Terms of Use
The rules for using carbongreylabs.com. Our products are separate services with their own terms.
These Terms of Use (“Terms”) govern your access to and use of carbongreylabs.com (the “Site”), operated by HDC Brands LLC, a New Jersey limited liability company doing business as Carbon Grey Labs (“Carbon Grey Labs,” “we,” “us,” “our”).
By accessing or using the Site you agree to these Terms and to our Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy and AI Policy. If you do not agree, do not use the Site.
Section 15 contains a binding arbitration agreement and a class-action waiver. It affects how disputes between you and us are resolved. Read it. It does not apply to consumers resident in the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, and you may opt out within 30 days under Section 15.8.
1. Scope, and what these Terms do not cover
These Terms govern this website only.
Our products — VinPilot, HomiPilot, BoatPilot, PilotMarket and BidderPilot (the “Products”) — are separate services offered at their own domains, each governed by its own terms of service, privacy policy and pricing presented within that Product. Nothing on the Site grants you any right to use a Product, and nothing here is a promise about a Product’s availability, features, pricing or timeline.
Studio engagements are governed by a separate signed agreement. Where that agreement conflicts with these Terms, the signed agreement controls for that engagement.
2. Eligibility
You must be at least 16 years old and legally able to form a binding contract to use the Site. If you use the Site on behalf of an organisation, you represent that you are authorised to bind it, and “you” means that organisation.
You may not use the Site if you are subject to sanctions administered by the United States, the European Union or the United Kingdom, or if you are located in a jurisdiction subject to comprehensive sanctions. See Section 18.
3. Permitted use
You may view the Site for personal and internal business purposes.
You agree not to:
- interfere with or disrupt the Site’s operation, integrity or security, or probe or test its vulnerability without our prior written permission;
- attempt to gain unauthorised access to any system, account or data;
- scrape, crawl, harvest, index or collect content or data from the Site by automated means without our prior written consent, except by a search engine obeying our
robots.txt; - use the Site, or content from it, to train, fine-tune, evaluate or ground any machine-learning model, including any large language model, without our prior written consent;
- transmit malicious code, or use the Site to send unsolicited or bulk communications;
- misrepresent your identity, affiliation or authority in any communication with us;
- reverse engineer, decompile or disassemble any part of the Site, except to the extent that restriction is unenforceable under applicable law;
- remove, obscure or alter any proprietary notice; or
- use the Site in violation of any applicable law.
We may investigate suspected violations and cooperate with law enforcement.
4. Informational content; no offer or advice
Content on the Site describes our studio, our ventures and our general areas of work. It is provided for general information only. It is not an offer, a commitment, professional advice, or a guarantee of any product, service, feature, performance, timeline or availability. Descriptions of ventures, research, capabilities and product status may change without notice.
Any forward-looking statement about what we intend to build reflects our view at the time of writing and is not a promise of a future result.
5. Intellectual property
The Site and its contents — including the Carbon Grey Labs, VinPilot, HomiPilot, BoatPilot, PilotMarket and BidderPilot names and marks, the three-bar mark and logo, and all text, imagery, page design, graphics, layout, and code — are owned by HDC Brands LLC or its licensors and are protected by copyright, trademark, trade dress and other intellectual-property laws.
Except as Section 3 permits, you may not copy, reproduce, modify, adapt, translate, distribute, publicly display or perform, frame, mirror, or create derivative works from any part of the Site without our prior written permission. No licence is granted by implication, estoppel or otherwise.
Third-party names and marks referenced on the Site belong to their owners and are used for identification only; their use does not imply endorsement or affiliation.
6. Submissions and feedback
If you send us an inquiry, proposal, idea or other material through the Site, you represent that you have the right to share it.
Unless we have signed a separate written agreement covering it, submissions are non-confidential. We may review, evaluate and use the general concepts they contain without obligation, payment or attribution. Do not send us trade secrets, confidential information or anything you are not free to disclose.
For feedback, suggestions and improvement ideas about the Site or our products, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free, sublicensable licence to use, reproduce, modify and exploit them for any purpose, without restriction. You retain any ownership you have; this is a licence, not a transfer.
7. Third-party links and services
The Site may link to third-party websites and services, including social-media platforms. We do not control them and are not responsible for their content, policies or practices. Following a link is at your own risk and subject to that third party’s terms.
8. Copyright complaints
If you believe content on the Site infringes your copyright, send a notice with: (a) your physical or electronic signature; (b) identification of the work claimed to be infringed; (c) identification of the material and its location; (d) your contact details; (e) a statement of good-faith belief that the use is not authorised; and (f) a statement, under penalty of perjury, that the information is accurate and you are authorised to act.
Send notices to legal@carbongreylabs.com, subject line “DMCA Notice.” We may remove material and terminate access for repeat infringers. Knowingly material misrepresentations in a notice may expose you to liability under 17 U.S.C. § 512(f).
9. Accessibility
We aim to conform the Site to WCAG 2.2 Level AA. Accessibility is ongoing work and we do not claim the Site is free of barriers. If you encounter one, or need information on the Site provided in another format, contact legal@carbongreylabs.com and we will work with you to provide it.
10. Availability, changes and termination
We may modify, suspend or discontinue the Site or any part of it at any time, with or without notice. We may restrict or terminate your access at any time if we reasonably believe you have violated these Terms or that your use creates risk or legal exposure for us or others.
Sections 5, 6, 8 and 11 to 21 survive termination.
11. Disclaimer of warranties
THE SITE IS PROVIDED “AS IS” AND “AS AVAILABLE,” WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS, IMPLIED OR STATUTORY, INCLUDING IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY AND NON-INFRINGEMENT. WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, TIMELY, SECURE OR ERROR-FREE, THAT DEFECTS WILL BE CORRECTED, OR THAT THE SITE IS FREE OF HARMFUL COMPONENTS.
Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of implied warranties, so parts of this Section may not apply to you. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any warranty or right that cannot lawfully be excluded or limited, including the statutory rights of consumers in the EEA and the United Kingdom.
12. Limitation of liability
TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED BY LAW, HDC BRANDS LLC AND ITS MEMBERS, OFFICERS, EMPLOYEES, CONTRACTORS AND AGENTS WILL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR LOST PROFITS, REVENUE, DATA, BUSINESS OR GOODWILL, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF THE SITE, ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
OUR TOTAL AGGREGATE LIABILITY ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO THE SITE WILL NOT EXCEED ONE HUNDRED U.S. DOLLARS (US $100).
These limits apply even if a limited remedy fails of its essential purpose, and they allocate risk between us in exchange for making the Site available at no charge.
Exceptions. Nothing in this Section limits liability for: death or personal injury caused by negligence; fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; gross negligence or wilful misconduct; or any liability that cannot lawfully be limited. If you are a consumer resident in the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, this Section applies only to the extent permitted by the mandatory law of your country of residence, and your statutory rights are unaffected.
13. Indemnification
You will indemnify, defend and hold harmless HDC Brands LLC and its members, officers, employees and agents from any third-party claim, damage, liability, cost or expense (including reasonable legal fees) arising out of your misuse of the Site, your violation of these Terms, or your violation of any law or third-party right.
We will notify you of any such claim, give you control of the defence (subject to our right to participate with our own counsel), and cooperate reasonably. You may not settle in a way that imposes an obligation or admission on us without our written consent.
This Section does not apply to consumers to the extent prohibited by applicable consumer-protection law.
14. Governing law
These Terms and any dispute arising out of them are governed by the laws of the State of New Jersey and applicable United States federal law, without regard to conflict-of-law principles, and excluding the UN Convention on Contracts for the International Sale of Goods.
If you are a consumer resident in the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, this choice of law does not deprive you of the protection of the mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country.
Subject to Section 15, all other disputes will be resolved exclusively in the state or federal courts located in New Jersey, and you consent to their personal jurisdiction and venue.
15. Dispute resolution; arbitration; class-action waiver
This Section applies to you if you are resident in the United States. It does not apply to consumers resident in the EEA, the United Kingdom or Switzerland, who may bring disputes before the courts of their country of residence under Section 14.
15.1 Informal resolution first. Before starting a proceeding, you agree to send a written notice describing the dispute and the relief sought to legal@carbongreylabs.com, and to negotiate in good faith for 60 days. We will do the same. This is a condition precedent to arbitration, and the limitations period in Section 16 is tolled while it runs.
15.2 Agreement to arbitrate. If the dispute is not resolved, you and we agree that any dispute, claim or controversy arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Site will be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by JAMS under its Streamlined Arbitration Rules, and not in court, except as Section 15.4 provides. The Federal Arbitration Act governs this Section.
15.3 Procedure. Arbitration will be conducted by a single arbitrator, in English, in New Jersey or — at your election — by telephone, videoconference or on documents only. The arbitrator may award any relief a court could award to you individually, and the award may be entered as a judgment in any court of competent jurisdiction. The arbitrator decides questions of arbitrability, except that a court decides any challenge to Section 15.5.
15.4 Exceptions. Either party may (a) bring an individual claim in small-claims court, and (b) seek injunctive or equitable relief in court to protect intellectual property or stop unauthorised access.
15.5 Class-action waiver. You and we agree to bring claims only in an individual capacity, and not as a plaintiff or class member in any class, collective, consolidated or representative proceeding. The arbitrator may not consolidate claims or preside over any class or representative proceeding. If this Section 15.5 is found unenforceable as to a particular claim or request for relief, that claim or request is severed and must proceed in court, while the rest remains in arbitration.
15.6 Mass filings. If 25 or more similar claims are asserted against us by or with the assistance of the same counsel, the parties will cooperate with JAMS to apply its mass-arbitration or batching procedures, and any applicable filing deadlines are tolled while that process runs.
15.7 Costs. We will pay arbitration filing, administration and arbitrator fees in excess of what you would pay to file in court, unless the arbitrator finds your claim frivolous. Each party otherwise bears its own legal fees, unless a statute or the arbitrator provides otherwise.
15.8 Your right to opt out. You may reject this Section 15 by emailing legal@carbongreylabs.com with the subject “Arbitration Opt-Out” within 30 days of first accepting these Terms, including your name and the email you used. Opting out affects nothing else in these Terms, and we will not retaliate for it.
15.9 Survival. This Section survives termination of these Terms.
16. Time limit on claims
To the extent permitted by law, any claim arising out of or relating to these Terms or the Site must be filed within one (1) year after it arose, or it is permanently barred. This does not apply where a longer period is required by mandatory law, including for consumers in the EEA and the United Kingdom.
17. Changes to these Terms
We may update these Terms. The “Last updated” date reflects the current version. For material changes we will give at least 30 days’ notice by posting a prominent notice on the Site before they take effect. Continued use after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree, stop using the Site.
Material changes to Section 15 do not apply retroactively to disputes for which we had actual notice before the effective date.
18. Export control and sanctions
You represent that you are not located in, under the control of, or a national or resident of, any country or territory subject to comprehensive US, EU or UK sanctions, and that you are not on any restricted-party list, including the US Treasury’s SDN list. You agree not to use or export the Site in violation of applicable export-control or sanctions law.
19. Notices and electronic communications
You consent to receive communications from us electronically. Notices to you may be given by email or by posting on the Site. Notices to us must be sent to legal@carbongreylabs.com and, for formal legal notice, in writing to HDC Brands LLC, New Jersey, USA.
20. Force majeure
Neither party is liable for any failure or delay caused by events beyond its reasonable control, including natural disasters, war, terrorism, civil unrest, labour disputes, epidemics, governmental action, power or internet failures, or failures of third-party providers.
21. General
Assignment. You may not assign or transfer these Terms without our prior written consent. We may assign them to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets, on notice to you.
Severability. If any provision is held invalid or unenforceable, it is modified to the minimum extent necessary or severed, and the rest remains in force.
No waiver. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
No third-party beneficiaries. These Terms create no rights in anyone other than you and us, except that Section 12 and Section 13 extend to our members, officers, employees, contractors and agents.
Relationship. Nothing here creates a partnership, joint venture, employment or agency relationship.
Entire agreement. These Terms, with the Privacy Policy, Cookies Policy and AI Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Site and supersede all prior understandings on that subject.
Interpretation. Headings are for convenience only. “Including” means “including without limitation.”
22. Contact
HDC Brands LLC d/b/a Carbon Grey Labs — New Jersey, USA General and legal: legal@carbongreylabs.com · Sales: sales@carbongreylabs.com