Terms of Service

These terms govern your use of GuardMyVideos, a video content protection service (“we”, “us”, “our”).

By creating an account or using the service, you agree to these terms. If you do not agree, please do not use GuardMyVideos.

GuardMyVideos helps content creators detect whether their YouTube video content may have been copied or reposted by others. The service searches YouTube for similar videos and uses AI to compare titles, descriptions, tags, text derived from public metadata (including transcript-related signals where available), optional static thumbnail imagery for visual similarity, and other permitted signals, producing a similarity score for each result. What we can retrieve and analyse is limited by YouTube's APIs, your account setup (for example whether you use our shared quota or your own API key), and technical availability — not every signal is available for every video.

For each scan you may indicate whether the focal YouTube URL is your own upload (to find copies) or a public link you are checking without claiming it as your original. We store that choice with your scan history and reflect it in dashboards, alerts, and exports so records stay accurate.

Important: GuardMyVideos provides an automated analysis to assist your own assessment. Match scores and flags are indicators, not legal determinations. We do not guarantee the accuracy of any analysis, and results should not be treated as legal advice or evidence of copyright infringement. You are responsible for making your own judgement about whether to take further action.

You must create an account to use GuardMyVideos. You can sign up with an email address and password, or by using Google sign-in. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure. If you believe your account has been compromised, contact us immediately.

You must be at least 16 years old to create an account. You must provide accurate information when signing up. One person may only hold one account.

GuardMyVideos offers the following plans:

Free: New accounts receive 3 lifetime trial scans on our shared YouTube quota without payment. Accounts registered before 2 April 2026 (UTC) retain 5 lifetime trial scans on the same basis. After trial scans are used, subscribe to Pro to continue scanning. Pro subscribers may optionally add a personal YouTube Data API key (subject to separate Google terms) within stated limits. Feature availability matches the pricing page at the time of use.

Pro: paid monthly via Stripe. Without a linked personal YouTube Data API key, up to 3 scans per day on our shared YouTube quota. With a valid API key saved in Settings, up to 25 scans per day using your own quota (subject to Google's limits). Pro also includes the features listed on the pricing page at the time of use (such as PDF evidence reports, channel scanning, email alerts where offered, and the Pro DMCA checklist for gathering information before using Google's official copyright tools — subject to the same disclaimers as the rest of the service, not legal advice, and not a substitute for filing through Google's official tools). Price as displayed at the time of subscription.

If you need a higher daily scan volume than Pro allows, contact us at contact@guardmyvideos.com to discuss options.

Scan limits reset daily at midnight Pacific Time. Unused scans do not carry over. We reserve the right to change pricing with 30 days’ notice — existing subscribers will be given the option to cancel before any price increase takes effect.

Paid subscriptions are billed monthly in advance via Stripe. By subscribing, you authorise us to charge your payment method on a recurring basis until you cancel.

You can cancel your subscription at any time through your account settings. Cancellation takes effect at the end of your current billing period — you will retain access to your paid plan until then. We do not offer partial refunds for unused portions of a billing period.

If a payment fails, we may retry the charge or suspend your account until payment is resolved. We will notify you by email before any suspension.

We offer a full refund within 14 days of your first paid subscription if you are not satisfied with the service, provided you have not used more than 10 scans during that period. To request a refund, contact us at contact@guardmyvideos.com.

After the initial 14-day period, refunds are issued at our discretion. We will always consider refund requests fairly, particularly in cases of service outage or technical issues on our end.

You agree not to:

Use GuardMyVideos to harass, intimidate, or make false copyright claims against other creators. Submit URLs or content that you know to be illegal. Attempt to circumvent scan limits through multiple accounts or automated access. Use the service in any way that violates YouTube’s Terms of Service or the YouTube API Terms of Service. Reverse engineer, scrape, or attempt to extract data from our service beyond normal use. Share your account credentials with others or allow others to use your account. Transfer, sell, sublicense, or resell your account or access to the service to any third party.

We reserve the right to suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms without refund.

Link-investigation scans. If you use the option to check a public URL without stating that it is your own original video, you must not use GuardMyVideos to harass or stalk people, to run bulk or automated checks against unrelated URLs for purposes other than good-faith content review, or to misuse scores and reports against others. Do not misrepresent your rights in a video in order to obtain alerts or PDFs. We may suspend or terminate accounts that abuse this feature.

GuardMyVideos uses the YouTube Data API v3 to search for and retrieve publicly available video metadata. By using GuardMyVideos, you also agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service and YouTube API Services Terms of Service and Google’s YouTube API Developer Policies.

GuardMyVideos only accesses publicly available YouTube data. We do not access private videos, private playlists, or any data that YouTube restricts to authenticated channel owners without their explicit consent. We do not store raw YouTube API responses beyond what is necessary to display scan results to you.

What Google allows and what we actually do. Our integration is designed to stay within the API surfaces and rules Google publishes for developers. Some information you see on YouTube (for example certain full caption files or owner-only analytics) is not available to us through a standard API-key integration, or may require separate user authorisation under Google’s requirements. Where full spoken transcripts are not available, analysis may rely on other permitted text (such as titles, descriptions, and tags). Features can also be affected by YouTube or Google quota limits, outages, or policy changes — including if you use your own API key, which remains subject to Google’s terms and your quota.

For some comparisons we fetch static thumbnail images from YouTube’s image hosts using the same public thumbnail URLs that appear in metadata. That visual step supports similarity scoring; it is not a substitute for watching full video or for YouTube’s own enforcement tools.

The GuardMyVideos name, logo, website design, and code are our intellectual property. You may not copy, reproduce, or redistribute any part of the service without our written permission.

You retain ownership of any content you submit (such as video URLs and keywords). By using the service, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive licence to process your submitted data solely for the purpose of providing the scan and analysis service to you.

Scan results and AI analysis are generated outputs. You are free to use, share, or reference your scan results as you see fit, but they remain subject to the accuracy disclaimer in section 2.

GuardMyVideos relies on third-party services including YouTube Data API (Google), Anthropic Claude API, Supabase, Vercel, and Stripe. Your use of these services through GuardMyVideos is also subject to their respective terms of service.

We are not responsible for outages, changes, or limitations imposed by these third-party providers. If a third-party service becomes unavailable, some or all features of GuardMyVideos may be temporarily affected.

GuardMyVideos is provided “as is” and “as available”. To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all warranties, whether express or implied, including but not limited to implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

We are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the service, including but not limited to: loss of revenue, loss of data, business interruption, or damages resulting from actions taken based on scan results.

Our total aggregate liability for any claim arising from your use of the service shall not exceed the greater of the amount you have paid us in the 12 months preceding the claim, or zero.

Nothing in these terms limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, fraud, or any other liability that cannot be excluded by law.

We will not be liable for any failure or delay in performance caused by circumstances beyond our reasonable control, including but not limited to: acts of God, internet outages, third-party service failures (including YouTube API, Anthropic, Supabase, Stripe, or Vercel), government actions, or other events outside our reasonable control. We will make reasonable efforts to notify you and restore service as quickly as possible.

By creating an account and using GuardMyVideos, you consent to receive electronic communications from us, including by email. These may include service notifications, billing information, and important updates to these terms or our Privacy Policy. You agree that these electronic communications satisfy any legal requirement that such communications be in writing.

Your use of GuardMyVideos is also governed by our Privacy Policy, which explains what data we collect, how we use it, and your rights under UK GDPR.

You may delete your account at any time. We may suspend or terminate your account if you breach these terms, with or without notice depending on the severity of the breach.

Upon termination, your access to the service will cease immediately. We will retain your data in accordance with our Privacy Policy and delete personal data within 30 days of account deletion.

We may update these terms from time to time. If we make material changes, we will notify you by email or by a prominent notice in the app at least 14 days before the changes take effect. Your continued use of the service after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the updated terms.

These terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of England and Wales. Any disputes arising from these terms or your use of the service shall be subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

If you have any questions about these terms, please contact us at: contact@guardmyvideos.com