Copyright and Intellectual Property Policy

Effective date: 08 August 2026
Last updated: 08 August 2026

In plain language

Authors own their work. Malath does not acquire copyright and claims ownership of no literary text published on it.
What the platform receives is a non-exclusive licence limited to what hosting, displaying and technically operating the work actually requires.
There is a published route for copyright complaints, a matching route to appeal, and protection against bad-faith complaints.

This summary is for convenience only. The detailed text below is what governs.

1. Author ownership

An author retains all intellectual property rights in their original work, both moral and economic.

Publishing on Malath transfers no ownership, grants no exclusivity, and places no restriction on the author's right to publish elsewhere, unless separately agreed in a distinct contract.

2. Scope of the licence granted to the platform

Once publishing exists, an author grants Malath a non-exclusive, revocable licence — not transferable to third parties beyond its operating providers — limited to what running the service actually requires, and covering only:

Hosting and storing the work with the infrastructure providers in use.
Formatting and technically converting it so it displays correctly across devices and screen sizes.
Displaying it to readers within the platform.
Making backups and temporary operational copies for continuity and security.
Using the title, the author's name, the cover and a limited extract to identify and promote the work within the platform and its official channels.

The licence does not cover selling the work to a third party, sub-licensing it for non-operational purposes, producing derivative works, or using it to train automated models.

3. Duration and end of the licence

The licence runs for as long as the work is published on the platform.

When an author withdraws a work, the licence's forward effect stops. Backup copies may persist for a limited technical period before the normal deletion cycle.

Promotional material published before withdrawal remains until it is updated in its normal cycle.

4. The author's confirmation of rights

By publishing a work, an author confirms that they hold the necessary rights in it, or are sufficiently authorised by whoever does, and that publishing it infringes nobody's rights.

This includes the rights of a translator, photographer, designer or any other contributor to the work or its cover.

Malath relies on that confirmation in accepting a work for publication.

5. The platform's own property

The Malath name, its visual identity, its interfaces, its source code and the design of its reading experience belong to the platform's operator.

These may not be used or imitated in a way that suggests an association or endorsement that does not exist.

6. Reader rights and their limits

Access granted to a reader is personal, non-commercial and non-transferable.

Works may not be copied, republished, distributed, or used to train automated systems without the rights holder's written permission.

7. Disputed content

We may restrict or remove access to disputed content on receiving a serious complaint, pending resolution.

How to file one is set out in the Copyright Complaint and Takedown Procedure.

8. Repeat infringement

Repeatedly infringing others' rights may lead to publishing being suspended or access to the service being ended, depending on the seriousness and frequency of the cases.