Terms of use.

01About these terms

subTotem is run by subTotem Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales (company number 17145546). "We" and "us" mean subTotem Ltd. "You" means whoever is using subTotem, whether you're an artist, a listener or both.

These terms cover the subTotem website, the subTotem app and everything that runs on them. When you create an account or use subTotem, you're agreeing to them.

subTotem is still being built. Some features are marked Soon on our pages, and those parts of these terms apply once the feature opens.

We may change these terms. If a change matters, such as a new price or a change to how artists are paid, we'll email you at least 30 days before it takes effect. If you don't agree with a change, you can close your account before it starts.

Questions about these terms go to legal@subtotem.com.

02Your account

• You need to be 18 or over to join as an artist or to pay for a plan. You can have a free listener account from 13, with a parent's or guardian's permission.
• The details you give us must be true. That includes your name, your email address and, for artists, who you are and what you've made.
• Keep your password safe. You're responsible for what happens on your account. If you think someone else has got into it, tell us straight away.
• One person, one account. An artist account can be a solo artist or a band, run by someone who has the band's agreement.

03Original music only

• You can only upload music that you wrote or co-wrote, and recorded or had recorded.
• Cover bands and tribute acts can't join as artists. Your own songs are welcome.
• Cover versions can't be uploaded, even if you've licensed them.
• Music made entirely by AI isn't allowed. Using AI tools while you write, produce or master your own music is fine.
• Live streams are the one exception. You can play covers in a live stream. They're cut from the recording before it's archived or replayed. Soon

You confirm this when you sign up as an artist and each time you publish a track. If we find music that breaks these rules, we'll take it down. We won't pay for streams of it, and we may close the account if it happens more than once.

04Your music and your rights

You own it

Uploading to subTotem doesn't change who owns your recordings or your songs. We don't take any ownership of anything you upload, including your music, artwork, photos, videos, diary entries or words.

What you let us do with it

So that subTotem can work, you give us a non-exclusive licence, worldwide, to store, copy, convert, stream and display what you upload. It covers:

• converting your masters into streaming formats, and keeping your originals safely
• playing your published tracks to listeners on the website and in the app
• showing your page, artwork, credits and other content to the public
• using your name, image and short clips to point people towards your page on subTotem

Non-exclusive means you can put your music anywhere else you like, at the same time. The licence ends for a track when you unpublish or delete it, apart from copies we need to keep for records, for payments, or for a legal reason. We never sell or license your music to anyone else. Licensing for film, TV and adverts will only ever happen if you choose it. Soon

What you promise us

• You own or control every right we need in what you upload, or you have permission from everyone who does.
• Any samples in your music are cleared.
• The credits you give, including songwriters, producers and musicians, are accurate, and the people named agree to being credited.
• Nothing you upload breaks the law or anyone else's rights.

If someone else claims rights in something you've uploaded, we may take it down while it's sorted out, and hold any payments for it until then. If you think something on subTotem uses your work without permission, email legal@subtotem.com.

05PRS for Music

PRS for Music collects royalties for songwriters when their songs are played or streamed in the UK. When you sign up as an artist, we ask whether you're a member, and you can give your IPI/CAE number.

• If you're a member, PRS looks after the performing rights in your songs. We report your plays to PRS so that your songwriting royalties are paid through them, on top of your 1p a stream.
• If you're not a member, those rights stay with you, and the licence in section 4 covers them.

Keep your answer up to date in your artist page settings. If you join PRS later, tell us there.

06Streams and what they pay

• A stream counts when a listener has played at least 30 seconds of a track. Each play counts once, however long it runs after that.
• Every stream from a Patron or Champion listener pays the artist 1p. The rate is the same for every artist on every tier. Paying for Pro never changes it.
• Listeners on Core, the free plan, can play only the one free track each artist chooses. Those plays are counted, but they don't pay.
• Plays of your own music, and plays by subTotem staff, never count.
• Streams must come from real people listening. Streams made artificially, by bots, loops, paid schemes or anything similar, aren't paid. If we find them, we'll remove them, hold back any money earned from them, and we may close the accounts involved.

Patronage

Whatever a Patron or Champion listener doesn't stream in a month is shared out to artists as patronage, in the way the listener chooses. Soon

Getting paid

• What you earn is shown on your account, month by month: streams at 1p and your share of patronage.
• To be paid you give us a UK bank account. We pay artists ourselves, by bank transfer, so we hold those details — encrypted, and read only to make a payment. Artists outside the UK can earn, and their balance waits until we can pay them.
• Payments go out once a month, for everything earned up to the end of the previous month.
• There's a £5 minimum. Below that your balance rolls over and joins the next month, rather than being lost.
• We don't deduct anything from what you've earned to pay for the transfer.
• If you change the account we pay into, we email you and hold payments for a few days. It's the one change that could send your money somewhere else, so it's deliberately slow.

07Artist tiers

• Core is free, with no time limit. Its limits are described on our artist page.
• Pro is £20 a month, or £200 a year.
• The producer & promoter add-on adds the full producer and promoter tools to Pro for £10 a month or £100 a year more: £30 a month or £300 a year in all.
• Founding rate. Anyone who goes Pro on the yearly plan before listening opens pays £100 a year, or £150 with the add-on, for as long as they keep their subscription without a break. Adding or dropping the add-on keeps the founding rate. It applies to the yearly plan only.
• If you move from Pro back to Core, your music, page and fans stay put, and nothing you made while on Pro is deleted. Anything over Core's limits is kept but hidden, and shows again if you go back to Pro.

08Listener plans

• Core is free. You can follow artists and play the one free track each of them chooses.
• Patron is £18 a month, with 1,000 streams. £10 of it goes to artists.
• Champion is £25 a month, with 1,200 streams. £12 of it goes to artists.
• The amount that goes to artists is fixed, and comes out before anything else.
• Unused streams don't roll over to the next month. They're shared out to artists as patronage.
• If you run out, you can buy 500 more streams for £9. Nothing is ever added unless you ask for it. Soon

09Paying

• Payments you make are handled by Stripe. We never see or store your full card or bank details when you pay us. We keep only the reference Stripe gives us.
• Your first payment for a plan is taken by card. If you've set up a Direct Debit, later payments come from your bank account. Direct Debits are protected by the Direct Debit Guarantee, which Stripe sends you when you set one up.
• Plans renew automatically each month or year, on the day you started, until you cancel.
• If a payment fails, we'll try again. If it still can't be taken, your plan may end, and you move to Core.
• The price shown is the total you pay. subTotem Ltd isn't registered for VAT, so no VAT is added.
• If a price goes up, we'll tell you at least 30 days before your next payment at the new price, so you can cancel first. Founding rates are kept, as described in section 7.

10Cancelling and refunds

• You can cancel any plan at any time, in Settings → Plan on the website.
• When you cancel, you keep your plan until the end of the month or year you've already paid for. After that you move to Core, and nothing more is taken.
• We don't give refunds for part of a month or year, except where the law says we must.
• Your 14-day right to cancel. Under UK consumer law, you can cancel a new plan within 14 days of starting it and get your money back. If you've already started using the plan in that time, we can keep an amount that fairly covers what you used. To cancel this way, cancel in Settings, then email legal@subtotem.com within the 14 days.

11Merch and tickets

• When you buy merch or a ticket on an artist's page, you're buying from the artist, not from subTotem. The artist is responsible for describing it honestly, sending it or putting on the event, and handling returns and refunds.
• subTotem takes a flat 5% of each sale, the same on every tier, plus the card processing fee. The rest goes to the seller.
• If something goes wrong with an order and you can't sort it out with the seller, tell us and we'll help.
• You need an account to buy, and the delivery address you give is passed to the artist so they can post it. See the privacy policy.
• Stock is taken when you order. If something sells out while you're checking out, the order isn't placed and nothing is set aside.
• Postage is charged once an order, at the highest postage of anything in it.

Paying for merch and tickets on subTotem is on the way. Until it opens, artists link to wherever they sell. Soon

12How to behave

Don't use subTotem to:

• harass, threaten or abuse anyone, or post hateful content
• post anything illegal, sexually explicit, or that shares someone's private information without their consent
• pretend to be someone you're not, or claim music or credits that aren't yours
• send spam, or collect other people's details
• copy, download or re-share music from subTotem, other than in the ways the website and app let you
• get around our limits or security, or interfere with how subTotem runs

We can remove anything that breaks these terms. Where we can, we'll tell you why.

13Closing an account

• You can delete your account at any time, in Settings. Cancel any plan first. Money an artist has already earned will still be paid to them.
• We may suspend or close an account that seriously or repeatedly breaks these terms, or where the law requires us to. Unless it would be unlawful or unsafe, we'll tell you first and give you a chance to put things right.
• If we ever close subTotem itself, we'll give you at least 60 days' notice and refund any time you've paid for and not used.

14Our responsibility to you

• We'll provide subTotem with reasonable care and skill. We'll work to keep it running, but we can't promise it will never be interrupted, for example for maintenance or problems outside our control.
• We're responsible for loss or damage you suffer that is a foreseeable result of us breaking these terms or failing to use reasonable care. We're not responsible for loss that wasn't foreseeable, or for business losses if you use subTotem as a consumer.
• Nothing in these terms limits our responsibility for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, for fraud, or for anything else the law doesn't let us limit.
• Nothing in these terms affects your legal rights as a consumer.

15The law that applies

These terms are governed by the law of England and Wales. If you have a problem, please email legal@subtotem.com first, and we'll try to sort it out. If we can't, you can take it to the courts of England and Wales. If you live in Scotland or Northern Ireland, you can use your local courts.

If a court decides part of these terms can't be enforced, the rest still applies.