Terms

Who this is with

The Flip is a personal venture. It is run by one person in Argentina, there is no company behind it, and these terms are between you and that person.

We have not put a name on this page, and we will give you one the moment you need it. If you are bringing a claim, asking what is held about you, or deciding whether to trust a stranger with your work, write to support@theflip.me and you will be told who you are dealing with. That is a commitment, not a courtesy, and it is here rather than left for you to work out.

If this ever becomes a company, you will hear before it happens — everybody who has sent us a recording or a picture gets written to first, not after, including anyone whose work has already been used. Work sent under these terms stays under these terms.

“We” and “The Flip” mean that person. “You” means whoever sends us a recording, a picture, or an email address.

What The Flip is

We publish one record a day: ten tracks by ten artists who have never met, in a running order somebody sat down and got right, with a picture on the front. It is on the front page for twenty-four hours, it goes out that morning by email to everybody subscribed and as a short video on our Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and then it moves to the archive and stays there.

We are not a label and we are not a distributor. We do not sign anybody, we do not take a share of anything you earn, and we do not represent you to anyone.

What we are is a place music is kept and played. We hold a copy of your recording, we put it in a running order, we play it to whoever comes, and we go on doing that. None of it becomes ours by being here — not the recording, not the words, not the picture on the front — and nothing on this page is us acquiring anything. It is permission to keep playing it.

Sending a recording

When you send us a track, the form asks you to confirm four things. They are the whole of what you are telling us, and we rely on them:

• The recording is yoursYou made it or you hold the rights to it, any samples are cleared, and everyone who played on it knows it is being sent.
• The words are yoursLyrics are a separate copyright from the recording, which is why it is a separate statement.
• You are granting a licence for one recordNon-exclusive, for one record and the day's video of it, and with no end date on it — the record stays in the archive. Copyright, masters, publishing and distribution stay yours, and one email from you ends it.
• You have read what gets refused and how refunds workBoth are set out below and on the artists' page.

One track per artist per record. Extra accounts made to get around that are treated as one artist and the extras are removed.

If any of those four turn out not to be true, we take the track down — that day, if it has already aired — and tell you which one.

The licence you grant for a recording

You grant a non-exclusive licence to include one recording on one record, to keep that record in the archive, to send it in the email that goes out the morning that record airs, and to put up to five seconds of it, with your photographs, your name and the track’s, in the short video of that record we post on our own accounts on Instagram, TikTok and YouTube. That is the entire grant.

That licence has no end date on it. There is no term to renew and no year it lapses in: the record is meant to stay in the archive and stay playable, so the permission to keep it there has to last as long as the record does. The grant is narrow and open-ended, which is the honest shape of it — narrow and temporary would mean an archive that quietly empties itself, and we would rather tell you now than let you find that out in five years.

Your copyright in the recording, your copyright in the words, your masters, your publishing and your distribution are untouched. You can release the same track anywhere else on the same day without telling us. And you can end this licence whenever you want to, in one email — What stays up, below, is exactly how, and it takes seven days at the outside.

The video is the whole record’s, not one artist’s. Every track on the record gets the same seconds in it, in the running order, and nobody is cut more kindly than anybody else. It lives on other companies’ sites, under their terms rather than ours: posting anything there gives that company a licence of its own to it, they show advertising around what is posted, and some of them train their models on public posts. That is the price of being on those sites at all, and it is the one place your recording goes where the promises in the next paragraph cannot follow it. Ending the licence takes the video off our accounts in the same week as everything else; what nobody can do is take back a copy somebody else already saved.

Beyond that, we do not sub-licence it, we do not sync it, we do not put advertising against it, and nothing sent to us is used to train a model. If we ever want to do anything with your recording that is not put it on one record, in the day’s video and in the archive, we will email and ask, and no is a complete answer that costs you nothing.

Sending a picture for the front

The same shape, for a different kind of work. You grant a non-exclusive licence to put one picture on the front of one record, to keep it there in the archive, and to show it in that morning’s email. The copyright is yours and stays yours: sell it as a print, put it in your portfolio, licence it to somebody else tomorrow for anything, without asking us.

The day’s video is a separate question, and yours to answer. The form asks whether the picture can be in the short video of its record on our Instagram, TikTok and YouTube — as the label on the turning record and the front at the end, with your name on it. Those are other companies’ sites, under their terms: posting there gives that company a licence of its own to what is posted, they show advertising around it, and some of them train their models on public posts. So the box is never ticked for you, and leaving it empty costs you nothing: the video draws a front of its own instead, and the picture is on the record exactly as it would have been.

Nothing made by an image generator. Any part of it being generated is grounds for refusal, and it is the one we are least reasonable about — the form asks you to say so yourself rather than us trying to guess from the file.

That licence has no end date on it either, for the same reason: the front stays with the record, and the record stays in the archive. You end it the same way an artist does — one email from the address you sent the picture from — and everything on the site, and the video if the picture was in one, comes down inside a week. What we cannot do is un-send an email: a record that has aired went out to everybody subscribed with the front of it at the top, and that letter is in their inbox. Nor can anybody take back a copy of the video somebody else already saved.

If we decide not to use a picture we say so rather than leaving you wondering, and we delete the file.

Money

While The Flip is invited only, a placement costs nothing. There is no charge on any of the first records, no payment is collected anywhere on this site today, and nobody will be asked for one without being told first. A sleeve costs nothing and earns nothing, and whether that is the permanent answer is not settled.

We do not make money from your music: no advertising of ours, no cut of your streams or sales, no selling your music on to anybody, and nothing about anybody sold to anyone. What we would charge for is a placement — a position in a running order, held for a date — which pays for hosting, for levelling every track to a common loudness, and for the people who listen to every submission and sequence the records. It does not buy a better position or a kinder listen.

When there are fees, this is what happens to them:

• We decline your track before it airsRefunded in full, the same day, without you asking. We tell you which of the grounds applied.
• You withdraw before it airsRefunded in full. Tell us at any point before the record is published.
• You withdraw after it has airedNo refund — the position was used. We still take the track down within seven days if you ask us to.
• We miss the date we agreedRefunded in full, and first refusal on the next open date.
• We publish it wronglyWrong file, wrong page, wrong credits, or a fault that made it unlistenable: refunded in full, and we re-run it at no charge.
• If the fee is the reason you cannot send itWrite to hello@theflip.me and say so. We will put you on a record when we have a position for it. We will not ask you to prove anything and it will not be a worse position.

Not settled yetNo payment provider is connected to this site, so the schedule above describes something that has not happened yet. Before the first fee is charged, this section needs the provider named, the fee, and the currency — and The Flip will have to be registered in Argentina, because taking card payments is the point at which a personal venture stops being able to stay one. That is the intended order: payments first make registration necessary, and registration is what puts a name at the top of this page.

What we refuse

A person listens to every submission and looks at every picture. We refuse on these grounds and no others:

• It is not yoursThe recording matches a commercial release that is not yours, or a rights holder identifies it as theirs; or the picture is somebody else's work, or built out of it without their say. If it has already aired it comes down that day.
• We cannot confirm it is youThe verification code never appeared on the artist page you gave us, or that page is not one you control.
• It will not play, or will not openCorrupt, truncated, silent, or a format we cannot decode. We tell you which, and you can send one replacement without paying again.
• It is not a recordingA phone memo of a rehearsal is fine. An empty file, a test tone, thirty seconds of silence, or something that is not music is not.
• It was generatedFor pictures: any part made by an image generator.
• The rights statements are not trueUncleared samples, players who did not agree to it being sent, or words you do not hold.
• More than one a dayOne track per artist per record.
• Hateful, harassing or illegalDeclined, refunded, and the account is closed. Reported where the law requires it. There is no second submission.

We do not decline for taste in a way that costs you money. If a track is good and simply does not belong on the date you booked, we offer you another date or your money back, whichever you prefer.

What stays up

Nothing is deleted at midnight. The record leaves the front page and the room closes; the music, the picture, the sleeve notes, your page and the notes strangers pinned to your track stay up, and they are meant to stay up for good. The archive is the point of the site. A record that aired in the first month should still play in the tenth year, which is the whole reason the licence above has no expiry on it: we cannot promise you a permanent archive on permission that runs out.

So nothing comes down on its own, nothing comes down because time passed, and nothing comes down because we changed our minds about it. There is exactly one way for your work to leave this site, it belongs to you, and you can use it whenever you like:

• Write to support@theflip.meFrom the same address you sent the work from. That address is how we know it is you, and it is the whole of what we need — there is no form, no account to be signed into, and nothing to prove.
• Say which record, and that you want it downNo reason is required. You do not have to tell us why, we will not ask, and there is nothing here to argue about.
• Give us up to a full working weekSeven days at the outside, and usually the same day. If the record has not aired yet, it comes out of the running order before it does.

When it goes, everything on the site goes with it — the track, the picture on the front, your page — and the day’s video comes off our accounts. The one thing we cannot do is un-send the email that went out that morning, because it is already in other people’s inboxes, or take back a copy of the video somebody else saved. Rights & takedowns is the same process written out at length, and it also covers the harder case, where the work is yours and somebody else is the one who sent it.

Until that email arrives, the licence stands and the record stays playable. There is no other reason for anything to come down. Not a quiet year, not a change of heart at this end, not a tidy-up: the only hand on that switch is the one that sent us the work.

The exception is the site itself failing — something technical we cannot fix, or the money to run it running out. We do not expect it and we are not planning around it, but a promise about a permanent archive with no answer for that is not a promise, it is a hope. So here is the answer: everybody with work in the archive is written to a week before it goes, at the address they submitted from. Not a notice on a page nobody reloads — an email, with a week in hand.

What happens at the end of that week is that the files stop being served. There is nothing to hand back, because nothing was ever taken: your masters are yours, your copyright never moved, and what we hold is a copy. If what you want is the part that only exists here — the sleeve as it was published, the notes, what strangers pinned to your track — ask and you get it, in that week or on any ordinary day. That right is on the Privacy page and it does not depend on any of this ever happening.

Your account, and the email

Signing in is a link sent to your email address; there is no password to lose. You can close your account from your account page and you can ask us to close it at support@theflip.me.

Everybody subscribed gets the whole of each day’s record, in the running order, on the morning it airs — the whole list, not a slice of it. There are no tracking pixels in it, which means we do not know whether you opened it and never will. Every letter has an unsubscribe link and it works immediately.

Taking something down

If something of yours is on this site and should not be, or you are the artist and simply want it down, that is on the Rights & takedowns page. It says what to send, what happens, and how fast.

Changing these terms

Work you sent under these terms stays under these terms. If we change them we write to everybody who has sent us something before it changes, not after — including anyone whose work we have already used.

The date at the top of this page is when the words last changed.

Law, and what happens if we disagree

These terms are governed by the law of Argentina, which is where the person running The Flip lives, and an Argentine court is where a dispute would be heard.

If you are somewhere else, that sentence does not take away rights your own country gives you. Consumer protection in the EU and the UK in particular cannot be signed away by a line in a document, and we are not trying to: if your local law says you can bring something closer to home, you can.

Write to support@theflip.me first in any case. Almost everything on this page is the kind of thing a person can fix the same day, and none of it is worth a court.