Running a node.
Applies to hosts who install the Acorn daemon and contribute compute capacity from their own Apple Silicon Macs. Beta draft, pending counsel review.
1. Relationship
You participate as an independent contractor — not an employee, agent, joint venturer, or representative of Acorn. You control your hardware, schedule, and operating environment.
2. Worker obligations
Run the worker only on hardware you control, keep your OS reasonably current, protect local credentials, and avoid tampering with jobs, transcripts, or validation checks.
3. Quality and abuse controls
Acorn validates output with canaries, duplicate reviews, and reputation scoring. Workers that submit low-quality, manipulated, or abusive results may receive less work, have payouts withheld, or be removed.
4. Payouts
Payout terms, holdback windows, and release timing may change during beta. Acorn may withhold or reverse payouts tied to fraud, policy violations, or incorrect accounting.
5. Data on your Mac
During an active claim, the Mac app downloads a small audio clip to NSTemporaryDirectory(). The CLI worker stages audio in ~/.acorn/audio-cache unless configured otherwise. Time Machine, Spotlight, and iCloud Desktop & Documents do not cover the Mac app temp path by default.
6. Privacy and security
Workers receive limited job data and should process it only through the Acorn software. You may not store, reuse, or disclose source recordings outside the service flow.
7. No guarantees
Acorn does not guarantee a minimum amount of work, any specific payout level, or that the beta will continue uninterrupted.
8. Ending participation
Uninstall the worker and leave the network at any time. Acorn may suspend or terminate access if your worker becomes unreliable, insecure, or abusive.
9. Taxes
You are responsible for your own taxes and any local laws that apply to the income you earn.