Terms & Conditions

The rules for using Fretly.

1. Agreement

By accessing or using Fretly (the "Service") you agree to these Terms & Conditions. If you do not agree, please do not use the Service.

2. Who we are

The Service is operated by Fretboard Knowledge, the practice of guitarist and guitar teacher Alexander Stakenburg, established in the Netherlands. You can reach us through the Contact page.

3. Accounts

Part of Fretly is publicly accessible. Creating an account unlocks saving your own content, and a membership unlocks the full catalogue (see section 8). You are responsible for keeping your login credentials confidential and for everything that happens under your account. Notify us immediately of any unauthorised use via the Contact page.

4. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use the Service for anything illegal;
• attempt to bypass authentication, rate limits or security controls;
• upload malware, run vulnerability scans or stress-test the Service without written permission;
• scrape, mirror or resell Fretly data without permission (see section 7.1);
• share your account or use the Service to infringe anyone else's rights.

5. Your content

"User Content" means the charts, chord changes, diagram sheets, collections, custom boards and any other material you create, upload or store in the Service.

5.1 Ownership

You keep all rights you already have in the User Content you create. We do not claim ownership of it.

5.2 Your promise

You represent and warrant that, for all User Content you create, store or share through the Service, you own the necessary rights or have permission to use them, and that your User Content does not infringe the copyright, trademark or other rights of anyone else.

5.3 No infringing material

You agree not to use the Service to reproduce, store or distribute material that infringes a third party's intellectual property rights, including (without limitation) song lyrics or transcriptions you do not have the right to use.

5.4 Limited licence to us

You grant Fretboard Knowledge a limited, non-exclusive licence to host, store, process and display your User Content solely to operate and provide the Service to you (and, where you choose to share it, to the specific recipients you select). This licence ends when you delete the content or your account, except for backups retained for a reasonable period. We will not sell or publish your content.

6. Sharing between teachers and students

6.1 Scope of sharing

The sharing features let a teacher account share User Content with that teacher's own linked student accounts. Sharing is limited to those linked recipients. The Service does not provide public, open or "anyone with the link" distribution of User Content, and shared User Content is not made publicly searchable.

6.2 The sharer is responsible

If you share User Content with others, you are responsible for ensuring you have the right to share that content with those recipients. You must not share material that infringes a third party's rights.

6.3 Recipients

If you receive shared User Content, you may use it only within the Service for your own learning and teaching, and you must not redistribute it outside the Service.

6.4 Tablature

Tablature features are restricted to administrators and are not available for user creation or teacher-to-student sharing.

7. Intellectual property

The Fretly name, logo, source code and design are owned by Fretboard Knowledge. Music theory itself belongs to everyone, but the interface, diagrams and curated content are protected.

7.1 No copying, scraping or bulk download

Fretly's curated datasets, including the scale, mode, chord, voicing and fingering collections, their names, aliases, groupings, orderings and interval data, are protected as a database and as a curated selection and arrangement. Except for your normal personal use of the Service through its interface, you may not, without our prior written permission:

• scrape, crawl, harvest or otherwise extract content from the Service by automated means;
• bulk-download, copy or systematically extract any substantial part of the curated datasets, whether in one session or over time;
• reproduce, republish, mirror or incorporate the datasets or diagrams in any other product, service, dataset or publication;
• use the Service or its content for text- and data-mining or for training machine-learning or AI models (we expressly reserve our rights under Article 4 of EU Directive 2019/790).

We use technical and forensic measures that make copied datasets identifiable. Violations may result in immediate termination (section 12) and legal action.

8. Pricing and payment

Fretly offers public access to a limited part of the catalogue, and membership tiers that unlock the rest: every scale, mode, chord type and voicing, all panels, and full collection depth. Current tiers and prices are always shown on the Pricing page.

• Billing: memberships are billed in advance per billing period through our payment processor, Stripe. Prices include VAT where applicable.
• Cancelling: you can cancel at any time. Your membership then runs until the end of the period you have paid for and is not renewed. We do not refund partial periods.
• EU right of withdrawal: as an EU consumer you normally have a 14-day right of withdrawal. Because Fretly is a digital service that starts immediately, you consent at checkout to immediate performance. If you withdraw within 14 days, you are charged proportionally for the days already used and the remainder is refunded.
• Price changes: if a price changes, we announce it in advance and it applies from your next billing period. You can always cancel before it takes effect.

9. Availability and changes to the Service

Fretly is under active development. Features may be added, changed or removed, and occasional maintenance windows may interrupt the Service. We work to keep disruption minimal, but we do not guarantee uninterrupted availability. Do not rely on Fretly as the only copy of important data: use the built-in export features to keep your own copies of your charts and collections.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Fretly is not liable for any indirect, incidental or consequential loss arising from use of the Service. Nothing in these terms excludes liability that cannot be excluded under applicable consumer law (for example, for gross negligence or intentional misconduct).

11. Indemnity

To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless Fretboard Knowledge and its operators from and against claims, damages and reasonable costs arising out of (a) User Content you create, store or share, or (b) your breach of these terms, where such claim relates to infringement of a third party's rights. Nothing in this clause limits any rights you have as a consumer that cannot be limited by agreement under applicable law.

12. Termination

You may stop using the Service at any time and request account deletion via the Contact page. We may suspend or terminate accounts that violate these terms, including accounts that are the subject of repeated valid infringement notices (see our Copyright Policy).

13. Governing law

These terms are governed by the laws of the Netherlands. Consumers retain the protections of the mandatory laws of their country of residence, and disputes may be brought before the competent court under applicable law.

14. Contact

Questions about these terms? Use the Contact page.