We know nobody enjoys reading terms and conditions — we don't either. So here's the honest version: we deliver your music, you keep 100% of what you earn, and we never claim any right over what you create. Everything below is just the detail behind that promise, written out properly so both sides know where they stand.
1. Acceptance of these terms
These Terms & Use Conditions ("Terms") form a binding agreement between you and Le Guaro Music ("Le Guaro", "we", "us") and govern your access to and use of our website, platform, mobile experience and services (together, the "Service"). By creating an account, ticking a box that says you agree, or distributing music through Le Guaro, you confirm you have read, understood and accepted these Terms. If you're agreeing on behalf of a label, band or company, you confirm you have the authority to bind that entity. If you don't agree with any part of these Terms, please don't use the Service — and if something here doesn't sit right with you, talk to us on live chat before you sign up.
2. Eligibility and your account
You must be at least 18 years old, or the age of legal majority in your country, to create an account. If you're younger than that, a parent or legal guardian must open and manage the account on your behalf and accept these Terms. You agree to give accurate, current information when you register, to keep it up to date, and to keep your password and account credentials confidential. You're responsible for everything that happens under your account, so let us know immediately at the address in Section 19 if you suspect unauthorized use. We may refuse, suspend or close an account that provides false information, is used to break these Terms, or is required to be blocked by law.
3. What Le Guaro does
Le Guaro is a digital music distribution and services platform for independent artists, producers, labels and distributors. Depending on the plan and tools you use, the Service can include: delivering your releases to 200+ digital stores and platforms across 300+ territories (Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon Music, Deezer, Tidal, TikTok, Pandora, iHeartRadio, Instagram, YouTube Music and others); Cover-Lab, our AI-assisted cover art and mastering tools; Smart-Links and pre-save pages; YouTube Content ID and the VEVO badge, where eligible; royalty collection and payout tools; and label services through Le Guaro Records for artists we invite to join. We may add, change or retire individual tools and store partners over time as the industry changes — we'll always try to give you a heads-up when a change meaningfully affects your catalogue.
4. Your content — ownership and the licence you grant us
Whatever you upload — your masters, artwork, lyrics, metadata and everything else ("Your Content") — is and stays yours. Le Guaro never claims ownership of your compositions, recordings or copyrights, full stop. To do our job, you grant Le Guaro a limited, worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence to host, reproduce, format, encode, deliver, distribute, publicly perform, and promote Your Content — but only on the stores, platforms and marketing channels you choose or that are part of the plan you selected, and only for as long as your release stays active on our Service. This licence ends when you remove a release or close your account, subject to the reasonable time stores and caches take to reflect that removal, and subject to Section 10 on royalties already owed. We may use short excerpts of Your Content and your artist name/likeness in our own marketing (for example, featuring your release on our socials or homepage) unless you tell us you'd rather we didn't.
5. Your responsibilities and prohibited content
You confirm that you own or control all necessary rights to everything you upload — masters, compositions, samples, artwork, lyrics and metadata — and that none of it infringes any third party's rights or breaks any applicable law. We may ask for proof of rights (a licence, a split sheet, a release form) at any time, and we may reject, hold or remove a release while we wait for it. Content that we don't allow on the Service includes, without limitation: unauthorized samples or covers without the required licences; unauthorized use of another artist's name, likeness or trademark; AI-generated content that impersonates a real artist's voice or performance without consent; hate speech, harassment or content that incites violence; sexually explicit content involving minors, which we report to the relevant authorities without exception; malware or attempts to interfere with the Service; and anything otherwise illegal in the territories where it would be distributed. Repeated or serious violations of this section may lead to removal of the release, suspension, or termination of your account under Section 12.
6. Delivery, review and store approval
When you submit a release, we run automated and, where needed, manual checks for metadata errors, copyright conflicts and policy issues before sending it to distribution. If nothing is flagged, we send releases to stores as fast as we reasonably can — our express delivery option targets under 78 hours from approval for most stores. Final availability, exact go-live timing, catalogue placement and content moderation on each store are decided by that store, not by us — Spotify, Apple Music and every other platform apply their own rules and timelines, and we can't guarantee dates or outcomes we don't control. If a store rejects or removes a release for a policy reason, we'll pass on what information they give us and help you fix and resubmit it wherever possible.
7. Cover-Lab, Smart-Links and other tools
Cover-Lab uses AI-assisted tools to help generate cover art concepts and mastering passes. You're responsible for making sure any artwork you finalize and publish doesn't infringe someone else's copyright or trademark (for example, a generated image that too closely resembles existing artwork or a protected logo) — we provide the tool, but the final choice and its clearance is yours. AI mastering is a starting point, not a guarantee of a specific loudness or sound; you can always upload your own mastered file instead. Smart-Links and pre-save pages are provided to help fans find and follow your release across stores; we're not responsible for outages or changes on the store platforms a Smart-Link points to.
8. YouTube Content ID and Beatport (label releases)
To reach Beatport or to enable YouTube Content ID monitoring on your release, you need to release under the "Le Guaro" label name rather than your own independent artist name — this is a requirement set by those platforms, not a choice we make. If you release independently under your own name, distribution to Beatport and Content ID enrollment won't be available for that release. Content ID helps identify and monetize unauthorized uses of your music on YouTube; we pass on the resulting revenue according to your plan's terms, minus any applicable service fee disclosed at signup. To purchase a standalone Beatport or Content ID licence outside of a plan, contact us directly.
9. Le Guaro Records
Le Guaro Records is our in-house label. Membership on the musician board is by invitation and governed by a separate label agreement that we'll walk you through directly if you're invited — nothing in these Terms automatically signs you to the label, and joining Le Guaro Records is always your choice.
10. Fees, billing, free trials and cancellation
Plans are billed either as automatic recurring payments (card, PayPal, Google Pay, Apple Pay) or as manual payments (Mobile Pay, crypto and other local methods, depending on your region), based on the method you choose at checkout. Where a free trial is offered, it applies only to recurring-payment annual plans; if you don't cancel before the trial ends, billing starts automatically at the price shown at signup. You can cancel a recurring plan at any time from your account or by asking us on live chat, effective at the end of the current billing period — we don't charge cancellation fees. If you cancel or a manual payment lapses, your music is removed from stores, but you keep your account data, your artist profiles on each store, and the ISRC code of every song you've released, so you're never locked in. Prices may change from time to time; we'll notify active subscribers before a change takes effect on their next renewal.
11. Refunds
Because plans unlock digital delivery to stores immediately, payments are generally non-refundable once a release has started distribution. If you're charged in error, charged twice, or a technical failure on our side stopped the Service from working as described, contact us on live chat or by email and we'll make it right — refund, credit or fix, whichever is fair for the situation. This section doesn't affect any statutory refund or cooling-off right you have under the consumer law of your country.
12. Royalties and payouts
You keep 100% of the royalties and earnings generated by your releases through Le Guaro, minus only the plan fee or any Content ID/Beatport service fee explicitly disclosed to you. We collect royalty statements and payment data from stores and pass earnings on to you through the payout methods available on your plan (including PayPal and bank transfer), on the schedule shown in your dashboard. Payout timing depends in part on how quickly each store reports and pays us — international transfers can occasionally take longer than a domestic one. If a store recalls, adjusts or reverses a payment (for example, due to fraud or a reporting correction), we may deduct the equivalent amount from a future payout to you.
13. Copyright complaints and takedowns
We respect intellectual property rights and expect the same from everyone using the Service. If you believe content distributed through Le Guaro infringes your copyright or another right, email us at the address in Section 19 with: a description of the work you claim is infringed, the release or link in question, your contact details, and a statement that you have a good-faith belief the use is unauthorized. We'll investigate and, where a claim is valid, remove or disable access to the content and may suspend the responsible account. If you believe your own release was taken down by mistake, contact us and we'll review it.
14. Term, suspension and termination
These Terms apply for as long as you have an account or use the Service. You can close your account at any time as described in Section 10. We may suspend or terminate your access, with notice where reasonably possible, if you seriously or repeatedly breach these Terms, if we're required to by law, or if we reasonably believe your account poses a security, fraud or legal risk to us or to other artists. On termination, the licence in Section 4 ends and your releases are pulled from stores, but royalties already earned and owed to you remain payable, and your data is handled as described in our Privacy Policy.
15. Disclaimers
The Service is provided "as is" and "as available". We work hard to keep it fast, accurate and available, but we don't promise it will be uninterrupted, error-free, or that any specific chart position, stream count, playlist placement or earnings figure will result from using it — those outcomes depend on many factors outside our control, including the store platforms themselves and how listeners respond to your music. To the extent permitted by law, we disclaim implied warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, and non-infringement. Nothing in this section limits any right you have under consumer protection law that can't be excluded by agreement.
16. Limitation of liability
To the maximum extent permitted by law, Le Guaro won't be liable for indirect, incidental, special or consequential damages, or for lost profits, lost royalties or lost data, arising from your use of the Service — including actions taken by third-party stores that are outside our control. Where liability can't be excluded, our total liability to you for any claim relating to the Service is limited to the amount you paid us in the 12 months before the claim arose. Nothing here limits liability for fraud, or for death or personal injury caused by our negligence, where such a limitation isn't allowed by law.
17. Indemnification
You agree to defend and hold Le Guaro harmless from claims, damages and reasonable costs (including legal fees) arising from Your Content, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or third party's rights — for example, a copyright claim over an unlicensed sample you uploaded. We'll let you know promptly about any such claim we receive.
18. Changes to the Service or these Terms
Music distribution keeps evolving, and so does Le Guaro — we may update these Terms or change, add to, or retire parts of the Service as we grow. When we make a material change to these Terms, we'll post the new "Last updated" date above and, where the change is significant, let active users know by email or an in-app notice before it takes effect. Continuing to use the Service after a change takes effect means you accept the updated Terms; if you don't agree, you can close your account as described in Section 10.
19. Contact us
Questions about these Terms? Write to us at
[email protected] or reach our 24/7 live chat — we're musicians and producers too, and we'd rather explain something in plain language than hide behind legal jargon.
20. Governing law and miscellaneous
These Terms are governed by the laws applicable to Le Guaro Music's place of business, without regard to conflict-of-law rules, except where local consumer-protection law gives you additional mandatory rights in your own country — those always take priority. If any part of these Terms is found unenforceable, the rest stays in effect. We may assign these Terms in connection with a merger, acquisition or sale of assets; you may not assign your account without our consent. These Terms, together with our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and Le Guaro regarding the Service.