These terms take effect when the API opens for sign-up.
1. Account and agreement
Your account is a verified email address. You are responsible for your API keys, their storage, the people and systems that use them, and activity under them. By verifying a new account with accept_terms:true, you agree to the version recorded with that account. You must be able to form a binding agreement; a minor needs permission from a parent or legal guardian.
2. Credits and a billable delivery
Purchased credits are non-transferable, never expire, and are separate from the free allowance. The free allowance resets to 100 credits on the first of each month (UTC) and does not accumulate.
A billable delivery is one transcript successfully delivered after ScriptHaul had to fetch it because it was not already cached. It costs one credit. A clearly labelled fallback transcript is a delivery. Cache hits cost zero. NoCaptions, Unavailable, strict language refusals, rate limits, server errors, upstream outages, and budget pauses cost zero because no transcript was delivered.
3. Limits and changes
Published limits protect shared relay, cache, and YouTube Data API capacity. Do not create accounts or keys to evade them, split one customer’s traffic to disguise its source, or bypass throttles. Enumeration limits are the same for free and paid keys and are capacity limits, not a sale of YouTube Data API output. We will give at least 30 days’ notice before a material reduction to paid-account limits unless an urgent legal, security, or upstream change makes that notice impracticable.
4. Acceptable use
Use the API only for public videos and public caption tracks. Do not use it for private, members-only, or age-gated material; probe for restricted material; scrape ScriptHaul outside documented API routes; interfere with protective controls; or resell raw API access without disclosing the arrangement to us and your own customers. ScriptHaul never provides video or audio download.
5. Captions and downstream rights
Transcripts derive from caption tracks associated with videos and remain subject to the rights of their respective owners. ScriptHaul does not give you a licence to the video, audio, captions, transcript, title, thumbnail, or other source material. You are responsible for determining whether commercial use, storage, or redistribution of a transcript is permitted. Do not assume that access through the API makes a downstream use lawful. Rights holders may use the DMCA and takedown process.
ScriptHaul uses YouTube API Services. Your use of the API is also subject to the YouTube Terms of Service and the Google Privacy Policy.
6. Availability
There is no service-level agreement at launch. YouTube-side and network changes may delay or stop new fetches; the status page may report cache-only degradation. Failures are not charged. Credits wait; purchased credits do not die during an outage. Retry and fallback behavior is bounded to protect shared capacity and proxy spend.
7. Data commitments
We do not train models on customer traffic, sell usage data, or publish a public transcript library. Transcript bodies are available only through authenticated delivery and private job files. Our Privacy Policy describes account data, processors, retention, YouTube API Services, and rights.
8. Payments, refunds, disputes, and cessation
Checkout is a one-time purchase processed by Stripe, with applicable tax. Refund eligibility, outage credits, and cessation refunds are on the Refund Policy. A payment dispute freezes the account while it is reviewed; it does not delete the account or financial record. If ScriptHaul permanently discontinues the API, eligible unused purchased credits receive the pro-rata cessation refund described there.
9. Suspension and termination
We may freeze or suspend access for abuse, a payment dispute, legal requirements, security risk, or material breach. We will preserve the account during a payment dispute rather than deleting it. You may stop using the API and request account closure; records subject to financial or legal retention remain as described in the Privacy Policy.
10. Changes and version overlap
Material changes are posted with a date and notice where reasonably practical. When a breaking terms change is not legally urgent, the prior API terms version remains supported for 12 months so an existing integration is not forced into immediate acceptance. Continued use after the applicable effective date means acceptance of the version attached to your account.
11. Disclaimer and liability
The API and output are provided “as is” and “as available” to the fullest extent allowed by law. We do not warrant completeness, accuracy, availability, non-infringement, merchantability, or fitness for a particular purpose. Except for liability that cannot lawfully be limited, ScriptHaul’s aggregate liability relating to the API is capped at the fees you paid for the API during the 12 months before the event giving rise to the claim.
12. Governing law, venue, and consumer rights
The governing law and venue are stated in the version of these terms in force when the API opens for sign-up. Nothing here waives non-waivable rights, including applicable EU and UK consumer rights. Before filing a claim, each side should attempt good-faith informal resolution for 30 days unless urgent relief is needed.
13. Relationship and contact
ScriptHaul is not affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by YouTube or Google. Questions may be sent to support@scripthaul.com.