Terms of Service

Last updated: 2026-05-12 · Governing law: Germany

1. Scope

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of the Ancient Nerds Research Platform at ancientnerds.com ("the Service"), operated by Martin Dominiak — Dominiak Consulting (sole proprietorship, see Imprint). By using the Service you agree to these Terms.

2. The Service

Ancient Nerds is an archaeological research platform that aggregates publicly available data about ancient sites, provides AI-assisted research tools, publishes editorial content, and operates a community Discord server. The Service is offered in two tiers:

Free tier — interactive globe, site browsing, news/stories, public REST API with rate limits, basic Lyra AI access.
Membership tier — optional paid membership offered through the MEE6 Monetize bot on our community Discord server, with card payments processed by Stripe. Membership funds infrastructure costs (servers, hosting, language-model API fees). Members receive elevated rate limits and additional AI credits as listed on the Discord server at the time of purchase.

Subscription income is used exclusively to cover operating costs. Any surplus is donated to archaeological institutions or projects. No profits are distributed to the operator.

3. Membership, Payment, and Cancellation

The membership contract is concluded directly between you and the operator (Martin Dominiak — Dominiak Consulting, see Imprint). The operator is the merchant of record.
Memberships are offered and managed through the MEE6 Monetize bot on our Discord server. Card payments are processed by Stripe Payments Europe Limited, Dublin, Ireland, via Stripe Connect. Funds are transferred directly to the operator's connected Stripe account.
Prices, billing cycles, and the benefits of each tier are displayed at the point of purchase on the Discord server. The membership contract takes effect when payment is successfully processed and the corresponding Discord role is assigned.
Memberships renew automatically at the end of each billing period unless cancelled. You may cancel an active membership at any time via (a) the MEE6 Monetize cancellation flow on Discord, (b) your Stripe customer portal (link sent with your payment confirmation), or (c) an email to ancient.nerds@protonmail.com. Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period; you retain benefits until then.
Outside the statutory withdrawal right (see below), refunds are at the operator's discretion. Contact the operator directly to request a refund.
Invoices and payment receipts are issued by Stripe and are available through the customer portal link in your payment confirmation email.

EU Consumer Right of Withdrawal

If you are a consumer resident in the European Union, you have the right to withdraw from this subscription contract within 14 days without giving any reason. The withdrawal period expires 14 days after the day you took out the subscription.

To exercise the right of withdrawal, send an unambiguous statement (e.g., email to ancient.nerds@protonmail.com) within the 14-day period. Because Stripe processes the payment via MEE6 Monetize, you should additionally cancel through the MEE6 cancellation flow on Discord or via your Stripe customer portal.

Early loss of withdrawal right: if you expressly request that subscriber benefits (rate limits, AI credits) start before the 14-day period expires and you confirm that you lose your withdrawal right once performance has begun, the right of withdrawal lapses upon full performance.

4. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

Use the Service to violate any applicable law or third-party rights.
Scrape, crawl, or systematically download large portions of the platform outside of the documented public API and its rate limits.
Use the public API to build a substantially equivalent competing service.
Attempt to bypass authentication, rate limiting, or other technical safeguards.
Submit contributions containing copyrighted content you do not have permission to share, malware, spam, or content that violates the Code of Conduct of the Discord community.

5. AI-Generated Content

Stories, weekly journals (compilations summarising the previous week's stories), the Lyra research assistant, and other generated outputs are produced automatically by large language models. They may contain errors, omissions, hallucinations, or out-of-date information. The Service does not provide legal, tax, medical, financial, or investment advice. Always verify with primary sources before relying on any information from the Service for research, publication, or decision-making.

6. Intellectual Property

Site data from third-party databases is subject to the original source licenses listed in the Disclaimer & Legal section. Many sources require attribution; some are non-commercial only. Respect each source's terms when reusing data.
Original Ancient Nerds content (stories, weekly journals, generated illustrations, documentation) is licensed under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0.
Source code is licensed under AGPL-3.0.
Your contributions: by submitting a site contribution, correction, or feedback through the platform, you grant the operator a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide licence to publish, modify, and incorporate the contribution into the Service.

7. Disclaimers

The Service is provided "as is" without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. Site coordinates, dates, and descriptions are aggregated from sources of varying accuracy and may contain errors. The Service is intended for educational and research purposes and is not suitable for navigation, legal documentation, or official record-keeping.

8. Updates and Conformity (Digital Services, §§ 327 ff. BGB)

For paid memberships purchased by consumers resident in the European Union, the operator is obligated under §§ 327 ff. of the German Civil Code (BGB) to keep the digital service in conformity with the agreed specifications for the duration of the membership contract. This includes providing security and functional updates that are necessary to maintain conformity. Information about available updates is communicated, where relevant, through the Discord server or by email.

If the Service is materially defective within the meaning of §§ 327d, 327e BGB, the consumer has the statutory remedies — including, where applicable, the right to subsequent performance, withdrawal from the contract, price reduction, and damages — as set out in §§ 327i–327o BGB.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the extent permitted by law, the operator is liable only for damages caused by intent or gross negligence. Liability for slight negligence is limited to the breach of essential contractual obligations and to typical, foreseeable damages. Mandatory liability under the German Product Liability Act and for injury to life, body, or health remains unaffected.

10. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time. The operator may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these Terms or applicable law, with prior notice where reasonable. Termination of a paid subscription is governed by Section 3.

11. Changes to the Service and to These Terms

The operator may modify, suspend, or discontinue features of the Service at any time. Material changes to these Terms will be announced on the Service at least 30 days in advance for subscribers. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance of the changes; if you do not agree, you may cancel your subscription.

12. Governing Law and Jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the law of the Federal Republic of Germany, excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. Mandatory consumer-protection provisions of the country in which you have your habitual residence remain unaffected. Place of jurisdiction for merchants is Bautzen, Germany.

13. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held to be invalid or unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect.

14. Contact

Questions about these Terms: ancient.nerds@protonmail.com. Full operator details in the Imprint.