Terms of service

Welcome to the river

Planned model — not active during beta

Dated 16 September 2026 · planned, not active during beta

This is a private beta of a cooperative listening room. Payouts and Stripe Connect pool transfers are not live. Tips are the only real money that can move in beta. Founding beta members keep lifetime access with no dues after public launch.

The intended dues split, once the operator clicks Go Live and later turns on payouts, is four named buckets: 75% to artists, 5% Discovery current for new and unheard tracks, 15% platform overhead, 5% operator compensation. Early money is communal — every dues dollar lifts every artist so a newcomer is paid immediately. After an operator-set threshold of paying members, money shifts to user-centric: each listener’s net payment follows the artists they actually played. Airtime credits stay communal. Founding members keep a small permanent slice of the communal pot after that shift.

On air is the earned stage. Every fresh upload gets a guaranteed spin on the main river for its first fourteen days, then earns its way on through unique-listener credits. Listen (on-demand) stays open to the full catalog. Genre currents are tag-driven, not DJ-driven. A track may carry more than one genre and appear in more than one current.

The operator account never draws from the artist pool, including from its own streams. The 5% operator bucket is named compensation, separate from that pool. Tips to any artist, including the operator, remain optional and off the pool.

None of this pays out during beta. The ledgers you see in Studio and Operator are projected. Zero real money splits until Go Live, and Connect transfers wait for a later payout job.

The cooperative

Deep River Radio is a cooperative, not a corporation. The more artists and listeners join, the larger the pool grows. Every artist receives a share of that pool based on their streams — not on playlist placement, payola, or who shouts the loudest in a feed. When you promote yourself, you promote everyone here. When the river floods, we all rise.

Revenue

The planned dues split is seventy-five percent to artists, five percent Discovery, fifteen percent platform, five percent operator. That split is planned, not active during beta. The studio desk still shows an 80/20 stream calculator so testers can see listens add up — it does not move money. Collaboration splits still lock on a track once every named artist confirms, and they will cut that track’s share when payouts turn on.

When you post a track you may name collaborators by username and assign each a whole percent of that track’s earnings. Those percents must total one hundred, including the cut you keep. Every named artist has to confirm before the split locks. Until then the posting desk takes the track in full. Once it locks, the payout calculator divides that track’s share of the pool by the confirmed percents — not by who uploaded the file.

The more artists and listeners join, the larger that pool becomes. Your share moves with your listens. Bring your people and the water rises for every current on the log.

Age

You must be at least thirteen to create an account or use a desk on Deep River Radio. This is a self-declaration. We log the confirmation — time, account, and a session key — so the station can strengthen verification later without pretending we already check IDs.

Artists tag every track Clean, Explicit, or Mature. Explicit and mature currents are locked until the listener confirms they are eighteen or older. That confirmation is also self-declared and logged. Clean tracks play without the extra gate. Mis-tagging a release to dodge the gate is a terms violation and can draw a strike.

What does not belong

Explicit and mature music belongs here. Pornography does not. Deep River Radio prohibits pornography in any form — audio, video, cover art, profile images, banners, or any other media on a desk or a release. Do not post it. Do not dress it as a track.

Highly offensive material that exists only to shock or degrade may also be pulled. Taste is not the test. Gratuitous harm is. Explicit and mature music is allowed; pornography and material that exists only to shock or degrade may be refused or removed.

The operator may reject a release, take it down after it posts, or refuse it from the log and On air. A pulled cut leaves the current and the overnight rotation. Listens already counted toward the pool stay counted. This is a terms violation and can draw a strike.

The log and the river

Every desk — artist or listener — may set a profile image and a banner. Those images show on your page, on comments, and on the river feed. Cover art you attach to a release is what plays in the player while that cut is on air.

Comments live under every track and every desk. The river is the station feed: a note, a share of what you are hearing, or a favorite pinned from the log. Harassment, impersonation, and spam on the river or the log are terms violations and can draw a strike.

Ownership warranties

By posting a single or an album you warrant that you own or control every composition, recording, sample, and performance in that release, or that you have a written license that allows you to distribute it here. You warrant that the work does not infringe copyright, trademark, publicity, or privacy rights of any other person. Station currents are instrumental pieces provided for demo and arrangement use on this station; you still warrant that any lyrics, additional parts, or outside files you add are yours to post.

You grant Deep River Radio a non-exclusive license to host, stream, and display the release on the station so listeners can play it. You keep the copyright. Pulling a release removes it from the current; it does not unwind listens already counted toward the pool.

Song Market — planned, not active during beta

Dated 16 September 2026 · planned, not active during beta

Deep River provides a timestamped public record of upload and claimed authorship on each cut. That stamp is a claim on this station. It is not a substitute for official copyright registration with the U.S. Copyright Office or with a PRO.

Song Market is an opt-in directory. Marking a track open-to-cover or open-to-pitch does not transfer rights. Any licensing or cover agreement is between the parties, outside the platform.

Deep River does not broker, guarantee, or take a cut of any cover or pitch deal made through the market. Artists are responsible for the accuracy of their own rights information.

Until the operator clicks Go Live, Song Market is a demonstration. Interest notes stay on the inquirer’s device. No real messages move, no contact is exposed, and no fees attach to a deal.

Indemnification

You agree to indemnify and hold harmless Deep River Radio, its operators, and the cooperative from claims, damages, and reasonable costs — including legal fees — that arise from your releases, your warranties, or your use of the station. If someone comes after the river because of work you posted, you stand with the river and cover the defense of that claim.

Three strikes, with appeals

We do not police taste. Explicit and mature music may stay. We do police theft, impersonation, harassment, pornography, shock-only harm, and other clear terms violations. Strikes land in writing on your studio desk.

1. First strike. A warning. The offending release may be pulled. You stay on the log.
2. Second strike. A fourteen-day freeze on new release events. Existing tracks may stay up.
3. Third strike. Removal from the river. Your desk closes. The pool no longer counts new listens on pulled work.

Appeals: write the station desk from your studio within fourteen days of a strike. State what happened, what you own, and what you want reviewed. We read appeals in good faith, once per strike. A granted appeal clears that strike. A denied appeal stands. Repeat flooding of the desk is itself a violation.

The log cap

Artists may post up to 20 unique tracks in any rolling 30-day window — at most 4 singles per week and 1 album per month (twenty unique tracks a month: four singles a week plus one album). An album may hold at most 20 tracks. A single that later appears on an album counts as one track, not two: the album is the master, and the single is a preview of a track already in it. Same title or same file is the same song. Deleting a post does not return the slot. The cap exists so the river does not become a dump for throwaway tracks.