Story256 is an app for writing stories with many people: every day you get a limited number of characters to continue a story, open a new path (fork) or start one from scratch. These terms govern the use of the app (iOS, Android and web) and of the website https://www.story256.com, including the beta waitlist. By creating an account or using Story256 you accept them; if you disagree with something, please don’t use the service.
We have tried to write them in plain language. If something is unclear, write to us at soporte@story256.com.
1. Who provides the service
Story256 is provided by Jon Zubizarreta, Spanish tax ID (NIF) 72601799E, with registered address at Iñaki Azpiazu 28 3A (“we”). Contact: soporte@story256.com.
2. What Story256 is
Story256 is a collaborative writing service. Stories are written as chained fragments; at any fragment someone can open an alternative path (a fork), so every story is a tree of branches. Anyone can read without an account; to write, vote, follow stories or join a queue you need an account.
Story256 is written by people. We don’t generate text with artificial intelligence and we don’t allow automatically generated text to be published as one’s own.
3. The website and the waitlist
The website https://www.story256.com presents the service and can be visited without an account. While Story256 is in beta you can join the waitlist by leaving your email address. Joining is free, doesn’t create an account and doesn’t guarantee an invitation: we send them in batches, depending on the capacity of the beta. You can ask us to remove you from the list at any time by writing to us.
If you tick the newsletter box we’ll send you occasional news about Story256; every email includes a way to unsubscribe.
The founding community (“the first 256”) receives special conditions (for example, the Plus plan free for a year). Those conditions are stated when granted, depend on doing what the founders page asks for, and don’t renew automatically.
4. Minimum age and account
To create an account or join the waitlist you must be at least 14 years old. If you are under 14 you can read, but not sign up. If we detect an account belonging to someone under that age, we will delete it.
An account is created with a verified email address. You are responsible for what is done with your account and for keeping access to your email. You may only have one account; you may not create accounts to get around limits, blocks or suspensions.
Your username is public. It can have between 4 and 20 letters, digits or underscores, may not impersonate someone else or be offensive, and we may change it if it breaks these rules.
5. How writing works
Every day you have a quota of characters to publish, which depends on your plan:
- Free: 256 characters a day.
- Plus: 1,024 characters a day.
- Pro: 2,048 characters a day.
Quota rules:
- Characters are counted as you perceive them when reading (an emoji or an accented letter counts as one). The server’s count is the one that applies.
- The quota resets at midnight in your time zone and doesn’t carry over: what you don’t spend today is not added to tomorrow.
- You can split the day’s characters across several stories. Each fragment has a minimum of 20 characters.
- Characters are deducted only when a fragment is published successfully, never when you start writing.
- The “+256” purchase adds 256 characters to the current day, not to later days.
- If you change time zone, the change applies once a day later than your last writing day has begun in the new zone and at least 20 hours have passed since your last publication. This prevents a time-zone change from granting a second quota on the same day.
To continue a branch, its end is reserved for a few minutes while you write (capped at about 15 minutes). If someone else already holds the reservation you can join the queue: when it frees up we’ll notify you and you’ll have about 90 seconds to claim your turn; if you don’t, it passes to the next person. Plus and Pro plans have priority in the queue; nobody can reserve for longer than anyone else. There are limits on simultaneous reservations and queues per person.
The streak counts the consecutive days (in your time zone) on which you have published at least one fragment. Some milestones (streak, fragments, hearts…) unlock achievements that grant extra characters for the current day; they are a gift, not an acquired right, and we may change the milestones and the amounts.
6. Your content
What you write is yours: you keep the copyright on your fragments. So that Story256 can work, when you publish you grant us a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free, sublicensable and transferable licence to store, reproduce, display, distribute and publicly communicate your fragment within the service (app, web, shared links, previews and promotional material for the service itself), and for other users to continue and fork it.
Writing on Story256 is writing with others. By publishing you accept that anyone may continue your fragment or open an alternative path from it, and that your text is shown alongside other people’s as part of the same story. In return, you may do the same with other people’s fragments within the service.
Fragments are links in a branch: once published they can’t be edited or deleted, because other people may have written after them. If you delete your account, your fragments are kept but are no longer linked to you: they become signed “deleted account” (see section 13).
The same applies to the characters, objects and places you create (the “universe”) and to the covers and images you upload: they must be yours or you must have permission to use them, and they are shown publicly within the service.
You may only publish text and images you hold the rights to. Don’t copy other people’s work and don’t publish AI-generated text as if it were yours. If you believe a fragment infringes your rights, write to us and we’ll hide it while we review it.
Using Story256 gives you no rights over other people’s stories beyond reading them within the service and continuing or forking them there. To reuse a whole story outside Story256 you need its authors’ permission.
7. Rules of conduct
You may not publish or do the following:
- Illegal content, or content that incites hatred or violence against people or groups because of their origin, sex, orientation, religion, disability or other conditions.
- Harassment, threats or humiliation of other users or third parties.
- Sexual content involving minors, or any content that sexualises minors.
- Other people’s personal data (addresses, phone numbers, intimate images) without their consent.
- Impersonation of a person or a brand.
- Spam, advertising, misleading links or fragments unrelated to the story in order to block the branch.
- Use of bots, automated accounts or multiple accounts to write, vote or join queues.
- Exploiting bugs in the service or manipulating the time zone, the queue or the votes to gain an advantage.
Stories with adult content (explicit violence, sex, drugs) must be marked “18+” when created. They are shown only to people who enable that option in their profile.
8. Moderation
Anyone can report a fragment, an entity or a cover, stating the reason. If a fragment receives reports from three different people it is automatically hidden (“fragment removed, under review”) until we review it; if we find it acceptable, it is shown again. Removed fragments are not deleted (they remain links in their branch), but their text is no longer visible.
You can block another person: you will stop seeing each other’s stories, notifications between you will be muted, and each other’s fragments will appear collapsed in the stories you both take part in.
If you break these rules we may remove content, limit features or suspend or close your account, temporarily or permanently, depending on severity. We may act without prior notice when necessary to protect other people or the service. If you think we got it wrong, write to us and we’ll review it.
9. Subscriptions and purchases
Story256 can be used for free. We also offer:
- Plus and Pro: subscriptions (monthly or annual) that raise the daily quota (1,024 and 2,048 characters) and give priority in the queue. The price is shown in the app and in the store before you buy.
- +256: a one-off purchase that adds 256 characters to the current day.
Purchases are made and charged through the App Store (Apple), Google Play (Google) or, on the web, our payment provider. We never see or store your card details.
Subscriptions renew automatically at the end of each period at the current price, unless you cancel at least 24 hours before the current period ends. You can cancel or change plan at any time from the subscription settings of your Apple or Google account (or from the web if you bought there); cancellation takes effect at the end of the period already paid, and partial periods are not refunded. When it expires, your account goes back to the free plan without losing your stories or your streak.
The “+256” purchase is applied immediately and only to the current day; once applied it is non-refundable. Refund requests are handled under Apple’s or Google’s policies, since they process the payment.
If prices change we’ll tell you in advance through the means the store provides; the new price applies from the next renewal and you can cancel before then.
We may offer the Plus or Pro plan on a promotional basis (for example, to the founding community); those conditions are stated when granted and don’t renew automatically.
On iOS, Apple’s standard licence agreement for apps also applies:
10. Availability and changes to the service
Story256 is at an early stage. We may change, add or remove features, adjust quotas, queue limits or moderation criteria, and carry out maintenance downtime. We’ll try to announce important changes inside the app. We don’t guarantee that the service will be available without interruption or free of errors.
If we decide to shut the service down, we’ll announce it at least 30 days in advance and, during that time, provide a way to download your fragments.
11. Our intellectual property
The Story256 name, the book mark, the design of the app and the website and their code are ours or our licensors’. We grant you a personal, non-exclusive, revocable licence to use the app under these terms. You may not copy it, modify it, reverse-engineer it or bulk-extract its content (scraping) without our permission. Press material may be used to talk about Story256 under the conditions stated on the press page.
12. Liability
Stories are written by users; we don’t review them before publication and they don’t represent our opinion. We act on content when it is reported to us or when we detect it.
We provide the service “as is”. To the extent permitted by law, we are not liable for indirect damages, for data loss caused by third parties or for content published by other people. Nothing above limits the rights granted to you by consumer law or our liability for wilful misconduct or gross negligence.
13. Deleting your account
You can delete your account at any time from Profile → “delete account”, or by writing to us. Your email, username, photo, streak, votes, follows, queues, notifications, blocks and preferences are deleted. Your fragments are kept anonymously because they are part of other people’s stories (see section 6).
Deleting your account doesn’t cancel an active subscription: cancel it first from the store to avoid further charges.
14. Changes to these terms
We may update these terms. If a change is significant we’ll tell you in the app with reasonable notice; continuing to use Story256 after the effective date means you accept them. The date of the latest version appears at the top of this page.
15. Governing law
These terms are governed by Spanish law. If you are a consumer you may bring claims before the courts of your place of residence and use the consumer dispute resolution mechanisms available to you, including the European online dispute resolution platform. In all other cases the parties submit to the courts of the provider’s registered address.
These terms are also published in Spanish. In case of discrepancy between versions, the Spanish text prevails.
16. Contact
For any question about these terms: soporte@story256.com.