Terms of Use

Last updated: April 21, 2026

These Terms of Use (the "Terms") govern access to and use of the website guitarscientist.com (the "Service"), operated by IMPACT SRL, an Italian limited liability company with registered office at Via G.E. di Velo n. 95, 36100 Vicenza (VI), Italy, VAT number 04548760240, registered at the Vicenza Business Register under no. VI-412310, certified email (PEC) impactsrl24@pec.it, contact email jay@guitarscientist.com (hereinafter "IMPACT SRL", "we", "us", "our").

By using the Service you agree to these Terms in full. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

Authoritative version. The Italian version of these Terms is the official, authoritative version. This English version is provided as a courtesy. In case of discrepancy the Italian version prevails.

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1. Definitions

• User: any individual or legal entity accessing the Service, whether registered or not.
• Consumer: a User who is a natural person acting for purposes outside their trade, business, craft or profession, as defined by Italian Consumer Code (Legislative Decree 206/2005, art. 3).
• Account: a registered profile on the Service associated with a unique email address.
• User Content (UGC): any content uploaded, published or generated by the User on the Service, including diagrams, comments, images, text, links, metadata.
• IMPACT SRL Content: the Service's code, interface, trademarks, documentation, images, sounds, and any other element created or owned by IMPACT SRL or its licensors.
• Membership: a paid plan enabling additional functionality of the Service.

2. Acceptance and changes to the Terms

Using the Service implies full acceptance of these Terms. We may modify the Terms at any time:

• For non-substantial changes (fixing typos, rewording, clarifications), updating the "Last updated" date at the top of this document is sufficient.
• For substantial changes (e.g. new User obligations, changes to liability limits, new data processing), we will notify you by email at the address associated with the Account and post a notice on the Service at least 30 days before the change takes effect. During this period you may cancel your Account for free with no penalty; continued use of the Service after the change takes effect constitutes acceptance of the new terms.

3. Minimum age

The Service is intended for adults. To register, you must declare that you are at least 18 years old. If we discover that an Account has been created by a minor in breach of this provision, the Account will be suspended and related personal data deleted, except where retention is required by law.

4. Registration and Account

To access functionality requiring authentication you must create an Account providing accurate, complete and up-to-date information, and keep it so.

You are responsible for the confidentiality of your Account credentials and for any activity performed through the Account. You must notify us promptly of any unauthorised use. We cannot be held liable for losses arising from failure to safeguard credentials.

We reserve the right to refuse registration, reject a username we deem offensive, misleading or infringing third-party rights, or suspend an Account that breaches these Terms.

5. Service and licence to use

The Service allows you to create, save and share musical diagrams and related content, interact with other Users and access community features.

By using the Service, IMPACT SRL grants you a non-exclusive, limited, non-transferable, revocable licence to access and use the Service in compliance with these Terms for personal purposes and — if you have an active Membership — for the commercial and professional purposes allowed by your plan.

6. User Content (UGC)

6.1 Ownership

Copyright and other intellectual property rights in User Content remain with the User who created it. By publishing such Content on the Service, the User represents and warrants:

(a) that they are the author or hold all rights and permissions necessary to publish it; (b) that the Content does not infringe any third-party right (including copyright, trademarks, personality rights, trade secrets); (c) that the Content does not breach any law, regulation or authority's order.

6.2 Licence granted to IMPACT SRL (operational)

To enable IMPACT SRL to operate the Service, the User grants a free, non-exclusive, worldwide, non-sublicensable licence (save as needed for the Service's technical providers), limited to the following strictly operational purposes:

(a) host, store, reproduce, transmit and make the Content visible on the Service according to the visibility settings (public/private) chosen by the User; (b) generate thumbnails, previews, format conversions, adaptations for different devices and technical optimisations; (c) include public Content in the Service's navigation pages (feed, profiles, lists, internal search); (d) send email notifications that reference the Content (e.g. "Tizio commented on your diagram"); (e) allow indexing by traditional search engines, as set out in §12; (f) perform and retain technical backups for security, audit and recovery purposes.

Duration. The licence operates only while the Content remains published on the Service according to the visibility settings chosen by the User. If the User changes visibility (from public to private) or deletes the Content, IMPACT SRL will cease active uses within a reasonable technical timeframe, save:

• uses already irreversibly performed (e.g. email notifications already delivered to other Users, archived feed snapshots);
• the right to retain backups and archival copies for the time necessary for technical, audit and legal-compliance purposes.

No active promotional use. IMPACT SRL does not use User Content for marketing or active promotion on third-party channels (advertising, social campaigns, commercial materials that feature the Content as an example). Any promotional use identifying specific Content or a specific User requires the prior explicit consent of the User concerned.

None of the licences above transfers ownership of the Content, nor obliges IMPACT SRL to pay any fee, right or royalty in any form.

6.3 Diagrams as templates (user-to-user licence)

When a User publishes a public diagram on the Service, they automatically grant other Users a free, worldwide, non-exclusive licence to use such diagram as a basis or reference for creating derivative works, for non-commercial purposes. Commercial uses of the derivative diagram require the original author's explicit consent.

By publishing, the User accepts this sharing regime and waives financial claims against other Users for non-commercial use of their public diagrams as reference.

Derivative works created by other Users while a diagram was public remain valid even if the author of the original subsequently changes its visibility or removes it from publication: the derivative work belongs to whoever created it.

6.4 Removal and retention

We may remove or make inaccessible User Content that we reasonably believe breaches these Terms, applicable law or third-party rights. Removal may occur without prior notice where required by law, authority's order, or to protect the integrity of the Service and other Users.

Content deleted by the User (or by the Administrator) may be retained for a limited time in backups for technical and security purposes.

6.5 Commercial use of your own diagrams

Diagrams the User creates and saves on the Service remain the User's property and may be used freely for any purpose, including without limitation:

• publication of books, manuals, teaching methods sold for a fee;
• paid online courses, workshops, masterclasses;
• monetised YouTube videos, podcasts, sponsored content;
• promotional material for the User's teaching or artistic activity;
• sale of single diagrams or collections composed by the User.

An active Membership is not required for commercial use of one's own diagrams, nor is any attribution to IMPACT SRL or guitarscientist.com mandatory. Voluntary attribution (e.g. "Diagrams made with guitarscientist.com") is appreciated but never required.

Restrictions:

(a) Commercial use of diagrams published by other Users and employed as templates remains subject to §6.3 (non-commercial use unless the original author gives explicit consent).

(b) Bulk redistribution of diagrams extracted from the Service — including packs, datasets, collections compiled via scraping or automated use — is not allowed, regardless of who owns the individual diagrams.

(c) It is not allowed to use trademarks, logos, screenshots or distinctive graphic elements of guitarscientist.com in ways that suggest endorsement, official partnership or affiliation that does not exist.

IMPACT SRL reserves the right to suspend activity that, while nominally falling within the above permission, is manifestly aimed at circumventing the economic model of the Service (e.g. creation of multiple Accounts to abuse the free tier).

7. Prohibited conduct and content

By using the Service, the User agrees not to post, upload or distribute content that:

• is unlawful under applicable Italian or EU law;
• is unsuitable for the context of the Service, which is a platform dedicated to musical and educational content (by way of example: adult-explicit content, gratuitous violence, shocking material unrelated to musical content);
• is offensive, discriminatory, harassing, defamatory, or intended to incite hatred against persons or groups;
• infringes third-party intellectual property or industrial rights;
• impersonates others or falsely declares the User's identity or affiliation;
• distributes spam, phishing, malware or suspicious links;
• constitutes unauthorised advertising, unsolicited commercial offers or aggressive marketing;
• breaches confidentiality obligations or contains personal data of others without consent;
• interferes with the Service (automated uploads, bots, stress testing, reverse engineering).

The reference to "unlawful" content automatically includes all content whose publication, possession or distribution constitutes a criminal offence under Italian law.

8. Moderation, removal, reporting

8.1 Reporting content

Users may report Content they believe breaches these Terms or the law through the Service's built-in reporting system. We will review reports within reasonable timeframes.

8.2 Copyright infringement claims

If you believe Content published on the Service infringes your copyright, send us a notice at jay@guitarscientist.com stating:

• identification of the reported content (URL, title, author);
• identification of the allegedly infringed work (title, author, publication date, proof of ownership);
• your contact details (name, email, postal address if applicable);
• a good-faith declaration that the contested use is not authorised and that the information provided is accurate.

We will respond within 14 working days and, if the claim is well-founded, we will remove or make inaccessible the content.

8.3 Complaints and appeals (DSA compliance)

Pursuant to EU Regulation 2022/2065 (Digital Services Act), should we remove any of your Content or suspend your Account, we will provide a written statement of reasons (unless prevented by law) and you may lodge a complaint by writing to jay@guitarscientist.com within 6 months of being notified of the decision. We will review the complaint and respond within reasonable timeframes.

If the complaint is rejected, you may use the out-of-court dispute resolution mechanisms provided by the DSA, or bring proceedings before the competent courts pursuant to section 20 of these Terms.

9. Paid Membership

9.1 Plans and pricing

The Service offers paid plans whose description, price, duration and features are set out on the /upgrade page. Prices are expressed in Euros (EUR) and include VAT where applicable.

9.2 Payment methods

Payments are processed exclusively through PayPal. IMPACT SRL does not store or directly handle payment card data. PayPal is governed by its own terms.

9.3 Subscriptions (auto-renewal)

Subscription plans (e.g. Annual Subscription) renew automatically at the end of each billed period, through PayPal, at the same terms and price agreed at activation. The renewal price will never be unilaterally increased for a User who keeps the subscription active; any price-list change applies only to new activations.

The User may turn off auto-renewal at any time from the Account page. The change takes effect from the following cycle: the Membership remains active until the end of the already-paid period.

9.4 One-time plans

One-time plans (e.g. One Year Membership, add-on packs) are single payments without auto-renewal. Features enabled by the plan remain available for the duration set by the plan.

9.5 Right of withdrawal (EU-resident Consumers)

This section reflects the mandatory pre-contractual disclosure required by art. 49 of the Italian Consumer Code (implementing EU Directive 2011/83/EU). It applies exclusively to Users qualifying as Consumers resident or domiciled in the European Union.

Under art. 52 et seq. of the Italian Consumer Code, EU Consumers have the right to withdraw without reason from a Membership purchase within 14 days from payment. To exercise it, send a notice to jay@guitarscientist.com within the deadline; refunds are processed via PayPal in the following working days.

Outside this statutory case, no refunds are issued: see §9.6.

9.6 Refunds

Save as provided under section 9.5 and in cases of non-conformity of the digital service under Italian Consumer Code art. 135-octies et seq., no refunds are issued for payments already made, including:

• one-time payments already used;
• subscriptions cancelled before the end of the billed period (Membership remains active until expiry, no pro-rata refund);
• payments challenged after the fact through unjustified chargeback.

In case of unjustified chargeback, we reserve the right to suspend the Account pending resolution of the dispute and to charge back any bank costs incurred.

10. Account deletion

The User may delete their Account at any time from the Account page. Deletion involves:

• immediate deletion of Account personal data (email, password, billing information, login history);
• retention of public Content already published on the Service (public diagrams, comments), with author anonymisation (replaced with "Deleted user"), for the protection of the community and historical integrity of content;
• the User may, before Account deletion, manually remove any of their public Content they do not wish to leave online;
• no refunds for residual active Memberships;
• the right to erasure under GDPR art. 17 may be exercised over personal data; for public content, a balancing test applies against community interests under GDPR art. 17.3.

After Account deletion, we no longer have tools to authenticate requests for removal of specific Content after the fact, unless the requester provides sufficient proof of authorship.

11. IMPACT SRL intellectual property

The Service, including code, interface, trademarks, graphics, sounds, documentation, algorithms and any other element not constituting User Content, is owned exclusively by IMPACT SRL or its licensors and is protected by Italian and international copyright, trademark and other intellectual property laws.

Any reproduction, distribution, modification, decompilation or reverse engineering of the Service or parts thereof is prohibited, save as permitted by mandatory law.

12. Scraping, crawling, AI training

The following is expressly prohibited:

• scraping, crawling or automated collection of any part of the Service, User Content or User data, for any purpose;
• using Content published on the Service to train artificial intelligence models, whether generative or otherwise, or to include in training datasets;
• circumventing technical protection measures of the Service (rate limits, throttling, authentication).

Exception: traditional search engines (Googlebot, Bing, DuckDuckGo and analogues) may access the Service solely for indexing purposes to return search results to end users. AI service bots (GPTBot, ClaudeBot, Google-Extended, CCBot, PerplexityBot, and analogues) are explicitly excluded from this exception.

Breach of these provisions will be pursued by all available legal means, including damages claims and injunctive relief.

13. Third-party services

To provide the Service we rely on the following providers:

• PayPal — payment processing;
• Mailjet — transactional email delivery;
• PostHog — product analytics and tracking;
• FattureInCloud — issuance of tax documents;
• YouTube — when a User embeds a video in a diagram, playback happens on YouTube servers;
• Public CDNs (jsDelivr, cloudflare) — distribution of static resources (JS, CSS, fonts).

These parties process data as processors or independent controllers. Details and their respective privacy notices are in our Privacy Policy.

14. Privacy

Processing of personal data is described in the Privacy Policy, an integral part of these Terms. By using the Service the User confirms having read it.

15. Disclaimer (as-is)

The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, IMPACT SRL disclaims all warranties, express or implied, including — without limitation — warranties of uninterrupted operation, error-freedom, security, fitness for a particular purpose, compatibility with any device or configuration, perpetual retention of Content.

Mandatory rights granted to Consumers under the Italian Consumer Code, in particular conformity of the digital service under art. 135-octies et seq., remain unaffected.

16. Limitation of liability

Nature of the Service. The Service is a tool for editing and sharing musical diagrams for educational and creative purposes. It is NOT, and is not intended as, critical infrastructure for any professional, business, educational or other activity the User may conduct. The User must independently maintain local copies, backups and business-continuity plans for any use of the Service relevant to their activity: IMPACT SRL does not replace these tools and cannot guarantee continuous availability of the Service.

Exclusions. In no event shall IMPACT SRL be liable for:

• indirect, consequential, incidental, special or punitive damages;
• loss of profits, loss of opportunity, loss of contracts, loss of customers, reputational or image damage;
• loss of data or Content beyond what is recoverable from ordinary technical backups, even where attributable to errors in the Service;
• business interruption of the User or third parties, regardless of nature or extent;
• damages arising from the User's reliance on the Service for contractual deadlines, editorial delivery schedules, scheduled lessons, publications with third parties or any other economically relevant activity.

Cap. To the extent applicable law permits a quantification of liability, IMPACT SRL's total liability towards the User for any claim relating to the Service (whether in contract, tort or otherwise) shall in no event exceed the greater of (a) EUR 50 (fifty) or (b) the total amount paid by the User to IMPACT SRL in the 12 months preceding the event giving rise to liability.

Mandatory provisions. The limitations above do NOT apply in cases of wilful misconduct or gross negligence of IMPACT SRL, personal injury, and other cases in which Italian law prohibits such limitation, including Consumer rights under art. 135-octies et seq. of the Italian Consumer Code concerning conformity of the digital service.

17. Force majeure

IMPACT SRL is not liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including — without limitation — internet outages, third-party infrastructure failures (cloud providers, CDNs, payment processors, DNS), cyberattacks, public authority orders, natural disasters, pandemics, armed conflicts, strikes. In such cases, contractual obligations are suspended for the time strictly necessary to overcome the event.

18. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate the User's Account, at our reasonable discretion, in case of:

• breach of these Terms;
• violation of law or third-party rights through use of the Service;
• unjustified chargeback or failure to pay Membership;
• order of public authority;
• prolonged inactivity of the Account (over 3 years), with prior notice.

In case of termination for cause attributable to the User, no refund is due for residual Memberships. Provisions intended to survive termination (in particular sections 6, 11, 15, 16, 20) remain in force.

19. Operator transition (October 2024)

Until 9 October 2024 the Service was operated by IMPACT di Motta Giuseppe, a sole proprietorship. As of 9 October 2024 the Service and related contractual relationships have been transferred to IMPACT SRL, which succeeds in all rights and obligations. Continued use of the Service by existing Users as of that date constitutes acceptance of the succession.

Any relationship, transaction, claim or title arisen before 9 October 2024 is assumed by IMPACT SRL.

20. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by Italian law.

For disputes with Users who are Consumers, the Consumer's forum applies pursuant to art. 66-bis of the Italian Consumer Code (the courts of the place where the Consumer is resident or domiciled on Italian territory; for Consumers resident in other EU Member States, art. 18 of Regulation (EU) 1215/2012 applies).

For disputes with non-Consumer Users (professionals, businesses, entities), the Court of Vicenza, Italy, has exclusive jurisdiction.

21. General provisions

• Entire agreement: these Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between the User and IMPACT SRL concerning the Service and supersede any previous written or oral agreement.
• Severability: any invalidity or unenforceability of one or more clauses does not affect the validity of the remaining clauses, which will continue to apply to the maximum extent permitted.
• Assignment: the User may not transfer to third parties their Account or rights under these Terms. IMPACT SRL may assign its rights and obligations in case of merger, acquisition or corporate reorganisation, with prior notice to Users.
• No waiver: failure or delay by IMPACT SRL in exercising any right is not a waiver of such right.
• Notices: any communication relating to these Terms may be sent to the contact email (jay@guitarscientist.com) or, for formal or legal communications, to the PEC impactsrl24@pec.it.

22. Contacts

For any request relating to these Terms, contact:

• General email: jay@guitarscientist.com
• PEC (legal communications): impactsrl24@pec.it
• Postal address: IMPACT SRL, Via G.E. di Velo n. 95, 36100 Vicenza (VI), Italy