Terms of Use

1Agreement

These Terms of Use ("Terms") govern your use of the PalaFilm Movie Management web application ("the Application"), provided by Catchwave SRL, registered in Romania ("we", "us"). By using the Application you agree to these Terms. If you do not agree, do not use it.

2What the Application is

The Application is a planning and production-operations tool for film and television. It supports screenplay import and revision control, breakdown, assets, stripboard scheduling, call sheets, work orders, live-set and DPR records, DIT media, crew timecards, compliance, accounting, controlled reports and recovery workflows, together with a Story workspace for outlining, notes, character and location profiles and screenplay analysis.

It runs primarily in your browser and stores your work locally. It does not require a centrally hosted account or project database; optional project accounts and PIN hashes remain in the project replicas. Data leaves a device only when you deliberately use Production Mesh, Pair Devices & Sync, Distribution Center, permanent backup/mailbox nodes, an optional sync endpoint or an AI connector. See the Privacy Policy for details.

You may install the Application from a browser that supports it. The installed app is the same Application and uses the same local storage, and it can open the project and screenplay files you choose from your computer; those files are processed locally. Whether uninstalling removes the stored data depends on your browser, so export a .PALA copy before you uninstall or clear site data.

3Your content stays yours

You keep all rights in everything you put into the Application: screenplays, story notes and profiles, schedules, budgets, breakdowns, contact lists and any file you export. We claim no licence and no ownership over your content. In normal local use we do not receive it; devices, endpoints or AI providers you deliberately configure may receive the limited content needed for the operation you request.

You are responsible for having the right to use the material you import. In particular, do not import a screenplay you are not authorised to use, and make sure you have a lawful basis for storing the personal data of cast and crew members you enter.

4Professional judgement remains yours

Every schedule, call sheet, budget figure and report must be reviewed by a competent professional - typically the 1st Assistant Director, Unit Production Manager or Line Producer - before it is issued to a crew or relied on for a financial or contractual commitment. You remain solely responsible for your production decisions and for compliance with applicable labour rules, union or guild agreements, working-time and rest limits, health and safety law, and any contractual obligations towards cast and crew.

Modelled output, automations and signed transactions

Production Twin results are model-based decision support, not a guarantee of a globally optimal schedule, budget or completion date. P10/P50/P90 estimates depend on configured rates, measured DPRs and uncertainty assumptions. Human approval is required. Signed distributed transactions protect technical atomicity and authorship, but do not replace editorial, financial or production review.

Intelligent Command and local automations are operational assistance. Users must review the generated plan, warnings and authority before approval. Browser-based automations run only while an authorised PalaFilm instance is active; operating-system scheduling is not implied.

5Backups are your responsibility

Your projects live in your browser's storage. That storage can be erased by clearing browsing data, by the browser reclaiming space, by browser or operating system reinstallation, or by device failure or loss. The Application provides automatic local saves, rotating recovery points and optional permanent backup nodes. A node stores signed replicas encrypted with a local vault key, but it can also fail, be erased or become inaccessible. Browser persistence and peer replication are not substitutes for independent backups.

Export a .PALA copy regularly and keep it somewhere safe. The optional automatic backup to a folder writes copies to a folder you choose, which helps against clearing the browser, but it depends on your browser granting access, on free disk space and on that folder staying available, and its files are not encrypted; it does not replace the independent copies described here. For important work, use at least two backup nodes on separate physical devices. We cannot recover copies that never reached a node you control, or replicas whose only local vault key was destroyed.

6Compatibility with other software

The Application can read Movie Magic Scheduling .msd, Final Draft .fdx, Fountain, text-based screenplay PDF and supported .xlsx data. It exports its .pala project, reports, CSV, XLSX, FDX, Fountain and an experimental MSD representation. These formats are third-party or community formats that we do not control.

Import and export are provided on a best-effort basis. The .MSD export in particular is marked experimental in the interface: always keep your original file, and validate any exported file in the target application before using it in production. Screenplay import from PDF reconstructs structure from page layout and may misinterpret unusual formatting; scanned or image-only PDFs cannot be read at all. Always check the imported result.

Movie Magic Scheduling, Final Draft and other product names are trademarks of their respective owners. We are not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by any of them.

7Production Mesh, peer collaboration, nodes and AI services

Production Mesh and Pair Devices & Sync rely on signed invitations, device-bound membership certificates, WebRTC, device signatures and trust decisions you control. Role/scope filtering limits what a member replica receives, but you remain responsible for assigning the correct role and department. You are responsible for pairing only authorised devices, checking fingerprints when appropriate, revoking devices that should no longer have access and protecting every participating browser profile. Cryptography reduces transmission and tampering risks but cannot protect a device that is already compromised or operated by an unauthorised person.

The optional Secure Collaboration Gateway automates WebRTC signaling and can relay encrypted application envelopes. It is an in-memory rendezvous service, not a project database or permanent mailbox. Invitation capabilities must be shared privately. Availability, retention and network metadata depend on the gateway operator and hosting provider.

Security Assurance mappings and signed evidence support audit preparation; they do not constitute ISO, SOC 2, OWASP or governmental certification. Integration delivery depends on the configured third-party platform, its availability and its own security and privacy terms.

UX Self-assessment is an internal technical self-assessment against selected WCAG 2.2 AA and responsive-usability criteria. Its score and exported evidence do not constitute formal accessibility certification; representative assistive-technology testing and an independent audit remain the responsibility of the deploying organisation.

If enabled, an asynchronous mailbox node holds recipient-only encrypted envelopes until delivery or retention expiry. The node can see routing metadata but is not intended to decrypt message content. A node must be online and connected to receive or deliver new envelopes; it is not a centrally operated availability service.

Recovery from a permanent backup node requires an encrypted peer connection and operator approval. Digital signatures used by the Application authenticate device operations; they are not qualified electronic signatures, certificates of authorship or legal approvals.

AI providers

AI features are optional. You can connect one of the providers listed in the AI Connector directly with your own API key, sign in with OpenRouter, or use a gateway your organisation operates. When you submit an AI request, limited project context is sent to that provider or gateway. Your relationship with the provider is governed by its own terms, usage policies and privacy practices; you must be allowed to use the provider for your purpose and you are responsible for respecting its rules.

• Keys and costs. A key is yours. Usage is billed by the provider to your account, not by us. Use a key made for PalaFilm, with a spending limit, and revoke it when you no longer need it. A key used from the browser is available to code running in that page for the session; keep the browser and the device under your control.
• Answers can be wrong. AI responses are generated by a machine model and may be inaccurate, incomplete or out of date. They must not be treated as confirmed production, legal, safety, payroll or accounting advice, and they are never applied to the project without your action.
• AI plans. A plan proposed by the AI in Intelligent Command is marked as generated by an AI model, with the provider and model named. PalaFilm checks that every step refers to something that exists in the project, respects reported days and your permissions, and shows the schedule before and after on a copy. It does not check whether the plan is a good production decision: that judgement, and the approval, remain yours. When PalaFilm refuses a plan it may send it back to the provider for correction, at most three requests in all; each request is billed to your account by the provider. A corrected plan shows what was refused before it.
• Breakdown suggestions. Asking the AI about a scene sends that scene's text to the provider. Do it only with screenplays you are allowed to share with that provider under your rights, confidentiality and production agreements. Each suggestion is marked as AI, must quote the scene to be shown, and becomes part of the breakdown only when you accept it.
• Availability. Providers change models, prices, limits and interfaces. We do not control them, and a connection that works today may stop working.

8Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• use the Application unlawfully, or to store data you have no right to hold;
• attempt to disrupt, overload or gain unauthorised access to the server that hosts it;
• remove or obscure copyright, licence or attribution notices;
• present the Application as your own product or resell access to it without our written permission.

9Availability and changes

We may update, change or discontinue the Application, or any of its features, at any time. Because the Application works offline once loaded, an interruption of the website does not necessarily prevent you from using a copy already cached in your browser or installed as an app (a new release is installed in the background but never switches by itself: it is activated when every window of the Application has been closed, or when you choose Update now, which saves the open project and reloads the open windows onto it), but we do not guarantee any level of availability, uptime or continued support.

10Warranties

The Application is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, accuracy, or non-infringement. We do not warrant that it will be error-free, uninterrupted, or that its calculations, warnings or suggestions will be correct or suitable for your production.

11Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we are not liable for any indirect, incidental, special or consequential damage, nor for loss of data, loss of production time, schedule disruption, cost overruns, lost profits, lost opportunity or reputational harm arising from your use of, or inability to use, the Application.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits liability that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including liability for death or personal injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or any statutory rights you have as a consumer under Romanian and European Union law.

Any limitation of liability applies only to the extent permitted by mandatory law. Where a separate paid order, subscription or enterprise agreement exists, any monetary cap is the cap expressly stated in that agreement. These public Terms do not create a separate fixed monetary cap.

12Third-party components

The Application includes open-source software, listed with its licences on the About & Licenses page. Those components are governed by their own licences.

13Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of Romania. Disputes fall under the jurisdiction of the competent courts of Bucharest, Romania, without prejudice to any mandatory consumer protection rules that give you the right to bring proceedings elsewhere.

If you use the Application as a consumer, you may also turn to the Romanian National Authority for Consumer Protection (ANPC) and its alternative dispute resolution service.

14Changes to these Terms

We may revise these Terms. The version and date at the top of this page indicate the current release, and continued use after a change means you accept the revised Terms. Material changes are listed below, under the version that introduced them.

These Terms and the other legal documents are published in English, Romanian and German, the languages of the interface. The three versions have the same content; if they differ, the Romanian version prevails.

What changed in version 3.6

• AI plans can be sent back for correction, and each request is billed by the provider.

What changed in version 3.5

• Breakdown suggestions: the screenplay text they send, and your responsibility for being allowed to share it.

What changed in version 3.4

• AI plans in Intelligent Command: how they are marked, what PalaFilm checks and what remains your decision.

What changed in version 3.3

• Published in Romanian and German as well as English. The three versions have the same content; if they differ, the Romanian version prevails.

What changed in version 3.2

• A new part on AI providers: your own keys and their costs, the provider's terms, and the limits of AI answers. The earlier statement that direct keys were meant only for local testing no longer describes the Application and was removed.
• Consumer dispute resolution through ANPC, and the language of these documents.
• Module names follow the current menu.

15Contact

Questions about these Terms: contact@palafilm.com.