DMCA Copyright Policy

Ritsu respects the intellectual property rights of others and expects our users to do the same. This page explains how copyright owners can report infringement on Ritsu, how accused users can respond, and what we do about repeat infringers.

This policy is based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), 17 U.S.C. § 512. It applies to user-uploaded content on Ritsu (documents, YouTube transcripts, notes, shared sessions, and study materials generated by our AI from that content).

If you believe your copyrighted work is being used on Ritsu without authorization, please follow the process in Section 3. If you are a user who received a takedown notice and believe it was mistaken, see Section 5.

We have registered a Designated Copyright Agent with the United States Copyright Office in accordance with 17 U.S.C. § 512(c)(2). All copyright notices must be sent to this agent.

• Designated Agent: [TBD — Legal name pending] (for Ritsu)
• Email: dmca@ritsu.ai
• Postal mail: [TBD — Contact address pending]
• U.S. Copyright Office DMCA Directory: copyright.gov/dmca-directory

Notices sent to any other email address or to the general Ritsu support email may not be processed and will not satisfy § 512(c)(3) formalities.

If you are a copyright owner or authorized agent of the owner, you may send us a takedown notice. To be effective under § 512(c)(3), the notice must include all of the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature of the copyright owner or a person authorized to act on their behalf.
2. Identification of the copyrighted work you claim has been infringed. If multiple works on Ritsu are covered by a single notice, a representative list is acceptable.
3. Identification of the material that is allegedly infringing, with enough detail for us to locate it. Include the URL(s) on Ritsu where the material appears, or if the material is user-visible only (for example, inside a logged-in session), describe how to find it (session ID, date, user).
4. Your contact information: name, address, phone number, and email address.
5. A statement that you have a good-faith belief that the use of the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law.
6. A statement that the information in the notice is accurate, and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the copyright owner or authorized to act on the owner’s behalf.

Send the complete notice to dmca@ritsu.ai (preferred, faster) or to the postal address in Section 2.

3.1 Before you file a notice

Please consider:

• Is the use likely fair use? Educational commentary, teaching, scholarship, criticism, and transformative summaries may be fair use under 17 U.S.C. § 107. Filing a DMCA notice on fair use may expose you to § 512(f) liability (see Section 8).
• Is the content actually on Ritsu? Ritsu does not host public web content outside of our service. Make sure the URL you report is on ritsu.ai, not elsewhere.
• Have you contacted the user? Ritsu will not reveal user identities without legal process, but in some cases a direct resolution is faster.

Incomplete notices may be rejected or delayed. We cannot provide legal advice on whether a specific use is infringing.

Upon receipt of a facially valid DMCA notice:

1. Within 1 to 3 business days, we review the notice for formal compliance with § 512(c)(3).
2. If the notice is valid, we disable access to the reported material (remove the file from Cloudflare R2 storage, hide the session, or remove the shared link); delete derivative AI outputs; notify the uploading user with a copy of the notice and counter-notice instructions; and record the action against the user’s account for our repeat-infringer tracking (see Section 7).
3. If the notice is not facially valid (missing required elements), we may reject it and request corrections before acting.

We forward the complainant’s contact information in full to the accused user, so they know who filed the notice and can communicate directly if they wish to.

If you are a Ritsu user whose content was removed in response to a DMCA notice, and you believe the removal was the result of mistake or misidentification, you may file a counter-notice under § 512(g)(3).

Your counter-notice must include all of the following:

1. A physical or electronic signature.
2. Identification of the material that was removed and the location where it appeared before removal.
3. A statement under penalty of perjury that you have a good-faith belief the material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification.
4. Your name, address, and telephone number.
5. A statement consenting to the jurisdiction of the U.S. District Court for the district in which your address is located (or, if your address is outside the United States, for any judicial district in which Ritsu may be found, which is the District of Delaware for Ritsu), and that you will accept service of process from the person who filed the original notice.

Send counter-notices to dmca@ritsu.ai or the postal address in Section 2.

5.1 What happens next

When we receive a valid counter-notice:

1. We forward it to the original complainant.
2. We inform the complainant that we will restore the material in 10 to 14 business days unless they file a court action seeking a restraining order against the user.
3. If no court action is filed within that window, we restore the material (subject to repeat-infringer considerations in Section 7).
4. If the complainant files a court action, we keep the material disabled pending the court’s decision.

We cannot restore derivative AI outputs that were deleted during takedown. You may regenerate them by re-submitting the underlying source after restoration.

This policy covers copyright only. For:

• Trademark infringement (someone using your brand, logo, or name without authorization): email legal@ritsu.ai.
• Right of publicity / unauthorized use of your likeness: email legal@ritsu.ai.
• Defamation: email legal@ritsu.ai with the specific statement, why it is false, and evidence.
• Privacy complaints: see our Privacy Policy.

We handle these through separate processes because they are governed by different laws and do not qualify for DMCA safe harbor.

Ritsu terminates the accounts of users who are determined to be repeat infringers in accordance with § 512(i).

7.1 Strike policy

We define a strike as any one of the following:

• A valid DMCA notice that results in content being removed from the user’s account AND no valid counter-notice is filed within the 10-14 business day window.
• A court order establishing that the user infringed copyright on Ritsu.
• A user’s admission of copyright infringement on Ritsu.

7.2 Threshold

7.3 What termination means

• Your account is closed. You lose access to all uploaded content, generated materials, chat history, and subscription benefits.
• We will not refund credit packs or remaining subscription time for termination under this section (see Refund Policy §5).
• We may block future account creation with the same email, payment method, or IP when we can reliably detect them.
• If you have an ongoing subscription, future renewal charges are canceled.

7.4 Notice of strikes

We notify you by email after each strike is recorded. You may email dmca@ritsu.ai to contest a strike; we will review in good faith.

Under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that material was removed as a result of mistake or misidentification, may be liable for damages (including costs and attorneys’ fees) incurred by Ritsu, the alleged infringer, or any copyright owner.

Do not file a DMCA notice or counter-notice without a good-faith belief in its accuracy. Filing abusive, automated, or mass-generated notices may result in your notices being rejected going forward and may expose you to § 512(f) liability.

Ritsu uses AI models to generate study materials (summaries, explanations, flashcards, quizzes, outlines) based on content users upload. Some of that output may qualify as a derivative work of the underlying source under 17 U.S.C. § 106.

We make these commitments with the understanding that edtech AI sits at an unresolved intersection of fair use, derivative work doctrine, and § 512 safe harbor. We are taking the cautious path on purpose.

Ritsu allows users to import transcripts from public YouTube videos to study from them. The videos themselves remain on YouTube; we store the transcript text along with any AI outputs derived from it.

For DMCA purposes:

• Transcripts are treated the same as other user-uploaded content. A valid DMCA notice against a transcript (or AI outputs derived from it) will follow Section 4.
• If you are the rights holder of a YouTube video and want the transcript removed from Ritsu, send a notice to dmca@ritsu.ai. We will also respect takedowns we observe on the source YouTube URL.
• If YouTube removes a video that a Ritsu user has imported, we will remove the imported transcript and derived AI materials from that user’s account on notice.

If you are a non-U.S. rights holder, the DMCA applies to material hosted by Ritsu on U.S.-based infrastructure (we host primarily in the United States, with some EU regions for specific data). You may file a § 512(c)(3) notice using the process in Section 3.

For territory-specific copyright claims (for example, UK CDPA, EU Copyright Directive Article 17, Japanese Copyright Act), send a claim to dmca@ritsu.ai describing the work, the territory, and the legal basis. We will evaluate consistent with applicable law.

We retain copies of DMCA notices and counter-notices, along with records of our responses, for legal, compliance, and repeat-infringer-tracking purposes. These records are not published, but may be disclosed in response to valid legal process.

We may update this DMCA Policy to reflect legal developments or operational changes. When we make material changes, we update the “Last Updated” date and post the change in the Legal Hub.

• DMCA notices and counter-notices: dmca@ritsu.ai
• Trademark, publicity, defamation: legal@ritsu.ai
• Postal address for legal notice: [TBD — Contact address pending]
• U.S. Copyright Office DMCA Directory: publicrecords.copyright.gov

This policy is not legal advice. If you are unsure whether to file a DMCA notice or counter-notice, consult a qualified attorney.