Terms of Use

Last updated 30 August 2026. This version replaces any earlier one.

1. Who these terms are with

These terms are an agreement between you and Studio Heino, Lipunkantajankatu 7 C 37 (“we”, “us”). Contact: hello@studioheino.com.

2. Accepting them

Using this website, downloading or using Tessera, or creating an account on the collaboration server we operate, means you accept these terms. If you do not accept them, do not do those things — and if you have already installed Tessera, uninstalling it ends the agreement.

If you are agreeing on behalf of an organisation, you confirm you are authorised to bind it, and “you” means that organisation.

3. Your licence to use Tessera

Tessera is proprietary software. It is licensed to you, not sold, and we retain all intellectual property rights in it.

Subject to these terms, we grant you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable licence to install and use Tessera on computers you own or control, for your own purposes, including commercial ones.

4. What you may not do

You may not:

• reverse-engineer, decompile or disassemble Tessera, except to the extent that such activity cannot lawfully be restricted — in the EU, Articles 5 and 6 of Directive 2009/24/EC permit decompilation for interoperability and other acts necessary for the use of the program, and this clause does not purport to override that;
• remove, obscure or alter any notice of copyright, trade mark or licensing;
• redistribute, rent, lease, sublicense or sell copies of Tessera;
• circumvent or attempt to circumvent any licensing or entitlement mechanism;
• use Tessera or this website to break the law, to infringe somebody's rights, or to store or distribute material you have no right to;
• attack this website or the server we operate — including denial-of-service attempts, automated scanning, or accessing accounts and documents that are not yours. Good-faith security research is welcome and is covered by the security page instead, which explains how to do it without breaching this clause.

5. Early access

Tessera is version 0.0.7 and is explicitly an early-access release. In particular, and without limiting what is said elsewhere:

• it has been built and tested for 64-bit Windows only;
• the installer is not code-signed, so Windows will display a SmartScreen warning;
• there is no automatic update mechanism;
• there is no crash reporting, so we will not know that something failed unless you tell us;
• there is no built-in whole-workspace backup; your notes are ordinary files and backing them up is your responsibility;
• features may change or be removed, and file formats may change between versions — we will avoid making a change that cannot read the previous format, but we do not promise it.

Keep backups. This is not a disclaimer dressed as advice: with no automatic backup in this version, a copy of your notes folder is the only thing that protects you from a disk failure, and no term below changes that practical fact.

6. Your content and your data

Everything you create in Tessera is yours. We claim no ownership of it, no licence to use it, and no right to analyse it. Your notes are files in your user profile; nothing in these terms gives us access to them, and the application does not transmit them anywhere unless you configure a server.

If you publish a document to a collaboration server, you grant the operator of that server the technical permissions necessary to store, order and deliver it to the people you share it with, and to make the backups that operating a service requires — because a server cannot do its job otherwise. That permission is limited to those purposes. Where the operator is us, section 7 applies; where it is somebody else, section 8 does and we are not a party to it.

We do not use your content for anything else. We do not read it in the ordinary course of running the service, do not use it to train machine-learning models, do not analyse it for advertising or product metrics, and do not disclose it except where legally compelled.

7. Your account and our service

You do not need an account to use Tessera. The application works entirely offline and an account exists for one purpose: sharing documents with other people. If you create one on a server we operate, this section applies.

7.1 Your account

• You are responsible for keeping your password secure, and for what is done through your account. Tell us promptly at hello@studioheino.com if you believe it has been used by somebody else.
• There is no self-service password reset, and no email verification. The server has no mail capability. Recovering a forgotten password means contacting us and satisfying us by other means that the account is yours, and we may decline where we cannot establish that. Use a password manager. This is a limitation of the current software, it is being addressed, and it is stated here rather than left for you to find out.
• One person, one account. Do not share credentials — invite the other person to the document instead, which is what the sharing roles are for.
• You must be old enough to enter a contract where you live, and at least 16 (or the lower age set by your country under Article 8 of the GDPR, which in Finland is 13).

7.2 The service

• It is currently provided free of charge and on an “as available” basis. There is no service-level commitment and no uptime guarantee. It may be restarted, changed, or withdrawn; we will give reasonable notice before withdrawing it permanently so you can export your work — which the application can do at any time, since it keeps a local copy of everything.
• Documents on it are not end-to-end encrypted. They are stored in a form the server can read, which means an administrator is technically able to read them. Access is limited to what operating the service requires and we do not read customer documents in the ordinary course of running it, but the guarantee is organisational rather than cryptographic. Do not put anything on it that you would not be willing to have an administrator able to read. The privacy policy says the same thing, because it is the single most important fact about the service.
• Keep your own backups. Your pages live on your computer and that is the authoritative copy; the server holds the shared ones so that other people can reach them. We take backups for our own operational purposes and do not promise them as a service to you.
• We may suspend or remove an account, or content on it, where required by law, where it is being used to attack the service, or where it is being used to store material that is unlawful. Where the problem can be remedied and circumstances allow, we will ask you to remedy it first.
• You may stop using it at any time. To have your account and data deleted, write to hello@studioheino.com; section 6.3 of the privacy policy explains exactly what happens to documents shared with other people.

7.3 Acceptable use of the service

In addition to section 4, you must not use a server we operate to:

• store or distribute material that is unlawful where you or we are;
• infringe somebody else's intellectual property or privacy;
• send or store malware, or use it as a general-purpose file host unrelated to Tessera documents;
• attempt to reach documents or accounts that are not yours, or to test its security without following the process on the security page;
• place a load on it that degrades it for other people, whether deliberately or through automation.

8. Servers run by other people

Tessera connects to any server implementing the tessera/1 protocol. Ours is the default; it is not the only option, and choosing another is a supported path rather than a workaround.

We are not responsible for a server we do not operate. We do not control it, do not endorse it, have no relationship with whoever runs it, and cannot see what it does with your documents. Any server operator can read the documents published to their server. Deciding which server to trust is yours to make, and the conformance-check tool on this site is offered to help you inspect one — not as an assurance about it.

If you operate a server that other people use, you do so on your own account. You are responsible for its security, its lawful operation, and — where its users are somewhere with data-protection law — for your own obligations as a data controller. You will indemnify us against claims arising from your operation of such a server, except to the extent a claim arises from a defect in software we supplied.

9. Third-party software and codecs

Tessera includes third-party components under their own licences, which are listed on the licences page and are included with the installed application. Where a component's licence grants you rights that these terms would otherwise restrict, that licence prevails for that component.

Media formats. Tessera can play video and audio in several formats. Some formats — notably H.264/AVC, HEVC and AAC — are covered by patents licensed through patent pools. Tessera is supplied for personal and non-commercial use of such formats where the applicable pool terms require that, and no licence under any third party's patents is granted by these terms, expressly or by implication. Royalty-free formats — VP8, VP9, AV1, Theora for video and Opus, Vorbis, FLAC, MP3 and PCM for audio — carry no such restriction and are the formats we recommend and support. If you need to use a patent-encumbered format commercially, obtaining the necessary licence is your responsibility.

10. Plans, price and payment

10.1 What is free

The application itself, used on your own computer, is free of charge and stays that way. Nothing local is metered, time-limited or withdrawn if you stop paying for anything. Running your own collaboration server is also free.

10.2 Paid plans

A paid plan buys the use of collaboration servers we operate. Plans, what each includes and the current prices are on the pricing page, which forms part of these terms.

• Subscriptions renew automatically for the period you chose — monthly or yearly — until you cancel. You may cancel at any time, with effect from the end of the period you have paid for; we do not stop the service mid-period that you have already paid for.
• Per-person plans are billed for the number of people you have said need access. Adding people mid-period is charged pro rata; removing them takes effect at the next renewal.
• Prices may change, but not silently and not retroactively: we will tell you at least 30 days before a change affects you, and you may cancel before it takes effect rather than accept it.
• If a payment fails we will retry and tell you. Access is not cut off on the first failure.

10.3 Tax

Where you are a consumer in the EU, prices are shown and charged inclusive of VAT at the rate of your country of residence, as the place-of-supply rules for electronically supplied services require. Business customers who supply a valid VAT identification number may be charged under the reverse-charge procedure. Confirm how you are registered — OSS or otherwise — and make this paragraph match, along with the note on the pricing page.

10.4 How payment is taken

By card or through PayPal, on a page hosted by the payment provider. We never see, handle or store your card details, and there is no field anywhere on this site that could take them. Your relationship with the payment provider is additionally governed by their own terms.

Your plan is applied once the provider confirms the payment to us directly. Reaching a confirmation page in your browser is not itself proof of payment and does not grant anything.

11. Right of withdrawal and refunds

11.1 If you are a consumer in the EU or EEA

Directive 2011/83/EU gives you fourteen days to withdraw from a distance contract, without giving a reason. The period runs from the day the contract was concluded.

A subscription to our collaboration service is digital content supplied over that period. If you ask for it to start immediately — which is what pressing the pay button does — then under Article 16(m) you will be asked to give express prior consent to immediate performance and to acknowledge that you thereby lose the right of withdrawal. That request is made on the checkout page, before payment, in those terms and not in small print.

If you do not give that consent, the service begins after the fourteen days have passed and your right of withdrawal is unaffected. To withdraw, tell us at hello@studioheino.com — a clear statement is enough, there is no form to complete — and we will refund what you paid within fourteen days, by the same means you paid.

11.2 Our refund practice, beyond the law

If you are unhappy within the first 30 days of a new subscription, ask and we will refund it. We would rather do that than have somebody pay for something they are not using. Beyond that, cancelling stops the next renewal and the period already paid for runs out normally; we do not refund unused parts of a period as a matter of course, but ask if your circumstances warrant it.

11.3 The alpha

While Tessera is in closed alpha nothing is charged, no subscription exists, and this section has nothing to operate on. It is written now so that it is settled before it matters.

12. Warranties and conformity

If you are a consumer in the EU or EEA: Directive (EU) 2019/770 on contracts for the supply of digital content gives you a statutory right to digital content that conforms to the contract, and to have a lack of conformity brought into conformity, along with the remedies that directive provides. Nothing in these terms limits or excludes those rights, and the disclaimers below apply to you only so far as that law permits.

Otherwise, and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law: Tessera, this website and the server we operate are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranty of any kind, whether express, implied or statutory, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the software will be uninterrupted, error-free, or free of data loss, and section 5 sets out specifically why an early-access build should not be relied on as though it were not one.

13. Liability

Nothing in these terms excludes or limits our liability for: death or personal injury caused by our negligence; fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; gross negligence or wilful misconduct; liability under the EU Product Liability Directive; or any other liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited. Where you are a consumer, your statutory rights are unaffected by anything in this section.

Subject to that, and to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law:

• we are not liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, nor for loss of profit, revenue, goodwill, business opportunity, or loss or corruption of data;
• our total aggregate liability arising out of or in connection with these terms, whether in contract, tort (including negligence) or otherwise, is limited to the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim arose, or €100;
• we are not liable for a server we do not operate, for anything a third-party server operator does or fails to do, or for content another user places on a server.

These limits reflect that Tessera is currently supplied free of charge; they would be unreasonable, and would be reconsidered, for a paid product.

14. Suspension and termination

You may stop using Tessera at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access to this website or to the server we operate if you materially breach these terms — in particular section 4 — or where we are required to by law. Where the breach is capable of being remedied and the circumstances allow, we will ask you to remedy it before terminating.

Termination does not affect your locally installed copy of Tessera or the files on your own computer.

15. Export control and sanctions

You confirm that you are not located in, and will not use Tessera in, a country or region subject to comprehensive EU, UN, UK or US sanctions, and that you are not a person or entity designated on an applicable sanctions list. Tessera contains cryptographic functionality; where an export or import restriction applies where you are, complying with it is your responsibility.

16. Changes to these terms

We may change these terms. The date at the top shows the current version. Material changes will be announced on this site before they take effect, and — where you have an account on the server we operate — you will be given a reasonable period to object by closing your account. Changes do not apply retroactively.

17. Governing law and disputes

These terms are governed by the laws of Finland, excluding its conflict-of-law rules and the United Nations Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods. The courts of Finland have jurisdiction.

If you are a consumer, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory rules of the law of the country where you habitually reside (Article 6 of Regulation (EC) No 593/2008), and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country (Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012).

Consumers in the EU may also use the European Commission's online dispute resolution platform, and — in Finland — may refer a dispute to the Consumer Disputes Board (kuluttajariitalautakunta) after first contacting the Consumer Advisory Service. We would much rather you wrote to us first at hello@studioheino.com.

18. General

• Severability. If a provision is held unenforceable, the rest stands and the provision is read down to the minimum extent necessary to make it enforceable.
• No waiver. Not enforcing a term on one occasion is not a waiver of it.
• Assignment. You may not assign these terms without our consent. We may assign them as part of a transfer of the business, on notice to you, and provided your rights are not reduced.
• Entire agreement. These terms, together with the privacy policy and the licences page, are the whole agreement about their subject matter. This does not exclude liability for fraudulent misrepresentation.
• Language. These terms are written in English. A translation is provided for convenience only; where they conflict, the English version governs, except where mandatory consumer law in your country requires otherwise.