Resonance Artist Agreement

Last updated: 2026-09-26What you give us when you become a Resonance artist, what we do with your music, what you get, and how to take it all back.

Resonance Artist Agreement

This agreement is between you and APERTURESyndicate OÜ ("APERTURESyndicate", "we", "us", "our") and sets the terms on which your music lives on Resonance. You accept it with a checkbox when you submit an artist application or set up an artist in Creator Studio.

This is the umbrella contract. The details of individual topics live in the documents it links to and are not repeated here: the terms of each upload are in the Creator & Distribution Terms, royalties are in the Royalty & Payout Policy, and automatic imports are in SoundCloud Import. All of this applies together with the Resonance Terms of Service and the Acceptable Use Policy.

These terms are published in good faith and are pending review by qualified EU/Estonian legal counsel; nothing here is a substitute for formal legal advice.

1. Two ways to become an artist

Artist application — on the main site at /join (the button in Creator Studio leads there too). It has two paths:

  • Link an existing artist — for artists who already release elsewhere. A link to your SoundCloud profile is required.
  • Start from scratch — the artist doesn't exist anywhere yet. Instead of a link, a short text about the artist is required.

In the application you give the artist name, up to 8 genres, a text about yourself, your SoundCloud link, up to 8 links to other platforms (Spotify, YouTube, Bandcamp and so on) and, optionally, file attachments. A person reads every application. Its status is "pending", "deferred" (we have questions or need time), "accepted" or "rejected". You can have only one active artist application at a time. An accepted application creates an artist profile linked to your account, grants official artist status and, if you gave a SoundCloud link, switches on imports from it.

On your own in Creator Studio — at https://creators.aperturesyndicate.com you set up an artist yourself, without review. Such an artist publishes to the user catalogue; official artist status can be obtained later through an application.

Both paths are free. You need an APERTURESyndicate account, which means you must be at least 13 years old. If you act on behalf of a band, label or other rightsholder, you confirm that you are authorised to enter into this agreement for them.

2. What we receive from you

  • Application data — everything listed in Section 1, including attachments.
  • The link to your account — the artist is linked to your APERTURESyndicate account; you sign in to Studio with it, and emails about the artist go there.
  • Music and artwork — audio files, cover art, the artist's avatar and banner, and video clips if you upload them.
  • Metadata — titles, genres, moods, release date, contributors and featured artists, lyrics (if you add them), the artist description and links to your platforms.
  • From a linked SoundCloud profile — for new tracks: the audio, cover art, title, release date, a link to the original, and a genre and tags we derive from the title and description. What exactly is fetched and how often is described in SoundCloud Import.

How we handle your personal data in general is described in the Privacy Policy.

3. Your rights and warranties

Everything you upload, or that is imported from your profile, stays yours: we acquire no ownership of the recordings, compositions, cover art or artist name.

In return you give the same warranties as in Section 3 of the Creator & Distribution Terms: you hold all rights in the recordings, compositions, cover art, samples, featured performances and artist name, and hosting them on Resonance infringes no one's rights. We do not check rights in advance and rely on this warranty. If a claim is brought against us because of your content, the indemnity in Section 6 of those terms applies.

In addition, you agree:

  • to link only your own SoundCloud profile. Linking someone else's profile breaches this agreement: we remove what was imported and apply strikes under the Copyright & Takedown Policy;
  • to keep metadata accurate — no false credits, no other people's names, no impersonating another artist;
  • not to upload AI-generated content that imitates the voice or likeness of a real artist without their consent;
  • not to inflate streams, yourself or through others — it is prohibited and leads to streams being excluded, royalties withheld and the account blocked.

4. Licence

You grant APERTURESyndicate OÜ the licence in Section 4 of the Creator & Distribution Terms: non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free and sublicensable, strictly for operating and promoting Resonance. It does not let us use your music in other APERTURESyndicate products, does not stop you distributing it anywhere else, and ends for a given track when that track is deleted or unpublished.

Section 5 below lists what exactly we do under this licence. The licence permits nothing beyond that list and the purpose of operating Resonance.

5. What we do with your music

  • Store and stream it to listeners on the web, in the Android and iOS apps and in the desktop apps.
  • Transcode it into several quality levels so the track plays on any device and connection.
  • Analyse the audio automatically: tempo, energy, key, loudness, genre, mood and themes. AI models from external providers take part in the analysis and process the audio on our behalf. The result is used for search, recommendations and a short description on the track page; we will not train models on your music.
  • Build visuals — the waveform and spectrum for the player and the screensaver.
  • Make cover derivatives — smaller copies, cards for sharing on social media, and the banners shown when someone sends a link to a track or artist.
  • Publish artist and track pages that search engines can index.
  • Include it in discovery — recommendations and personal mixes, search, charts and the Iceberg (a ranking of the scene's artists by listens and reactions).
  • Let listeners listen together and collect — in Listen Together rooms and in their own playlists.
  • Allow offline downloads for Premium subscribers: the copy is kept inside the Resonance app on the listener's device, and taking it out of the app is prohibited (Premium & Subscription Terms, Section 7).
  • Announce releases — your followers on Resonance get an email about a new track unless they have turned such emails off.
  • Serve public metadata through the Catalog API — name, description, artwork, titles, duration and a 30-second preview, but not the full track and not lyrics. Apps using the API must show your name and a link to your track or page on Resonance (Resonance Terms of Service, Section 8).
  • Promote Resonance with your name, titles and artwork — on the home page, in editorial selections and on our social media.

Tracks from the Audius open catalogue work differently and are not covered by this agreement — see Open Catalogue.

6. What you get

  • An artist page on Resonance and track pages whose design you choose.
  • Creator Studio — uploading tracks and albums, editing metadata, lyrics, profile, avatar and banner, linking SoundCloud.
  • Analytics about your music (Section 8).
  • A share of royalties from subscribers' listening, once payouts are live (Section 7).

7. Royalties and payouts

Half of each listener's subscription is split between the artists that particular listener played. How this is calculated, what counts as a stream and where unallocated money goes is set out in the Royalty & Payout Policy.

Payouts are not live yet. Royalties are calculated and accrue on your artist, but nothing has been paid to anyone yet, and we do not promise a date. What has accrued does not expire and is kept even if you leave Resonance. When payouts go live we will announce the procedure, including the minimum payout amount (we expect around €20).

"No income" mode. In the payouts section of Creator Studio you can waive income from streams. Your streams are still counted and share the listener's subscription on equal terms with everyone else, but your share stays with APERTURESyndicate rather than going to other artists. The change takes effect from the next accounting month and can be reversed the same way. Details are in Section 13 of the Creator & Distribution Terms.

8. Listener analytics

Studio shows the number of streams, listeners and followers, a breakdown by country, and your top listeners by nickname and avatar. You do not receive email addresses, IP addresses, any location more precise than the country, or what a person listens to other than you. You may use this data only to understand your audience: not to contact a particular listener, not to profile anyone and not to pass it on (Creator & Distribution Terms, Section 12; Privacy Addendum, Section 4).

9. Your control

  • Tracks can be edited, unpublished or deleted in Studio at any time.
  • SoundCloud can be unlinked at any time. Imports of new tracks stop immediately; tracks already imported stay until you delete them.
  • The artist or the whole account can be deleted (Deleting Your Account & Data).

After deletion the track stops playing and disappears from the catalogue, search and recommendations, and the licence for it ends. Deleted data is permanently erased from our systems after a grace window (for an account, about 30 days), and from backups as they rotate, after roughly one month (Data Retention Schedule, Section 10). Copies that subscribers previously downloaded for offline listening sit on their devices, and we cannot technically remove them from there; listeners are not allowed to use them outside the app. Promotional material published before deletion may remain.

10. Moderation and complaints

We may review, edit, hide or remove your content if it breaches this agreement, the Creator & Distribution Terms or the law, including without an external complaint. Complaints about content are accepted at https://report.aperturesyndicate.com; the procedure is described in EU Digital Services Act — Notice & Action, and for copyright in the Copyright & Takedown Policy.

We tell you about a decision on your content and explain the reasons. You can appeal it for at least 6 months — by replying to our email or writing to [email protected] with the subject "Appeal".

11. Termination

You can end this agreement by deleting your artist. We may suspend or end it, remove official artist status and remove content if you breach this agreement, following a substantiated complaint or a legal requirement, or if continued hosting creates legal risk for us or others. The rights warranties and the indemnity (Section 3) survive termination; accrued royalties are kept under the Royalty & Payout Policy.

12. Acceptance and changes

When you tick the checkbox in the artist application, the version of this agreement you accepted is stored with the application, together with the time it was submitted. When you set an artist up yourself in Creator Studio, the artist is not created until the box is ticked.

We give notice of material changes by email to your account address at least 30 days before they take effect. If you disagree with the new version, you can delete your artist before then; continuing to publish after the changes take effect means you accept them.

Contact

Operator APERTURESyndicate OÜ · Registry code 17384111 · VAT EE102972654 Priisle tee 8, Lasnamäe linnaosa, Tallinn, Harju maakond, 13914, Estonia Company registration details

This agreement is governed by the laws of Estonia, with the courts of Tallinn having jurisdiction, and is subject to the GDPR, the EU Digital Services Act, and applicable Estonian and EU consumer-protection law. The English-language version is the controlling version.

Version history

  • v1.0 — 2026-09-26 — Initial publication.
Resonance Artist Agreement | AS Docs