1. Terms of Use
These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your access to and use of Free Shadowing, including its Windows desktop application, Android application, website-related services, APIs, and any future supported platforms (collectively, the "App"). Free Shadowing is developed and published under the name Silverla Lab ("Silverla Lab," "we," "us," or "our").
1.1 Acceptance of These Terms
By downloading, installing, accessing, creating an account for, or using the App, or by selecting an "I Accept" or similar option, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the App. Our Privacy Policy explains how information is handled in connection with the App.
1.2 What Free Shadowing Does
Free Shadowing is an English-pronunciation practice tool built around "shadowing" speech from YouTube videos. Users may add supported YouTube URLs, choose content from curated Editor's Picks, practice caption-derived speech segments, record pronunciation attempts, receive automated pronunciation scores or feedback, and optionally participate in ranking or leaderboard features.
Free Shadowing is currently offered as a free beta. Features may be experimental, incomplete, changed, suspended, or removed as the App develops.
1.3 YouTube Content and Third-Party Services
YouTube playback
Practice video is streamed using YouTube functionality, including YouTube embeds. Free Shadowing does not download YouTube video files for practice playback. The App may also open YouTube or direct you to YouTube in certain circumstances.
YouTube terms apply
Your use of YouTube through Free Shadowing is subject to YouTube's applicable terms, policies, and restrictions. You are responsible for complying with those requirements.
Ownership of YouTube content
Except where expressly stated otherwise, Silverla Lab does not own, create, sponsor, endorse, or control third-party YouTube videos made available through the App. Rights in those videos remain with their respective creators, publishers, licensors, or other rights holders. Inclusion in Editor's Picks does not mean that Silverla Lab owns the content or that the creator endorses Free Shadowing.
YouTube videos may be changed, restricted, made private, removed, region-blocked, or otherwise become unavailable without notice.
1.4 Captions and Segment Text
Free Shadowing may use captions associated with YouTube videos, including creator-provided captions and automatically generated captions, to create or display practice segments. Captions may be inaccurate, incomplete, delayed, incorrectly punctuated, or may omit or misidentify words. Free Shadowing does not guarantee that displayed text is an exact transcript of what a speaker says.
1.5 Microphone Recordings and Pronunciation Scoring
Certain practice features require microphone access. When you submit a pronunciation attempt for scoring, the App records your microphone audio and sends it from your device to the Free Shadowing backend. The backend temporarily writes the uploaded audio to server storage and may temporarily convert it to another WAV format needed for processing. The audio and associated reference text may then be transmitted to Microsoft Azure Speech, including Pronunciation Assessment, to generate scoring or related feedback.
After the assessment request finishes, whether successfully or because of an error, Free Shadowing deletes the temporary server-side audio files used for that request. Free Shadowing does not intentionally maintain a lasting server-side archive of pronunciation recordings submitted for scoring.
A copy of a recording may separately remain on your device for features such as replay or "User Voice." Account deletion does not automatically delete those local recordings.
Microsoft states in its documentation for real-time Pronunciation Assessment that customer-provided data used for this path is not retained or stored and that real-time audio is processed in server memory rather than stored at rest. Microsoft controls its own services and may change its documentation or service behavior. Free Shadowing currently uses a Speech resource configured by the AZURE_SPEECH_REGION setting, which defaults to East US (eastus).
Automated pronunciation assessment can make mistakes. Scores are learning aids and should not be treated as authoritative measurements of language ability, accent, intelligence, education, identity, or employability.
1.6 Educational and Entertainment Purposes Only
Free Shadowing is provided for educational, self-improvement, and entertainment purposes. It does not provide professional educational, medical, speech-language pathology, employment, immigration, legal, or other professional advice. You are responsible for deciding how to use information provided by the App.
1.7 Eligibility and Children
Free Shadowing is intended for users age 13 or older. If you are under the age at which you may legally consent to use an online service or to the processing of personal information where you live, you may use Free Shadowing only with any consent or authorization required from a parent or legal guardian. Additional requirements may apply in the European Economic Area, the United Kingdom, and other jurisdictions, including a default age of 16 for certain data-processing consent where applicable law does not provide a lower age.
Free Shadowing is not directed to children under 13 in the United States, and we do not knowingly seek to collect personal information from children under 13. If we learn that we have collected such information contrary to applicable requirements, we will take reasonable steps to delete it.
1.8 Accounts and Guest Use
Guest use
Some Free Shadowing features may be available without registration. Guest information stored locally may be lost if you uninstall the App, clear application data, change devices, or lose access to your device. Guest leaderboard entries may be stored on the server as described in the Privacy Policy.
Silverla ID
Optional accounts may be offered through a Silverla ID. Registration may require an email address, username or display name, and password. Passwords are stored server-side in hashed form rather than readable plaintext. Where email infrastructure is configured, Free Shadowing may send account confirmation, verification, security, or account-related emails.
Account security
You must provide information that you are authorized to use and take reasonable steps to protect your account credentials. You may not impersonate another person, use another person's account without authorization, or attempt to bypass authentication or security controls.
1.9 Account Deletion
Registered users can request deletion from the App through Account settings using the Delete Account function. Account deletion removes the user account record, account credentials, verification information, username index entry, and active sessions associated with that account. Registered leaderboard entries that can be reliably associated with the account are also removed.
Some older ranking entries created before registered ranking records were consistently tied to a Silverla user ID may not be technically identifiable as belonging to the deleted account and therefore may remain. Guest leaderboard entries are not deleted through registered-account deletion.
Deleting a Silverla ID does not automatically delete recordings or other practice data stored only on your device. Those files must be removed through the App, device, or operating-system controls where available.
1.10 Rankings and Leaderboards
Free Shadowing may offer optional rankings, challenges, or leaderboards. If you participate, information such as your display name, episode identifier, score, number of attempts, guest/account status, and ranking-update time may be stored and displayed to other users. Registered entries may also be associated with an internal user ID; guest entries may use an internal client identifier.
Leaderboard entries currently have no automatic expiration period and may remain stored unless they are deleted, replaced, the applicable leaderboard or service is reset, or the data is otherwise removed. Leaderboard scores are for App functionality and entertainment and are not authoritative assessments of language proficiency.
1.11 License to Use Free Shadowing
Subject to these Terms, Silverla Lab grants you a limited, personal, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable, and non-sublicensable license to install and use the App for lawful personal use. This license does not transfer ownership of the App to you.
Except where applicable law provides otherwise, you may not copy or redistribute the App, sell or sublicense it, commercially exploit it, reverse engineer it, circumvent security restrictions, use automated systems to overload or scrape the service, or use Silverla Lab branding in a way that falsely suggests endorsement or affiliation.
1.12 Acceptable Use
You agree not to use Free Shadowing to violate law or third-party rights, distribute malware, attack or disrupt systems, obtain unauthorized access, manipulate rankings through unauthorized automation, harass or impersonate others, or materially interfere with other users or the service. We may restrict or suspend access when reasonably necessary to protect users, third parties, the App, or our infrastructure.
1.13 Intellectual Property
Free Shadowing's original software, interface, branding, graphics, design, and Silverla Lab-created content are owned by Silverla Lab or its licensors and are protected by applicable intellectual-property laws. Third-party content remains the property of its respective rights holders.
1.14 Beta Service and Availability
Free Shadowing is a beta product. Beta software may contain bugs, crashes, incorrect scores, inaccurate transcripts, synchronization problems, unavailable features, data loss, service interruptions, or compatibility problems. We may modify, suspend, discontinue, replace, or restrict features at any time. We do not guarantee that the App, backend API, YouTube integration, Azure integration, particular videos, accounts, rankings, or other features will always be available.
1.15 Free Service and Possible Future Paid Features
Free Shadowing is currently offered free of charge. We may introduce optional paid features, subscriptions, or other paid services in the future. Before you are charged, the applicable price, billing period, renewal terms, cancellation terms, and any additional purchase terms will be presented to you. Your current acceptance of these Terms does not authorize Silverla Lab to charge you for future paid services.
1.16 Other Third-Party Services
The App may rely on services such as Microsoft Azure Speech, YouTube, hosting providers, transactional email providers, dictionary services, translation services, operating-system text-to-speech, and content delivery networks. Third-party services may process information under their own terms and privacy practices. We do not control third-party services and cannot guarantee their availability, accuracy, security, or continued compatibility with Free Shadowing.
1.17 Disclaimer of Warranties
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, FREE SHADOWING IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, WHETHER EXPRESS, IMPLIED, OR STATUTORY. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, SILVERLA LAB DISCLAIMS IMPLIED WARRANTIES INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, AND UNINTERRUPTED AVAILABILITY.
We do not warrant that pronunciation scores or captions will be accurate, that the App will improve your English, that any particular video will remain available, that the App will be uninterrupted or error-free, or that locally or remotely stored information will never be lost. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain warranty exclusions, so portions of this section may not apply to you.
1.18 Limitation of Liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, SILVERLA LAB AND ITS DEVELOPERS, AFFILIATES, SERVICE PROVIDERS, AND REPRESENTATIVES WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, REVENUE, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS OPPORTUNITY, ARISING FROM OR RELATED TO YOUR USE OF OR INABILITY TO USE FREE SHADOWING.
To the maximum extent permitted by law, our aggregate liability arising out of or relating to Free Shadowing will not exceed the greater of (a) the amount you paid for Free Shadowing during the 12 months immediately before the event giving rise to the claim, or (b) US $100. These limitations do not apply where liability cannot legally be excluded or limited, including rights that applicable consumer-protection law makes non-waivable.
1.19 Suspension and Termination
You may stop using Free Shadowing at any time. We may suspend or terminate access when reasonably necessary because of violation of these Terms, fraud, abuse, security threats, legal requirements, technical or operational reasons, or discontinuation of the App. Provisions that by their nature should survive termination, including intellectual-property provisions, disclaimers, liability limitations, and governing-law provisions, will survive as permitted by law.
1.20 Changes to These Terms
We may update these Terms as the App evolves or when legal, technical, or business requirements change. When changes are material, we will provide notice as appropriate through the App, website, email, or another reasonable method. Where required by law, we will request new consent before materially different terms take effect. The Effective Date and Terms Version identify the applicable version.
1.21 Governing Law and Venue
These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Washington, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, except where applicable consumer law provides otherwise. Subject to any mandatory rights you may have under applicable law, disputes that must be brought in court will be brought in a court of competent jurisdiction in Washington State. Nothing in these Terms limits consumer rights that cannot legally be waived.
1.22 Contact
Questions about these Terms may be sent to Silverla Lab at supernovazyg@gmail.com or through https://silverla.co.
