Terms of
Service

1. The Short Version

We could write 5,000 words of dense legal jargon, or we could just tell you how it is. VideoThief is a free utility. You paste a link, you get a video. There are no accounts, no subscriptions, and no contracts. But since we need to cover our bases legally, here are the full terms written in language that an actual human can understand.

If you use VideoThief, you agree to these terms. If you don't agree, don't use it. Simple as that.

2. Acceptance of Terms

By accessing or using VideoThief (the "Service"), you acknowledge that you have read, understood, and agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). You also agree to our Privacy Policy, which explains how we handle (or rather, don't handle) your data.

You must be at least 13 years old to use VideoThief. If you're under 18, you should have a parent or guardian review these terms with you. Not because we're collecting anything from you — we're not — but because it's good practice.

If you use the Service on behalf of an organization, you represent that you have the authority to accept these terms on that organization's behalf.

3. Description of Service

VideoThief is a web-based tool that allows users to download publicly accessible videos from various online platforms, including but not limited to YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, Twitter/X, Reddit, Pinterest, Snapchat, Kick, Vimeo, Twitch, and SoundCloud.

Here's what the Service does:

• Accepts a video URL that you provide
• Processes that URL to locate the video file on the source platform
• Provides you with a direct download link to that video
• The video file is downloaded directly from the source platform to your device — it does not pass through or get stored on our servers

Here's what the Service does not do:

• Store, host, or distribute video files
• Bypass DRM (Digital Rights Management) protections
• Access private, restricted, or paywalled content
• Create accounts or profiles for users
• Install anything on your device

4. Your Responsibilities

When you use VideoThief, you are solely responsible for:

• Ensuring you have the right to download the content. Just because you can download something doesn't mean you should. Respect creators' rights.
• Complying with the source platform's terms of service. Each platform (YouTube, TikTok, etc.) has its own rules about downloading content. We provide a tool; you're responsible for how you use it in relation to each platform's policies.
• How you use downloaded content. Don't reupload someone else's work and claim it as your own. Don't use downloaded content for commercial purposes without permission. Don't distribute copyrighted material without a license.
• The URLs you submit. Only submit URLs to publicly accessible content that you have a legitimate reason to download.
• Compliance with applicable laws. Copyright law varies by country. It's your responsibility to understand and follow the laws that apply to you.

5. Intellectual Property

VideoThief's website design, code, branding, logo, and text content are the intellectual property of VideoThief and are protected by applicable intellectual property laws. You may not:

• Copy, reproduce, or redistribute our website's code or design
• Use our name, logo, or branding without written permission
• Create derivative works based on our website
• Scrape, crawl, or otherwise extract data from our website at scale

The videos you download using VideoThief belong to their respective creators and rights holders. VideoThief does not claim any ownership, license, or rights to the content you download. We are a tool, not a content platform.

6. Copyright & DMCA

We take copyright seriously. VideoThief is designed to help people download publicly available content for personal, fair-use purposes — not to facilitate piracy or copyright infringement.

However, we acknowledge that any tool can be misused. If you are a copyright holder and believe that VideoThief is being used to infringe your rights, here's what you should know:

• VideoThief does not host, store, or distribute any video files. We cannot remove a video from our servers because we never had it.
• We can, however, take steps to block our tool from processing specific URLs or domains if presented with a valid legal request.
• If you'd like to request that we block access to your content through VideoThief, please contact us at [email protected] with the specific URLs in question.

We will respond to legitimate DMCA takedown requests as required by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, to the extent that it applies to our service model. However, because we do not host content, the traditional DMCA process may need to be directed at the hosting platform (YouTube, TikTok, etc.) rather than at us.

7. Prohibited Uses

You may not use VideoThief to:

• Download copyrighted content for the purpose of redistribution, commercial use, or any use that violates the rights of the content creator
• Download content that is behind a paywall, subscription, or any form of access restriction
• Download private or restricted content that you do not have permission to access
• Use automated scripts, bots, or tools to mass-download content through VideoThief
• Attempt to reverse-engineer, decompile, or exploit our service's backend systems
• Use VideoThief in any way that violates applicable local, state, national, or international law
• Attempt to overwhelm, disrupt, or attack our infrastructure (DDoS, brute force, etc.)
• Use VideoThief to download content for the purpose of training AI models without proper authorization from the rights holders

We reserve the right to block any IP address, user agent, or pattern of behavior that we reasonably believe violates these terms or abuses the service.

8. Disclaimer of Warranties

VideoThief is provided "AS IS" and "AS AVAILABLE" without warranties of any kind, either express or implied. This includes but is not limited to:

• No guarantee of availability. The service may be down, slow, or broken at any time. We try to keep it running, but we make no promises.
• No guarantee of accuracy. The video metadata (title, thumbnail, quality) we display may not always be correct.
• No guarantee of compatibility. We don't guarantee that downloaded files will work on every device, player, or editing software.
• No guarantee of quality. The quality of downloaded videos depends on what the source platform provides. We don't modify, compress, or enhance video files.
• No guarantee against platform changes. If YouTube, TikTok, or any other platform changes their systems, VideoThief may temporarily or permanently stop working for that platform. We'll try to fix it, but we can't promise anything.

We do not warrant that the Service will be error-free, uninterrupted, secure, or free from harmful components. You use the Service at your own risk.

9. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law:

• VideoThief and its operators shall not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential, or punitive damages arising from your use of the Service
• VideoThief shall not be liable for any damages related to the content you download — including but not limited to copyright infringement claims brought against you by third parties
• VideoThief's total liability to you for any claim arising from or related to the Service shall not exceed the amount you paid to use the Service, which is $0.00

In plain English: the service is free, so our financial liability to you is zero. If something goes wrong, we'll try to fix it, but we're not going to pay you anything because you didn't pay us anything.

This limitation applies regardless of the legal theory under which the liability is claimed (contract, tort, negligence, strict liability, or otherwise), even if we've been advised of the possibility of such damages.

10. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify, defend, and hold harmless VideoThief and its operators from any claims, damages, losses, liabilities, and expenses (including reasonable legal fees) arising from:

• Your use of the Service
• Your violation of these Terms
• Your violation of any applicable law or regulation
• Your violation of any third party's intellectual property or other rights
• Content you download and how you use, distribute, or modify it

This means if you download someone's copyrighted video and they sue, that's between you and them. We provided a tool; how you used it is your responsibility.

11. Third-Party Content & Services

VideoThief interacts with third-party platforms (YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, etc.) to locate and facilitate the download of video content. We do not control these platforms and are not responsible for:

• The content hosted on these platforms
• Changes these platforms make to their systems, APIs, or terms of service that may affect VideoThief's functionality
• Any harm caused by content you download from these platforms
• The privacy practices of these platforms — when you download a video, the source platform may log your request according to their own policies

Our Service also loads third-party resources for styling and functionality:

• Google Fonts — subject to Google's privacy policy
• Font Awesome — loaded from cdnjs.cloudflare.com
• Tailwind CSS — loaded from cdn.tailwindcss.com

We do not control these services and are not responsible for their practices.

12. Service Availability

VideoThief is provided as a free, best-effort service. We do not guarantee:

• Uptime or continuous availability
• That any specific platform will always be supported
• That download speeds will be consistent
• That the Service will remain free forever (though we have no plans to change this)

We may temporarily suspend or discontinue the Service for maintenance, updates, or any other reason without prior notice. If we ever decide to shut down VideoThief permanently, we'll try to give users advance notice where possible — but we make no guarantees about this either.

We reserve the right to modify, restrict, or terminate access to any user or IP address that abuses the Service, at our sole discretion and without notice.

13. Changes to These Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we'll update the "Last updated" date at the top of this page. We won't email you about changes because we don't have your email.

We won't make changes that are designed to trick you or take away rights you relied on. If we make a significant change, we'll try to make it obvious. But ultimately, it's your responsibility to check this page periodically if you're concerned about changes.

Continued use of VideoThief after changes are posted constitutes acceptance of the updated Terms.

14. Governing Law

These Terms shall be governed by and construed in accordance with applicable laws, without regard to conflict of law principles.

Any disputes arising from these Terms or your use of the Service shall be resolved through good-faith negotiation first. If negotiation fails, disputes shall be resolved through binding arbitration rather than in court, unless applicable law requires otherwise.

We chose this approach because litigation is expensive and slow, and we'd rather spend our time making VideoThief better than paying lawyers. However, nothing in these Terms prevents you from asserting your rights under applicable consumer protection laws that cannot be waived by agreement.

15. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found to be unenforceable or invalid by a court or arbitrator of competent jurisdiction, that provision shall be limited or eliminated to the minimum extent necessary so that the remaining provisions remain in full force and effect.

In other words: if one part of these terms doesn't hold up legally, the rest still applies. We're not trying to sneak in anything unenforceable — but if something accidentally is, we don't want the whole document to fall apart because of it.

16. Contact Us

If you have questions about these Terms, want to report a violation, or need to reach us for any reason:

• General inquiries: [email protected]
• DMCA / Copyright concerns: [email protected]
• Contact Page: videothief.com/contact

We'll respond as quickly as we can. No ticket system, no chatbot, no "your call is important to us" recording — just a real response from a real person.