LegalTerms of Service

1. What OpenGlyph is

OpenGlyph is an informational catalogue that researches and publishes sourced, version-aware determinations about whether specific artworks and characters are in the US public domain. It is a research aid, not a rights-clearance service and not a law firm.

2. Not legal advice

Nothing on OpenGlyph — including status labels, confidence ratings, version-scope notes, or anything else on a character or work’s record — is legal advice. Determinations are our best sourced research as of the date shown on each entry. Copyright and trademark law is fact-specific; your situation may differ from what an entry describes. Consult a qualified attorney before making a commercial decision that depends on a work’s legal status.

3. No warranty

OpenGlyph is provided “as is,” without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including accuracy, completeness, or fitness for a particular purpose. We cite our sources so you can verify them yourself — verification is part of using this site correctly, not optional.

4. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, OpenGlyph and its founder, owners, operators, affiliates, and representatives shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, consequential, special, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, business opportunities, data, reputation, or other intangible losses, arising out of or related to your access to or use of OpenGlyph, or your reliance on any information, analysis, classification, or determination provided by the service.

OpenGlyph provides information and automated assessments regarding the potential public-domain status of works of art for general informational and research purposes only. No assessment, result, or statement provided by OpenGlyph constitutes legal advice, a legal opinion, a guarantee of copyright status, or a representation that any particular use of a work is lawful. Assessments may be incomplete, inaccurate, outdated, or based on incomplete or incorrect source information.

To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, OpenGlyph and its founder disclaim liability for any claims, demands, damages, losses, costs, or expenses arising from or relating to a user’s reliance on an assessment or the user’s reproduction, distribution, display, modification, publication, commercial exploitation, or other use of a work identified or described by OpenGlyph, including claims alleging copyright infringement or violation of other intellectual property rights.

You are solely responsible for independently verifying the copyright and other applicable legal status of any work before using it, determining whether any necessary permissions or licenses are required, and ensuring that your intended use complies with applicable law. A determination that a work is in the public domain in the United States does not necessarily establish that the work is free of other restrictions, including restrictions under foreign laws, trademark law, rights of publicity, privacy rights, contractual obligations, or rights applicable to particular reproductions or digital images.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability to the extent that such liability cannot lawfully be excluded or limited under applicable law.

5. Your responsibility

You are responsible for independently verifying a work’s status — using the sources we cite, and your own counsel where the stakes justify it — before using that work commercially. A high-confidence entry is our best research, not a guarantee.

6. Public domain content vs. OpenGlyph’s own content

The underlying works we index are, per each entry’s own sourced determination, in the public domain or otherwise openly licensed — we don’t own them and make no claim to. OpenGlyph’s own original material — our research write-ups, the site’s design, and the OpenGlyph name and mark — is not covered by that and is not granted for reuse without permission.

7. Acceptable use

You may use OpenGlyph only for lawful purposes and in accordance with these Terms. You agree not to misuse, disrupt, overload, or interfere with the service or its underlying systems.

Without limiting the foregoing, you may not:

1. Exceed search limits or circumvent restrictions. Conduct more new searches per day than OpenGlyph’s free daily allowance (currently two without an account and five for a signed-in account), other than by using purchased search credits, or attempt to bypass, evade, or circumvent any search limit, rate limit, access restriction, or other usage control. Prohibited conduct includes creating or using multiple accounts, rotating accounts, manipulating identifiers, using VPNs, proxies, or other technical measures to evade restrictions, or otherwise attempting to obtain additional searches beyond the permitted limit.
2. Scrape or harvest data at scale. Use any robot, spider, crawler, scraper, browser automation tool, script, or other automated means to access OpenGlyph, submit searches, collect results, or extract, copy, monitor, or compile information from the service at scale without our prior written authorization.
3. Abuse automated access. Use bots, scripts, automated queries, or other mechanisms to generate excessive requests, repeatedly submit searches, overload our infrastructure, interfere with normal service operation, or circumvent technical safeguards.
4. Circumvent security measures. Attempt to bypass authentication, rate limiting, usage restrictions, access controls, or other security mechanisms, or probe, scan, or test the vulnerability of OpenGlyph systems without prior written authorization.
5. Interfere with other users or the service. Engage in conduct that degrades service availability, impairs other users’ access, introduces malicious code, or otherwise compromises the integrity, security, or operation of OpenGlyph.
6. Use the service unlawfully. Use OpenGlyph in violation of applicable law or third-party rights, or in a manner that facilitates fraud, infringement, or other unlawful activity.

OpenGlyph may monitor usage for security, service integrity, and enforcement of these Terms. We reserve the right, to the extent permitted by applicable law, to throttle requests, suspend or restrict access, or terminate access for suspected violations, including attempts to circumvent search limits. We may take reasonable technical measures to detect and prevent scraping, automated abuse, and circumvention.

Nothing in this section prohibits search-engine indexing or other automated access that we have expressly authorized in writing or through published technical policies.

Violations of this section may result in access restrictions or termination, subject to applicable law and any other rights or remedies available to OpenGlyph.

8. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the product develops. Material changes will update the revision date below.

9. Governing law and venue

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of OpenGlyph shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Texas, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles.

To the extent permitted by applicable law, any legal action or proceeding arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of OpenGlyph shall be brought in the state or federal courts located in Travis County, Texas, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts.

Nothing in this section limits any rights or protections that cannot lawfully be waived under applicable law.

10. AI-researched entries

Some entries on OpenGlyph are researched by an automated AI system rather than by a person. These pages are labeled “AI-researched · not reviewed by a person.” Their content is generated from automated web research and may be incomplete, inaccurate, or out of date, and the sources they cite may themselves be wrong. Curated entries are reviewed by a person before publication; they are still research, not legal advice (see section 4).

Do not rely on an AI-researched entry for any decision without verifying it against its cited sources. When you run a new search, the subject you enter is sent to our AI provider to perform the research, as described in the Privacy Policy.

11. Downloads and provenance records

Files you download from OpenGlyph, including images, PDFs, and accompanying provenance or attribution notes, are provided subject to these Terms. Each image file carries a provenance record, in its embedded metadata and, where included, in a PROVENANCE.txt note, that restates the holding archive’s own published rights information and the date OpenGlyph read it.

A provenance record is not a guarantee of a work’s status and not a license from OpenGlyph. It does not address rights outside the United States, trademarks, rights of publicity, or rights in a particular reproduction (see section 4). You may not remove or obscure the watermark on a watermarked preview, or alter a provenance record and present the file as though OpenGlyph had confirmed its status.

12. Accounts

An account is optional for browsing and searching, and required to buy anything. Purchases and search credits belong to the account that bought them. Keep your password confidential and don’t share your account with anyone: you are responsible for activity under your account, and an account is for one person. Tell us at contact@theopenglyph.com if you believe someone else has used it.

13. Free searches and search credits

• Free daily allowance. Each new search runs live research. You can run two new searches a day without an account, and five a day when signed in. The allowance resets at 00:00 UTC. Opening a subject that has already been searched is free and doesn’t count toward the allowance. OpenGlyph also limits the total number of free searches across the whole site each day; when that limit is reached, free searches resume the next day, and signed-in customers can keep searching with credits.
• How credits are used. Search credits are used only when no free search is available, because you’ve used yours or the site’s daily free limit has been reached. Each new search then uses one credit. A subject that has already been searched uses none. If a search fails before producing a result, the credit it used is returned automatically.
• No expiration. Purchased credits don’t expire. They stay in your account until you use them. If your account is closed, any unused credits end with it.
• What credits are not. Credits have no cash value and can’t be transferred, sold, or exchanged. They pay for new quick searches only; a full dossier or full investigation is a separate purchase (section 14).

14. Dossiers, full investigations and artwork downloads: what you buy

A full dossier is a one-time purchase that unlocks the complete record for one character or subject, including its PDF download where offered. For a curated character, the dossier was reviewed by a person before publication. For a subject that isn’t curated, the purchase is the AI full investigation, which is automated and not reviewed by a person (section 10). Buying it does not make it reviewed. Either way, a dossier is research, not legal advice (sections 2 and 4).

Access is tied to your account, not to a link. A dossier opens only when you are signed in to the account that bought it, and stays available for as long as OpenGlyph offers it and your account is in good standing. Sharing the link doesn’t give anyone else access.

Your purchase gives you a personal, non-transferable license to read the dossier, keep its PDF, and use what you learn from it in your own work. You may not resell, republish, or redistribute a dossier or its PDF, in whole or substantial part, or share your account so that others can read it. We may mark downloaded files with information that identifies the purchasing account. Breaching this section may lead to the measures described in section 7.

Artwork downloads. For an artwork, you can buy its Web file, or its Print & Original files, which include the Web file too. Each is a one-time purchase for that one artwork, includes every file format offered for what it unlocks, and can be downloaded again while you are signed in to the account that bought it and OpenGlyph offers the artwork. A size is offered only when the archive’s own file is large enough; files are never enlarged. You pay for the prepared files and their provenance records, not for rights in the artwork: what you may do with the image depends on the work’s own status (sections 4 and 11), and OpenGlyph doesn’t add restrictions to a public domain work. You may not share your account, or resell or offer access to OpenGlyph’s downloads to others.

15. Payments and refunds

Prices are shown in US dollars before you pay. Payments are processed by Polar Software, Inc., our online reseller and merchant of record, which handles the transaction and any applicable taxes. Its Buyer Terms, which you accept at checkout, also apply to your payment.

You can get a full refund in these cases:

• A dossier you haven’t downloaded. Within 14 days of purchase, as long as its PDF has not been downloaded. We keep a record of each download for this purpose.
• A dossier that doesn’t work. If the dossier won’t open or its PDF won’t download, or downloads incomplete or corrupted, and you send us evidence of the problem, such as a screenshot or the file you received.
• Artwork files you haven’t downloaded. Within 14 days of purchase, as long as none of the files that purchase unlocks has been downloaded.
• Artwork files that don’t work. If a file won’t download, or downloads incomplete or corrupted, and you send us evidence of the problem, such as a screenshot or the file you received.
• A credit pack you haven’t used. Within 14 days of purchase, as long as none of its credits has been used.

Otherwise, purchases are final, except where the law of your country gives you a right to a refund that can’t be waived.

To ask for a refund, write to contact@theopenglyph.com from the email address on your account, with your order number. When a purchase is refunded, what it bought is removed: a refunded dossier or artwork purchase locks again, and a refunded credit pack’s credits are taken back out of your balance.

16. Contact

Questions about these terms: contact@theopenglyph.com.

Revision: 2026-10.