Terms of Use

Acceptance of terms

By accessing the website, browsing its content, subscribing to the newsletter, downloading any materials, or otherwise interacting with stalinsarmyofapes.com, you agree to comply with and be legally bound by these Terms together with our Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy, and DMCA Notice, all of which are incorporated by reference.

If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, you must immediately cease using the website and refrain from accessing its content. Continued use constitutes acceptance.

These Terms apply to all visitors, readers, subscribers, and other users of the website, regardless of location.

Definitions

For clarity throughout this document, the following terms have the meanings set out below:

Intellectual property

All Content on the Site — including but not limited to the text, design, layout, code, images, video, excerpts of the Work, the book cover, author photographs, and the visual identity — is the exclusive property of Itamar Friedman and is protected under Israeli copyright law, the Berne Convention, the Universal Copyright Convention, and the copyright laws of every country where copyright protection is available.

The novel

Stalin's Army of Apes: The Mechanized Puppeteers is a copyrighted literary work © 2026 Itamar Friedman. All rights reserved. The published book, including its electronic and audio editions, is distributed under the author's exclusive license. Purchase of a copy from Amazon or any authorized retailer grants you a limited, personal, non-transferable license to read the book — it does not transfer any ownership rights, copyrights, or rights of adaptation.

Trademarks

"Stalin's Army of Apes," "The Mechanized Puppeteers," and the associated logos and visual identity are trademarks or service marks of Itamar Friedman. Other product and company names mentioned on the Site (such as Amazon, Vimeo, etc.) are trademarks of their respective owners.

Permitted use

Subject to these Terms, you are granted a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to:

• Browse the Site for personal, non-commercial purposes.
• Read the published excerpts on the Site.
• Watch the embedded book trailer through the provided player.
• Share links to the Site on social media, blogs, or in personal communications.
• Quote brief excerpts (under 200 words) for the purpose of legitimate review, criticism, scholarship, or news reporting, provided full attribution is given to the author and the work, and a link to stalinsarmyofapes.com is included where the medium permits.
• Subscribe to the newsletter using a valid email address.
• Contact the author for press, rights, agent representation, academic review, or general inquiries through the channels provided.

Any use beyond what is expressly permitted above requires prior written permission from the author.

Prohibited use

You agree not to do any of the following without prior written permission from the author:

• Reproduce, copy, or republish any Content from the Site, in whole or in substantial part, on any other website, platform, publication, or medium.
• Sell, sublicense, or commercially exploit any Content, including the Work or any excerpt thereof.
• Adapt, translate, modify, or create derivative works based on the Work, including fan fiction intended for commercial distribution, screenplay treatments, audio adaptations, or visual adaptations.
• Remove, alter, or obscure any copyright notices, watermarks, attribution, or proprietary markings on Content.
• Scrape, harvest, or systematically extract Content using automated tools, bots, spiders, crawlers, or any non-human method.
• Reverse engineer or decompile the source code of the Site or any embedded software.
• Use the Site to distribute spam, malware, viruses, or any harmful code.
• Impersonate the author, the publisher, or any affiliated person or entity, including through misleading metadata, deepfakes, or generated content.
• Frame, mirror, or republish the Site or any substantial portion of it on another domain.
• Use the Site or its Content in any manner that violates applicable law, infringes any rights, or causes harm to any person or entity.

Violation of this section may result in immediate termination of your access to the Site and may expose you to civil and criminal liability.

AI & machine learning restriction

This is a critical provision. The author has not granted, and does not grant, any license, consent, or permission for any Content on this Site — including but not limited to excerpts of the novel, editorial copy, design, or images — to be used for the training, fine-tuning, evaluation, retrieval-augmented generation (RAG), or any other input to any AI System.

This restriction applies, without limitation, to:

• All large language models (LLMs) and generative AI systems.
• All image-generation, video-generation, and voice-cloning models.
• All dataset compilation efforts, including academic, open-source, and commercial datasets such as Common Crawl, LAION, The Pile, and any successor or analogous datasets.
• Any automated agent, scraper, or crawler operated by or on behalf of an AI developer for the purpose of dataset acquisition.

The author expressly reserves all rights under Article 4 of the EU Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market (2019/790) and equivalent provisions in other jurisdictions to opt out of any text and data mining exception. This page itself constitutes a machine-readable reservation of rights for purposes of any opt-out registry.

If you are an AI developer or operator and you have already ingested Content from this Site, you are required to: (a) delete such Content from your training datasets and any derived model weights to the extent technically feasible, and (b) contact the author at itamar@stalinsarmyofapes.com to discuss remediation.

User submissions

When you contact us, subscribe to the newsletter, or otherwise voluntarily provide information to the author (collectively, "Submissions"), the following terms apply:

• You represent that you are the author or rightful owner of the Submission and that it does not infringe any third-party rights.
• You represent that the Submission is not unlawful, obscene, defamatory, threatening, or otherwise objectionable.
• You grant the author a perpetual, royalty-free, worldwide, non-exclusive license to read, reply to, and where appropriate quote your Submission for the purposes of correspondence, press testimonials, or marketing — provided that personally identifying information is not disclosed without your separate consent.
• The author is under no obligation to use, respond to, or preserve any Submission.

Third-party links

The Site contains links to third-party websites and services, including Amazon, Vimeo, social media platforms, and email subscription tools. These links are provided for your convenience only.

The author does not control third-party websites and is not responsible for their content, privacy practices, terms, or any consequences arising from your interaction with them. The inclusion of a link does not imply endorsement. You access third-party sites at your own risk and subject to their own terms.

As an Amazon Associate, the author may earn commissions from qualifying purchases made via links on the Site. This does not affect the price you pay.

Disclaimers

The Site and all Content are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, or accuracy.

While the author makes reasonable efforts to ensure the Site operates correctly and that information is accurate, no representation or warranty is made that:

• The Site will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure.
• Defects will be corrected.
• The Site is free of viruses or other harmful components.
• The information provided is current, complete, or free of typographical errors.

Fictional content

Stalin's Army of Apes: The Mechanized Puppeteers is a work of fiction. Although it is inspired by the documented historical experiments of Soviet biologist Ilya Ivanov, the novel's plot, characters, dialogue, and events are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales — beyond the historical figures referenced as part of the narrative — is coincidental.

Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, in no event shall the author, his agents, contractors, or affiliates be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages — including but not limited to loss of profits, loss of data, loss of goodwill, business interruption, or any other intangible losses — arising out of or in connection with your access to or use of the Site, regardless of the cause of action and even if the author has been advised of the possibility of such damages.

In jurisdictions that do not allow the exclusion or limitation of certain liabilities, the author's liability shall be limited to the maximum extent permitted by law.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless the author, his agents, contractors, and affiliates from and against any and all claims, demands, damages, liabilities, costs, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of or in connection with:

• Your breach of these Terms.
• Your violation of any law or third-party rights.
• Your unauthorized use of any Content from the Site.
• Any Submission you provide.

Termination

The author reserves the right, in his sole discretion and without notice, to:

• Suspend or terminate your access to the Site for any reason, including breach of these Terms.
• Remove, modify, or restrict access to any Content.
• Discontinue all or part of the Site at any time.

Sections governing intellectual property, AI restrictions, disclaimers, limitation of liability, indemnification, and governing law shall survive termination.

Governing law

These Terms and any dispute arising out of or in connection with them or the Site shall be governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Israel, without regard to its conflict-of-law principles.

The competent courts of Tel Aviv-Jaffa, Israel shall have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute, claim, or proceeding arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the Site, and you hereby submit to the personal jurisdiction of such courts.

Notwithstanding the foregoing, the author retains the right to bring proceedings against you for breach of these Terms or for infringement of intellectual property rights in any court of competent jurisdiction worldwide.

Changes to these terms

The author reserves the right to modify these Terms at any time. When material changes are made, the "Last Updated" date at the top of this document will be revised. For significant changes, a notice may be posted on the homepage or sent to newsletter subscribers.

Your continued use of the Site after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms. If you do not agree with the revised Terms, you must stop using the Site.

Contact us

For questions about these Terms, requests for permission, licensing inquiries, or any other matters relating to the legal use of the Site or the Work, please contact: