Terms of use

Last updated 9 September 2026

These terms cover the SmoothDetect app, the SmoothDetect Link panel for Premiere Pro, the trial, and this website. They are between you and Nicholas Pitt, trading as SmoothDetect, Sydney, Australia ("we", "us"). By installing the software or requesting a trial key you agree to them. Purchases are processed by Paddle.com Market Ltd as merchant of record; Paddle's checkout terms govern the payment itself, and these terms govern the licence. They are meant to be fair and readable. If something is unclear, email support@smoothdetect.com before you rely on it.

1. What you are buying

• SmoothDetect is sold as a one-time licence. There is no subscription and no per-project fee. The price and edition (SmoothDetect or SmoothDetect Studio) are shown on the pricing section at the time you buy.
• A licence is for one person and the number of Macs stated at purchase. A trial key activates on one Mac.
• Upgrading from SmoothDetect to Studio costs the difference in price. The same key gains the Tools tab.
• The licence is perpetual for the software you bought: it keeps working, and every update we release for that generation, including security and compatibility fixes, is included at no charge. If we ever release a paid major version, it will be a separate product, announced plainly, and what you own keeps working and keeps receiving fixes for at least twelve months after that announcement.
• Moving to a new Mac: deactivate the old one from inside the app or email us, and activate the new one. Licences are personal and not transferable to another person.

2. The free trial

• The trial runs for 14 days from the day the key is issued, with every feature enabled. No card is taken and nothing is charged when it ends. The software simply stops running until a paid key is entered.
• One trial per person. Requesting extra trial keys with other addresses is not allowed and we may cancel them.
• Anything you produced during the trial is yours to keep and use.

3. Your footage and your output

• Your footage stays on your Mac. We never receive it, and we claim no rights over it or over anything SmoothDetect helps you make.
• You may use the output for any purpose, commercial or personal, without credit to us.
• You are responsible for having the rights to the footage you process.

4. What you may not do

These restrictions apply to SmoothDetect's own software. FFmpeg and vid.stab ship alongside it as separate programs under the GNU General Public License; their licence text and complete source code are in the app's LICENSES folder, and nothing here limits the rights those licences give you over those programs.

• Share, sell, lend or publish your licence key, or run one licence for more than the people or machines it covers.
• Copy, decompile, reverse-engineer, or extract the software or the engine inside it, except where the law expressly allows it despite this clause.
• Remove or defeat the licence check, or help anyone else do so.
• Redistribute the software or the panel, with or without changes.
• Use the software to break the law or to interfere with anyone else's systems.

If you do any of these, we may revoke the licence without a refund.

5. Refunds

Your legal rights come first. Under the Australian Consumer Law, and the consumer law where you live, you are entitled to a remedy if the software is faulty or not as described. For a major failure you choose between a refund and a replacement; for a minor one we fix it in a reasonable time. Those rights are not limited by anything below, and using the trial does not waive them.

Our voluntary policy on top of that: the 14-day trial is the full product, so you can know exactly what you are buying. If you buy and something that worked in the trial does not work on your machine, email us within 14 days of purchase and we will fix it or refund you, your choice. Refunds are issued through Paddle to the original payment method.

6. Support and updates

• Support is by email at support@smoothdetect.com. We aim to reply within two business days, Sydney time.
• We release updates when they are ready. We do not promise a particular schedule, feature, or compatibility with every future version of macOS or Premiere Pro, but we do our best to keep pace with them.
• The software needs a Mac with Apple Silicon and, for the panel, a supported version of Premiere Pro. The current requirements are listed on the downloads page.

7. The licence check

The app contacts our licence server when you activate a key and periodically afterwards to renew its local token, currently every 30 days for a paid licence. It sends the key, a hashed identifier for your Mac and the app version. If the server cannot be reached, the app keeps working on its cached token for a further 14 days before it asks you to reconnect. So a perpetual licence does need an internet connection roughly once a month; it is not a permanently offline product. We intend to keep the activation service running for as long as the software is sold and supported. Details of what is sent are in the privacy policy.

8. What we promise, and what we do not

SmoothDetect finds usable moments in footage by analysing it. Its picks are suggestions for an editor, not a guarantee that every good moment is found or every bad one excluded. Results depend on the footage. Beyond the guarantees that consumer law gives you and cannot be excluded, the software is provided as is. To the extent the law allows, we are not liable for indirect or consequential loss, and our total liability to you is limited to the amount you paid for the licence. Where the law does not allow that limit, it applies to the extent it can.

9. Ending the agreement

You can stop using SmoothDetect at any time by deleting it; you can ask us to delete your records (see the privacy policy). We can end your licence only if you break section 4, and we will tell you why.

10. Changes to these terms

If we change these terms in a way that matters, we will update the date at the top and email licence holders. The current version always lives at smoothdetect.com/terms/. A change never reduces the rights that came with a licence you have already bought: what you paid for stays yours on the terms you bought it under. New terms apply to new purchases and to new features you choose to use after the change.

11. Law

These terms are governed by the law of New South Wales, Australia, and disputes go to its courts, except that consumers keep any right to use the courts and consumer protections of their own country.