SLOCK
Legal · Founding Preview

Terms ofUse

The rules of this site and the Founding Preview programme — written for EU consumers, without the fog.

Effective date: 12 August 2026 (version 2.0) · Publisher: VF Empire Corp Ltd (Malta) · Contact: info@vfempire.com

Company no.: C 94160 · VAT: MT 2686-9431 · Registered office: Virgo Louretana, Triq L-Mġarr, Għajnsielem GSM1020, Gozo, Malta · Trust page

These Terms of Use (the “Terms”) govern your access to and use of the website https://si-lock.com (the “Site”) and your participation in the S◉LOCK Founding Preview early-access programme (the “Programme”). Please read them carefully. By accessing the Site or submitting the access form, you accept these Terms. If you do not agree with them, do not use the Site.

1. Who we are

The Site and the Programme are operated by VF Empire Corp Ltd, a limited liability company registered in Malta (the “Company”, “we”, “us” or “our”), trading globally. You can reach us at info@vfempire.com. “S◉LOCK”, “SILOCK”, “Helmsman” and related marks are used by the Company to identify its products; trademark registrations may be pending in one or more jurisdictions.

2. Definitions

  • “Consumer” means a natural person acting for purposes outside their trade, business, craft or profession, within the meaning of applicable EU and Maltese consumer law.
  • “Content” means all text, images, video, audio, code, design elements, data and other materials made available on the Site.
  • “Founding Preview” means the limited early-access programme described on the Site, under which the Company may invite selected applicants to obtain early access to S◉LOCK products.
  • “Invitation” means a written communication from the Company to an applicant confirming seat type, scope, hardware expectations and pricing.
  • “Seat” means a licence or access position in the Programme allocated under an Invitation.
  • “S◉LOCK Software” means any software, operating system image, package or update delivered by the Company under a separate licence agreement.

3. Eligibility and acceptance

You must be at least eighteen (18) years old to submit the access form. If you use the Site or apply on behalf of a company or other organisation, you represent that you are authorised to bind that organisation, and “you” includes it. These Terms apply to the Site and the application stage of the Programme; S◉LOCK Software is licensed under a separate end-user licence agreement (“EULA”) provided at or before delivery, together with any product-specific terms. In case of conflict between these Terms and a EULA or Invitation, the EULA or Invitation prevails for the subject matter it covers.

4. The Founding Preview programme

  1. Pre-release status. S◉LOCK is offered as a limited Founding Preview. It is not a finished, general-availability product. Features, packages, timelines, performance characteristics and hardware profiles may change as engineering matures.
  2. Product horizon. Descriptions of future capabilities (including items on the roadmap such as Social Centre, marketplace, or scroll-story sites) describe a development direction. They are not a promise that any specific feature will ship, or ship by a particular date, unless expressly confirmed in an Invitation or EULA.
  3. Invitations are discretionary. We may decline, defer or limit any application, including where hardware, jurisdiction, export-control considerations or Programme capacity do not fit. We may withdraw an Invitation before a contract is concluded.
  4. Honest-scope commitment. Where the Site distinguishes between what is available in the Founding Preview and what is in the pipeline, we will not knowingly present pipeline items as released products.

5. Access requests; no sale concluded on this Site

Submitting the access form is a request for contact only. It is not an order, not an offer capable of acceptance, and creates no obligation on either side. The Site does not currently operate a self-serve checkout. Any purchase or licence is concluded, if at all, only after an Invitation, through a separate ordering process that will state the price, the main characteristics of the product, delivery arrangements and the pre-contractual information required by applicable consumer law.

6. Consumer information and right of withdrawal

  1. If you contract with us as a Consumer in the European Union, you will, at the time of any future purchase, receive the pre-contractual information required by Directive 2011/83/EU (Consumer Rights Directive) as transposed in Malta, including the identity of the trader, total price, functionality and interoperability of digital content, duration, and complaint handling.
  2. Consumers ordinarily have a right to withdraw from a distance contract within fourteen (14) days without giving reasons. For the supply of digital content not on a tangible medium, the right of withdrawal lapses where performance has begun with the Consumer’s prior express consent and acknowledgement that the right is thereby lost; where the law so requires, we will obtain that consent expressly during the ordering process.
  3. Formal withdrawal instructions and a model withdrawal form will be provided with any order documentation. Nothing in these Terms limits rights that applicable consumer law grants you and that cannot be contractually waived.

7. Acceptable use

In connection with the Site you must not:

  • attack, probe, overload or disrupt the Site, its infrastructure, or the intake API that receives form submissions;
  • attempt to gain unauthorised access to any system, account or data;
  • submit false, misleading or third-party contact details without authority, or use the form for spam, fraud or market manipulation;
  • misrepresent an affiliation with the Company or with S◉LOCK;
  • upload or transmit malware or other harmful code;
  • use the Site in violation of applicable law, including export-control and sanctions law; or
  • circumvent technical measures we apply at the network edge (rate limits, bot filters, honeypot paths).

8. Automated access, scraping and AI training

  1. Search-engine indexing and answer-engine access consistent with our robots.txt and llms.txt are welcome.
  2. Bulk scraping of the Site for the purpose of training machine-learning models is prohibited without our prior written permission. Pursuant to Article 4(3) of Directive (EU) 2019/790 (DSM Directive), the Company expressly reserves the text-and-data-mining rights in the Content; this section, together with our robots.txt and llms.txt declarations, constitutes a machine-readable and human-readable reservation.
  3. We may block, throttle or refuse automated agents at our discretion and report abusive traffic to hosting providers or authorities.

9. Intellectual property

  1. The Content, the Site design, and the S◉LOCK, SILOCK and Helmsman names, logos and marks are owned by the Company or its licensors and are protected by intellectual-property laws.
  2. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-exclusive, non-transferable licence to access and view the Content for personal, non-commercial evaluation of our products. Press may quote reasonable excerpts with attribution. Any other reproduction, distribution or commercial use requires our prior written consent.
  3. Third-party names appearing on the Site belong to their respective owners; their appearance implies no endorsement, sponsorship or affiliation.
  4. Feedback. If you send us suggestions or feedback about the Programme, you grant the Company a perpetual, irrevocable, royalty-free, worldwide licence to use that feedback without restriction and without obligation to you, save for rights that cannot be waived by law.

10. Third-party software and open-weight models

  1. S◉LOCK products may install, reference or interoperate with third-party software and open-weight AI models. Such items are licensed by their respective owners under their own terms (for example open-source or open-weight licences), which you must review and comply with.
  2. The Company does not claim ownership of third-party models, does not warrant their outputs, and is not affiliated with their publishers unless expressly stated.
  3. You are responsible for your use of AI outputs, including verifying accuracy and ensuring your use complies with applicable law in your jurisdiction.

11. Hardware and performance

  1. Hardware is purchased, owned and maintained by you. Requirements published on the hardware page are planning guidance; the applicable profile for your Seat is confirmed in the Invitation.
  2. Performance of locally run models depends on your machine. We do not represent that large local models will match the interactive latency of cloud-hosted services.

12. No professional advice

Content on the Site is general product information. It is not legal, tax, medical, financial or security advice, and you should not rely on it as such.

13. Availability of the Site

The Site is a marketing and information surface. We may modify, suspend or discontinue any part of it at any time. We aim for high availability but give no uptime commitment for the Site itself.

14. Warranties and your statutory rights

  1. To the maximum extent permitted by law, the Site and all Content are provided “as is” and “as available”, without warranties of any kind, whether express or implied, including merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and non-infringement.
  2. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits rights which you enjoy under mandatory provisions of law, including, for Consumers in the EU, the conformity remedies for digital content and digital services under Directive (EU) 2019/770 and the Maltese Consumer Affairs Act (Cap. 378 of the Laws of Malta) once digital content is supplied to you under a contract. Those statutory rights apply in addition to, and prevail over, anything in this section.

15. Limitation of liability

  1. Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits the Company’s liability for: (a) death or personal injury caused by its negligence; (b) fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation; (c) wilful misconduct or gross negligence (dolus or culpa lata) to the extent such liability cannot be excluded under Maltese law; or (d) any other liability which cannot be excluded or limited under applicable law, including mandatory consumer protections.
  2. Subject to paragraph 1, the Company shall not be liable for indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for loss of profits, revenue, data, goodwill or anticipated savings, arising from your use of the Site or reliance on Programme information.
  3. Subject to paragraphs 1 and 2, the Company’s aggregate liability for all claims arising out of or in connection with the Site and the application stage of the Programme shall not exceed one hundred euro (€100) or the total amount you have paid the Company for Site-related services in the twelve (12) months preceding the event giving rise to the claim, whichever is greater. Liability under any future EULA or purchase contract is addressed in that contract.

16. Indemnity

If you are not a Consumer, you agree to indemnify and hold the Company harmless from third-party claims, damages and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from your breach of these Terms or misuse of the Site. For Consumers, this section applies only to the extent permitted by the law of your habitual residence.

17. Suspension and termination

We may suspend or terminate your access to the Site or your participation in the application stage of the Programme where we reasonably believe you have breached these Terms, where required by law, or where the Programme is modified or discontinued. Sections which by their nature should survive (including 8, 9, 14, 15, 16, 19, 20 and 21) survive termination.

18. Changes to these Terms

We may update these Terms from time to time. The effective date and version number at the top will change, and material changes will be highlighted on this page or notified to registered applicants by email where appropriate. Changes apply prospectively; your continued use of the Site after the effective date constitutes acceptance. If you do not agree with a change, stop using the Site.

19. Governing law and jurisdiction

  1. These Terms, and any non-contractual obligations arising out of or in connection with them, are governed by the laws of Malta, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules.
  2. The courts of Malta shall have jurisdiction over disputes arising out of or in connection with these Terms.
  3. Consumer carve-out. If you are a Consumer habitually resident in the EU/EEA, you additionally benefit from mandatory provisions of the law of your country of residence, and you may bring proceedings in the courts of that country; proceedings against you may be brought only in those courts, as provided by Regulation (EU) No 1215/2012.

20. Consumer dispute resolution

If you are a Consumer and have a complaint, please contact us first at info@vfempire.com — most issues are resolved directly. Consumers in Malta may also contact the Malta Competition and Consumer Affairs Authority (MCCAA) or, for eligible claims, the Consumer Claims Tribunal. Consumers elsewhere in the EU may use the alternative-dispute-resolution bodies designated in their country of residence. We will provide details of any competent ADR entity on request.

21. General provisions

  • Severability. If any provision of these Terms is held invalid or unenforceable, the remainder continues in force, and the invalid provision is replaced by a valid one that most closely reflects its intent.
  • No waiver. A failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it.
  • Assignment. You may not assign your rights under these Terms without our consent. We may assign to an affiliate or successor in connection with a merger, reorganisation or sale of assets, provided your rights are not reduced.
  • Entire agreement. These Terms, together with the Privacy Policy and Cookie Policy, are the entire agreement between you and the Company concerning the Site and the application stage of the Programme.
  • Language. These Terms are drawn up in English. Communications under them will be in English.
  • Force majeure. Neither party is liable for delay or failure caused by events beyond its reasonable control.

22. Contact

VF Empire Corp Ltd (Malta) · info@vfempire.com · si-lock.com

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