1. Agreement
These Terms are a binding agreement between you and The AECE Studio for use of Aether. By creating or using an Aether account, you confirm that you have read and accept these Terms and the Privacy Policy. If you do not agree, do not use Aether.
2. Eligibility and accounts
You must be at least 13 years old and legally able to agree to these Terms. You must provide an accurate date of birth when requested and may be required to complete proportionate age, identity, document, or liveness verification. On eligible Android installations, Google Play Age Signals may restrict an under-13, conflicting, verification-required, pending, or declined account state. A Play signal can tighten access but cannot by itself grant verified adulthood. Declaring an adult date of birth is not proof of adulthood. It permits ordinary claimed-adult features but does not grant assured-adult identity, guardian authority, mixed-age administration, or unrestricted access to protected minors. Unknown and conflicting age states remain restricted until the server has a current decision.
One authoritative app installation and signed session controls an Aether identity at a time. This does not prove that a physical device runs only one app instance. A device transfer or recovery moves authority to the new installation and revokes the previous installation's current authority; it does not reset age, guardian, moderation, reports, blocks, or safety duties. Your recovery code is an account-transfer credential. Keep it private and do not share, sell, lend, or obtain another person's account, recovery code, device session, or identity evidence. Do not impersonate another person, create deceptive profiles, evade a suspension, or allow another person to misuse your account.
3. Community and child safety standards
Aether has zero tolerance for child sexual abuse and exploitation (CSAE) and child sexual abuse material (CSAM). You may not create, upload, request, link to, threaten to share, normalize, or facilitate:
- sexual content involving anyone under 18, including synthetic or altered content;
- grooming, sexual solicitation of a minor, sextortion, trafficking, or arranging offline abuse;
- age-inappropriate sexual contact, attempts to move a minor into secret communications, or offers of money, status, or favors for sexual interaction;
- instructions that help others find, create, hide, or distribute CSAM.
You also may not engage in credible threats, terrorism, targeted harassment, hateful abuse, non-consensual intimate content, doxxing, stalking, scams, fraud, malware, illegal sales, intellectual-property infringement, or impersonation. Do not use Live, private rooms, aliases, DMs, or challenges to exploit, coerce, manipulate, or groom anyone.
Identity verification, payment, institutional status, moderation status, family relationship, or a guardian label never makes an adult automatically trusted around a minor. Guardian capability requires current paid provider identity verification, and authority over a particular minor requires a separate relationship review. Either can be suspended or revoked. The production verification product is intended to have a USD 1.50 base price before Google Play localization or tax; confirm the price displayed by Google Play before purchasing. The payment is not proof of age, identity, relationship, or safety.
Report and block: use the separate Report and Block controls available on posts, profiles, comments, messages, and Live rooms. A child may report any account, including a registered guardian. The accused guardian is not automatically notified and does not control that case. For child-safety concerns email help@theaecestudio.com. We may remove confirmed prohibited content, restrict accounts, preserve evidence when lawful, and report confirmed CSAM to the appropriate authority as required. Aether is not an emergency service; immediate danger should be reported to local emergency services.
3a. Political expression, violence and armed activity
Peaceful political discussion, criticism of governments and public officials, peaceful protest and civic organizing, journalism, human-rights documentation, and historical or military education are permitted subject to these standards. Discussing or documenting a conflict is not itself a violation. Enforcement is based on conduct, evidence and context, and applies regardless of political affiliation, nationality, religion, or official or military status.
You must not use Aether to:
- Threaten, incite, encourage, organize or coordinate attacks, violent riots, arson, looting or violent intimidation, including violence against political opponents, voters, civilians or other groups.
- Recruit, train, raise funds, transfer value, supply equipment or provide logistical support for terrorism or armed violence, including violent militia or paramilitary activity.
- Plan, direct or coordinate real-world military or paramilitary combat operations, armed attacks or violent coups.
- Share personal details, locations, movement information or target lists with the intent to facilitate violence or enable attacks against people or facilities.
- Supply weapons or explosives, or share instructions for making or using them, with the intent to facilitate violence or an attack.
News reporting, documentary evidence, condemnation and educational discussion of violence are permitted when they do not promote violence or provide operational assistance for attacks. Describing content as news, satire, education or political advocacy does not excuse threats, incitement or assistance for violence.
These rules apply across profiles, posts, comments, channels, groups, Live streams and recordings, private rooms, DMs, advertisements, Creator Store listings and all monetization, including Coins, gifts and subscriptions. Privacy and encryption do not create an exception.
To report threats, incitement or violent planning, use the in-app Report → Threats or immediate danger option. Enforcement and appeals follow Section 5. Aether is not an emergency service; contact local emergency services if someone is in immediate danger.
4. Your content and optional face verification
You retain ownership of content you create. You grant The AECE Studio a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to host, transmit, reproduce, format, and display content only as needed to operate, secure, moderate, and improve Aether. This license ends when content is deleted, except for copies retained for legal, safety, fraud, backup, or technical reasons and content stored on other users' devices.
You confirm you have the rights and permissions needed for anything you share, including music, images, video, trademarks, and depictions of other people. Public aliases do not create a right to impersonate, mislead, or avoid accountability.
Optional face verification uses explicit consent, randomized gesture prompts processed by the app on your device, and an encrypted numerical biometric template. Its current badge is visible wherever another user is authorized to read your profile. A current check unlocks Space publishing and, for a declared-adult account, Live hosting and stage access. Declared adults can use Aether Coins and watch or gift in Live without this check. Face verification is not government identification, provider-backed identity or age verification, a background check, guardianship, trust, permission to contact minors, or proof that a person controls only one account. You may remove it under Aether → Profile → Verification → Face verification, which revokes its badge and face-only capability. You must use only your own face and must not attempt to spoof, bypass, or submit another person's biometric information.
5. Moderation and user-generated content
You agree to these standards before posting user-generated content. We may review public content and reports, reduce distribution, remove content, limit features, or suspend accounts when reasonably necessary for safety, policy, legal, or service integrity. We do not promise to pre-screen every item, guarantee a response time, or accept responsibility for user conduct. Repeated or severe abuse may result in permanent removal. Accounts that repeatedly upload content that infringes someone else's copyright are suspended or removed under our copyright policy. You may contact support to appeal an enforcement decision.
6. Private messages and encryption
Supported DMs are encrypted on the sender's device for a recipient manifest authorized by the server. The service processes participant and guardian recipient identities, public keys, routing, delivery, attachment, and anti-abuse metadata and stores encrypted envelopes temporarily. Aether's custom protocol has not yet received independent cryptographic validation and does not provide Signal-style forward secrecy or multi-device ratcheting; do not interpret “encrypted” as an unqualified guarantee that the service can never access content under every client, reporting, compromise, or legal scenario.
When a protected minor communicates with someone outside the confirmed compatible-minor peer rule, the recipient manifest includes every current approved guardian recipient. Each guardian gets a separately wrapped encrypted envelope, and delivery either commits all required envelopes together or fails. Confirmed compatible-minor peers may communicate without guardian copies added solely because they are minors. After 12:00 UTC on the reviewed eighteenth birthday, when that date has begun even in UTC-12, guardian authority ends for new delivery; a self-declared birthday alone cannot trigger adult access.
Encryption does not make harmful or illegal conduct acceptable. Recipients, including required guardian recipients, may keep, copy, forward, or report what they receive. Aether blocks Android chat screenshots and screen recording by default. In a direct chat, each person's setting grants or withholds the other person's ability to capture that person's content; group and channel owners control the community policy. When Android reports an allowed screenshot or recording, Aether displays a participant disclosure. These controls cannot prevent photography or recording with another physical device. A report may intentionally disclose selected message evidence to authorized safety staff. Deleted local messages cannot always be restored, and Aether cannot remotely delete copies held by another recipient.
7. Space, status and Live
Claimed adults may use Chat, voice calls, post Status updates, browse and interact with adult-cohort Space posts, buy and spend Aether Coins, and watch or gift in Live. Confirmed minors may use Space only inside their current 13–15 or 16–17 cohort after acknowledging the online-safety reminder and a current approved guardian enables managed social access. The minor may turn that access off; only the guardian can turn it back on. Minor Space aliases remain internally attributable and display a Minor · Alias label. Minor Space publishing is text-only while media-safety review is unavailable, and the service rejects links, contact details, external-contact requests, and explicit sexual terms. Private-chat aliases, throwaway identities, Live, Coins, and sponsored channel placements are unavailable to minors. Full Space publishing requires a current Aether face check or provider-backed identity, and Live hosting or stage access requires that same current signal on a declared-adult account. Cash-out, mixed-age group administration, guardian capability, and access involving protected minors continue to require their stronger current server-authorized state.
Space posts, Live rooms, and published Live replays are user-generated content. Statuses expire after 12 hours. Inactive Space media may be deleted after 180 days; creators receive a 30-day warning and can use Keep to restart that period. A creator controls whether another user may download each Space post's media. An allowed download carries the creator's public alias and Aether as a watermark; users must not remove a watermark to misrepresent authorship. Space and channel ads are clearly labelled, use Aether Coin pricing shown before confirmation, expire at the displayed time, and do not use private-message behavioral targeting.
A host may choose to record a Live only while Aether shows the in-room recording notice. Saved replays are private by default; the host controls whether to publish or permanently delete them. Live screenshots and screen recording are blocked by default and depend on the applicable participant or host consent setting; when Android reports an allowed capture, Aether displays a disclosure. Status visibility, private Live invitations, and system capture controls reduce exposure but do not guarantee confidentiality, because a participant may still use another physical device. A safety-state change stops new LiveKit credentials immediately, but removing an already-connected room or participant depends on asynchronous provider delivery and may not be instantaneous. Hosts must obtain consent before featuring a guest and must remove guests who violate these standards. Challenges and games must not encourage injury, dangerous acts, sexual conduct, bullying, gambling, illegal activity, or humiliation. Never meet a person from Aether without appropriate safety precautions.
8. Intellectual property
Aether's software, design, name, logos, and non-user content belong to The AECE Studio or its licensors. These Terms give you a limited, revocable, non-transferable right to use the app for its intended purpose. You may not reverse engineer where prohibited, scrape private data, interfere with security, overload the service, or use Aether branding without permission. Rights owners can use our copyright and trademark report process.
9. Suspension, deletion and service changes
You may stop using Aether and request account deletion at any time through the process in our Privacy Policy. We may restrict or terminate access for violations, risk, legal obligations, or service protection. We may change or discontinue features when reasonably necessary.
10. Disclaimers and liability
Aether is provided “as is” and “as available” to the extent permitted by law. We do not guarantee uninterrupted operation, perfect security, preservation of local data, user identity, or user conduct. You are responsible for backups, interactions, and content. To the maximum extent permitted by law, The AECE Studio is not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive loss. Nothing here excludes rights or liability that cannot legally be excluded.
11. Disputes and general terms
These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, without removing mandatory consumer rights that apply where you live. Before filing a claim, contact us and allow 30 days for an informal resolution. If part of these Terms is unenforceable, the remainder continues. Failure to enforce a term is not a waiver. We may update these Terms and will provide notice of material changes.
12. Contact
The AECE Studio, Aether Support & Child Safety
Legal and account support: support@theaecestudio.com
Help and child safety: help@theaecestudio.com
aether.theaecestudio.com