Terms of Service

1. Acceptance

By accessing blackboxnotes.com ("the Site") you accept these Terms of Service. If you do not accept them, do not use the Site. These terms apply to anonymous readers, registered correspondents, contributors, and pitch submitters alike.

2. The publisher

The Site is operated by Lumenwhite Media Holdings Pte Ltd, a Singapore-registered media holding company ("the Publisher"). The publication's editorial control rests with the named bylines as described on the About page.

3. Use of the Site

The Site is provided for personal, professional, and educational use. You may read, bookmark, print, and reference its contents. You may share links freely. You may not:

• Republish entire articles outside the excerpt rules in §5;
• Use the Site's contents to train commercial machine-learning models without an explicit license from the Publisher;
• Use the Site to attempt to identify or de-anonymise a source quoted in the publication;
• Scrape the Site in a way that interferes with normal operation;
• Use the Site's contents in a way that misrepresents the publication's editorial position.

4. Copyright

All articles, layouts, illustrations, audio recordings, and downloadable assets on the Site are copyright of Lumenwhite Media Holdings Pte Ltd or of the named contributor under license to the Publisher, except where a piece carries a different licence note in its footer.

The publication's wordmark and the layout are copyright of the Publisher. Editorial reuse of the wordmark under the rules in the Press & Media Kit does not require permission.

5. Excerpts and republication

Excerpts up to 300 words from a published piece may be reproduced in commentary or criticism, with attribution and a link to the original. Longer reproductions require an explicit republication license; write to press at blackboxnotes dot com.

Pieces marked "Open republication" in their footer may be republished in full under the terms in that mark. To date, no piece carries this mark.

6. Machine-learning training

The contents of the Site are not licensed for use in the training, fine-tuning, or retrieval-augmented generation pipelines of commercial machine-learning systems without the Publisher's prior written consent. A robots.txt directive describing this position is published at /robots.txt. Operators of commercial training crawlers are expected to honour both directives.

7. Comments & submissions

The Site does not have a comment system. Letters to the editor sent to the editorial inbox may be published, in whole or part, with attribution. Pitch submissions are treated as confidential to the editorial team; the publication does not pass pitch material to third parties.

By sending material to a publication inbox you grant the Publisher a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to quote and discuss that material in the publication, with attribution as appropriate to the submission. Material clearly marked "off the record" is treated as off the record under standard journalism practice.

8. Disclaimers

The publication writes about contested matters. Coverage on the Site reflects the editorial team's analysis at the time of publication and is not legal, financial, regulatory, or technical advice. Readers should not act on a piece's analysis without independent professional consultation appropriate to their circumstances.

The Site is provided "as is." The Publisher disclaims warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement to the maximum extent permitted by applicable law.

9. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, the Publisher's aggregate liability for any claim arising from use of the Site is limited to the greater of (a) the amount you paid the Publisher in the twelve months preceding the claim or (b) one hundred Singapore dollars. The Publisher is not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages.

10. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify the Publisher against claims arising from your breach of these Terms, your misuse of the Site, or your violation of third-party rights through your use of the Site.

11. Governing law and venue

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Republic of Singapore. Disputes that cannot be resolved through correspondence are referred to the Singapore International Arbitration Centre under its prevailing rules at the time of the dispute. The seat of arbitration is Singapore. The language of arbitration is English. This clause does not impair any reader's statutory rights under mandatory consumer-protection law in the reader's home jurisdiction.

12. Termination

The Publisher may suspend access to the Site for an actor in material breach of these Terms. The Publisher may discontinue or restructure the Site on notice in the publication.

13. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is held unenforceable, the remaining provisions remain in effect.

14. Changes

We revise these Terms when our practice changes or the law requires. Material revisions are noted in the publication's newsletter and dated below.

15. Contact

For questions about these Terms, write to legal at blackboxnotes dot com.

Last revised: 2026-05-22.