Rights and ownership: what you confirm when you submit

Every release ends with a rights confirmation. It is one checkbox, and it is the most consequential thing in the form: it is the moment you tell us the music is yours to release. A release does not submit without it, and the confirmation is recorded with the release, carrying its own version and timestamp. It is separate from the account-level agreements you accept once, which are covered in Agreements and versions.

Here is what you are actually confirming.

The promises you make

For every release you submit, you confirm that:

• You own or control every recording, composition, sample, performance, artwork and name in it, and you have the authority to let us distribute it.
• Covers carry the mechanical and publisher clearance that applies where you are distributing, remixes carry written authorisation for both the master and the composition, samples and interpolations are cleared, and public-domain claims can be proven for the territories concerned.
• Any use of a real person’s voice, name or likeness has their explicit written consent.
• The credits, contributor roles and publishing splits you entered are accurate, and you have the right to give us your collaborators’ details.
• The release infringes nobody’s rights and breaks no law where it is distributed.

Distribution is worldwide, which is worth reading twice against the second point. A clearance that covers one country is not a clearance for a release going out everywhere.

What stays yours

Nothing in this transfers ownership. Your master recordings, your compositions and your artwork stay yours, and the rights lines on the store page credit you, including when the release ships under the Run label. See rights lines for how those lines are built.

One practical note: keep your own copies of your masters and artwork. Run’s storage is a working area for getting a release delivered, not an archive or a backup service.

The burden of proof is yours

Run checks that the document you are required to have is attached, and a person reads it. That is where our part stops.

Run does not clear rights for you. We do not obtain mechanical licences, negotiate with publishers or rights holders, chase a sample clearance, or give legal advice. If you cannot show the permission, the release does not ship, and an explanation is never a substitute for the document.

Covers, remixes and samples lists exactly which document each situation needs and where it attaches in the release form.

Credits are a promise too

The people you credit are a rights statement, not decoration. Crediting a featured artist, producer or writer who is not on the track is a breach of this confirmation whether you did it to borrow an audience or by accident, and publishing splits entered for a writer who never agreed to them are worse: they direct someone else’s money.

You are also confirming you may hand us your collaborators’ details. Tell the people in your credits that their name reaches the stores through us. See credits and splits.

When a confirmation does not hold

What happens depends on what it is and whether it looks deliberate:

• The release is held. It stops before delivery and we ask you for the document, the correction or the explanation. Most holds are exactly this, and most of them ship after a fix.
• It is rejected. The release does not go out. You get the reasons, and you can fix it and submit it again. See editing and resubmitting.
• A live release is taken down. It is pulled from every store it reached. Stores remove on their own schedule once the request arrives.
• Earnings connected to it are at risk. Earnings a store or our distribution pipeline rejects or reclaims can be withheld or reversed, including any fee charged for it.
• The account is suspended or closed. For serious breaches, and for the same breach after we have told you about it.
• We cooperate with a claim. Where the law requires it, or where a rights holder pursues one, we work with stores, rights holders and the authorities.

An honest mistake and a deliberate one are not treated the same way. A missing clearance document is a conversation. Uploading somebody else’s record is not.

The documents behind this

The published documents are what govern, if this article and they ever disagree. The first two are the ones you accept in the workspace:

• Distribution Agreement, which is where the promises above are written out.
• Terms of Service, which covers your account and the service itself.
• Acceptable Use Policy, the long form of what may be distributed at all.

When we change either of the accepted documents materially, you are asked to accept the new version before you submit anything new. Your catalog keeps distributing while you decide. See the agreements you accept.