Terms of Use

1. What Cardinal Is

Cardinal is a tool for musicians to store, arrange and perform from their own chord charts. It lets you bring in charts you already have, edit them, transpose them, organise them into setlists, share them with your band, and read them on stage.

Cardinal is not a library of songs. We do not supply chord charts, and the App does not generate chords from a song title. Every chart in Cardinal comes from something you provide — text you paste, an iReal Pro link you import, a page you photograph, or bars you enter yourself.

2. Your Account

You need an account to use Cardinal. You are responsible for keeping your login credentials secure and for activity that happens under your account.

You must be old enough to form a binding contract where you live, and at least 13 years old. Cardinal is not directed at children under 13.

3. Your Content Stays Yours

The charts, setlists, lyrics, arrangements and files you put into Cardinal remain yours. We claim no ownership of them.

You grant us a limited licence to store, copy, transmit and display that content strictly for the purpose of operating the App for you — syncing it between your devices, making it available offline, and sharing it with the bands you choose to share it with. That licence exists so the App can function, and for nothing else. We do not use your content to train models, and we do not sell it.

The licence ends when you delete the content or your account. See Delete Your Account.

4. Material You Bring Into Cardinal

This is the part that matters most, so it is worth being plain about.

Cardinal gives you tools to work with material you supply. It does not grant you any rights in that material. You are responsible for ensuring you have the right to use, copy and share whatever you bring in — including sheet music you photograph, charts you paste from elsewhere, lyrics, and PDFs you attach.

In particular, photographing a copyrighted lead sheet or songbook page and sharing the result with your band may or may not be permitted depending on where you are and how you obtained the original. That judgement is yours to make, not ours.

If you believe content stored in Cardinal infringes your copyright, contact us at vansquareddev@gmail.com with enough detail to identify the work and the material, and we will investigate and remove infringing content where appropriate.

5. Bands and Shared Libraries

When you create or join a band, the songs and setlists in that band’s library are visible to every member of it. If you add content to a shared library, you are choosing to share it with those people.

Members can edit shared arrangements. Cardinal is built on the assumption that a band agrees on one version of a song, so changes one member makes are changes everyone sees. Invite people accordingly.

6. Free and Paid Features

Everything about using Cardinal is free: unlimited songs and setlists, creating and joining bands, the full performance view including every colour scheme and text size, and every import that runs on your device — pasting a chart, importing from iReal Pro, transposing, and setting a capo.

Cardinal Pro costs $4.99 per month and covers the two features that cost us money each time they are used: unlimited transcription of photographed charts, and attaching PDF files to songs. Without Pro you get a small lifetime allowance of photo transcriptions, and you can always view a PDF someone else attached.

Subscriptions are billed by the app store you bought them through — Apple’s App Store or Google Play — under that store’s terms. They renew automatically until cancelled. Manage or cancel your subscription in your App Store or Google Play account settings, not in Cardinal. We cannot cancel or refund a store subscription on your behalf; refunds are handled by the store under its own policy.

Prices and what each tier includes may change. If we change them, we will tell you before the change affects an existing subscription.

7. Transcribing Photographed Charts

When you photograph a chart, the image is sent to our server and on to an AI provider that reads the chords visible in it. The image is not stored: it is discarded once the chart has been produced.

The result is a best effort at reading your page, not a verified transcription. It can misread chords, and the App will tell you which parts it could not read clearly. Check the result against the page in your hand before you rely on it. We do not warrant that a transcription is accurate.

If a transcription fails, it does not count against your allowance.

8. Acceptable Use

You agree not to:

• Upload material you do not have the right to use
• Use Cardinal to distribute copyrighted sheet music to people outside your band
• Attempt to circumvent usage limits, quotas or paid-feature gates
• Interfere with, overload or attempt to gain unauthorised access to our systems
• Use the App to store anything unlawful

9. Availability

We do our best to keep Cardinal working, but we do not guarantee it will always be available or error-free. We may change, suspend or discontinue features. Your charts are cached on your device and remain readable without a connection, but attached PDF files require a connection the first time you open them.

10. No Warranty

Cardinal is provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, to the fullest extent permitted by law. This includes any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that the App will meet your requirements or that any chart, transcription or import will be accurate.

11. Limitation of Liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, Van Squared LLC will not be liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, lost data, or loss of goodwill, arising from your use of the App.

Our total liability to you for any claim relating to the App will not exceed the greater of the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim, or $50.

Some jurisdictions do not allow certain limitations of liability or exclusions of warranty. Where that is the case, the limitations above apply only to the extent permitted, and nothing in these Terms removes rights you have that cannot be waived.

12. Ending Your Agreement

You can stop using Cardinal at any time and delete your account from within the App. Deleting your account removes your data as described in the Privacy Policy.

We may suspend or terminate an account that breaches these Terms. Where it is reasonable to do so, we will tell you why first.

13. Governing Law

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, United States, where Van Squared LLC is formed, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. Any dispute arising out of them or out of your use of Cardinal will be brought in the state or federal courts located in Connecticut, where Van Squared LLC operates, and you and Van Squared LLC each consent to the jurisdiction of those courts.

Cardinal is available worldwide. If you use it as a consumer somewhere whose law gives you rights that cannot be waived by agreement — much of the EU and the UK among others — nothing in this section removes those rights, or your ability to bring a claim in the courts where you live. This clause names the law that applies where the choice is ours to make.

14. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will revise the effective date at the top of this page. Significant changes will be communicated via in-app notice or email. Continued use of Cardinal after changes take effect constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

15. Contact Us

If you have questions about these Terms, contact Van Squared LLC at: