Copyright Policy

Last updated August 24, 2026

Stele is operated by Akash T, a sole proprietor based in India ("Stele", "we", "us"). Stele is a personal reference tool: a user captures part of a web page and it is stored in their own private library. We respect the rights of the people who made that work, and this page sets out how a rights holder asks us to remove material and what we do when they do. It forms part of our Terms of Service and sits alongside our Acceptable Use Policy.

How captures are stored

A capture is private to the account that made it. Libraries are not public, are not indexed by search engines, and are not browsable by other users. Our Terms place responsibility for having the right to capture and store content on the user who captured it, and our Acceptable Use Policy prohibits redistributing another party's work.

Every capture keeps its source

Stele does not strip attribution, it records it. A capture is stored with the URL it was taken from, the domain, the site's icon and the page title, and where the page declares them, the author, the publication date and the canonical URL. That provenance travels with the capture inside the user's library, and it is shown to them alongside it.

This matters in two directions. It means a user can always see whose work a reference is and go back to the original, and it means that when a rights holder reports material to us, the record needed to find every copy of it is already there.

Reporting infringing material

If you own a copyright, or are authorised to act for the owner, and you believe material stored on Stele infringes it, write to legal@stele.so with the subject line "Copyright report". Please include:

your name, postal address, email address and telephone number;
identification of the work you say is infringed, with a link to it where one exists;
identification of the material on Stele you are asking us to remove, precise enough for us to find it: a URL, a share link, an account email or a screenshot;
a statement that you believe in good faith that the use is not authorised by the owner, its agent or the law;
a statement that the information in the report is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are the owner or are authorised to act for the owner;
your physical or electronic signature.

A report missing any of these is still read, but we may have to write back for the rest before we can act, which slows the process down.

What happens next

Acknowledgement. We confirm receipt within 2 business days.
Review. We review the report within 5 business days of acknowledging it.
Removal. Where the report is valid we remove or disable access to the material and tell the account holder what was removed and why, passing on your report so they can respond.
Repeat infringement. We suspend or terminate accounts that infringe repeatedly.

Counter-notice

If your material was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, write to legal@stele.so with the subject line "Counter-notice", including:

your name, postal address, email address and telephone number;
identification of the material that was removed and where it was in your library;
a statement, under penalty of perjury, that you believe in good faith it was removed as a result of a mistake or a misidentification;
your physical or electronic signature.

We pass a counter-notice to the person who filed the original report. If they do not tell us within 10 business days that they are pursuing the matter, we may restore the material.

Reports made in bad faith

Knowingly misrepresenting that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, carries liability for damages under the law of several countries. Please be sure before you file.