TED Terms of Use

Date updated: August 15, 2023

TED is a not-for-profit organization. On any TED platform, we trust that our spaces are being used for legal, respectful and generally trustworthy purposes. While using any of these sites, you agree to abide by these terms and conditions. The policy is updated based on the date provided above. TED has full right to modify these terms based on our discretion. If you do not agree to any of the terms, provided herein, please do not participate on TED sites.

Terms of Use sections


TED's role

1. Scope of Terms. By visiting or accessing any TED sites -- including TED.com, TED applications, TED Connect, and/or downloading the TED’s browser extension tool, and or any sites (“TED Sites”) created and managed by TED Conferences, LLC (“TED”) -- you agree to be bound by our: Terms and Conditions, Privacy Policy and Community Guidelines, pertaining to your use of any content provided, accessed or distributed on any TED platforms (“Content”). You must be at least 13 years of age to create a TED Account. If you are under the age of 13, you may not create a TED.com account, but you are welcome to watch TED Talks and enjoy the site. If you are under the age of 16, and from the European Union (“EU”), you can only create an account if you have verifiable parental consent.


By interacting with TED and our platforms, you agree to our terms, conditions, policies and guidelines.

2. TED as Service Provider. TED Sites may contain links to third party providers and to Content that is uploaded by organizations, including videos, images, descriptions, links and other Content. TED is not responsible or liable to these third party sites, and you should review any terms of use when entering those sites or viewing their Content. In addition, if you are on a third party site and using TED’s browser extension created for the Healthy Internet Project, please note that usage of the browser tool is up to you and its usage may conflict with the terms and conditions of those third party sites, so please verify prior to using it that it is permissible otherwise, usage on the sites may be impacted.


You are responsible for reviewing any terms of third party sites that are linked through TED platforms when viewing content or using TED’s browser extension.


Interacting with TED sites and platforms

3. TED Accounts. In some areas of TED Sites, you may be asked to create an account, access information and or upload data to help use the TED Site or application. These accounts are only available for individuals that are 13 and older, or 16 and older in the EU unless we have parental consent. If you create an account, you are required to provide complete and accurate information. If you have created an account and do not wish to access TED Content, you may follow the user instructions applicable for that TED Site or platform and/or ask us to manually deactivate your account. In case you have created a password, you should keep this confidential at all times. All TED Sites must be used based on our guidelines and policies, and if TED determines in its sole discretion that you are not using TED Sites in the way it was intended, we have the right to deactivate your account at any time.


When creating a TED account, please provide accurate information. If you do not abide by the guidelines provided, we have the right to deactivate your account at any time.

4. Posting Content. You represent and warrant that any material you post to TED Sites, does not infringe another party’s intellectual property rights or any applicable national or local law that may apply regarding the posting of material. You also agree that any Content you post will not infringe on any third party right -- including copyright, trademark, patent, right of publicity or other intellectual property right, and will not slander, defame, libel or invade the right of privacy or publicity of any other person. If you submit any Content to TED Sites (translations, questions, comments or otherwise) you understand and agree that it may be used by TED for any reason throughout the world without requirement or consent, and that TED may edit your Content as long as the meaning is preserved. You agree that you provide a license for TED to use your Content worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty free and perpetual, non-revocable license for TED to use in whatever way TED deems appropriate throughout the world in whole or in part, in any media platforms available now or developed in the future. You are required to follow and be familiar with the Community Guidelines. If you post material or misuse TED Sites in a way that infringes on another party’s intellectual property rights, or these policies, you understand that we may remove the posting and that you agree to indemnify TED based on the indemnification provided below.


We ask that you follow the guidelines, applicable law and respect the intellectual property of others when contributing publicly to any TED platform. We may use edited parts of that content for other purposes.


5. DMCA Notice. TED postsTED Talks and Content from around the world. While TED strives to ensure all ideas posted are credible, based on facts and do not infringe on other people’s intellectual property rights, there may be an occasion when Content is provided by other parties, and/or may include material that infringes on the copyright of another third party. If this happens, the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 (the “DMCA”) provides recourse for copyright owners who believe that material appearing on any TED Site infringes their rights under U.S. copyright law. If you believe in good faith that Content on TED Sites infringes your copyright, you (or your agent) may send TED a notice requesting the material be removed or access to it blocked.

The notice must include the following information:


TED posts content from a variety of sources and while we respect the intellectual property of others, occasionally content may be posted that contains copyrighted content. If you find infringing content, please follow these steps in order to file a DMCA notice.

  • your name, mailing address, telephone number and email address
  • sufficient detail identifying the copyrighted work alleged to have been infringed
  • identification of the material that you claim to be infringing and information reasonably sufficient to allow TED to locate the material on the site
  • a statement that you have a good faith belief that use of the material in the manner complained of is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law; such as, “I have a good faith belief that use of the copyrighted materials described above as allegedly infringing is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent or the law.”
  • a statement that the information in the notification is accurate and, under penalty of perjury, that you are authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed; such as, “I swear, under penalty of perjury, that the information in the notification is accurate and that I am the copyright owner or am authorized to act on behalf of the owner of an exclusive right that is allegedly infringed.”
  • an electronic or physical signature of a person authorized to act on behalf of the copyright owner that is allegedly infringed.

All claims of copyright infringement should be emailed to dmca@ted.com, or sent by mail:

Attention: General Counsel
TED Conferences LLC
330 Hudson Street, 12th floor
New York, NY 10013

6. License to TED Content. TED Talks recordings are owned by TED, and is shared on TED.com and any other site that we manage, distribute or license to. TED Content is available by license based on the terms defined on our websites, offerings, and third-party partners that license our content for commercial use or is available based on subscription access. Unless otherwise indicated on the website, audio and video files, transcripts and/or information about a speaker TED Talks and TED-Ed videos are licensed via Creative Commons license (CC BY -- NC -- ND 4.0 International), which means that certain TED Content may be used for personal and/or educational purposes as long as the license terms and TED Talks’ Usage Policy are followed. Except as provided in the Usage Policy, you agree not to distribute, or publish any TED Content without TED’s prior written authorization, unless TED makes available the means for such distribution through functionality offered from the Talk Page at TED.com (such as the Embeddable Player). This also restricts the use of TED Content for the development of any software program, including but not limited to, training a machine learning or artificial intelligence (AI) system. Any embedding of TED Content for these purposes, even if the purpose is research without a specific written license is a violation of these terms.


While some of TED Content is licensed under Creative Commons (viewing for personal educational use only) this does not include rights to content that is available with a subscription, published for commercial purposes, or to develop AI or machine learning without a specific license. We ask that you review our Usage Policy to see how to manage commercial use or to understand our licensing terms.

7. License to Third Party Content. TED displays certain Content via the YouTube embedded player on TED’s platforms. Any Content that is provided by YouTube is subject to their terms of use and license requirements. Please review their terms of use that apply for license and usage terms. If third party Content contains TED-owned intellectual property, including any TED marks, such as TED, TEDx, TED-Ed, Ideas Worth Spreading, and/or other marks, you are not permitted to publish, display, distribute or use these marks for any purposes without prior written authorization.

Additionally, the TED-Ed website (ed.ted.com) uses YouTube API Services to allow users to find videos across youtube.com and feature them in user-created TED-Ed Lessons. The YouTube API is also used to update the view count for the videos featured on ed.ted.com. In order to use this app, you need to consent to be bound to YouTube's terms of service https://www.youtube.com/t/terms.


TED contains third party content like YouTube and as such, you may be subject to other terms of use.

8. Podcasts. Any MP3, MP4 audio files and XML files that are developed by TED, co-produced by TED as a podcast provided via a TED platform or third party platform, are protected by U.S. and international copyright laws. All rights to podcast(s) are as defined by the hosting provider, TED.com and/or the applicable terms through a subscription, or via a third party hosting provider. However in all instances TED podcasts are available for personal, noncommercial use only.

Unless otherwise indicated, you may only use the podcast for personal, noncommercial purposes, provided that:


TED podcasts may only be used for personal, non-commercial use within the terms listed.

  • you do not modify or delete any of the podcast Content nor individual audio files
  • you do not redistribute the audio files made available as part of the podcast
  • the use or display does not suggest that TED promotes or endorses any third party causes, ideas, products or services
  • audio files made available for download are not to be reproduced, edited, re-transmitted, or in any way repurposed without prior consent from TED.

TED reserves the right to discontinue providing podcast(s) and to require that you cease accessing or using the podcast(s) or any elements of the podcast at any time for any reason.

9. Browser Tools. TED offers a browser extension tool where volunteer users will identify whether content is healthy or abusive based on a set of factors to help create a healthy internet and civic discourse. Usage of the tool is voluntary and provided AS IS to promote the goals of the Healthy Internet Project, incubated at TED. During sign up, TED does not request or require any personal information for users to use the extension tool. Users will be provided a separate, randomly-generated account number to track usage, reviews and content posted by users. Any reviews will be considered Content under these Terms of Use and TED shall have full right to access such Content and to utilize any of the information to promote the mission of the Healthy Internet Project, including analysis of data and collection of information to be shared by third party partners, mentors and experts working with TED on the project. Users may remove the browser extension at any time, in accordance with the browser settings; or access may be terminated by TED if users are misusing the browser tool. For questions or issues, please reach out to support@healthyinternetproject.org


TED supports the Healthy Internet Project, incubated at TED, which offers users a free browser extension to any user that seeks to review content on the Internet anonymously to promote civic discourse.

10. Paid Subscriptions to TED. TED offers an ad-free video experience to view TED talks videos without ads where available in exchange for an annual fee. Ad-free video experience is only available for TED talks, while podcasts and other forms of TED content may still include ads that are provided on the platform where they are available, or contain references to sponsors, if applicable. For users of the TED iOS app, the subscription will offer users an ad-free experience by paying an annual subscription to the Apple Store directly, which can be cancelled up to 24 hours prior to the next annual term. For support issues related to subscriptions, users may go to help.ted.com for questions or assistance. TED reserves the right to change the terms of your subscription, if applicable and any such changes or updates will be provided on TED’s terms of use. Please note that canceling a subscription may be handled directly with the App store for subscriptions under the iOS device. Refunds of payments for subscriptions are permissible within 14 days of purchase.


TED offers users that subscribe to TED, through the TED iOS app the right to access TED videos ad-free for a subscription.

11. Donations to TED. TED offers users the ability to donate to TED.com to support its mission directly or to others using our gift donation feature. Donations to TED are non-refundable but renewals are cancellable at any time up to 24 hours prior to the next renewal term. TED does not collect any credit card information directly as all payment details will be paid to a third-party secure vendor, Stripe, Inc. For more information about their terms and privacy policy, please see here. TED collects, stores, and processes donor information for its records, and provides a tax receipt for any amounts over $250.00 annually. Added features such as a member badge may be added when they become available.


TED offers users the ability to donate to TED.com to support its mission directly or to others using our gift donation feature. Added features such as a member badge may be added when they become available.

12. TED Memberships. TED Memberships is a program that provides donors Membership benefits for donating to TED directly or on behalf of another user, as a gift. Membership benefits provide access to programming and unique content while no goods of any fair market value are provided. This may include access to a digital network to connect with other TED community members, powered by Mighty Networks. If a member signs up for access, then their privacy policy will apply. If donors offer a gift membership, TED will collect information from the person that was gifted as a donor subscriber; and will only use the donor's information for purposes of fulfilling the gift membership.


TED Memberships is a program offered to donors or gifted to individuals and include access to programming and special member-only content; including a network to promote community discussions and interactions.


13. No Warranties. All Content (including but not limited to: TED Talks, animations, videos, transcripts, podcasts etc.) is made available AS IS and TED does not offer any warranty of any kind, or represent that the Content will be accurate, complete, or error-free. TED is not liable for the usage of, implementation of, impact from, or communication of the ideas presented in any Content, or from any usage or performance of TED’s Healthy Internet Project extension tool, or during ad-free video experiences that may be subscribed on a user’s iOS device or on TED.com.


All content TED provides, including our browser extension tool or ad-free experiences are offered "as is," so we can't guarantee everything will be accurate, complete or entirely error-free. Please use our content thoughtfully and responsibly.

14. Release and Indemnity. TO THE EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, YOU AGREE TO RELEASE AND WAIVE ANY AND ALL CLAIMS AND/OR LIABILITY AGAINST TED ARISING FROM CONNECTION WITH YOUR USE OF TED SITES, ANY SUBSCRIPTION TO TED, OR ANY TED SPONSORED BROWSER EXTENSION TOOLS. YOU ALSO AGREE TO DEFEND, INDEMNIFY AND HOLD HARMLESS TED, ITS PARENT ORGANIZATION, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES AND THIRD PARTY LICENSORS, FROM AND AGAINST ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, DAMAGES, OBLIGATIONS, LOSSES, LIABILITIES, (INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO ATTORNEY'S FEES) ARISING FROM: (I) YOUR USE OF AND ACCESS TO TED SITES; (II) YOUR VIOLATION OF ANY TERM OF THESE TERMS OF USE; AND (III) YOUR VIOLATION OF ANY THIRD PARTY RIGHT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION ANY COPYRIGHT, PROPERTY, OR PRIVACY RIGHT.


You agree to be responsible for any issues you may have resulting from your use of TED content.

15. Limitation of Liability. UNDER NO CIRCUMSTANCES, INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE, SHALL TED OR ITS PARENT ORGANIZATION, OFFICERS, DIRECTORS, EMPLOYEES, PARTNERS, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES THAT MAY RESULT FROM THE ACCESS OF, USE OR INABILITY TO USE TED CONTENT, INCLUDING WITHOUT LIMITATION, USE OF OR RELIANCE ON INFORMATION, INTERRUPTIONS, ERRORS, DEFECTS, MISTAKES, OMISSIONS, DELETIONS OF FILES, DELAYS IN OPERATION OR TRANSMISSION, NON-DELIVERY OF INFORMATION, DISCLOSURE OF COMMUNICATIONS, OR ANY OTHER FAILURE OF PERFORMANCE.


Under no circumstance can TED be blamed for any damages you may have related to your use of TED and our platforms.

16. Entire Agreement. These Terms of Use constitute the entire agreement between users and the TED Sites, governed by the laws of the State of New York without regard to conflict of laws principles. You agree to submit to the personal jurisdiction of the courts located within the county of New York, NY. Any headings or summaries provided on this page are used for reference purposes only and do not serve any legal effect. By accessing TED Sites and Content, you agree to be bound by the terms and conditions herein.