Terms of Service

These Terms of Service (“Terms”) are a binding agreement between you and Last Minute Lecture (“Last Minute Lecture,” “we,” “us,” or “our”) governing your access to and use of the website at lastminutelecture.com, including all audio study guides, transcripts, summaries, key takeaways, and other content, and all features such as accounts, book and translation requests, voting, file submissions, notes, offline downloads, and supporter subscriptions (collectively, the “Service”).

By accessing or using the Service, creating an account, submitting content, voting, uploading files, or making a contribution, you agree to be bound by these Terms and by our Privacy Policy and Disclaimer, which are incorporated by reference. If you do not agree, do not use the Service.

1. Eligibility & Accounts

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Service. If you are under the age of majority in your jurisdiction (typically 18), you may use the Service only with the involvement and consent of a parent or legal guardian, who agrees to be bound by these Terms on your behalf.

Some features require an account, which is created and secured through our third-party authentication provider. You agree to provide accurate information, to keep your login credentials confidential, and to be responsible for all activity that occurs under your account. You may not impersonate others, create an account for anyone else, or share your account. Notify us promptly of any unauthorized use. We may suspend or terminate accounts at our discretion, including for violations of these Terms.

2. Educational Use Only

All content provided on the Service is for general informational and educational purposes only and is not intended to replace official course materials, textbooks, lectures, or professional instruction. Nothing on the Service constitutes medical, legal, financial, clinical, or other professional advice. You are solely responsible for how you use the information provided, and you should always verify important information against your primary course materials and qualified instructors or professionals.

3. License to Use Our Content

Subject to these Terms, we grant you a limited, personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access and use the audio, transcripts, summaries, and other content we provide solely for your own personal, non-commercial educational study. All such content, together with the site design, software, trademarks, logos, and the compilation and arrangement of content, is owned by Last Minute Lecture or its licensors and is protected by intellectual property laws.

You agree that you will not, and will not permit any third party to:

• copy, reproduce, republish, post, broadcast, distribute, sell, license, sublicense, rent, or otherwise make available any content from the Service to any third party;
• use the audio, transcripts, or other content for any commercial purpose, or in any product or service that competes with the Service;
• download, capture, or store audio or transcripts except through features we expressly provide (such as supporter offline downloads), and then only for your own personal study;
• use any robot, spider, scraper, crawler, or other automated means to access, extract, index, or harvest content, data, or the search index from the Service;
• use the content, audio, or transcripts to develop, train, fine-tune, or evaluate any machine learning model, dataset, or artificial intelligence system;
• remove, obscure, or alter any copyright, trademark, attribution, or other proprietary notices; or
• circumvent, disable, or interfere with any access controls, rate limits, security, or usage restrictions of the Service.

Offline downloads made available to supporters remain our licensed content, are provided only for your personal offline study while your access is active, and are subject to all restrictions in this section. All rights not expressly granted are reserved.

4. User Submissions

The Service lets you submit content, including book and translation requests, votes, files you upload in support of a request, usernames and display names, notes, and any messages you send us (collectively, “User Submissions”). You are solely responsible for your User Submissions and for the consequences of submitting them.

4.1 Your Responsibility for Uploads

When you upload a file or otherwise submit material, you represent and warrant that you own or have obtained all rights, licenses, and permissions necessary to upload that material and to grant the rights described below, and that doing so does not infringe or violate the intellectual property, privacy, publicity, contractual, or other rights of any person or entity, and does not violate any law. By uploading a file, you affirm that you have the full right and authority to do so. You may not upload any copyrighted or otherwise protected material that you do not have the right to submit. We do not solicit and do not want any material you are not authorized to provide, and uploading such material is a violation of these Terms.

4.2 How We Handle Uploaded Files

Files you upload are kept private. We do not publish, share, distribute, or make your uploaded files available to any other user or third party. Access to uploaded files is limited to authorized site operators, who use them only internally, as a private reference to help prepare original study materials, and we delete uploaded files once they are no longer needed for that purpose. Any study content we create is our own original, transformative work: it is paraphrased and independently written, and it does not reproduce your uploaded files or their underlying content verbatim.

4.3 License You Grant to Us

You retain any ownership rights you have in your User Submissions. To operate and improve the Service, you grant Last Minute Lecture a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable, and transferable license to host, store, and use your User Submissions in connection with operating and providing the Service. For publicly visible submissions (such as requests, votes, and usernames), this license also allows us to display and reproduce them as part of the Service, and it continues to the extent needed for the integrity and history of community features even after you delete your account. For private content (such as uploaded files and notes), this license exists only to store the content and use it as described in Section 4.2, and, in the case of notes, to display that content back to you.

4.4 Prohibited Content & Conduct

In connection with the Service and any User Submission, you agree not to:

• upload or submit infringing, unlawful, or misappropriated material;
• submit content that is defamatory, obscene, harassing, hateful, threatening, sexually explicit, or that exploits or endangers minors;
• upload files containing malware, viruses, or other harmful code;
• choose a username or display name that is offensive, misleading, infringing, or impersonates another person or entity;
• submit content that contains other people’s personal or confidential information without their consent;
• manipulate voting or requests through automation, multiple or fake accounts, vote-buying, or other deceptive means;
• spam, flood, or otherwise abuse the request, voting, or contact features; or
• interfere with, disrupt, overload, or attempt to gain unauthorized access to the Service or its related systems.

4.5 Moderation & Removal

We are not obligated to monitor User Submissions, but we may review, moderate, refuse, edit, or remove any User Submission, and may restrict, suspend, or terminate any account, at our sole discretion and without notice, for any reason, including suspected violation of these Terms. We are not responsible or liable for User Submissions, and reliance on any User Submission is at your own risk.

5. Requests & Voting — No Guarantees

Book and translation requests and votes help us understand what the community wants, but they do not create any obligation on our part. No request is guaranteed to be fulfilled, covered, produced, translated, or completed within any timeframe or at all, regardless of vote count, supporter status, or any file submitted. Supporter request allowances indicate how many requests you may submit, not a promise that any request will be fulfilled. We may prioritize, reorder, decline, combine, or remove requests at our discretion.

6. Supporter Subscriptions & Donations

The Service is free to use. You may optionally support the project through one-time donations or recurring monthly supporter subscriptions. Payments are processed by our third-party payment processor; by making a payment you also agree to that processor’s terms, and you represent that you are authorized to use the payment method provided.

Recurring subscriptions renew automatically each billing period until canceled. You may cancel at any time through your account or the billing portal; cancellation stops future charges and takes effect at the end of the current billing period. Except where required by law, payments and donations are non-refundable, and we do not provide prorated refunds for partial periods.

Supporter perks (such as request allowances, offline downloads, and badges) are provided as a thank-you for your support, are not a purchase of specific goods or content, and may change, be limited, or be discontinued at any time. We may change tier pricing or benefits prospectively; material changes will apply to your next billing period. Contributions do not create any ownership, partnership, or investment interest in Last Minute Lecture.

7. Email & Newsletter

If you opt in to our email newsletter, you consent to receive periodic emails from us. You can unsubscribe at any time using the link in any email or the setting in your account. See our Privacy Policy for how we handle your email address.

8. Independence & No Affiliation

Last Minute Lecture is an independent, student-run project. It is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any textbook publisher, author, university, or educational institution. All textbook titles, author names, and related information are used solely for identification and reference. Our study guides are original, transformative works and do not reproduce textbook content verbatim. See our Disclaimer for more detail.

9. Third-Party Services & Links

The Service relies on third-party providers for authentication, payments, hosting and content delivery, email, and analytics, and may contain links to third-party sites. We do not control and are not responsible for third-party services or their content, availability, or practices. Your use of third-party services is governed by their terms and privacy policies.

10. Copyright & DMCA Takedown Policy

Last Minute Lecture respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects users to do the same. All content we publish is presented as original commentary and interpretation intended to support student learning.

If you believe any content on the Service infringes your copyright, please send a notice to contact@lastminutelecture.com that includes: (a) an identification of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed; (b) the URL or a description of the material in question and its location on the Service; (c) your name, address, telephone number, and email address; (d) a statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; (e) a statement, made under penalty of perjury, that the information in your notice is accurate and that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner’s behalf; and (f) your physical or electronic signature.

Upon receiving a valid notice, we will review the claim and take appropriate action, which may include removing or disabling access to the material. If you believe your material was removed in error, you may submit a counter-notice to the same address. We will, in appropriate circumstances, terminate the accounts of users who are repeat infringers.

11. Disclaimers & No Warranties

The Service and all content and User Submissions are provided on an “AS IS” and “AS AVAILABLE” basis, without warranties of any kind, whether express, implied, or statutory, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement. We make no warranty that the Service will be uninterrupted, secure, error-free, or free of harmful components, or that any content is accurate, complete, reliable, or current. Some content may be created or enhanced with the assistance of artificial intelligence and may contain errors. Use of the Service is at your own discretion and risk.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, in no event will Last Minute Lecture or its operators, volunteers, or contributors be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, data, goodwill, or academic outcomes, arising out of or relating to your use of or inability to use the Service, any content, or any User Submission, whether based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or otherwise, even if advised of the possibility of such damages. To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total aggregate liability for all claims relating to the Service will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve (12) months before the event giving rise to the claim, or fifty U.S. dollars ($50). Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations, so some of these may not apply to you.

13. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless Last Minute Lecture and its operators, volunteers, and contributors from and against any claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and expenses, including reasonable legal fees, arising out of or in any way connected with your use of the Service, your User Submissions, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any rights of any third party.

14. Termination

You may stop using the Service and delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access to all or part of the Service at any time, with or without notice, for any reason, including violation of these Terms. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination — including ownership, licenses you granted, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and dispute provisions — will survive.

15. Changes to the Service & These Terms

We may modify, suspend, or discontinue any part of the Service at any time. We may also update these Terms from time to time. When we make material changes, we will update the “Last updated” date above and may provide additional notice. Your continued use of the Service after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

16. Governing Law & Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of California, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws rules. You agree that any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Service will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in California, and you consent to the personal jurisdiction of those courts, except where prohibited by applicable law.

17. General

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Disclaimer, are the entire agreement between you and Last Minute Lecture regarding the Service and supersede any prior agreements. If any provision is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full effect. Our failure to enforce any right or provision is not a waiver. You may not assign these Terms without our consent; we may assign them in connection with a transfer of the Service. Nothing in these Terms creates any partnership, agency, or employment relationship between you and us.

18. Contact

Questions about these Terms may be sent to contact@lastminutelecture.com.