDICTIONS DO NOT ALLOW THESE EXCLUSIONS OR LIMITATIONS, SO SOME OF THEM MAY NOT APPLY TO YOU.

14. Indemnification

You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Voices of History Foundation and its officers, directors, employees and agents from and against any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, costs and expenses, including reasonable attorneys' fees, arising from Your Content or your breach of these Terms.

15. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. We will post the updated Terms on this page and change the “last updated” date at the top. For material changes, we will notify you and ask you to accept the updated Terms before you continue using the service.

16. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms, and any dispute arising from or relating to them or the platform, are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, where Voices of History is incorporated, and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles. Any such dispute will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you and we consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

17. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and the Community Rules below, are the entire agreement between you and us about the platform and replace any earlier agreement on that subject. If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, that provision will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted and the remaining provisions stay in full effect. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of our right to enforce it later. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our written consent. We may assign them in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization or sale of assets, or by operation of law.

18. Contact

Legal questions and copyright notices: legal@debatehero.com
General support: support@debatehero.com