Legal

Terms of Use

Last updated 13 May 2026. The Portuguese version is the binding version under section 18; this English text is provided for convenience. Versão portuguesa (vinculativa) →

1. Who we are

Alpaca Docs is the desktop application and supporting infrastructure (sign-in, billing, legal-database access) made available at alpacadocs.com. Together, the application and its supporting infrastructure are the "Service" governed by these Terms.

The Service is operated by João Abrantes, sole proprietor, trading as Alpaca Law, with tax identification number PT216046858, based in Portugal (hereinafter "we" or "our").

Contact email address: privacy@alpacalaw.com.

For Terms governing the separate Alpaca Law web service at alpacalaw.com, see the terms published there.

2. Acceptance

By installing or using the Alpaca Docs application (the "Application"), by accessing the Service through any other means, or by clicking to accept or agree to these Terms, you:

  1. accept and agree to these Terms;
  2. consent to the collection, use, and other processing of data described in our Privacy Policy;
  3. confirm that you are at least 18 years old and have the legal capacity to enter into this agreement.

If you do not agree to these Terms, you should not install or use the Application or otherwise access the Service.

The Service may only be used for lawful purposes and in compliance with these Terms.

3. Definitions

"Application" means the Alpaca Docs desktop software distributed for macOS and Windows, including all updates and bug fixes we make available.

"Service" means the Application together with the supporting infrastructure we operate (sign-in, billing, legal-database access).

"Database" means the collection of legislation, case law, editorial annotations, summaries, classifications, cross-references, and other content made available through the legal-database access, which constitutes a database within the meaning of Decree-Law No. 122/2000 of July 4 (transposing Directive 96/9/EC).

"Editorial Additions" means the original work we add to raw legal materials: summaries, annotations, classifications, thematic categorizations, cross-references, translations, structured metadata, and other editorial processing or curation.

"Plan" means a Free or paid level of access to the Service, as described on alpacadocs.com/pricing.html.

"Subscription" means a paid Plan.

4. License to the Application

The Application is closed-source software made available to you under these Terms. Subject to your compliance with these Terms, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to:

  1. download and install the Application on macOS or Windows machines that you own or control;
  2. use the Application for lawful legal research, drafting, and your own professional or personal purposes;
  3. make a reasonable number of backup copies of the Application's installer for your own use.

You may not:

  1. reverse-engineer, decompile, disassemble, or attempt to derive the source code of the Application, except to the extent that applicable law expressly prohibits this restriction;
  2. redistribute, sublicense, rent, lease, sell, or otherwise transfer the Application to any third party;
  3. remove, alter, or obscure copyright notices, license markings, trademarks, or other proprietary markings within the Application;
  4. use the Application to build a competing product, service, or dataset.

All rights not expressly granted to you under these Terms are reserved.

5. Plans and subscriptions

Alpaca Docs is offered in two Plans:

  1. Free. Includes the Application and a daily allowance of legal-database lookups. No payment required. Account creation through Sign in with Google, Sign in with ChatGPT, or email PIN.
  2. Premium. Includes everything in Free plus an increased daily allowance and priority support. Available as monthly or annual billing. Current prices and lookup allowances are disclosed on alpacadocs.com/pricing.html and at the point of purchase.

A Plan may include team seats. Each seat is personally assigned to one named user; sharing of an assigned seat with anyone not assigned a seat under your Plan is prohibited. Account credentials, API keys, and authentication tokens must not be shared outside your team or with anyone not assigned a seat under your Plan.

Subscriptions are processed by our payment processor (Stripe). Subscription renewals, cancellations, and refunds are handled through the in-app billing interface or the Stripe Customer Portal, subject to applicable consumer-protection legislation.

6. AI providers

When you use Alpaca Docs to interact with an AI model, you choose the model provider (currently Anthropic, OpenAI, or Google, with more to come). Your prompts, attachments, and the model's responses travel directly from your computer to the provider you have chosen.

The AI provider is not our sub-processor in this configuration. You have a direct relationship with the provider, governed by their terms of service and privacy policy. You are responsible for complying with the provider's terms.

If you sign in with ChatGPT, your OAuth session with OpenAI is stored encrypted on your computer using OS-level secure storage. If you bring your own API key for any provider, the key is stored encrypted on your computer in the same way. We do not see, store, or proxy your tokens, keys, prompts, attachments, or model responses.

7. The legal database

The content available through the Service's legal-database access is composed of two distinct components:

  1. Raw legal materials (legislation and case law), which may be in the public domain or subject to applicable governmental copyright regimes; and
  2. Editorial Additions created by us, which are original works protected by copyright under the Portuguese Copyright and Related Rights Code (CDADC, Decree-Law No. 63/85, as amended) and other applicable legislation.

The Database is protected by the sui generis right of database makers under Decree-Law No. 122/2000 of July 4, transposing Directive 96/9/EC. Under Article 12 of this decree-law, as the maker of the Database, we hold the exclusive right to authorize or prohibit the extraction and/or re-utilization of the whole or a substantial part of the contents of the Database, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively. The repeated and systematic extraction or re-utilization of insubstantial parts under Article 12(6) is also not permitted when contrary to the normal exploitation of the Database or unreasonably prejudicial to our legitimate interests.

All Editorial Additions, and the selection, coordination, arrangement, and presentation of the Database as a whole, are our exclusive intellectual property.

Text and data mining. Under Article 15(f) of Decree-Law No. 122/2000 and Article 75(2)(w) of the CDADC (as amended to transpose Articles 3 and 4 of Directive (EU) 2019/790), we expressly reserve all rights against the use of our Database for text and data mining purposes, except when specifically authorized by us in writing. This reservation is made in machine-readable format on our Websites and constitutes a contractual reservation for the purposes of applicable legislation. The exception for research organizations and cultural heritage institutions under Article 15(e) of Decree-Law No. 122/2000 remains available when its legal conditions are met.

Nothing in these Terms shall be construed as assigning or licensing to you any intellectual property or database rights we hold, except the limited license to access and use the Database expressly provided in these Terms.

8. Permitted use

Subject to compliance with these Terms and, where applicable, a valid Subscription, we grant you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, revocable license to use the Service for lawful legal research and drafting in your own professional or personal capacity.

You may:

  1. install and use the Application as described in section 4;
  2. send queries to the legal-database access and read returned documents within the Application;
  3. cite, reference, and make reasonable use of information obtained through the Service in your own work, provided such use does not involve the reproduction of our Editorial Additions in any substantial form.

9. Prohibited use

You may not, directly or indirectly, whether through manual means, automated tools, AI systems, or any other method:

  1. systematically download, extract, crawl, scrape, or harvest content from the Database, in whole or in part;
  2. extract or re-utilize the whole or a substantial part of the Database, evaluated qualitatively or quantitatively, within the meaning of Article 12 of Decree-Law No. 122/2000;
  3. carry out repeated and systematic extraction or re-utilization of insubstantial parts of the Database in a manner contrary to the normal exploitation of the Database or that unreasonably prejudices our legitimate interests, within the meaning of Article 12(6) of Decree-Law No. 122/2000;
  4. use the Service to build, supplement, train, or contribute to any database, dataset, index, or collection of legal information, whether for commercial or non-commercial purposes;
  5. use the Service to train, fine-tune, or otherwise develop any machine learning model, artificial intelligence system, or similar technology;
  6. reproduce, redistribute, republish, license, sell, or otherwise make available to third parties any content obtained from the Database, whether in its original form or in any modified, summarized, or derivative form;
  7. share, transfer, or make available to third parties your access credentials, authentication tokens, API keys, or any other access mechanisms;
  8. circumvent, disable, or interfere with any technical measures we implement to protect the Database or limit access, including rate limits, access controls, digital watermarks, or monitoring systems;
  9. use the Service in a manner that competes with or is detrimental to us, including using it to build a competing product or dataset;
  10. remove, alter, or obscure any copyright notices, database-rights notices, digital watermarks, or other proprietary markings on or relating to the content of the Database.

Nothing in this section prejudices the rights of a lawful user under Article 14(1) of Decree-Law No. 122/2000, namely the right to extract and re-utilize insubstantial parts of the Database within the scope of their right of use.

10. Usage limits and monitoring

We may impose usage limits on the Service, including daily, monthly, or per-session limits on the number of queries, volume of content accessed, or frequency of access. Limits vary by Plan and may be adjusted at our discretion. Current limits for each Plan are disclosed on alpacadocs.com/pricing.html.

We may monitor use of the Service for the purposes of enforcing these Terms, detecting and preventing prohibited use (including systematic extraction), and maintaining the quality and availability of the Service. Monitoring may include analysis of access patterns, query characteristics, volume and frequency of use, and any other usage metrics. We may use automated systems for this purpose.

If we determine, at our discretion, that your use of the Service violates or is likely to violate these Terms, we may, immediately and without prior notice, suspend or terminate access, revoke any credentials, and pursue all legal remedies available to us.

11. Consequences of breach

In the event of a breach or suspected breach of these Terms, without prejudice to any other rights or remedies available to us (including under Articles 11 and 19 of Decree-Law No. 122/2000 and Articles 210 et seq. of the CDADC), we may:

  1. immediately suspend or terminate your access to the Service;
  2. revoke all credentials and authentication tokens;
  3. require you to immediately delete, destroy, or return any content obtained in violation of these Terms, including any copies, derivatives, or datasets;
  4. initiate legal proceedings, including claims for damages and injunctive relief.

Under Article 11 of Decree-Law No. 122/2000, the unauthorized reproduction, disclosure, communication, or making available to the public of a protected database is punishable by imprisonment of up to 3 years or by a fine.

Upon termination of your access to the Service for any reason, you must promptly cease all use of content obtained through the Database and delete any content cached, stored, or downloaded in your possession or under your control. Files in your own project folders that did not originate from the Database remain yours and are not affected by this clause.

12. No legal advice; disclaimer

The Service is provided for informational purposes and does not constitute legal advice. Use of the Service or its content is entirely at your own risk and does not create a lawyer-client relationship between you and us.

We do not guarantee that the Service will be available without interruption, that the content of the Database will be free of errors, or that the AI providers you choose will return accurate or complete results. Although we make reasonable efforts to ensure accuracy and completeness, you remain solely responsible for verifying any information obtained through the Service and for the legal judgment exercised in your own work.

To the fullest extent permitted by law, we exclude all liability to you arising from use of the Service, including, without limitation, any type of damages, loss of data, income, or profit, or loss of or damage to property.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits our liability for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation, or for any other matter for which liability cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law.

Nothing in this section prejudices any mandatory consumer rights you may have under Portuguese consumer protection legislation, including Decree-Law No. 446/85 (standard contractual terms).

13. Content you submit

Files in your project folders, your conversations with the AI model, the AI model's responses, and any other content that does not transit our infrastructure remain entirely yours. We do not require, ask for, or claim any license over such content. The Application stores chats and metadata in a hidden .alpacadocs/ directory beside your files; everything else is yours, as you left it.

Content you actually transmit to us is limited to: queries to the legal-database access, account and billing information, feedback you choose to submit, and technical request metadata. For content you do submit, you grant us a limited, non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use that content solely for the purpose of operating, improving, and securing the Service. We will not sell submitted content, use it for marketing, or use it to train artificial intelligence models.

You are responsible for any content you submit and must ensure that it does not infringe third-party intellectual property or privacy rights, is not defamatory, offensive, abusive, or threatening, does not contain viruses or malicious code, and does not violate any applicable laws. You will indemnify us for any third-party claims against us arising from your submission of content in violation of these Terms.

14. Third-party links

The Service may provide links to websites or other resources under the control of third parties (including AI providers, the official websites of legal sources, and our payment processor). We have no control over and are not responsible for the content of such resources.

15. Privacy Policy

We take your privacy seriously. Please see our Privacy Policy for details on how we handle personal data in connection with the Service, in compliance with Regulation (EU) 2016/679 (GDPR) and Law No. 58/2019.

16. Modification of these Terms

We may modify these Terms from time to time. In the event of a modification, we will post the revised Terms on alpacadocs.com and update the "Last updated" date. Material changes will be communicated in-app or by email where appropriate. Your continued use of the Service after such modifications constitutes acceptance of the revised Terms.

17. Contact

For questions, concerns, or complaints related to these Terms or the Service, contact us at privacy@alpacalaw.com.

18. Language version

The Portuguese version of these Terms is the binding version. The English language version is provided solely as a courtesy and for user convenience. In the event of any discrepancy between the two versions, the Portuguese version shall prevail.

19. General provisions

Our failure to exercise any right or provision of these Terms shall not constitute a waiver of such right or provision.

If any provision of these Terms is found to be invalid or unenforceable, it shall be severed and replaced with a valid provision as close as possible to the original intent, without affecting the validity of the remaining provisions.

These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy, constitute the entire agreement between us and you in relation to Alpaca Docs.

20. Governing law and jurisdiction

These Terms and all non-contractual obligations arising from or connected with them shall be governed by Portuguese law.

For the resolution of any disputes arising from these Terms or the use of the Service, the courts of Lisbon, Portugal, shall have exclusive jurisdiction, with express waiver of any other forum.

Nothing in the preceding paragraph prejudices any mandatory jurisdictional rights you may have as a consumer under applicable legislation, namely Regulation (EU) No. 1215/2012.