Merrie
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Terms of Service

The deal.

Last updated 2026-05-10.

Hello. Merrie is a free tool for groups, hosts, and the people who help cities know themselves. These are the terms. The contract between you and us when you use it. We've kept the language plain. The substance is here regardless.

Merrie is in public preview. We're building this in the open. Features may change, surfaces may move, and we may take things down to fix them. The product is functional and used in good faith, but it isn't a polished commercial service yet. Read the rest of these terms with that context. We'll mark the end of preview clearly when it happens.

Some sections include a legal aside in italics. That's the formal version of a point. The plain language and the aside say the same thing; the aside is what counts in court.

Who runs Merrie

Merrie is operated by [Operator] (referred to here as "Merrie," "we," or "us"). You can reach us at [email protected].

Your account

You need to be at least 13 years old to make a Merrie page. If you're under 18, your parent or guardian should be okay with what you're doing here.

One person, one account. Use a real email address you actually check. That's how we, and your subscribers, reach you.

You're responsible for what happens under your account. Don't share your login.

What you publish

You own your content. Posters, photos, event descriptions, group bios, essays. All yours. You keep all the rights. Merrie doesn't take ownership.

In exchange for hosting it, you give two licenses:

  1. To Merrie: a non-exclusive license to display, format, and distribute your content on Merrie itself, in emails to subscribers you've imported or who signed up through Merrie, and in social-export tools we provide.
  2. To the public, for event data only, which covers title, date, time, venue, description, category, cost, URL, and cover image. The license is Creative Commons BY 4.0. It runs from you directly to anyone who wants to reuse the data with attribution. Merrie publishes through the Neighborhood Commons as the conduit. The license itself is between you and the world. You publish, the city's cultural data layer gets richer, you get a tool that's well-made. That's the trade.

The CC BY 4.0 grant is irrevocable for events you've already published. Once an event has been in the Commons, it stays there as a public record of what happened. Future events stop publishing immediately if you delete your account or set them private.

Legal aside: You retain full ownership and copyright in all content you upload. By using Merrie, you grant us a non-exclusive, royalty-free, worldwide license to host, store, reproduce, format, and display your content for the purpose of operating the service. For event metadata you simultaneously grant the public a direct, non-exclusive, perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license under CC BY 4.0; Merrie publishes the data through the Neighborhood Commons as a conduit and does not itself sublicense the data. This direct public license is the "trade" referenced in our public materials and is a condition of use of the service.

Be truthful

The Commons only works if the data in it is real. By publishing on Merrie, you commit to the following:

  • Events you list are events you intend to actually hold, at the place, time, and on the terms you describe.
  • You are who you say you are. No impersonating other groups, hosts, venues, or people.
  • You don't list events that aren't yours to list. (If you're documenting someone else's event as part of a "voices" page, that's a different feature with different rules.)
  • Cancellations and changes get reflected promptly. A ghost listing is a betrayal of the people who showed up.

We may remove events, suspend accounts, or refuse listings that we reasonably believe to be inaccurate, fake, impersonating, or in bad faith. We don't owe a hearing for that. The harm of letting fake data into the Commons exceeds the cost of an occasional wrong takedown.

Your subscriber list

If your page collects email subscribers, those addresses are a fiduciary trust. We treat them that way:

  • We never use your subscribers for our own purposes.
  • Other contributors never see them. Not in queries, logs, error messages, or admin tools.
  • You can export the list to CSV at any time.
  • If you close your account, the list is exportable for 30 days, then deleted.
  • Subscribers can unsubscribe in one click, and we honor that immediately and permanently.

This is a contract term, not a marketing promise.

Who we won't host

We're a private platform with editorial discretion. We host whom we want. The standing list of categories we decline is at merrie.co/policy. Hate groups, harassment, doxing, organizing violence, bad-faith political projects.

We can suspend or remove a contributor at our discretion, with or without cause. Free service, our call. Suspension hides your URL but preserves your subscriber list and content for 30 days in case the suspension is overturned on appeal.

We'll be welcoming and generous in close calls. We're not going to be obligated to host everything.

Your URL is permanent

Once you claim merrie.co/your-slug, it's yours. We don't recycle slugs to other contributors, even if you stop using your page. A URL is a promise.

If we ever shut Merrie down (we don't intend to), we'll give you 90 days' notice and a way to take your data with you.

DMCA / Copyright

If you believe content on Merrie infringes your copyright, send a notice to [email protected]. The full procedure is at merrie.co/dmca.

We comply with valid notices. We also reserve our rights against bad-faith notices under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).

As-is, no warranty

Merrie is provided as-is and as-available. We don't guarantee uptime, performance, fitness for any particular purpose, or that bugs will be fixed on any timeline. If Merrie loses your data, we'll work to restore it but make no commitment that we'll succeed.

This is a free service. Your reliance is at your own risk.

Legal aside: TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, MERRIE DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE."

Limit on liability

To the maximum extent allowed by law, Merrie's liability for any claim arising from your use of the service is capped at the greater of (a) the fees you paid us in the 12 months before the claim or (b) $100 USD. Since the service is free, this is functionally $100.

We're not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages. Some jurisdictions don't allow this kind of cap; if you're in one, the cap applies to the maximum extent it can.

What the cap doesn't cover. These limits don't apply to liability arising from Merrie's gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud, or to any liability that can't be limited under applicable law. We're not asking you to forgive us for the things we shouldn't be forgiven for.

Indemnification

If a third party brings a claim against Merrie because of your content or your use of the service, we may ask you to defend the claim and pay our reasonable costs of defense. A copyright holder claiming your poster infringes their work, or a venue claiming your listing misrepresents them, would be examples.

This applies only to third-party claims, and only to the extent the claim arises from your content, your conduct, or your breach of these terms. It does not extend to claims arising from Merrie's own gross negligence, willful misconduct, fraud, or breach of these terms. We'll tell you about the claim promptly and let you participate in the defense.

Termination

You can close your account at any time from settings. Your URL is preserved (but not visible) so you don't accidentally lose it. Your subscriber list is exportable for 30 days. Published events stay in the Commons under CC BY 4.0.

We can suspend or terminate accounts under "Who we won't host" above, for repeated copyright infringement, or for security reasons. We'll tell you why.

Changes to these terms

We can update these terms. The current version is shown at the top of this page.

Non-material changes like typos, clarifications, vendor swaps, and formatting take effect on the date listed. Continued use after that date counts as acceptance.

Material changes affect your rights, our license to your content, our obligations to your subscribers, the dispute or governing-law sections, or the limit on liability. These require explicit re-acceptance. We'll notify you in-product, plus by email if we have your address, and ask you to re-accept. Continued use isn't enough for material changes.

Honest disclosure: while Merrie is in public preview (see the top of this page), we may iterate on these terms more often than a settled commercial service would. We'll mark each change clearly.

Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, without regard to conflict-of-laws rules. Disputes are resolved in the state and federal courts of Philadelphia County, Pennsylvania.

The rest

If any part of these terms is unenforceable, the rest still applies. We may assign these terms to a successor entity (e.g., if Merrie is acquired or the underlying business restructures); you can't assign yours without our written consent.

These terms are the whole agreement between you and Merrie about the service. Earlier versions, marketing copy, and side conversations don't change them.

Contact

[email protected] for general questions.
[email protected] for copyright notices.
[email protected] for data requests.