Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-05-04. This is a v1 draft pending review by counsel before launch.

These terms govern your use of Loni — a platform for buying and reading digital and printed books, operated by Loni SAS (Côte d'Ivoire). By creating an account or using the service, you accept these terms.

1. Definitions

• Loni — the website at helloloni.com, the Loni mobile app (iOS and Android), and the underlying services.
• Reader — a user with an account who buys and reads books on Loni. The default role for any sign-up.
• Creator — a person ("solo creator") or organization ("publisher creator") that lists books for sale on Loni. Both have identical permissions, routes, dashboards, and payouts; only publishers can add team members.
• Partner — a print provider that fulfills printed-book orders within their service area in Côte d'Ivoire.
• Content — the books, samples (first 5 pages, plaintext), covers, descriptions, and other materials available on the platform.

2. Account creation and security

• You must be at least 13 years old to create an account.
• Sign-up methods: email + password, phone + one-time code (SMS or WhatsApp), Google OAuth, or Apple OAuth.
• You are responsible for the accuracy of your information and for keeping your credentials confidential.
• Email or phone verification may be required for certain actions (checkout, account deletion).
• You may enable two-step authentication (TOTP) on your account; six recovery codes are generated at setup. Two-step authentication is required for all administrative actions.
• We may revoke active sessions across all your devices when you change your password, enable two-step authentication, or sign out of all devices.
• Reader device limit: at most five active devices. On a sixth sign-in, the oldest device is signed out and a notification is sent.
• You may not share your account, sell access, or use someone else's account.

3. What you can do on Loni

• Read — buy books on the web (helloloni.com), then read them in the Loni mobile app. There is no in-browser reader.
• Buy from mobile — there is no in-app purchase on mobile. From the mobile app, a "Buy on the web" handoff opens checkout in your browser; you return to the app once payment completes.
• List books — apply to become a Creator, upload books in EPUB, PDF, or DOCX (DOCX is converted to EPUB server-side), sell digital and printed editions.
• Print and ship — Partners receive print jobs from Loni and fulfill them in their service area.

4. Content licenses

When you buy a digital book on Loni, you receive a personal, non-transferable, non-exclusive license to read it in the Loni mobile app for personal, non-commercial use. The book is protected by Loni's digital rights management:

• The content key is wrapped per user and per device; the unwrapped key never leaves your device.
• Reading sessions are limited to one active session per book per format per user, with a 120-second heartbeat.
• A forensic watermark is bound to your license. The watermark is never embedded in the content; it lives only in license metadata and is consulted only for leak investigations.
• Subscription expiry, refunds, and account suspension immediately revoke active licenses.

You may not:

• copy, share, or redistribute the content;
• circumvent the digital rights management;
• use the content for commercial purposes;
• create derivative works without the rights holder's permission.

Printed books that you purchase belong to you as physical goods, subject to applicable copyright law.

5. Payments and currency

• Prices on Loni are in CFA francs (XOF). Loni does not support other currencies.
• Payment is processed by PawaPay for Mobile Money (MTN, Orange, Wave, Moov in Côte d'Ivoire) or by Stripe for cards (Visa, Mastercard, Amex; Apple Pay and Google Pay where the device supports them).
• We do not store your full card or Mobile Money credentials. We retain the last four digits (Stripe) or a masked Mobile Money number (PawaPay) for receipts and customer support.
• Each fulfilled order produces an HTML invoice signed with HMAC-SHA256, emailed to you and downloadable from the order page. Refunds and revisions create new versioned invoices on the same order.
• Mixed cart rule — if your cart contains a printed book, the order is treated as physical for fulfillment and refund-window purposes.

6. Subscription

• Loni offers a single monthly subscription plan at a single price in XOF. There is no free trial.
• Stripe subscribers are charged automatically each month. PawaPay subscribers receive a renewal reminder and pay manually each month; failure to pay before the period ends pauses access.
• You may cancel at any time. Cancellation is effective at the end of the period you have already paid for; we do not pro-rate or refund partial months.
• Books in the subscription catalog are opted in by their creators (or by an administrator under a setting documented in our Privacy Policy).

7. Refunds

Refund eligibility, the 30-day refund window (counted from delivery for printed books, from fulfillment for digital), the limit of one refund per (user, book) per 30 days, and the refund process are described in the Refund Policy.

8. Acceptable conduct

You agree not to:

• violate Côte d'Ivoire law or any applicable law;
• infringe intellectual-property or privacy rights;
• upload malware, exploit content, or attempt to attack the service;
• harass, threaten, or impersonate others;
• access the service through automated means without our written permission;
• post fraudulent reviews, manipulate ratings, or abuse promotional credits.

We monitor for suspicious activity. The following do not block your account but generate a flag for human review by our team:

• orders above 150,000 XOF;
• five or more paid orders from one account in a single hour;
• a refund rate above 30% on your account;
• five or more five-star reviews from one account in seven days.

We may suspend or terminate accounts that breach these rules. Termination revokes your access tokens and signs you out of all devices.

9. Creator and Partner obligations

• Creators must own or license the content they upload, comply with our content and moderation policies, and accept that Loni reviews submissions before publication. Loni shares revenue per the percentage announced at the time of publication; the split is computed in BigInt-precise XOF and shown on each payout.
• Partners must accept print jobs within the service-level window, fulfill orders to the customer's shipping address, upload proof of delivery, and respect the per-job fees disclosed in the partner portal.

Creator and Partner payouts are handled manually by Loni: requests in the queue go through approve → mark-paid (approved off-platform) or are rejected with a reason. Approved payouts produce a PAYOUT_PAID ledger entry on settlement.

10. Intellectual property

Loni, the Loni name, the Loni logo, and all platform code, design, and trademarks are owned by Loni SAS. The content you read remains the property of its rights holders. Nothing in these terms transfers ownership.

11. Privacy and personal data

Our Privacy Policy explains what we collect, why, and your rights, including how to access, correct, export, or delete your data. You can request deletion of your account from your account settings or, if you can no longer sign in, from the Delete my account page.

12. Disclaimers

Loni is provided "as is." We do not warrant that the service will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that any specific content will remain available. We rely on third-party providers (payment, SMS, email, push notifications, print partners); we are not liable for their actions or outages beyond what the law requires.

13. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, our liability for any claim related to the service is limited to the amount you paid us in the twelve months preceding the claim.

14. Termination

You may close your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate access to enforce these terms or to comply with the law. Order history, ledger entries, and audit-log records are retained as required for accounting, tax, and security audits, even after deletion.

15. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms. Material changes will be announced by email and on the site at least 14 days before they take effect.

16. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of Côte d'Ivoire. Disputes will be resolved by the competent courts of Abidjan, unless mandatory consumer-protection law provides otherwise.

17. Contact

For any question about these terms: legal@helloloni.com, or via the Contact page.