Terms of Use

# Terms of Use
Last updated: 30 June 2026

## Acceptance of these terms
By accessing or using Branch Press, you agree to these Terms of Use.

If you do not agree with these terms, you should not use the site.

These terms are written for the current public reading stage of Branch Press. They should be revised before Branch Press introduces accounts, paid services, submissions, comments, newsletters, uploads, saved reader data, or other interactive features.

## Purpose of Branch Press
Branch Press is an independent website for essays, books, connected reading, and related literary or intellectual projects.

The site is provided for reading, reflection, study, criticism, and personal reference.

Branch Press may change over time as the archive, reading system, graph, books, author pages, and future reader features develop.

## Public reading
The core public reading experience of Branch Press is intended to remain accessible without a login.

Accounts, if added later, should enhance the reader’s experience rather than block access to the central public press.

## Intellectual property
Unless otherwise stated, the writing, structure, design language, images, illustrations, diagrams, site identity, and Branch Press name belong to Branch Press or to the author.

You may read, link to, discuss, and quote short passages with proper attribution.

You may not copy, republish, sell, mirror, scrape, systematically extract, or redistribute substantial parts of the site without prior written permission.

You may not present Branch Press content as your own work.

You may not remove or obscure author names, copyright notices, source references, or attribution where they appear.

## Attribution and quotation
Short quotation for criticism, scholarship, review, commentary, or ordinary discussion is welcome when properly attributed.

A proper attribution should normally include the author name, the title of the essay or page, the name Branch Press, and a link to the original public page when possible.

Substantial reproduction, commercial reuse, dataset extraction, translation for publication, republication in another medium, or use in a product or service requires prior written permission unless an applicable law clearly allows it.

## Machine-learning and automated extraction
You may not systematically scrape, harvest, mine, or extract substantial portions of Branch Press content, including for machine-learning or artificial-intelligence training, dataset creation, model evaluation, search indexing outside ordinary public search engines, or automated content republishing, without prior written permission.

This restriction is not intended to prevent ordinary search-engine indexing, personal reading, short quotation, criticism, scholarship, private note-taking, sharing links to public pages, or legitimate accessibility tools.

## References and external sources
Essays may refer to books, articles, research, historical material, public events, websites, or other external sources.

External sources remain the responsibility of their respective authors and publishers.

A link, citation, or reference does not mean that Branch Press endorses every claim, view, product, service, or action associated with that source.

References are provided to support reading, verification, context, and further study.

## Nature of the content and no professional advice
Branch Press may discuss society, cognition, technology, history, politics, science, psychology, philosophy, media, law, health, finance, or other serious subjects.

The site is not a substitute for professional advice.

Nothing on Branch Press should be treated as legal, medical, psychological, financial, engineering, investment, safety, or other professional advice.

You are responsible for how you interpret and use the material.

## Acceptable use
You agree not to use Branch Press in a way that is unlawful, harmful, abusive, deceptive, or disruptive.

You may not attempt to interfere with the site’s operation, security, availability, or infrastructure.

You may not attempt to bypass access controls, rate limits, robots instructions, or technical restrictions.

You may not introduce malware, malicious code, harmful components, or automated traffic intended to damage or burden the site.

You may not impersonate Branch Press, the author, or any other person.

You may not misuse any future account, annotation, comment, submission, upload, or reader-data feature.

Branch Press may restrict or block access to anyone who misuses the site.

## User-submitted content and future features
Branch Press does not currently accept reader submissions, comments, uploads, public profiles, or account-based user content.

If such features are introduced later, additional terms should govern them before they become available.

Those future terms may require that you have the right to submit any content you provide, that you do not submit unlawful or infringing material, and that you grant Branch Press the limited license needed to display or process content you choose to submit through those features.

## Copyright and takedown requests
Branch Press respects intellectual-property rights and expects the same from readers.

If you believe that material on the site infringes your copyright or other rights, contact Branch Press with enough detail to identify the material and your claim.

Branch Press will review good-faith requests and, where appropriate, remove, correct, attribute, or amend the material in question.

## Disclaimer of warranties
The site and its content are provided on an “as is” and “as available” basis.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Branch Press makes no warranties of any kind, whether express or implied.

Branch Press does not warrant that the site will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, error-free, accurate, complete, current, or free of harmful components.

Your use of the site is at your own risk.

## Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by applicable law, Branch Press and its author will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for loss of data, profits, goodwill, or other intangible losses arising from your access to or use of the site.

Where liability cannot be excluded as a matter of law, it is limited to the minimum extent permitted by that law.

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited.

## Indemnity
To the extent permitted by law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Branch Press and its author from claims, liabilities, damages, losses, and reasonable expenses arising from your misuse of the site, your violation of these terms, or your infringement of another person’s rights in connection with your use of the site.

## Changes to the site
Branch Press may change, add, remove, redesign, reorganize, archive, or discontinue pages, essays, features, and public materials over time.

The site is provided as available, without any guarantee that a particular page, essay, route, design, or feature will remain unchanged or permanently accessible.

## Availability
Branch Press aims to remain available, but uninterrupted access is not guaranteed.

Interruptions may occur because of hosting, maintenance, technical issues, security events, infrastructure providers, or changes to the project.

Branch Press is not liable for interruptions or temporary unavailability.

## Changes to these terms
These terms may be updated as Branch Press develops.

The “Last updated” date above shows when they were most recently revised.

Continued use of the site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the revised terms.

## Governing law and good-faith resolution
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Sultanate of Oman, except where mandatory consumer-protection, data-protection, or other applicable laws of a visitor’s country of residence require otherwise.

If Branch Press later introduces accounts, paid services, submissions, comments, newsletters, uploads, or reader-data features, additional terms may apply to those features.

Any concern or dispute should first be raised with Branch Press in good faith so that it can be addressed directly where possible.

## Severability
If any provision of these terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid under applicable law, that provision will be limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary.

The remaining provisions will continue in full force and effect.

## Contact
For questions about these terms, privacy, copyright, takedown requests, or general Branch Press inquiries, contact:

[email protected]

This contact address should be enabled before the legal pages are treated as final public notices. More specialized addresses may be introduced later, such as privacy, legal, submissions, or support addresses, if the project expands.