Terms of Service

vaultdrop is a site for independent artists to put up unreleased music (demos, b-sides, early versions) and for people to listen to it. It’s run from Portugal. You can email us at [email protected].

By using the site, making an account, uploading or donating, you agree to these terms. The Privacy Policy, Cookie Policy and Refund Policy are part of them too. If you don’t agree, don’t use the site.

You need to be at least 18 to have an account. If you’re signing up for a label or a company, you’re confirming you’re allowed to accept these terms for them.

Use real details and keep them up to date. Keep your password to yourself: whatever happens on your account is your responsibility, so if you think someone else got in, tell us at [email protected] straight away.

Don’t pick a handle that pretends to be another person, artist or brand, or one that’s offensive. We can take back handles that are misleading, unused for a long time or that break someone’s rights. One account per person, unless we’ve agreed something else with you (a label or curator account, for example).

If you sign in with Google or Spotify, we create a vaultdrop account with the email they give us. Their own terms still apply to their services.

What you upload stays yours: the audio, artwork, titles and other details, your profile pictures and text. We don’t own any of it.

So that we can actually run the site, you give us permission to store, convert, copy, stream, show and distribute your uploads on vaultdrop. That includes search, the recommendation sections, embeds, link previews and the song download button, which saves a copy on the listener’s own device. The permission is worldwide, non-exclusive and free. It ends when you delete the upload, apart from copies still in our backups for a short time and copies listeners already saved. Deleting your account doesn’t delete your uploads: they stay up, credited as “account deleted”, so delete them first if you want them gone.

Only upload music you have the right to share. That means you own it, or you have permission from everyone involved: writers, performers, producers, featured artists, labels and anyone whose samples you used. “Unreleased” here means your own unreleased work. It does not mean leaks or rips of other people’s songs.

You’re responsible for what you upload. We don’t check uploads in advance, but we can review, hide, edit the details of or remove anything that we think breaks these terms or the law.

• Upload or link to recordings you don’t have the rights to. This includes leaks, rips from streaming services and anything taken from leak sites or “tracker” spreadsheets.
• Upload malware, or files pretending to be something they aren’t.
• Harass, threaten or impersonate people, spread lies about them, or spam them with messages.
• Scrape or mass-download the catalogue, get around the CAPTCHA, rate limits, logins or features you don’t have access to, or mess with the site or other people’s use of it.
• Fake plays, likes or followers.
• Collect other users’ personal data without asking them.
• Break the law, or help someone else do it.

If you do, we can remove content, suspend or close your account and take legal action. Depending on how serious it is, we may not warn you first.

If something on vaultdrop uses your work without permission, email [email protected] and include:

1. the link to the track, album or profile;
2. which work is yours, and something showing you hold the rights;
3. your name, address and email;
4. a statement that, in good faith, you believe the use isn’t authorised, that what you’ve told us is accurate, and that you own the rights or are allowed to act for whoever does.

We’ll look at it, take the content down if the complaint holds up, and let the uploader know so they can reply. People who keep uploading other people’s work lose their account. If you send a complaint you know is false, you can be held liable for the damage it causes.

vaultdrop is free to use. If you want to support it, you can make a one-off donation. You see the amount before paying, in your region’s currency. Donations are voluntary: they don’t buy anything, and they don’t give you any extra rights over the site or the music on it.

Payments go through PayPal. You pay on PayPal’s own pages, with your PayPal balance, a card or your bank, so we never see your card details. PayPal’s user agreement and privacy statement apply to the payment itself. When a donation can be refunded is covered in the Refund Policy.

Filling in the advertising form is a question, not an order. Any actual ad deal is agreed separately in writing.

Some parts of vaultdrop depend on services we don’t run: Google and Spotify sign-in, PayPal checkout, and the song download button, which saves a track to your own device so your music app (such as Spotify or Apple Music) can play it. Artist photos and genre suggestions come from Spotify, Deezer and iTunes. Those companies have their own terms, and we’re not responsible for them.

You can share links and embed players on other sites. Where you share them is up to you.

You can delete your account in Settings at any time. Your likes, follows, messages and listening history go with it. Your tracks and albums don’t: they stay on the site credited as “account deleted”, so delete them from your profile first if you don’t want them to stay (the Privacy Policy explains what else we keep).

We can suspend or close accounts that break these terms, when the law requires it, or if we shut the site down. When it’s reasonable to, we’ll warn you and give you a chance to download your uploads.

vaultdrop is a small independent project. We try to keep it up, working and secure, but we can’t promise it will never go down or have bugs, that play counts and recommendations are exact, or that everything other people upload is legal. Keep your own copies of your music.

As far as the law allows, we aren’t liable for indirect losses, lost profits, lost data or damage to your reputation caused by using the site or by what other people upload. For any claim, the most we’ll owe you is what you paid us in the 12 months before it, or €50 if you haven’t paid anything.

None of this limits anything the law says can’t be limited, such as liability for death or injury caused by negligence, for fraud, or your rights as a consumer in the EU or wherever you live.

If someone makes a claim against us because of something you uploaded without the rights to it, or because you broke these terms, you’ll cover what it costs us.

We’ll change these terms now and then. The new version goes up here with a new date. If a change is significant, account holders get an email or a notice on the site at least 14 days before it applies. If you keep using vaultdrop after that, you’ve accepted it. If you don’t want to, delete your account before the date.

These terms fall under the law of Portugal. If you’re a consumer in the EU, you also keep the consumer protections of the country you live in, and you can take a case to its courts.

If you have a complaint, write to us first at [email protected]. If you live in Portugal you can also use the Livro de Reclamações Eletrónico or one of the dispute resolution bodies listed by the Direção-Geral do Consumidor.

Anything about these terms: [email protected]. Privacy requests are covered in the Privacy Policy, billing in the Refund Policy.