Terms

Using RedLectern

RedLectern is a free website for studying open courses and reading free books. By using the site, and by creating an account, you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy. If you don’t agree, please don’t use the site.

Accounts

• You must be 13 or older to create an account.
• An account is for one person. Use an email address you control, and keep access to it; anyone who can read your email can sign in.
• You can stop using your account at any time and delete it yourself on your Account page.

Course materials and books

Course materials come from their original publishers, such as MIT OpenCourseWare, under their own licenses, which are credited on each course page. RedLectern is independent and is not endorsed by MIT or any other source. Books we host are in the public domain in the United States or openly licensed; books elsewhere are linked at the sites that offer them. Your use of those materials is subject to their licenses. This is self-study: no grades, certificates or credit.

Your content

Your progress, bookmarks and labels belong to you. You let us store and sync them only so the service works for you.

Audiobook requests are not a promise. We choose which audiobooks to make and when, and we may never make a given one.

Questions and comments

If you have an account, you can post questions and comments on topic pages and books. Before posting, you choose a public display name. Your email address is never shown.

• You keep the copyright to what you write. By posting, you give RedLectern a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to store, display, reproduce and distribute your post on and in connection with RedLectern, and to keep showing it as part of a conversation others have replied to. If you delete a post, that licence ends for the post, except where replies or the law require us to keep a record.
• Follow the community rules. Keep posts to learning and discussion; no personal medical or mental-health advice requests or disclosures; be civil; no harassment, hate, spam or ads; don't post other people's personal information; don't copy copyrighted text beyond a short quote.
• Review and removal. Posts appear right away. An automatic check can remove posts that clearly break the community rules and flags borderline ones for a person to review. We may also decline, remove or hide any post, review posts before they appear, or limit or suspend an account's posting, at our discretion. When we remove a post we show the reason. To ask us to look again, use the feedback form or email corrections@redlectern.com with the post's link.
• Not a crisis service. Nobody monitors posts in real time. If you are in danger or thinking about suicide, call or text 988 in the US, or your local emergency number.
• Your posts are yours to delete. You can edit or delete your own posts. Deleting your account deletes your posts; replies other people wrote stay, without your name.

Reading companion (beta)

The companion is an AI for signed-in adults aged 18 or older. It can be wrong. Check important things against the book. It is not medical, legal or mental-health advice, or a crisis service.

• You can send up to 25 messages a day. Spoken messages count toward the same daily message limit. Voice is limited to 15 minutes a day and up to 5 minutes per session. Daily limits reset at midnight UTC.
• This is a beta. We may change, pause or end it.
• Don’t use it to produce unlawful or harmful content, or to harass anyone.
• Your messages remain yours. Replies are provided as-is.

Copyright complaints (DMCA)

If you believe something on RedLectern infringes your copyright, send a notice to our designated agent with: your contact details and signature; the work you say is infringed; the exact page and post (a link); a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use isn't authorised; and a statement, under penalty of perjury, that your notice is accurate and you are the owner or authorised to act for them.

Designated agent (U.S. Copyright Office registration DMCA-1082290): Akken Yakupitiyage, RedLectern, 1259 El Camino Real, Unit #1117, Menlo Park, CA 94025 · phone 650-471-5674 · privacy@redlectern.com.

If your post was removed after a notice and you believe that was a mistake, you can send a counter-notice to the same address: your contact details and signature, the removed post's link, a statement under penalty of perjury that you believe it was removed by mistake, and your consent to the jurisdiction of the federal court for your address (or, outside the US, any judicial district where RedLectern may be found). We will restore the post in 10–14 business days unless the complainant tells us they have filed a court action. We close the posting access of repeat infringers.

Fair use of the service

Please don’t misuse RedLectern: don’t break the law with it, try to access other people’s accounts or data, interfere with or overload the site, get around its security checks, or use automated tools that place an unreasonable load on it. We may limit or suspend access that harms the service or other readers.

No display ads, no guarantees

RedLectern shows no display ads. Some book listings include links to stores such as Amazon and Bookshop.org. Links marked “paid link” earn RedLectern a commission on qualifying purchases; the other links do not. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Course pages play lecture videos with YouTube’s embedded player. By playing one you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service (https://www.youtube.com/t/terms), and Google’s Privacy Policy (https://policies.google.com/privacy) applies to what YouTube receives. RedLectern is provided free and “as is.” We work to keep it accurate and available, but we can’t promise it will always be error-free, uninterrupted, or that a text or course is complete or correct. Keep your own copies of anything important to you (you can download your synced data from your Account page).

Liability

To the extent the law allows, RedLectern is not liable for indirect or consequential losses, or for losses arising from your use of the site or of third-party materials linked from it. Nothing in these Terms limits rights you have that cannot be limited by law.

Changes

We may update these Terms. We’ll change the date above, and for significant changes we’ll let account holders know. Continuing to use the site after a change means you accept the new Terms.

Who runs RedLectern

RedLectern is a small, independent project, run under the name RedLectern.

Email: privacy@redlectern.com

Contact

Questions: privacy@redlectern.com.

Report a problem with a course, a book or a source (a broken link, an incomplete copy, a wrong source or a content error): email corrections@redlectern.com with the page’s address and what you found.