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Terms of Use

Open Music (openmusic.art) Last updated: March 2026

These terms govern your use of the Open Music platform. By creating an account or using the service, you agree to them.

1. What Open Music is

Open Music is a music streaming platform with a user-centric payment model. 90% of each subscriber's fees go directly to the artists they actually listen to, proportional to listening time. The remaining 10% is the platform fee. We are not a label, distributor, or publisher. We are infrastructure for a fairer music economy.

2. Accounts

Creating an account

You can sign up using email (OTP verification) or Google OAuth. You must provide a valid email address. You choose a username during onboarding, subject to our username rules: 3-30 characters, lowercase alphanumeric with hyphens, underscores, and periods allowed, no reserved or system words.

You must be at least 13 years old to use Open Music. If you are under 18, you represent that you have parental or guardian consent.

Account responsibility

You are responsible for all activity under your account. Keep your login credentials secure. If you suspect unauthorized access, contact us immediately.

Account deletion

You can delete your account at any time from Settings. Deletion removes your profile, social data, and personal information. Financial records tied to completed payment distributions may be retained in anonymized form as required by law or for payment audit integrity.

3. Subscriptions and payments

Subscription tiers

Open Music offers paid subscription tiers (currently: Listener, Supporter, Fan, Patron) at various monthly price points. Subscription details and pricing are displayed before checkout. Free browsing and playback may be available but is not guaranteed and may change.

How your money is distributed

When you subscribe, your monthly payment is distributed as follows:

  1. Stripe deducts its standard payment processing fee
  2. Open Music takes a 10% platform fee from the net amount
  3. The remaining 90% (the "artist pool") is divided among the artists you listened to during your billing cycle, proportional to your listening time

If you had zero qualifying listens during a cycle, the artist pool becomes platform revenue for that cycle.

A listen qualifies for distribution if it reaches at least 30 seconds of playback or the track is completed (for tracks shorter than 30 seconds). Replays count. Self-listening counts (artists who listen to their own music receive their share).

Billing

Each subscriber has an individual billing cycle based on their signup date, managed by Stripe. Stripe handles all payment processing, card storage, renewals, and invoicing. We never store your payment card details.

Cancellation

You can cancel your subscription at any time through the Stripe Customer Portal (accessible from Settings). Cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period. You retain access until then.

Refunds

Because subscription revenue is distributed to artists at the end of each billing cycle, refunds after distribution has occurred are generally not available. For billing disputes or errors, contact us or Stripe directly.

4. Artist terms

Uploading music

By uploading music to Open Music, you represent and warrant that:

  • You own or control all rights to the content you upload, including the sound recording and any underlying compositions
  • You have the right to distribute the content through a streaming platform
  • Your content does not infringe on any third party's intellectual property, privacy, or other rights
  • You have obtained all necessary licenses, clearances, and permissions from any collaborators, publishers, labels, or other rights holders

What you retain

You retain full ownership of your music. Uploading to Open Music does not transfer any copyright or ownership to us. You can remove your music at any time.

What you grant us

By uploading, you grant Open Music a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free license to: store, encode (Opus, AAC), stream, and distribute your audio content to users of the platform; generate and use audio embeddings (Sonic DNA) for discovery and recommendation purposes; display your track metadata, cover art, and profile information on the platform; and create waveform visualizations and loudness-normalized versions for playback.

This license exists solely to operate the platform. It terminates when you remove your content, except that Sonic DNA embeddings may be retained briefly during cache propagation and audio files in active CDN caches may take up to 24 hours to expire.

Collaborators and royalty splits

If your track has contributors, you can assign royalty split percentages. You are solely responsible for the accuracy of these splits and for any agreements with your collaborators. Open Music distributes earnings according to the splits you define. We are not a party to your collaboration agreements and bear no liability for disputes between collaborators.

Artist earnings and withdrawals

Earnings accumulate in your Open Music wallet. You can request withdrawals via bank transfer (through Stripe Connect) or USDC on Solana. Withdrawal processing times and minimum thresholds may apply. We may require tax documentation before processing withdrawals, as required by applicable law.

Content moderation

We reserve the right to remove content that violates these terms, infringes on others' rights, or is illegal. We are not obligated to proactively monitor all uploads, but we will respond to valid complaints and takedown requests.

5. Listener terms

Acceptable use

You may stream music for personal, non-commercial enjoyment. You may not: download, rip, or capture audio streams for offline redistribution; use bots, scripts, or automated tools to inflate play counts or manipulate the payment distribution system; circumvent any access controls or technical measures; or use the platform to harass artists or other users.

Play count integrity

Because listening data directly determines how artists get paid, any attempt to artificially inflate or manipulate play counts is treated as a serious violation. This includes bot listening, coordinated stream farming, or any scheme to fraudulently redirect subscription revenue. Accounts found engaging in such activity will be terminated.

6. Sonic DNA and AI features

Open Music uses AI (specifically the CLAP model) to analyze uploaded audio and generate 512-dimensional embedding vectors ("Sonic DNA"). These embeddings power music discovery based on sonic similarity.

By uploading music, artists consent to this automated analysis. The process is equivalent to a listener hearing your track and describing what it sounds like. The embeddings cannot be reverse-engineered into audio.

We may also use AI (currently Claude by Anthropic via Vercel AI SDK) to power conversational music search and discovery features. Chat interactions with these features are processed by third-party AI providers subject to their respective terms and privacy policies.

7. Prohibited conduct

You may not:

  • Upload content you don't have rights to
  • Impersonate other users or artists
  • Use the platform to distribute malware or spam
  • Attempt to access other users' accounts or data
  • Interfere with the platform's infrastructure or security
  • Use the platform for any illegal purpose
  • Scrape, crawl, or systematically extract data from the platform
  • Manipulate the payment distribution system through fraudulent listening activity

8. Intellectual property

Our IP

The Open Music name, logo, and platform design are our property. The platform codebase is open source under its respective license. Open source does not mean you can use our trademarks or brand assets without permission.

DMCA and takedowns

We respect intellectual property rights. If you believe content on Open Music infringes your copyright, contact us at senishin@gmail.com with: identification of the copyrighted work, identification of the infringing content on our platform, your contact information, and a statement that you have a good faith belief the use is not authorized.

We will review and respond to valid takedown requests promptly. Repeat infringers will have their accounts terminated.

9. Disclaimers

Open Music is provided "as is" and "as available." We do not guarantee uninterrupted or error-free service. We are an early-stage platform (currently MVP), and features, pricing, availability, and functionality may change.

We do not guarantee any specific level of earnings for artists. Revenue depends on listener subscriptions and listening behavior, which we do not control.

We are not responsible for the content uploaded by users. Artists are solely responsible for ensuring they have the rights to the music they upload.

10. Limitation of liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law, Open Music's liability for any claim arising from your use of the platform is limited to the amount you paid to Open Music in the 12 months preceding the claim. We are not liable for indirect, incidental, consequential, or punitive damages.

11. Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold Open Music harmless from claims, damages, or expenses arising from: your use of the platform, content you upload, your violation of these terms, or your violation of any third party's rights.

12. Governing law

These terms are governed by and construed in accordance with applicable law. Any disputes will be resolved in the courts of the jurisdiction where Open Music is incorporated, or through binding arbitration if both parties agree.

13. Changes to these terms

We may update these terms as the platform evolves. We will notify you of material changes via email or in-app notice. Continued use of the platform after changes take effect constitutes acceptance.

14. Open source

Open Music's codebase is open source. The open-source license governs the code. These Terms of Use govern your use of the hosted platform at openmusic.art and do not modify or replace the open-source license.

15. Contact

For questions about these terms:

  • Email: roma@openmusic.art