Terms of Use — Perch

Application · Effective 31 August 2026 · Version 0.18.4 (Windows) · 0.17.4 (macOS)

Perch changes what a website receives from a screen share. It is for hiding the rest of your desktop — not for defeating proctoring, a training record, or monitoring you agreed to. You may not copy, resell or republish it.

1. What you may do#

Perch is a paid application, installed and updated by the Pioneering Hub, and covered by the plans that include it. It has no sign-in of its own: the Hub signs in and leaves a signed statement that Perch re-verifies on every read.

You may use it on machines you own or control, for personal or business use. What happens to it if the subscription ends is set out in the Pioneering Terms and is not restated here, so that the two cannot drift apart.

2. What you may not do#

Perch is proprietary software. You are welcome to inspect what it does, and the documentation describes the mechanism rather than gesturing at it — but that does not place it in the public domain or grant any licence to reuse it. Without written permission you may not:

copy, modify or create derivative works from its code or assets;
redistribute it, or publish it to any store or extension gallery, in original or modified form;
sell, sublicense or bundle it with another product;
reuse it as a template, starter or teaching example;
remove or alter the copyright and authorship notices it carries.

3. What it is for, and where that stops#

Perch is sold for showing one browser tab — in a meeting, a demo, a support session — without also showing the rest of your desktop: your other windows, your notifications, your open documents. That is what it is built for and the only thing it is sold for.

It works by making a page or a site see something other than what is there: it hands the site a stream of a single tab that is labelled as a whole monitor and carries the dimensions of one. Pointed at your own privacy, that is the entire point. Pointed at a check somebody else is relying on, it is deception.

You may not use it to defeat a check you agreed to be subject to, or one that someone is relying on to make a decision about you — remote proctoring or invigilation, a training or compliance record, monitoring accepted as a condition of work, or anything paid or credited by attention. The Pioneering Terms set that out in full, and the rule is the same one here rather than a second version of it that could drift.

Perch never hides that a share is happening. The browser's own sharing indicator stays, the site still knows it has a stream, and there is no setting that changes either — Limits is the list of what it will not do and why.

Websites you visit may have their own terms of service, and some services, employers or institutions have rules about the software you run while using them. Complying with those rules is your responsibility, not the author's.

4. No warranty#

Perch is provided "as is", without warranty of any kind, express or implied, including but not limited to the warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose and noninfringement. It drives a browser and captures a window, both of which depend on behaviour the operating system and the browser may change. It is not guaranteed to be complete, uninterrupted or error-free.

5. Limitation of liability#

To the fullest extent permitted by law, the author shall not be liable for any claim, damages or other liability — including lost data, lost work, lost profits or any consequential loss — arising from or in connection with Perch or its use. If you are not willing to accept that risk, do not install it.

Nothing here limits your rights under the New Zealand Consumer Guarantees Act 1993. Where you are a consumer, those guarantees apply regardless of anything in this document.

6. Privacy#

Perch sends a subscription check and nothing else. Nothing about what you browse, capture or mirror leaves the machine. The privacy policy sets this out in full and forms part of these terms.

7. Availability and changes#

The author may update, change or withdraw Perch at any time, and may update these terms; the effective date above will change when that happens. Continuing to use it after a change means you accept the revised terms.

8. Contact#

Questions, licensing enquiries and permission requests: calyndrae@gmail.com