Terms, privacy & disclaimer
DistillTube is a personal study and note-taking tool built to give people their time back. Please use it responsibly and respect the creators who make the videos you learn from.
Our mission, and why this is not a business
DistillTube exists to make life a little easier. People are buried in long videos and have less and less time. Our only goal is to help them learn faster, take better notes and spend less of their day watching when a few minutes of reading would do. DistillTube is run as a personal, non-commercial project with no profit motive. We do not sell user data, we do not run advertising against creators' content, and any fees that may exist only ever cover the bare running costs of servers and AI processing. Whatever we build here is meant to serve the user first.
What DistillTube does
DistillTube uses AI to create original, transformative study aids, short and long summaries, chapters, key takeaways and brief illustrative quotes, from publicly accessible information about YouTube videos. These outputs are new works created for the purpose of comment, criticism, learning and research. They are not a substitute for the original video. DistillTube also lets you privately chat with the material and follow channels so you do not miss new uploads. We always link back to the original video on YouTube so you can watch it in full and support the creator directly.
Relationship with YouTube and creators
DistillTube is an independent tool and is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by YouTube or Google. We use official, publicly documented interfaces wherever they are available, and we access only information that is already publicly available to any visitor. We deliberately do not log in with, or act on behalf of, any Google or YouTube account. We process this public information transiently and for the sole purpose of generating personal study notes for the individual user who requested them. We have great respect for creators: every summary points people back to the source, which is intended to send interested viewers toward the original video rather than away from it.
Copyright and fair use
Videos, their content, comments and quotes remain the property of their respective creators and rights holders. DistillTube does not publish, host, sell or redistribute videos or their underlying content. We never reproduce or expose that underlying material to users or through any public interface; it is only ever processed fleetingly and internally to generate a summary and to power your private chat, and it is treated as transient working data that is not retained for its own sake.
The summaries we produce are intended to be transformative: they condense, restructure, comment on and add value to the underlying material rather than reproduce it. We believe this kind of use, for personal learning, research, criticism and commentary, sits squarely within the spirit of fair use and comparable fair-dealing principles. Quotes are shown only sparingly, kept short, used to illustrate a point, and always attributed to the source video. None of this is intended to replace watching the original or to harm its market; if anything, it is designed to drive curiosity back toward it.
Rights holders and takedowns
We want to do right by creators. If you are a rights holder and would prefer that material relating to one of your videos not be processed or kept in a user's private library, just contact us and we will act on it promptly and in good faith. We aim to resolve any concern quickly and without fuss.
Acceptable use
Use DistillTube for personal study, research, accessibility and productivity. Do not use it for unlawful purposes, and do not attempt to use it to reproduce, mirror or redistribute entire works. You are responsible for how you use the outputs you generate, including respecting the rights of the people who created the underlying content.
Your privacy and data protection
We collect as little as we possibly can. We store your account email, a securely hashed password, and the videos and summaries you choose to create. We do not sell, rent or share your personal data with third parties for their own purposes. The only external services we rely on are the infrastructure needed to run the tool (for example AI processing of the material you submit, email delivery and hosting), and they act strictly as processors on our behalf.
You stay in control of your data. You can permanently delete your account, and everything associated with it, at any time from Settings, and we honour that deletion. If you would like to know what we hold about you or want it removed, contact us and we will help. We try to meet the spirit of modern data-protection law, including the principles of data minimisation, purpose limitation and the user's right to deletion.
AI limitations and no warranty
Summaries, chapters and chat answers are generated automatically by AI and may contain mistakes, gaps or misinterpretations. They are provided "as is", for convenience and learning only, without warranties of any kind, and they are not professional, legal, medical, financial or other expert advice. For anything important, always verify against the original video and primary sources.
Limitation of liability
To the fullest extent permitted by law, DistillTube and the people behind it are not liable for any loss or damage arising from your use of the tool or reliance on its outputs. Because this is a free, non-commercial project offered in good faith to help people, your use of it is entirely at your own discretion and risk.
Changes
These terms may be updated as the project evolves. We will keep the current version on this page, and continued use means you accept it.
Contact
Questions, data requests or takedown requests are always welcome. Please reach out and we will do our best to help.