Playing nice

Our mission is to help publishers to make great recorded audio easily accessible to the public and be rewarded for their work.

We promise:

• We'll be helpful and honest
• We'll work with other app makers to improve the listening experience We'll help quality publishers to monetize their work
• We'll contribute to the growth of the global podcasting community and audiobook industry

We expect:

• You'll treat other Awesound members with respect
• You'll provide feedback on how to improve the publishing or listening experience
• You'll ask for permission to collaborate if you identify a new way of using or accessing Awesound

The Fine Print

By using Awesound, you agree to the following Terms of Use.

General definitions

“Awesound” refers to Awesound Inc., its staff and the “Awesound platform”. The “Awesound platform” (the “platform”) includes the entirety of Awesound’s existing and future technology and services including the Awesound website, developer API, mobile apps and any allowed methods used to publish or listen using Awesound or one of its related services. “Publisher” (plural publishers) refers to any person or party who adds content to the Awesound platform, via uploading or other import method. “Awesound content” refers to any file or piece of content (audio or otherwise) hosted by Awesound, created in whole or in part or modified using Awesound, published or shared via Awesound or otherwise processed by Awesound, which may consist of one or more media types such as text, images and/or audio. Note: You retain full ownership and copyright of your own content, when you upload to Awesound. “Listener” (plural listeners) refers to any user of the Awesound website/platform, or who accesses any Awesound content, even if accessing this file via a device or service (such as a podcast app) which is not formally associated with Awesound. “Partner” refers to publishers, advertisers and other companies or individuals who work with Awesound to deliver a better publishing or listening experience via technology, software, hardware or other services. “User” (plural users) refers to any person or party who accesses the Awesound as a Publisher and/or as a Listener. “You” are a User of the Awesound platform. “We” are Awesound.

Freedom of speech and Awesound community etiquette

At Awesound, we care deeply about facilitating Free Speech and the easy sharing of diverse perspectives. We are adamant about not limiting the ability to use the Awesound platform even if Awesound staff do not agree with or condone every piece of content. However, use of the service is subject to adhering to our agreed community etiquette. The following exceptions apply, defining "inappropriate" content. Content which is flagged as “inappropriate” may be removed from Awesound or made inaccessible until a review has been completed by Awesound; upon completion of review, content may or may not be restored to be made accessible via the Awesound platform.

Nothing illegal

You are not allowed to use Awesound to conduct illegal activity, to condone illegal activities, to incite hatred or to encourage violence. Where content is deemed by Awesound to be illegal in the country of any User, content may be made inaccessible by Awesound. Even when content is not illegal, please note we impose a zero tolerance policy against suggestive or sexual content featuring minors.

Damage to Awesound

Awesound is eager to extend functionality via new collaborations and partnerships. Awesound provides a variety of methods to access Awesound content, such as via Awesound websites (“standard interface”), third party apps (such as podcast apps) or the developer API. However, alternative use of the Awesound platform is not allowed without permission; in particular, the use software which results in a high load on Awesound’s servers, which attempts to compromise the functionality of the Awesound platform and/or which attempts to extract information not available via the standard interface is strictly forbidden. Unsolicited behavior which causes damage or expense to Awesound is not allowed; Awesound may pursue the responsible party for damages arising from such behavior. Reports and/or logs of suspicious behavior may be shared publicly and/or with specific investigators to aid in the investigation of potentially malicious behavior, and/or to help reduce the chances of future attacks.

Inappropriate behavior

Awesound may remove the content of Users whose behavior is reported as spam-like (overly promotional), abusive (insulting/threatening) or otherwise “inappropriate”. Awesound may share information about inappropriate behavior if required by law or as part of a campaign to investigate or prevent inappropriate behavior. Revenue sharing Free publishing options. In addition to paid plans, Awesound may provide free hosting options, or a free trial. Awesound makes no guarantee about the future availability of a free tier. Sale of premium content *This is an optional feature, which requires Publisher opt-in and Awesound approval* Publishers may mark content as "premium", requiring a single (one-time) payment or a recurring payment (subscription) to unlock access. Awesound's fee as detailed on https://awesound.com/sell includes all payment processor fees; there are no hidden charges.

Payment to publishers and tech partners

Awesound believes publishers who produce quality content should be rewarded for their work, and our role is to make monetization even easier for publishers and other partners. In the case of monetistion via advertising provided by Awesound: the payout to each Publisher will be calculated by Awesound and will be related to how much advertising spend their content attracted, as calculated by Awesound. Awesound makes no guarantee of payment amounts to any Publisher. In the case of monetization via selling audio content directly to listeners: Awesound takes a small commission (typically around 20% + $0.30, as described on https://awesound.com/authors/faq). Approved sellers can sell audio at the price they set. Payout rhythm and method are agreed individually with each Publisher. Most payouts (such as for sellers based in US, UK and most European countries) are made monthly, automatically via Stripe, with no minimum payout. Check https://awesound.com/payments to see if you are eligible to self-register for automatica payouts via Stripe. In some countries, a minimum threshold amount per payout (e.g., $100). A Publisher can view a real-time report of earnings at https://awesound.com/payments, which shows the detail of every purchase/subscription, every payout, and the balance of earnings due to be paid out. If the Publisher chooses to leave Awesound, they can withdraw all of their remaining funds immediately.

Copyright and ownership

You may only publish content you own. By publishing on the Awesound platform, you agree that you have content ownership rights to the material being published. Awesound makes no claim of ownership to any audio, image or video media published by Users of the Awesound platform. We believe that choosing to use a particular platform shouldn’t have any effect on content ownership. Once published, you still own everything you publish to Awesound -- as long as you owned it when you published. If you do not have copyright ownership of content, do not publish it via Awesound. The Publisher assumes all legal responsibility from damages arising from publishing content which is against these terms. Where Awesound concludes that copyright infringement has taken place, content will not be restored to the Awesound platform, and the behavior of the Publisher of the content may be recorded as inappropriate. Awesound assumes no responsibility for validating the legal ownership rights of the Publisher or the content. Awesound accepts no responsibility for damages arising from copyright infringement by any Publisher. By publishing content on Awesound, you claim ownership of all submitted content and you accept full responsibility for any copyright claims which may arise.

Pricing, "unlimited" storage, bandwidth and fair use

Plans are sold on a per-User basis and must not be shared or re-sold. This means you may not share, re-sell or give away storage or bandwidth which is part of your plan. Awesound offers incredible value for money and you must not seek to make a profit by re-selling Awesound's products without permission. Any User found to be in violation of re-sharing or re-selling policy may have their membership suspended or cancelled at Awesound's discretion. Awesound may seek damages from costs arising through such unauthorized use of the Awesound platform. Changes to price plans: Awesound makes no obligation to continue to provide storage, bandwidth or other services on an ongoing basis at the rate at which Users joined any given plan. In the event that new limits are to be imposed or the price is to be increased, terms adjusted, current Users will be given 60 days notice of any pricing change, usage limit change, or change of conditions of use. Users will have the option to migrate to the new plan or to download their files and cancel their Awesound account. Awesound will make a great effort to avoid changing price plans for existing Users, in order to avoid disruption, but Awesound makes no binding commitment about doing so. Individual limits: Furthermore, Awesound reserves the right to terminate the membership of or impose limits on any Publisher found to be incurring unreasonable or unexpected costs for Awesound; this applies to all Users, including Users on a so-called "unlimited" plan. In the event of an individual limit needing to be imposed, Awesound will give the Publisher 30 days notice and will work to avoid disruption (e.g., avoid any impact to listeners).

Privacy policy

We value your privacy. Awesound collects the minimum amount of required personal data need to fulfil purchase fulfilment and piracy prevention. All interactions are carried out over secure (https) encrypted connections. We never store complete credit card information or raw passwords. Awesound does not sell any customer data. Information about Users is only shared when the User chooses to make their information public, or when required for an investigation into suspicious behavior. Awesound does not share personal data with other third parties without permission of the User. Anonymised data is shared with third parties for security and optimization purposes, such as detecting suspicious behaviour and improving site performance.
Information about you is accessible to other people under the following circumstances:

• Information you choose to share, such as updating information on your public profile. It is clear what information is publicly accessible, and any User can modify their public information. If you have any doubts about which information is accessible to other Users, our support team will be happy to answer any queries.
• Information regarding your interactions with others (for example, if you follow or subscribe to another User or playlist) or regarding activities which are visible to others (such as liking a track or commenting on a track). When a User purchases content from a Publisher, they agree that the Publisher will have access to personally identifiable information related to the purchase, such as email address and name submitted at time of checkout.
• Information deemed essential to investigate spam, abuse, illegal activity or potentially malicious behavior will be used during such investigations (see “Damage to Awesound” section above).

Awesound respects and upholds all best practices and requirements defined by GDPR.

Working with other apps and services

Awesound is committed to building open infrastructure that makes it easier to publish and discover audio. Awesound is designed to allow listening across a plethora of existing podcast apps and websites, but we can make no guarantees regarding reliability or compatibility with other services.

Access to your files

Audio files which are saved as a draft or which have a scheduled publish date in the future will not be generally accessible to other Users. Awesound accepts no responsibility for any damages caused due to unintended access to files or differences between accessibility and the result the Publisher intended, whether caused by misunderstanding or misuse of tools by the Publisher or any other any reason. If you wish to leave Awesound, or download all your media to aid set up on another service, you can easily do so on the edit page of the relevant product.
Awesound will make every reasonable effort to support Users who wish to migrate to and from Awesound, without charging any fee, but will not be held accountable for any costs associated with joining or leaving the platform. Awesound guarantees Publishers will be able to download all media they uploaded to Awesound (except media the Publisher deleted after uploading). Awesound makes no commitment regarding the provision of other data such as statistics about file downloads or track plays.

Where files are stored

Awesound uses a variety of third-party media hosts and content delivery networks (CDNs), in order to allow us provide a very fast and reliable service to listeners. Files are therefore stored across a worldwide distribution of servers and local copies or caches may persist across machines used by Awesound, our partners and devices used by Users of the service.

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Last updated: 2023-01-01