Terms of Service

Effective date: [DATE YOU PUBLISH]

These Terms of Service ("Terms") govern your use of brevitysteno.com (the "Site") and your purchase of any product offered on it. By using the Site or purchasing a product, you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use the Site or purchase.

1. Who We Are

The Site and its products are operated and sold by Tom Fernicola Reporting, Inc. ("we," "us"). Contact: tom@brevitysteno.com.

2. The Products

We sell books and related services, including THE SCIENCE OF STENO: Why Court Reporting Is So Hard — and What the Math Proves and BREVITY: Write Simply (together, the "Books"), available alone or bundled with Zoom sessions. Prices, formats, and availability are as stated on the Site at the time of purchase and may change without notice. A price change does not affect orders already placed.

3. Payment

Payment is processed at checkout through Shopify and its supported payment providers. You represent that you are authorized to use the payment method you provide.

4. Refunds, Returns, and Zoom Sessions

All sales are final, subject to the terms of our Return and Refund Policy, which is part of these Terms. That policy also governs replacement of damaged or defective books and the scheduling, rescheduling, expiration, and non-transferability of bundled Zoom sessions. Before purchasing, you can evaluate the BREVITY system's output free of charge using the BREVITY Analyzer at brevitysteno.com/analyzer.

We may choose, at our sole discretion, to issue a refund or other remedy in an individual case. Any refund we choose to issue may be conditioned on return of the book in resellable condition and may be subject to a $100 restocking fee. Doing so does not waive any provision of these Terms and does not entitle any other purchaser to the same remedy.

5. License to the Books and Methodologies

The Books contain proprietary methodologies, measurement frameworks, techniques, and terminology that are the intellectual property of Tom Fernicola Reporting, Inc. and are protected as confidential trade secrets.

Your purchase of a Book grants you a personal, non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the methodologies and frameworks it contains in your own individual professional practice as a court reporter, captioner, CART provider, or stenography student.

Under this license you may not:

• Share or distribute the methodologies or frameworks to any non-purchaser, in written, verbal, digital, or any other form;
• Teach or train others in them, whether paid or unpaid, without a separate written licensing agreement;
• Reproduce or copy any portion of the Books;
• Use them commercially other than in your own professional writing practice — including incorporating them into courses, software, dictionaries offered for sale, or instructional materials.

What you may always do: Your steno notes, your personal dictionary entries, and the transcripts you produce using BREVITY are yours. Nothing in these Terms restricts your normal professional workflow, including providing your transcripts and realtime feeds to clients, scopists, proofreaders, agencies, courts, and counsel. Brief quotations from the Books in reviews, criticism, and professional discussion are permitted, as is any use allowed by copyright law.

Violation of this license is a breach of contract and an infringement of our intellectual property rights, and may result in legal action, including injunctive relief and monetary damages.

6. The BREVITY Analyzer

The BREVITY Analyzer is a free tool provided "as is," without warranty of any kind. Analysis is performed locally in your browser; the text you paste is not uploaded to or stored on our servers, and you may clear your browser at any time to remove any locally held data. The Analyzer demonstrates the output of the BREVITY system; it does not grant any license to the methodology beyond what you can observe in its output. We may modify or discontinue the Analyzer at any time.

7. Results Disclaimer

Statistics presented on the Site and in the Books — including average key reduction figures — reflect our own documented analyses and the author's professional experience. They are measurements, not promises. Individual results vary. We do not guarantee any particular improvement in speed, accuracy, key count, fatigue, examination results, graduation, employment, or income. Stenographic performance depends on factors outside any method's control, including practice, experience, health, and working conditions.

8. Professional Responsibility

Our products are educational resources. You remain solely responsible for your professional work product, your compliance with the rules and standards of your jurisdiction and certifying bodies, and your decisions about what to adopt into your own writing.

9. Intellectual Property and Trademarks

All Site content — text, graphics, logos, images, book excerpts, and the Analyzer — is our property or used with permission and is protected by copyright and other intellectual property laws. BREVITY: Write Simply™ is a trademark of Tom Fernicola Reporting, Inc. No trademark license is granted by these Terms.

10. Prohibited Uses

You may not use the Site or its tools to violate any law; to infringe our or anyone else's intellectual property; to scrape, harvest, or systematically extract Site content or Analyzer output for use in competing products, datasets, or AI training; to interfere with the Site's operation; or to misrepresent your affiliation with us.

11. Disclaimer of Warranties

Except as expressly stated in these Terms or the Return and Refund Policy, the Site and all products are provided "as is" and "as available," without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, our total liability arising out of or relating to these Terms, the Site, or any product will not exceed the amount you paid for the product giving rise to the claim, and we will not be liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, special, or punitive damages, or for lost profits or lost data. Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations; in those jurisdictions, our liability is limited to the maximum extent permitted.

13. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of New York, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or the products will be brought exclusively in the state or federal courts located in Westchester County, New York, and each party consents to their jurisdiction. [Adjust the county if Tom Fernicola Reporting, Inc. is registered or headquartered elsewhere.]

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The version posted on the Site at the time of your purchase governs that purchase. Continued use of the Site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

15. General

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect. These Terms, together with the Return and Refund Policy and the Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Site and its products. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it.

16. Contact

Questions about these Terms: tom@brevitysteno.com