Terms of Service

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using Crate Tools (available at cratetools.me, hereinafter referred to as "Crate", "the Service", "we", "us", or "our"), you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agreed to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms") and our Privacy Policy. If you do not agree to all of these Terms, you are explicitly prohibited from using the Service and must discontinue use immediately.

We reserve the right, at our sole discretion, to modify, update, or replace any portion of these Terms at any time. Your continued use of the website following the posting of any revisions constitutes your acceptance of the updated Terms.

2. Description of the Service & Architecture

Crate is a specialized suite of browser-based creative utilities, including:

• Crate Captions: In-browser speech-to-text transcription and subtitle (.SRT) generator using WebAssembly neural speech models.
• Video Compressor: Client-side MP4, MOV, and WebM video transcoding powered by FFmpeg compiled to WebAssembly.
• Image Compressor: Client-side lossy and lossless image optimization powered by HTML5 Canvas and multi-threaded Web Workers.
• Remove Background: In-browser foreground matting and transparent PNG cutout generation.
• Crate Drop: Serverless peer-to-peer (P2P) file transfer powered by WebRTC DataChannels with zero cloud storage.

A cornerstone of our architecture is that processing occurs locally inside your web browser. Unless explicitly noted otherwise (such as transient WebRTC signaling for peer discovery), media files (videos, audio, photos, documents) are never uploaded to, transmitted across, or stored upon our servers.

3. User Conduct and Acceptable Use

You agree to use Crate only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You represent and warrant that:

• You own or possess the necessary rights, licenses, and permissions for any media, content, or files you process through the Service.
• You will not use the Service to process, create, distribute, or transmit any content that is illegal, defamatory, abusive, infringing, fraudulent, or harassing.
• You will not attempt to reverse engineer, decompile, or tamper with the signaling servers, rate limits, or security mechanisms of Crate.
• You will not introduce viruses, malware, trojans, worms, or other malicious code designed to disrupt the operation of the website or any connected hardware.
• You will not deploy automated bots, scrapers, or crawling scripts that overwhelm our infrastructure or degrade performance for legitimate users.

4. Intellectual Property Rights

Your Content: Crate does not claim any ownership rights over the media, files, transcripts, images, or data you process through our tools. You retain 100% ownership and copyright over your source files and any resulting output (such as generated .SRT subtitle files, compressed videos, optimized photos, or background-removed assets).

Crate Intellectual Property: The site design, proprietary client-side formatting algorithms, branding, logo, visual layout, code, sound effects, and user interface are protected by copyright, trademark, and other applicable intellectual property laws. You may not copy, duplicate, sell, or exploit any portion of the Crate interface without our express prior written permission.

5. Disclaimers and Limitation of Liability

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.

Because all audio transcription, video compression, image optimization, and background isolation execute directly on your local device hardware, processing speed, accuracy, and performance depend directly upon your computer or mobile device's CPU, GPU, memory, and browser environment. We do not warrant that:

• The Service will be uninterrupted, error-free, or compatible with every legacy browser.
• Speech recognition transcripts will be 100% accurate in all acoustic environments or regional accents.
• Files sent via peer-to-peer WebRTC connections will always penetrate strict corporate firewalls or NAT configurations.

IN NO EVENT SHALL CRATE, ITS FOUNDERS, OPERATORS, CONTRIBUTORS, OR AFFILIATES BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, LOSS OF PROFITS, DATA, USE, GOODWILL, OR OTHER INTANGIBLE LOSSES ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH YOUR ACCESS TO OR USE OF THE SERVICE.

6. Third-Party Services and Advertising

Crate may display third-party advertisements served through Google AdSense and reputable advertising networks to support our server infrastructure and ongoing development. These third-party vendors may use cookies, web beacons, and related tracking technologies in accordance with their respective privacy policies. We encourage you to review our Privacy Policy to understand how cookies and advertising data are handled.

Our website may contain hyperlinks to third-party websites or services that are not owned or controlled by Crate. We assume no responsibility for the content, privacy policies, or practices of any third-party websites.

7. Termination

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate your access to the Service immediately, without prior notice or liability, for any reason whatsoever, including without limitation if you breach these Terms.

8. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed and construed in accordance with the laws of the applicable jurisdiction, without regard to its conflict of law provisions. Our failure to enforce any right or provision of these Terms will not be considered a waiver of those rights.

9. Contact and Inquiries

If you have any questions, legal inquiries, or feedback regarding these Terms of Service, please reach out to our team: