Version 2026-10b - Last updated: October 15, 2026 - Effective: October 22, 2026 (until then, version 2026-10 of October 11, 2026 applies)

Terms of Service

Purpose

The Service is a mutual-support API service for creators, operated by AICU Inc. (AI Creator Union; a Delaware company). Under AICU's vision of "making people who make" (つくる人をつくる), it is provided so that human creators can make better use of generative services and develop new services and value.

Commercial use

  • Commercial use is permitted only on an account that we can reach by e-mail and that is backed by an appropriate and lawful means of payment, such as a credit card. You can confirm the conditions by contacting api@aicu.ai.
  • A personal account is provided for a natural person's research, development, creative work and experiments. Advertising income or small rewards that do not exceed what you spend on the Service are not treated as commercial use.
  • Use that creates clear value, and resale, are welcome. Where you report your use or help us announce it, we may offer AP bonuses or volume discounts.
  • Do not use free AP for resale or for business use. Resale prices are set in the reseller agreement (section 4.5). Do not use the Service to run a service that competes with it.

1. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using the AICU API Platform ("Service"), you ("User") agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree to these Terms, you may not use the Service.

If you are using the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have the authority to bind that organization to these Terms.

2. Description of Service

The Service provides AI-powered APIs including, but not limited to:

  • Text-to-Speech (TTS) generation
  • Large Language Model (LLM) inference (OpenAI-compatible API)
  • Audio file storage and delivery
  • Related developer tools and documentation

The Service is operated by AICU Inc. ("Service Provider"), a company incorporated in Delaware, USA.

2.1 Third-Party Service Providers

The Service may use third-party service providers (including but not limited to OpenRouter, Groq, Together AI, fal.ai, ElevenLabs, OpenAI, Google, Cloudflare, and AICU Japan K.K.) to process certain requests. By using the Service, you acknowledge and agree that:

  1. Your prompts, the materials you upload and the generated content may be processed by these third-party service providers to the extent necessary to provide the Service.
  2. These providers may have their own terms of service and privacy policies.
  3. Availability of the Service may depend on the availability of these providers.
  4. We reserve the right to change the providers we use without notice.
  5. Speech and voice features may be provided through ElevenLabs. When you use them you also agree to follow the latest versions of the ElevenLabs Terms of Service and the ElevenLabs Prohibited Use Policy, which apply to everyone who uses ElevenLabs technology through a product built with it. We may not offer those features to you on terms more permissive than the terms that apply to us.
  6. To confirm compliance with the terms and policies of ElevenLabs and other third-party service providers and with applicable law, we may, to the extent necessary and reasonable, audit or investigate your usage, the records of your API requests, and the frequency and manner of your use. Any audit is carried out in accordance with our Privacy Policy and applicable law. See also section 7.1.

3. Account Registration

3.1 Eligibility and Automated Use

A "User" of the Service must be a natural person who is at least 18 years old, or a lawfully established corporation or other organization. By using the Service, you represent that you meet this requirement.

Bots, AI agents, scripts and other automated systems cannot themselves be a party to these Terms or a User.

Where the Service is used through such a system, the natural person who holds the account (for a personal account) or the corporation or organization that is the contracting party (for a business account) is responsible for that use, for payment of fees, for security, and for compliance with these Terms.

A corporation or other organization must designate a person responsible for the account and its automated systems, and provide that person's contact details when we reasonably request them.

3.2 Account Security

You are responsible for maintaining the confidentiality of your API keys and account credentials. You must notify us immediately of any unauthorized use.

All use made with your API keys is treated as your use. Do not sell, lend or share your API keys, and do not publish them where others can use them. Usage made in breach of these Terms, including usage by anyone you let use your keys, is charged as set out in section 5.6.

3.3 One Account per Person or Organization

Each individual may hold one personal account. A company, team or other organization uses the Service through a business account: one agreement, with as many API keys as the team needs. Do not create or operate multiple accounts to do the work of one person or one organization, and do not register accounts through automated means.

Accounts that we reasonably determine to be operated by the same person or organization may be treated as a single account for the purposes of these Terms, including free credits, usage limits, billing and suspension.

Accounts are managed by e-mail address. Where three or more accounts share an e-mail domain, or where accounts on free e-mail services (such as Gmail) are in our reasonable judgment used by the same person, organization or group, we may contact the holders and ask them to use a business or team account, and we may combine those accounts into one.

If we reasonably determine that several accounts are operated together in breach of this section and the operator does not respond to our notice, output generated for those accounts may include a short statement that it was generated with api.aicu.ai (for example, a spoken sentence at the end of generated speech).

3.4 Business Use

Regular business or production use is welcome on the terms set out under "Commercial use" in the Purpose section above: an account that we can reach by e-mail and that is backed by a lawful means of payment.

If you use the Service for your work, for a client, or to operate a product or service of your own, you can also contact us at api@aicu.ai to set up a business or team account.

Depending on the contract and on your usage, a business account may be offered invoices, usage reports per key, individual support for service quality, improvements made for your use (such as custom reading dictionaries for speech), consideration of priority feature requests, volume pricing that is not available to personal accounts, and other services.

The specific services, prices and conditions are those set out in the contract terms we present separately.

4. Acceptable Use

4.1 Compliance with Laws

You agree to use the Service in compliance with all applicable laws and regulations of your jurisdiction.

4.2 Compliance with Third-Party Policies

The User agrees not to use the Service in a manner that would cause the Service Provider or its payment processors (including Stripe) to violate their acceptable use or restricted business policies.

4.3 Prohibited Content

You may not use the Service to generate, store, or distribute:

  1. Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM) - Any content depicting minors (under 18) in sexual situations, including AI-generated imagery
  2. Non-consensual intimate imagery - Including revenge pornography
  3. Hate speech - Content promoting violence or discrimination based on race, ethnicity, religion, gender, or other protected characteristics
  4. Terrorism-related content - Content promoting or glorifying terrorist activities
  5. Malware or phishing - Content designed to harm systems or deceive users
  6. Copyright-infringing content - Content that violates third-party intellectual property rights
  7. Other unlawful or inappropriate content and use - Any content prohibited by the laws of the jurisdiction where you reside, are located or use the Service, or of any other applicable jurisdiction.
    In addition, where we reasonably determine — considering the content, the API requests, the manner and history of use and the surrounding circumstances as a whole — that content is likely to lead to unlawful acts, infringement of third-party rights, fraud, misuse or other serious harm, or that an API request could serve as material for generating, processing or distributing such content, we may refuse to process it, restrict use, investigate, or suspend the account as necessary.

4.4 LLM API Specific Prohibitions

When using the LLM API services, you additionally agree not to:

  • Prompt injection attacks - Attempt to manipulate AI responses or extract system prompts from our or third-party services
  • Automated abuse - Run automated systems designed to overwhelm or exploit the Service without prior approval
  • Impersonation - Use AI-generated content to impersonate real individuals without their consent
  • Misinformation - Generate or spread false information that could cause public harm

4.5 No Resale Without a Reseller Agreement

You may build your own products and services on the Service and offer them to your customers. You may not resell, sublicense, relay or otherwise make the Service itself available to third parties (for example as an API, proxy or account-sharing service), and you may not resell credits, API keys or accounts, unless you have a reseller agreement with us. To become a reseller, contact api@aicu.ai.

4.6 Voices and Voice Cloning

  • No cloning without consent. You may not create, upload or use a voice that clones or imitates a living person without that person's explicit and informed consent, or that of a deceased person without valid authorization. You may not submit voice recordings of anyone under 18 to create a voice.
  • Consent records. When you ask us to create a voice from a recording, we record the speaker's consent and identity verification before the voice is created, and we may refuse or remove a voice where consent cannot be confirmed.
  • Voices are managed under your account, on our provider account. A voice you create through the Service is held in the ElevenLabs account operated by the Service Provider and is tied to your account on the Service. You control which of your API keys may use it and you may ask us to delete it at any time. You do not receive a separate ElevenLabs account or direct access to it.
  • Rewards from ElevenLabs are administered by the Service Provider. Any rewards, payouts or other consideration that ElevenLabs provides in connection with voices held in our account are received and administered by the Service Provider. Where we have agreed to share them with the speaker or the account holder, we do so under a separate written agreement or the program rules published on the Service (for example as AP).
  • Character voices offered on the Service are licensed for use in your own content under the terms shown with each voice. They may not be presented as your own voice product or used to train another voice model.

5. Fees and Payment

5.1 Credits

  • TAP (Temporary AICU Points): Promotional / subscription credits with a short validity (subscription credits 30 days; login-bonus credits shorter), consumed first
  • AP (AICU Points): Purchased credits, valid for 6 months (180 days) from purchase, consumed after TAP

5.2 No Refunds

AP and TAP are non-refundable except as required by applicable law.

5.3 Free and Promotional Credits

Free credits (such as the first-use bonus, sign-up credits, login bonuses and campaign grants) are offered so that one person can evaluate the Service. They are granted once per person or organization, have no cash value, cannot be transferred or resold, and expire on the date shown in your dashboard.

  • Free credits are not intended for regular business or production use. For that, see section 3.4.
  • Use with free credits is for an individual's non-commercial evaluation. It comes with no warranty of service quality and no service-level commitment. Business use, and use inside a paid product or service, comes with different warranties, service levels and prices (section 3.4).
  • We may limit, withhold or cancel free credits where we reasonably determine that they were obtained through multiple accounts, automated registration, or otherwise in a way that defeats the purpose described above.
  • Where free credits were obtained that way and used for business purposes, we may treat the usage as that of a single business customer and invoice it at the published prices, after notifying you and giving you a reasonable opportunity to explain.

5.4 Prices

Prices are published at api.aicu.ai/models and may be revised weekly. Price increases are announced on api.aicu.ai/news at least seven days before they take effect. Some prices reflect capacity that our partners provide to us for a limited time and may change when that capacity changes.

5.5 Output Generated with Free Credits

Output generated with free credits (TAP and other free or promotional credits) may, at a rate we set, include a short notice or advertisement from AICU: for example, a spoken sentence in generated speech, or a mark in a generated image. By using free credits you agree to this. Output generated with purchased AP does not include such additions. For an account that has never purchased AP, we may treat all of its output as generated with free credits.

5.6 Charges for Usage in Breach, and Their Limit

Usage made in breach of these Terms (including under sections 3.2, 3.3 and 5.3) may be charged at the published prices, after we notify you and give you a reasonable opportunity to explain. Where you have registered a payment method, you agree that we may charge that method for it.

The amount we charge under this section is limited to twice the total you paid us for the Service in the 12 months before the charge. Where that limit is reached, or where you have not paid us, we suspend the account instead (section 7). This section does not limit any claim that applicable law allows us to make through other means.

6. Indemnification

If the User causes the Service Provider to incur costs, expenses, or damages as a result of the User's violation of these Terms, applicable laws, or third-party policies, the User shall indemnify and hold harmless the Service Provider.

Such costs include, but are not limited to:

  • Legal fees (including attorney's fees)
  • Costs related to investigations or responses to law enforcement
  • Costs for compliance with court orders or subpoenas
  • Technical and operational costs for emergency response
  • Costs arising from account suspension or termination by infrastructure or AI service providers

7. Account Suspension and Termination

The Service Provider may suspend your account immediately and without prior notice if:

  • You violate the Prohibited Content provisions
  • We receive a request from law enforcement
  • We reasonably believe your account poses a risk to the Service or other users
  • You create or operate multiple accounts, or obtain free credits, in breach of sections 3.3 or 5.3
  • You resell the Service without a reseller agreement (section 4.5)
  • You create or use a voice without the speaker's consent (section 4.6)
  • Your usage consumes shared capacity in a way that prevents us from serving other users, and you do not respond to our request to move to a business account

Except where the law, security or the protection of other users requires immediate action, we will contact you at your registered e-mail address before suspending an account for multiple accounts, free credits, shared capacity or resale. Balances of purchased AP remain yours during a suspension; free credits may be cancelled.

7.1 Usage Records, Content and Privacy

The AICU Privacy Policy applies to your account information and to your use of AICU websites. That policy does not cover the content we process for you through the API. This section sets out how the API handles it, and prevails for the API where the two differ.

Routine records. To operate, bill and improve the Service we keep usage records for each call: the endpoint, model or voice, size (such as characters or tokens), language as inferred from the script, client software, country of origin, status and cost. Usage records form the billing ledger and are kept for as long as needed for billing, audit and legal obligations.

Stored requests. To improve the Service and to detect and prevent abuse (such as sexual or otherwise prohibited content, deepfakes and impersonation), we keep the content of requests, such as the text you send for speech, for up to 90 days. Stored requests are separate from usage records, are accessible only to the personnel who need them, and are not used to train models. For personal accounts, the Service is improved for everyone through this use. Improvements made for a particular customer, such as custom reading dictionaries, are a service of business and team accounts (section 3.4), which may also agree different handling of stored requests with us by contract.

Content sent to providers. Your requests (prompts, text, audio, images and other materials) are sent to the third-party service providers listed in section 2.1 to the extent necessary to produce the result. We do not use your content to train models, except output that you explicitly make public (section 7.2). How a provider handles content is governed by that provider's terms.

Generated output. Generated output (such as audio and images) may be stored so that it can be delivered to you again and served from cache. An identical request may be answered from the cache. To ask us to delete stored output, contact api@aicu.ai.

Review where a violation is suspected. Where we reasonably suspect a violation of these Terms, of a third-party provider's terms or policies, or of applicable law, we may review the requests and generated output available to us for the accounts concerned, to the extent necessary for the investigation (section 2.1). Such a review is limited to the personnel who need it, and its results are used only for the investigation, for enforcing these Terms, and where the law requires.

7.2 Rights in Your Materials and in the Output

Your materials. You may send reference images, audio, text and other materials only if you hold the rights needed to use them in this way, including copyright and the rights of reproduction and public transmission, or have permission from the right holder.

The output. Where output is generated from materials you have the right to use, and expresses ideas or language in a way that the copyright laws of the countries concerned protect, any rights in that output belong to you, to the extent such rights arise under those laws. We do not claim ownership of your output.

Output you make public. For output that you explicitly make public (for example, an image generated with visibility: public), you grant AICU a free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to publish, edit, and use it to train and improve models and services. Output that you do not make public is not covered by this license.

7.3 Security and Incidents

We take reasonable measures to protect your account information, the content we process for you, and other information we hold in confidence. If personal information or such content is leaked or accessed without authorization, we notify the affected users and the authorities as the law requires, and we report what happened and what we have done.

We are not liable for damage caused by unauthorized access, attacks or other unlawful acts of third parties, except where the damage results from our intent or gross negligence (section 9).

7.4 Investigation of and Measures against Abuse and Privacy Infringement

Against abuse, attacks, duplicate accounts, bots operated through duplicate or non-human accounts, and the farming of free credits, we may analyse usage in depth and audit, verify and confirm it, to protect and preserve the Service and its users. This is not limited to the routine handling described in the Privacy Policy.

As a means of confirmation, we communicate with you by e-mail. For example, we may describe a request you made (by a summary or a translation, without sending its full content) and ask you to confirm that the request and its output are yours and correct. We collect and keep connection information (such as IP addresses and the software used) and compare accounts only to the extent necessary for this purpose and within applicable law, including the Act on the Protection of Personal Information. Access is limited to the personnel who need it, and the results are used only to protect the Service and its users, to enforce these Terms, and where the law requires.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED.

9. Limitation of Liability

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE SERVICE PROVIDER SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, THE TOTAL LIABILITY OF THE SERVICE PROVIDER FOR ANY CLAIM ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THESE TERMS OR THE SERVICE, REGARDLESS OF THE FORM OF THE ACTION, IS LIMITED TO THE GREATER OF (I) ONE HUNDRED UNITED STATES DOLLARS (US$100) AND (II) THE AMOUNT YOU PAID TO USE THE SERVICE IN THE 12 MONTHS PRECEDING THE CLAIM.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including liability to consumers for intent or gross negligence.

10. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the laws of Japan.

Any disputes arising from these Terms shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the Tokyo District Court.

11. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms. When we make a material change we announce it on the Service or, where we can reach you, by e-mail. The updated Terms apply from the effective date shown at the top of this page. If you continue to use the Service after that date, you accept the updated Terms. If you do not agree, stop using the Service; purchased AP that you have not used is handled as set out in section 5.

12. Contact Information

AICU Inc.