Publisher Release Agreement

Initial Release Agreement · Version 2026-07-06 · Effective: July 6, 2026

This Publisher Release Agreement ("Agreement") is a binding agreement between Vulture Labs, Inc., a Delaware corporation ("Vulture Labs," "we," "us," "our"), which operates the Pilot Protocol network and app store ("Pilot Protocol" or the "App Store"), and the person or entity submitting an app for publication ("Publisher," "you," "your"). You accept this Agreement when you sign and submit an App through the publish flow at pilotprotocol.network/publish or by pull request. If you do not agree, do not submit an App.

This Agreement supplements and does not replace our Terms of Service and Acceptable Use Policy ("AUP"), each incorporated by reference. If this Agreement conflicts with the Terms of Service regarding the publication of Apps, this Agreement controls; otherwise the Terms of Service control. Capitalized terms not defined here have the meanings given in the Terms of Service.

1. Definitions

App — the application, HTTP API, or service you submit, together with its methods, listing copy, descriptions, manifest, and metadata.
App Store — the Pilot Protocol app store and catalogue, through which agents and Operators discover and install apps.
Adapter — the signed bundle (binary + manifest) generated for your App through the publish flow.
Catalogue — the signed catalogue.json (and its detached signature) that daemons verify to discover and install Apps.
Operator — a person or entity running a Pilot Protocol daemon or node that installs, spawns, or executes Apps.
End User — any agent or person ultimately using the App.
Publisher Key — the ed25519 keypair you use to sign your App and/or Submission.
Marks — your name (and any organization's name on whose behalf you submit), the App's name, and any trademarks, service marks, logos, and brand assets you provide or reference.
Submission — everything you supply through the publish flow, including the App description, methods, listing, vendor information, manifest, and your verified email or account identity.
Feedback — suggestions, ideas, or improvement requests you provide about the App Store or publish flow.

2. Eligibility & Acceptance

You represent that you are at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction) and have the legal capacity to enter into this Agreement, and — where you submit on behalf of an organization — that you are authorized to bind it. You accept this Agreement electronically as described in Section 15.

3. Representations & Warranties

You represent and warrant that:

(a) you have full right, power, and authority to publish the App and enter into this Agreement;
(b) you own or have all rights, licenses, and permissions in the App, the Marks, and the Submission, and publishing them will not infringe, misappropriate, or violate any third party's intellectual property, privacy, publicity, or other rights, and the App's identifier/namespace does not infringe or misappropriate another's marks;
(c) the Submission is accurate and not misleading, and the App does not violate the AUP or any applicable law;
(d) the App contains no viruses, worms, ransomware, spyware, backdoors, cryptominers, or other malicious or unauthorized code, and does not surreptitiously collect, transmit, or exfiltrate data or credentials;
(e) the App performs only the functions described in its methods, manifest, and listing, and requests only the capability grants (e.g., net.dial, fs.read/fs.write, audit.log, ipc.call) genuinely required for those functions;
(f) you will provide reasonable maintenance and support for the App and will promptly remediate, and notify us of, any security vulnerability, compromise, or Publisher Key incident affecting the App;
(g) the App and all third-party and open-source components comply with their applicable licenses (including any MIT, AGPL-3.0, or similar obligations, such as AGPL network-use source availability), and you have the right to distribute them through the App Store;
(h) if the App collects, processes, or transmits personal data, you maintain a compliant, accessible privacy policy and have all necessary legal bases and consents, and you comply with applicable data-protection laws (including the GDPR, UK GDPR, and CCPA/CPRA as applicable);
(i) the App and your activities comply with all applicable laws, including, where the App handles payments, digital assets, or financial transactions, applicable money-transmission, anti-money-laundering (AML/KYC), sanctions, consumer-protection, and securities laws;
(j) you and the App are not subject to U.S. export restrictions or sanctions, and you will not distribute the App to any embargoed jurisdiction or to any denied or blocked party (including the OFAC SDN List or BIS Entity List); and
(k) all vendor and identity information you provide is true, current, and complete, and you will keep it updated.

4. License to Use Your Name & Marks

You grant Vulture Labs a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable license to use, reproduce, display, and distribute the Marks and the Submission (including screenshots, descriptions, and listing copy) to: (a) list, host, display, and distribute the App through the App Store; (b) identify you and the App on pilotprotocol.network and in the catalogue and listings; and (c) reference the App and the Marks in reasonable marketing and promotional materials about Pilot Protocol and the App Store (for example, store cards, directory entries, and announcements). This license is limited to those purposes, transfers no ownership of the Marks (you retain all right, title, and interest), and does not authorize any use suggesting your endorsement of unrelated products. We will follow reasonable, specific brand-usage guidelines you provide to the extent practical. After delisting, we may continue to reference the App as previously available in archives, changelogs, and "formerly listed" contexts. You grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free license to use any Feedback without obligation to you.

5. Release & Covenant Not to Sue

To the fullest extent permitted by law, you release, waive, and discharge Vulture Labs and its officers, directors, employees, agents, affiliates, and successors (the "Released Parties") from, and covenant not to sue the Released Parties on, any and all claims, demands, damages, liabilities, costs, and causes of action — whether known or unknown — arising out of or relating to: (a) the exercise of the Section 4 license; (b) the listing, display, hosting, distribution, review, approval, rejection, removal, revocation, or delisting of the App; and (c) the generation, signing, and verification of an Adapter. This release does not extend to claims arising from our gross negligence, willful misconduct, or fraud, and does not waive any right that cannot be waived under applicable law. Nothing in this Section limits your ownership of the Marks or your right to enforce them against third parties.

You expressly waive California Civil Code §1542 and any similar law of any jurisdiction, which provides: "A general release does not extend to claims that the creditor or releasing party does not know or suspect to exist in his or her favor at the time of executing the release, and that, if known by him or her, would have materially affected his or her settlement with the debtor or released party."

6. Our Discretion; Review; Revocation

Publication is not guaranteed. We may review, decline, request changes to, suspend, remove, or delist any App or Submission at our sole discretion — including for violations of the Terms of Service or AUP — with or without notice. Because we control the Catalogue and its signing key, we may also remove or refuse to sign any Catalogue entry and publish revocation signals; compliant daemons that obtain the updated signed Catalogue or revocation signals will decline to install or spawn the affected App, including on an emergency basis where we reasonably believe the App poses a security, legal, or integrity risk. You acknowledge that Apps already installed on machines running pinned or out-of-date Catalogues may not be reached by such signals and are not recalled. We are under no obligation to publish, promote, or continue distributing any App.

7. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the Released Parties from any third-party or governmental claims, damages, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from the App, your Submission, your use of the publish flow, your breach of Section 3, infringement of intellectual property, any malware or security or data incident, any violation of law (including export, sanctions, data-protection, or financial regulation), or any violation of third-party rights. We will notify you of any claim for which we seek indemnification; we may control the defense and settlement with counsel of our choice; and you may not settle any claim in a manner that imposes any obligation or admission on, or that fails to fully release, the Released Parties without our prior written consent.

8. Disclaimers & Limitation of Liability

The App Store and publish flow are provided "as is" and "as available," and the warranty disclaimers in our Terms of Service apply to this Agreement in full. To the maximum extent permitted by law, in no event will the Released Parties be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for lost profits, revenues, data, or goodwill, arising out of or relating to this Agreement or the App Store, even if advised of the possibility. The Released Parties' total aggregate liability arising out of or relating to this Agreement will not exceed the greater of (a) the total fees you paid to us under this Agreement in the twelve (12) months preceding the claim, or (b) one hundred U.S. dollars (US$100).

9. Term & Termination

This Agreement takes effect when you sign and submit and continues for as long as the App is listed. You may request removal of the App at any time by contacting us at founders@pilotprotocol.network; we will delist it within a reasonable period. We may suspend or terminate this Agreement, or any App, immediately upon your breach (including of Section 3 or the AUP). The Section 4 license ends on delisting, except that (a) we may retain and use records of the Submission as needed for security, audit, and legal purposes; (b) copies already distributed to Operators before removal are not recalled; and (c) we may continue truthful historical references as described in Section 4. Termination does not relieve obligations or liabilities accrued before termination. Sections 1, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 10, 14, 15, 16, and 17 survive termination.

10. Privacy & Security

As between you and us, you are responsible for the App's handling of personal data and for its security. You will maintain a privacy policy where required, comply with applicable data-protection laws, and notify us without undue delay of any security incident, vulnerability, or data breach involving the App or your Publisher Key. We process information you provide in your Submission in accordance with our privacy policy; we do not act as your data processor for data the App collects or transmits in the course of its own operation on Operators' systems.

11. Export Control & Sanctions

You will comply with all applicable export-control and economic-sanctions laws and regulations, and you will not, directly or indirectly, export, re-export, or distribute the App in violation of them.

12. Publisher Support & End-User Terms

You are solely responsible for supporting your App and for any license or terms governing End Users' and Operators' use of it. If you do not provide such terms, you remain responsible for the App's conduct and functionality. The Released Parties are not responsible for the operation, support, accuracy, or functionality of any App and make no warranty regarding it to any Operator or End User.

13. Initial Release; Amendment; Fees, Billing & Renewal

This Agreement is a binding initial release agreement governing the publication of your App. Optional or additional services — such as advertising, promoted or featured placement, revenue-share, or other commercial arrangements — are not covered by this Agreement and, if offered and accepted, will be governed by a separate written agreement negotiated between you and us, whose terms may supplement or differ from this Agreement and may be confidential. This Agreement continues to govern except where such a separate agreement expressly provides otherwise.

We may modify this Agreement by posting an updated version; material changes take effect on reasonable advance notice, and your continued listing of the App after the effective date constitutes acceptance.

Publication is currently free. We reserve the right to charge a license or listing fee for publication in the future. We will provide at least thirty (30) days' prior notice before any such fee takes effect, stating the fee amount and its effective date. If you do not wish to pay the fee, you may remove your App at any time before the effective date at no charge; continued listing of the App after that date constitutes acceptance of the fee.

Where a fee applies, Fees are billed through our third-party payment processor, and by paying you agree to that processor's terms and authorize recurring charges where the fee is a subscription. Fees are exclusive of taxes, which the processor may collect on our behalf and for which you are otherwise responsible. If a payment fails or Fees go unpaid, we may suspend or delist the App until payment is made. You may cancel renewal at any time through the publish flow or by contacting us at founders@pilotprotocol.network; cancellation stops future charges, and your listing continues until the end of the paid term already paid for.

Fees are non-refundable, except that if we remove or delist your App for reasons not attributable to you or your breach of this Agreement, we will refund the pro-rata unused portion of any prepaid term.

14. Dispute Resolution & Governing Law

This Agreement is governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. Before initiating formal proceedings, you agree to contact us and attempt to resolve the dispute informally for at least thirty (30) days. Any dispute not resolved informally will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Delaware, and you consent to their personal jurisdiction. Each party waives any right to a jury trial. To the maximum extent permitted by law, disputes will be brought only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, or representative proceeding. This Section does not prevent either party from seeking injunctive relief to protect intellectual property.

15. Electronic Signature

When you type your full legal name and submit through the web publish flow — or submit by pull request using your verified email and account identity — you are signing this Agreement electronically under the U.S. ESIGN Act (15 U.S.C. §7001 et seq.) and applicable UETA, and you consent to the use of electronic signatures and records. Your signature, together with the timestamp and the App identifier recorded at submission, has the same legal effect as a handwritten signature. We record the version of this Agreement you accepted.

16. Confidentiality

This Agreement is published publicly, and its terms are not confidential. Confidentiality applies instead to: (a) non-public information we share with you during review, including security findings and pre-release information; and (b) the terms of any separate or supplemental commercial agreement described in Section 13. Each party will keep such information confidential and will not disclose or use it except as needed to perform, to address the matter for which it was shared, or as required by law. Nothing in this Agreement restricts either party from discussing the App's performance or the fact that the App is listed.

17. General

The parties are independent contractors; this Agreement creates no partnership, agency, employment, or joint venture, and you may not bind us. You may not assign this Agreement without our prior written consent; we may assign it freely, including in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganization, or sale of assets. There are no third-party beneficiaries, except that the Released Parties may enforce Sections 5 and 7. If any provision is held unenforceable, the remainder stays in effect; our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver. This Agreement, together with the Terms of Service, the AUP, and any separate written agreement the parties expressly enter under Section 13, is the entire agreement on its subject matter and supersedes prior understandings. Neither party is liable for delays or failures caused by events beyond its reasonable control. Legal notices to us must be sent to 280 Edgehill Way, San Francisco, CA 94127 and founders@pilotprotocol.network and are effective on receipt.

18. Contact

Questions about this Agreement: founders@pilotprotocol.network.