Last updated: August 2, 2026
My name is Sergey Timoshpolskiy, and I'm the creator of the Star.Mugs app. These Terms of Use are the agreement between you and me covering your use of Star.Mugs — the app, the shared mug catalog, and anything else I offer through them, which I'll refer to together as the service. By downloading, opening, or using Star.Mugs, you're agreeing to these terms. If there's a part of them you're not comfortable with, please don't use the service. These terms work alongside the Privacy Policy, which explains what I collect and what I do with it.
Star.Mugs isn't directed at anyone under the age of 13, and you need to be 13 or older to create an account or submit a photo. If you're old enough to use the service but still a minor where you live, please go through these terms with a parent or guardian before you agree to them.
You're responsible for what happens under your account, including keeping your sign-in credentials to yourself. Please give accurate information when you sign up and keep it current. If you think someone else has gotten into your account, email me at starmugsapp@gmail.com so I can help.
Star.Mugs lets you submit photos of mugs to be considered for the shared catalog. I'll call anything you send — photos plus the details you attach to them, like a mug's name, series, or year — your content. Your content stays yours. Submitting it doesn't transfer ownership to me, and nothing in these terms stops you from using, publishing, licensing, or selling your own photos anywhere else you like.
To run a shared catalog, I need permission to use what you send. So when you submit content, you grant me a worldwide, royalty-free, perpetual, irrevocable, non-exclusive, transferable, and sublicensable license to host, store, reproduce, modify, adapt, crop, resize, retouch, translate, publish, publicly display, publicly perform, and distribute that content, in whole or in part, in connection with operating, improving, and promoting Star.Mugs, in any media now known or developed later. Practically speaking, this is what lets me show your photo in the catalog to other members, generate thumbnails and other resized versions of it, correct color or crop it to fit the catalog's layout, and feature it in screenshots, App Store listings, and other material promoting the app. I don't have to use your content, and I don't owe you payment, credit, or notice for any use covered by this license.
Two features of this license deserve to be spelled out plainly rather than buried. It's perpetual and irrevocable, which means that once you submit content you can't later withdraw the permission it grants. And it survives the deletion of your account: if a photo of yours was accepted into the catalog, deleting your account removes your profile and severs your name from the photo, but the license over that photo continues and the photo stays in the catalog. The Privacy Policy describes the de-identification that goes with this. If you're not comfortable granting a license on those terms, the answer is simply not to submit the photo — everything else in Star.Mugs works without it.
You can ask me to take a photo down anyway, by writing to starmugsapp@gmail.com. I'll consider every request and I'll honor the ones I reasonably can, but outside of the copyright process described below, this is a courtesy rather than something the license obliges me to do.
When you submit content, you're representing to me that all of the following is true:
Photos pulled from a manufacturer's website, a retail listing, an auction page, a collector forum, or someone else's social media are not yours to submit, however freely available they are. Please only send photos you actually made.
Photos submitted to Star.Mugs must show mugs, not people. Don't submit a photo in which any person is identifiable — by their face, or by anything else that reasonably identifies them, such as a name badge, a reflection, or a distinctive tattoo. This applies to you as much as to anyone else: please don't send selfies with a mug, and please don't send photos with someone visible in the background. Hands holding a mug are fine as long as nothing in the frame identifies whose they are. If a person does appear in a photo, I'll reject or remove it, and I don't need your permission to do so.
I have zero tolerance for objectionable content and for abusive behavior toward other members. There is no warning system and no strike count for this. Content that violates this section is removed as soon as I become aware of it, and the account that submitted it may be terminated immediately and permanently.
Specifically, don't submit, post, or transmit anything that:
Don't try to break, overload, scrape, reverse-engineer, or gain unauthorized access to the service or to anyone else's account either.
If you come across content or behavior that breaks these rules, please report it in the app or email me at starmugsapp@gmail.com. I aim to review every report and act on it within 24 hours, and you can also block an abusive member from within the app so their content stops reaching you. Reports are welcome and I'd much rather hear about a problem than not.
Star.Mugs is a curated catalog, and decisions about what goes in it are mine. I may reject any submission, remove any content, and suspend or permanently terminate any account, at any time, for any reason or for no reason, with or without notice, and without any liability to you. That includes rejecting a photo simply because it duplicates one already in the catalog, is out of focus, or doesn't fit the catalog's needs — a rejection is not an accusation that you did anything wrong.
I don't pre-screen everything, and I'm under no obligation to monitor content. If I don't act on something, that isn't approval of it or a waiver of my right to act later. If your account is terminated, the license you granted over content already accepted into the catalog continues, as described above.
I respect copyright and I expect the same from everyone using Star.Mugs. If you believe content in the app infringes a copyright you own or represent, email a notice to starmugsapp@gmail.com with the subject line "DMCA Takedown Request" and include:
I'll remove or disable material that's the subject of a valid notice, and I'll terminate the accounts of repeat infringers. If your content was removed and you believe that was a mistake or a misidentification, you can send a counter-notice to the same address. Please be aware that knowingly misrepresenting that material is infringing — or that it was removed by mistake — can make you liable for damages.
Star.Mugs is provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind. To the fullest extent permitted by law, I disclaim all warranties, express or implied, including any implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, title, and non-infringement, and any warranties arising out of course of dealing or usage of trade. I don't warrant that the service will be uninterrupted, timely, secure, or error-free, that defects will be corrected, or that the catalog's contents are accurate, complete, or reliable. The catalog is a community reference maintained on a best-effort basis and isn't an authoritative source for valuation, authentication, or provenance — please don't rely on it for those purposes. Any content you access through the service is accessed at your own discretion and risk, and you're responsible for any resulting damage to your device or loss of data. Some jurisdictions don't allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
To the fullest extent permitted by law, I will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages, or for any loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill, or other intangible losses, arising out of or relating to your use of — or inability to use — the service, whether the claim is based in contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or any other theory, and whether or not I've been advised that such damages are possible. My total liability for all claims relating to the service is limited to the greater of the amount you paid me for the service in the twelve months before the claim arose, or twenty-five US dollars. Star.Mugs is currently free, so in most cases that ceiling will be twenty-five dollars. These limits apply even if a limited remedy is found to have failed of its essential purpose. Some jurisdictions don't allow the limitation or exclusion of certain damages, so parts of this section may not apply to you.
You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold me harmless from and against any claims, demands, actions, damages, losses, liabilities, costs, and expenses — including reasonable attorneys' fees — arising out of or relating to your content, your use of the service, your breach of these terms, your violation of any law, or your violation of anyone else's rights. I reserve the right to take over the exclusive defense and control of any matter otherwise subject to indemnification by you, in which case you'll cooperate with me in asserting any available defenses. This section survives the termination of your account.
These terms, and any dispute arising out of or relating to them or to the service, are governed by the laws of the State of New York, United States of America, without regard to its conflict-of-law provisions. You and I agree to the exclusive jurisdiction and venue of the state and federal courts located in New York County, New York for resolving any such dispute, and each of us waives any objection to that venue. If you're a consumer resident in a jurisdiction whose law grants you rights or protections that can't be waived by agreement, nothing here takes those away from you. If any provision of these terms is held unenforceable, that provision is limited or removed to the minimum extent necessary and the rest stays in force.
I may update these terms from time to time. When I do, I'll post the revised version on this page and update the "last updated" date at the top. Changes take effect once they're posted, so it's worth reviewing this page now and then. If you keep using Star.Mugs after a change, that means you accept the revised terms; if you don't accept them, please stop using the service and delete your account.
If anything on this page is unclear, or you want to talk through how it applies to something you're planning to submit, email me at starmugsapp@gmail.com. I'd rather answer a question in advance than sort out a misunderstanding afterward.