Privacy & rights

Your music stays yours

Draft · last updated 10 October 2026

Stakkato is a place to make songs with strangers. That only works if you know exactly what happens to a take once you post it. This page explains it in plain words.

In short

You keep the copyright of every take you post. We never buy it from you and we never sell it.
Everything you post is public. Anyone can hear your take, play on it, and use it in that jam’s song.
A released song belongs to everyone on it. Anyone can share it for free with credits. Making money from it needs a yes from every musician on the song.
Your music never trains AI. We don’t use your takes to train models, and we don’t let others do it.
You can delete your takes and your account. A song that has already been released keeps your take, with your name on it, unless you ask us to take your name off.

1Who we are

Stakkato is run by [company name], [address], Belgium. We are the controller for the personal data described here. You can reach us at [privacy@stakkato.app].

To checkCompany details, the contact address, and whether a data protection officer is needed (most likely not at this size).

2What we keep

What	Why	Legal basis
Your account	Email address and display name, so you can sign in and so your takes carry your name.	Contract
Your takes	The audio file, the instrument, your note, the tempo and key, and which takes it was played on. This is what makes the jam work.	Contract
What you do in a jam	Votes, likes, reactions, songs you picked as an author, and when you did it.	Contract
Technical data	A random user ID in your browser, and IP addresses in the logs of our hosting providers, to keep the service safe and running.	Legitimate interest
Product emails	Only if you ask for them, for example “tell me when a jam needs bass”.	Consent

We don’t ask for your real name, birthday, address or payment details. We don’t sell data and we don’t show ads.

Recording happens in your browser. We only receive a take when you post it or upload it. Takes you keep as a draft never leave your device.

3What everyone can see

Stakkato is public by design. Everything below can be seen by anyone, also without an account, and can show up in search engines:

every jam, every take and every song, with the audio;
your display name next to everything you posted;
what each take was played on, votes and likes in totals.

Your email address is never shown. Don’t put anything in a note or a take that you want to keep private.

To checkThere is no private jam yet. If one is added, this section needs an extra paragraph.

4Your takes and your rights

You keep the copyright and any neighbouring rights in your performance. By posting a take you give two permissions. Both are non-exclusive, free and worldwide.

To Stakkato

We may store, copy, stream and process your take (for example to draw a waveform, mix it with other takes, or make a smaller file) and show it on Stakkato and in links to Stakkato. We may also use short clips of public jams to show what Stakkato is, always with your name. This permission ends when your take is deleted, except for songs that were already released (see section 5) and copies in backups, which expire on their own.

To the other musicians

Anyone may, inside Stakkato, play your take, record on top of it, use it in the jam’s song or in their own version, and download the stems of that jam to practise and record their part. That’s what you post a take for.

What nobody may do

Take your take out of its jam and use it in other work, outside Stakkato, without your permission.
Make money from it without your permission (see section 5).
Use it to train AI models. This also goes for us.

To checkThe wording of both permissions, the use of short clips for promotion, and whether the AI clause also needs to be in the general terms (text and data mining opt-out under the EU copyright directive).

5When a jam becomes a song

The person who started a jam is its author. The author picks which takes are in the song and decides when it’s released. Being the author doesn’t make the other takes theirs: every musician on the song keeps the rights in their own take.

While the jam is openTakes can go in and out of the song. You can still delete your take.

Once it’s releasedThe song is final. Everyone on it is credited with their name and instrument.

Outside StakkatoFree sharing with credits is fine. Making money needs a yes from everyone on the song.

Sharing a released song

Anyone may play, share and embed a released song for free, as long as everyone on it is credited and nobody makes money from it. This is like a Creative Commons BY-NC licence.

Making money from a song

Putting a song on streaming services, selling it, or licensing it for a film or an ad needs written agreement from every musician whose take is in the released song. Unless they agree otherwise, the income is split in equal shares between everyone on the song, and the person who started the jam counts as one of them.

Mixes

Someone who uploads a mix of a released song adds their own work to it, but the mix uses everyone’s takes. The same rules apply to it as to the song.

To checkWhether a released song is a joint work under Belgian copyright law or a compilation of separate works; whether the free-sharing licence can be given this way; how the equal split relates to collecting societies (Sabam, PlayRight); and whether we need a simple split sheet that musicians sign before a commercial release.

6What you promise us

You played or made what you post yourself, or you have the rights to post it. No samples, loops or other people’s recordings you don’t have a licence for.
Covers: playing someone else’s song is fine for practising in a jam, but releasing it or making money from it needs a licence from the songwriter.
Nothing in your take or note is hateful, sexual or breaks the law.
You are at least 16, or you have permission from a parent.

If someone reports a take that breaks these rules or someone’s rights, we may hide or remove it, and close accounts that keep doing it.

To checkThe minimum age (Belgium allows consent from 13 for online services), the notice-and-takedown procedure under the Digital Services Act, and how a rights holder reports a take.

7Deleting takes and your account

A take in an open jam: you can delete it at any time. It disappears from the jam and from the song. Takes recorded on top of it stay, but no longer play with yours.
A take in a released song: the song stays as it was, because the others on it rely on it. You can ask us to take your name off it, or to replace your name with “anonymous”.
Your account: delete it in your settings or email us. We delete your email address and your takes that aren’t in a released song within 30 days. Copies in backups are gone within 90 days.

The author of a jam can also delete takes from their jam. That removes the take from the jam, not from your account history.

To checkDeleting must also delete the audio file itself. Today a deleted take keeps its file in storage; that needs to change before launch.

8Who we share data with

Only with the services that run Stakkato for us, under a data processing agreement:

Service	For	Where
Supabase	Database, sign-in, audio storage	EU (Frankfurt) [to confirm]
Vercel	Hosting the website	Global network, EU and US
Email provider	Sign-in links and emails you asked for	[to confirm]

Where data leaves the EU, we rely on the EU–US Data Privacy Framework or the standard contractual clauses. We only hand over data to the police or a court when the law requires it.

To checkThe Supabase region of the project, the list of processors, and the transfer basis per provider.

10Cookies and local storage

We only store what Stakkato needs to work: your sign-in, and small settings like which microphone you picked. No advertising cookies, no tracking across other sites. That’s why you don’t see a cookie banner.

To checkIf analytics are added later, this section and possibly a consent banner are needed.

11Changes and contact

If we change how we handle your takes or your rights, we tell you by email and on the site at least 30 days before it applies. Changes never apply to songs that were already released.

Questions? Email [privacy@stakkato.app].

12Amp sounds

The amps you can put on a guitar take are free, community-made sounds, used under their own licences:

Amp captures from the NAM community collection: Tim R (Fender Twin Reverb, Marshall JCM2000) and Helga B (Peavey 6505+), licensed under the GNU GPL v3.
Speaker cabinet impulse responses by Kristoffer Ekstrand, Adventure Kid Research & Technology, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
The room on the clean amp: St. Margaret’s Church, from the OpenAIR library (AudioLab, University of York, and NCEM), licensed under CC BY 4.0.
They run on Neural Amp Modeler by Steven Atkinson and nam-web, both MIT licensed.

The full credits, licences and what we changed are in /amps/CREDITS.md. Your takes are always stored as you recorded them; the amp is only added when they play.