日本語

Terms of Use

Read Japanese (iOS / iPadOS / macOS) — last updated: 27 August 2026

These Terms are an English translation provided for convenience. The Japanese text is the governing version; if the two differ, the Japanese text prevails.

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) set the conditions for using Read Japanese (the “app”). By using the app you are treated as having agreed to them.

1. About the app

The app is an iPhone, iPad and Mac application for reading works whose copyright term has expired, published by 青空文庫 (Aozora Bunko) and by the National Diet Library Digital Collections. Reading the works costs nothing. Some features are offered for a fee; subscribing is optional.

2. Licence

The provider of the app (“we”) grants you a non-transferable, non-exclusive right to use the app on Apple devices that you own or control, subject to these Terms. This licence is subject to the App Store’s Licensed Application End User Licence Agreement (the Apple Media Services Terms and Conditions).

Please refrain from the following.

• Copying, modifying, decompiling or reverse-engineering the app
• Redistributing, lending or selling the app or any part of it
• Interfering with the operation of the app, or with other people’s use of it
• Anything contrary to law or public order

3. Paid features

3-1. What is offered

Prices above are those of the Japan App Store; your local price is shown before you buy, and the price shown on the purchase screen in the app prevails. Payment is charged to your Apple Account when you confirm the purchase.

3-2. Auto-renewal and cancellation

• Monthly and yearly plans renew automatically unless auto-renewal is turned off at least 24 hours before the end of the current period.
• The renewal is charged within 24 hours before the end of the current period: 200 yen for the monthly plan, 1,600 yen for the yearly plan.
• You can turn auto-renewal off at any time in the Settings app > your name > Subscriptions. After cancelling you can keep using Pro until the end of the period you have already paid for.
• Any unused part of a free trial is forfeited when you buy the corresponding paid plan.
• The lifetime purchase does not auto-renew and needs no cancellation.

3-3. Restoring

On any device signed in with the same Apple Account, you can carry a purchase over with “Restore Purchases” on the purchase screen.

3-4. Refunds

Refunds for App Store purchases are handled by Apple. Please apply at reportaproblem.apple.com. We cannot issue a refund directly. Customers in Japan may also refer to the statement under the Act on Specified Commercial Transactions.

3-5. Changes to the paid features

We may change what the paid features contain, their price, and the extent of what is free. If we raise the price of a plan you already subscribe to, we will give notice in advance through Apple’s procedure, and the plan will not renew if you do not agree. We will never make reading the works a paid feature.

4. Rights in the works

Every work in the app is one whose copyright term has expired in Japan. There are two sources, with different grounds.

• 青空文庫 (Aozora Bunko) — 17,344 works. Following the Aozora Bunko guidelines for handling its files, each work shows the source edition, the person who input the text and the proofreader, in addition to the title and the author. The app stands on the work of the people who input and proofread these texts.
• National Diet Library Digital Collections — 28 works. These come from materials marked with the Public Domain Mark (PDM) in that collection. They have no transcriber or proofreader; instead the app shows the bibliography of the original material and a link to it. The text is a modified work: optical character recognition of the material, tidied by us, and each work states this. See section 9 of the privacy policy.

Rights in the app itself (the program, the design of its screens, and the text we wrote) belong to us.

5. Your data

Your library, reading position, bookmarks, highlights and notes, saved words and reading log are stored on your device. If you turn on iCloud sync (a Pro feature) they are also stored in the iCloud private database of your Apple Account and carried between devices on the same Apple Account.

Sync is available while you have a paid plan, and for a period after you start using the app (Settings shows the days remaining). After that period the app stops syncing from the next time you open it, but we do not delete anything already stored on your device or in iCloud. Handling of this data follows the privacy policy.

We are not responsible for restoring data lost through a lost or broken device, or through deleting the app. We are likewise not responsible for the preservation of data in iCloud, which depends on Apple’s service.

6. Warranty and liability

The app is provided as is. We do not warrant that it will run without interruption, that it is free of error, or that it fits any particular purpose.

We are not liable for loss arising from your use of the app, except where we have acted intentionally or with gross negligence. Where our liability cannot be excluded under the Consumer Contract Act or other law, our liability is limited to the amount you paid for the app in the preceding 12 months.

The text, furigana and bibliographic information of the works are based on the public data of 青空文庫, or on optical character recognition of materials in the National Diet Library Digital Collections tidied by us, and we do not warrant their accuracy. Errors from recognition may in particular remain in the latter. We are also not responsible for the content of external websites opened from the look-up feature.

7. Support

Please send enquiries and bug reports to r.muranaka.work@gmail.com. Maintenance and support of the app are provided by us. Apple has no obligation whatsoever to furnish any maintenance or support.

8. Relationship with Apple

These Terms are an agreement between you and us, not with Apple.

• We alone are responsible for the app and its content.
• Apple has no responsibility whatsoever for the app.
• If the app fails to conform to any warranty, you may notify Apple, and Apple will refund the purchase price. To the maximum extent permitted by law, Apple has no other warranty obligation whatsoever.
• We, not Apple, are responsible for addressing any claim by you relating to the app, including product liability claims, any claim that the app fails to conform to any legal or regulatory requirement, and claims arising under consumer protection law.
• If a third party claims that the app infringes its intellectual property rights, we, not Apple, are responsible for the investigation, defence, settlement and discharge of that claim.
• You represent that you are not located in a country subject to a U.S. Government embargo, and that you are not listed on any U.S. Government list of prohibited or restricted parties.
• Apple and its subsidiaries are third-party beneficiaries of these Terms, and upon your acceptance of these Terms Apple will have the right to enforce them against you.

9. Changes to these Terms

We may change these Terms. If we do, we will update this page, and for significant changes we will also say so in the release notes. Using the app after a change is treated as agreement to the changed Terms.

10. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms are governed by the law of Japan. Any dispute between us and you relating to the app is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction, in the first instance, of the district court having jurisdiction over our location.

These Terms cover the iPhone, iPad and Mac app “Read Japanese” — see the support page.