Ebook Content Policy

This Ebook Content Policy defines what can and cannot be published as a cookbook on the ChefSphere Ebook Marketplace. It is part of the Ebook Author Agreement and extends the Platform Acceptable Use Policy.

1. What we publish

ChefSphere exists for original, author-tested culinary content: recipes, cooking guides, meal plans, baking playbooks, technique references, regional cuisine explorations, dietary-specific cookbooks, and similar. Cookbooks can be practical, narrative, photographic, technical, or educational. What they must always be is truthful, original, and safe to cook from.

2. Originality and intellectual property

• You may only publish content you own or have a clear right to sell.
• Recipes. A bare ingredient list is not typically copyrightable on its own, but a recipe's expression (the written instructions, headnotes, photographs, formatting, the selection and arrangement of a collection) is. Do not republish recipes from existing cookbooks, blogs, or restaurants without permission. Substantially adapting a recipe does not remove the need for attribution when the adaptation is recognisable.
• Photographs, illustrations, fonts, and typefaces must be your own work, licensed to you, or in the public domain. Commercial font licences are usually required for ebook use; screenshots or stock placeholders from the web are not.
• Trademarks. Do not use another brand's logos, product photography, or house marks on your cover or inside the ebook.

Copyright complaints follow the Platform Copyright & DMCA Policy; persistent or wilful infringement leads to Author-account termination and reversal of affected earnings.

3. Safety, allergens, and responsible disclosure

Food content can harm readers when it is wrong. You must:

• List all allergens present in a recipe using clear language (e.g., "contains nuts, dairy, egg, gluten") and match the labelling conventions of the ebook's primary market;
• Flag foods unsafe for specific groups where the law or common sense requires (for example: raw eggs or undercooked meats; unpasteurised products during pregnancy; honey for infants under 12 months; alcohol in dishes marketed as child-friendly);
• Avoid making medical or therapeutic claims (cure, treat, prevent disease, guaranteed weight loss). Educational context about nutrition is allowed when it is evidence-based and sourced; claims that require regulatory approval are not;
• include a brief disclaimer (recommended: "Nothing in this book is medical, dietary, or nutritional advice") when appropriate for the subject;
• for techniques that involve genuine physical risk (pressure cooking, live-fire cooking, fermentation, oil canning, home curing, fugu, wild foraging) include a plain-language safety section before the recipe.

4. Disclosure of AI use

• If any part of your ebook — recipe text, headnotes, translations, illustrations, cover art — was generated or materially edited by a generative AI system, say so on the ebook detail page. The disclosure does not need to be long; a one-line statement is enough ("Parts of this cookbook were developed with the help of AI assistants; every recipe was tested by the author").
• You remain fully responsible for the content you publish whether it was written by a human, by AI, or by both. AI-generated recipes that have never been tested may not be published.

5. Prohibited content

The following is never allowed in an ebook, a cover, sample pages, description, or author profile:

• Illegal content — child sexual-abuse material (CSAM), content promoting or facilitating terrorism or violent extremism, content promoting the trafficking of drugs or weapons, or any content criminal in the Author's country of residence;
• Hate speech and harassment — content that attacks or dehumanises people on the basis of a protected characteristic (see Platform Acceptable Use Policy);
• Sexually explicit or pornographic content, including content that sexualises the preparation or consumption of food involving minors or non-consenting participants;
• Graphic violence beyond what a reasonable documentary butchery lesson, hunting guide, or food-science explanation requires;
• Self-harm content — material glorifying eating disorders, extreme fasting, purging regimens, or unsafe rapid-weight-loss protocols. Responsible recovery content can be published with appropriate care;
• Deceptive content — fabricated expert endorsements, invented nutrition credentials, fake reviews, price manipulation, or undisclosed paid promotion;
• Infringing content — recipes, photographs, or layouts copied from another publication without a licence;
• Unsafe instructions — toxic combinations, deliberate contamination techniques, or instructions designed to injure a person.

6. Listing quality standards

Even where content is legal and original, the listing must be usable:

• a cover image of reasonable quality that actually represents the ebook;
• a title and description in the ebook's primary language, free of SEO keyword stuffing;
• accurate metadata — page count, language, cuisine, dietary tags, sample chapters that open to the declared pages;
• a working PDF that passes our parser (no encryption tricks, no password locks, no fake bytes). We run automated text extraction; a file we cannot parse cannot be moderated and will be rejected.

7. Moderation process

Every new ebook goes through an automated pre-publication moderation step before it becomes purchasable. That step uses machine-learning classifiers on the extracted text, the cover image, and the metadata; see the AI Disclosure for the family of models used and the data-handling rules.

Possible outcomes:

1. Approved — published immediately;
2. Held for review — the Author receives a reasoned notice and can respond in-app; a human reviewer decides within a reasonable window;
3. Rejected — the Author receives a reasoned notice and may revise and resubmit; serious violations can lead to account-level action.

Every moderation decision is subject to human review on request by writing to [email protected] with the reference identifier from the notice. EU users additionally have the rights described in the EU DSA Notice.

8. Post-publication enforcement

Any user can report an ebook, an author profile, or a review through three equivalent channels, each of which produces an identified notice recorded in our compliance log in line with Art. 16 DSA:

• In-app "Report" action (account-gated, recommended) — available from every ebook detail page, author profile, and review card.
• Structured online form (account-gated) — same intake shape as the in-app action, accessible from the DSA Notice page.
• Public email (unauthenticated path) — copyright complaints to [email protected] under the Platform Copyright & DMCA Policy; every other category to [email protected]. A notice sent by email is treated as sufficiently precise and substantiated, and triggers actual knowledge within the meaning of Art. 6(1)(b) DSA, only if it contains the elements listed in Art. 16(2) DSA (reason, electronic location, submitter's identity unless anonymous categories apply, good-faith statement).

Reports are triaged by our trust & safety team. Urgent categories (CSAM, credible threats) are prioritised. Responses may include:

• reducing the ebook's distribution (removal from featured or public surfaces);
• taking down the ebook;
• suspending a feature (publishing, messaging, selling);
• restricting or terminating the Author account;
• withholding Author payouts while an investigation is open;
• referring the incident to law-enforcement authorities when required by law.

Authors found to violate this Content Policy repeatedly are terminated under the Author Agreement; buyers who purchased affected ebooks may receive pro-rata refunds from the Author's balance.

9. Reviews, ratings, and community trust

• Reviews must be written by the actual reader. Fake reviews, coordinated voting rings, and incentivised reviews that hide a conflict of interest are prohibited.
• Authors must not solicit positive reviews in exchange for free copies without disclosure, must not downvote competitors, and must not retaliate against buyers who leave honest reviews.
• ChefSphere may remove reviews that break the Platform Acceptable Use Policy, are clearly off-topic, or are the result of a review-ring investigation.

10. Changes

We will post a new version of this policy when the moderation pipeline, the safety requirements, or applicable law changes materially. Material changes take effect 30 days after we notify Authors in-app and by email, unless the law or a safety concern requires a shorter notice period.

11. Contact

• Trust & safety / content reports: [email protected]
• Copyright / DMCA: [email protected]
• Author support: [email protected]
• Legal notices: [email protected]