The Source Content Policy
This article sets out the rules regarding the type of content that you are allowed to deliver to The Source and the content you are not allowed to deliver to The Source and also describes important aspects relating to the content itself. Please refer
to the terms and conditions for further rules and regulations. Failure to adhere to these Content Policy rules including attempts to obfuscate these failures by deliberately amending metadata or withholding information and/or circumventing the Portal's validations and checks, will result in the breach of your distribution contract and subsequent termination or of your contract and suspension of your account, as well as withholding or freezing of accrued royalties.
1. Content controlled by others
You should not be delivering any content for which you do not own and/or control all applicable rights. This includes:
- Tracks by labels or artists whose rights you do not control (or, in the case of back catalogue, have never controlled), or that include such tracks or parts of such tracks
- Tracks that are in the Public Domain anywhere in the world
- Tracks with uncleared samples
- Remixes, mashups or other derivative versions, unless you also control and deliver the original version(s) or have licensed the right to create and/or distribute the derivative version(s)
- DJ mixes, unless you control the rights to all tracks in that mix or have licensed the mix for commercial release
2. Content that closely resembles other people’s content
Content that closely resembles other people’s content, is not acceptable for delivery. This includes:
- Soundalikes (covers that sound close to the originals)
- Karaoke versions, unless you control the original recording
- Re-recordings, unless you control the underlying composition or otherwise have the right to record and/or distribute it, and differentiate your re-record from the original recording in the track metadata field
- Re-masters, unless you control the original recording or otherwise have the right to remaster that recording and to distribute the remastered recording.
3. Content that makes unauthorised use of someone else’s name or reputation
Any content that creates an association with another person (e.g., an artist or label) or seeks to trade off that other person’s name or reputation, is not permitted for delivery. This includes:
- Any recording that includes the name of another artist in the artist, product or track metadata fields, either in a deliberate attempt to mislead consumers, or where there is a risk of consumers being misled. This includes "misspellings", altered or incomplete versions of the original artist's name
- Any content that makes unlicensed use of the artwork from another release, or otherwise uses another artist’s name, likeness or branding
- Any content that makes use of any trademarks, brands, characters, images, sounds or other elements of popular culture, in the recording or any accompanying artwork or metadata, in a manner intended or likely to mislead consumers
4. Content or activity that unfairly increases your royalties
The following activities or content types are not allowed:
- Sped up, slowed down, reverbed or other altered versions of tracks, including “remixed covers”, unless you also control and deliver the original version of those recordings
- Tracks that include hidden samples of other tracks, or purport to be other tracks, whether or not those other tracks are controlled by you
- Tracks embedded in video content at minimal volume, whether or not those tracks are controlled by you
- Plays, creations or views generated by bots or other automated means
- Plays of short tracks designed to artificially increase play count
- Plays of recordings that have been altered in order to artificially increase play count, e.g., by the insertion of minimal or imperceptible delays
- Plays of recordings that have been delivered multiple times in order to artificially increase playcount, e.g. with minor imperceptible differences between versions, or differences only in metadata or artwork
- Plays of ambient sounds intended to artificially increase play count or share of listening time
- Tracks that otherwise breach this Content Policy
5. Content that is unlawful or objectionable
You cannot deliver content that is unlawful, or risks bringing any other provider, The Source itself, or the wider independent community into disrepute. This would include tracks or other content that:
- incites violence or hatred, or contributes to real world harm
- includes hate speech
- promotes the exploitation or abuse of minors
- promotes sexual violence
If you deliver tracks that use explicit language or contain adult themes but otherwise comply with this Content Policy, you are expected to apply the appropriate label in the metadata, e.g. “Explicit”.
6. Content ID (CID)
Many outlets, including Meta/Facebook, Google/YouTube, TikTok, and other social media and UGC (User Generated Content) platforms, use audio content recognition/fingerprinting technology, colloquially known as "Content ID" or “CID” to identify sound recordings uploaded or delivered to their platforms. In order to deliver to these fingerprinting rights management/Content ID platforms providers must have 100% exclusive rights to their content which should also comply with the other points in this Content Policy.
The following types of content are not permitted for delivery to fingerprinting rights management/Content ID platforms:
- Tracks that are in the Public Domain anywhere in the world
- Content for which provider does not have 100% exclusive rights
- Full album sound recordings
- Compilations
- Live recordings, unless audibly distinct from the original studio recording
- Non-musical audio: any generic sound, sound-fx, speech or ambient noise or meditation sounds, that are not accompanied by any musical audio
- Production music, samples, loops, beats or other recordings that you do not own exclusively, because you (intend to) sell or license out the audio to third parties
7. Duplicate, repetitive or mislabelled content
Content that is poorly or incorrectly labelled, whether intentionally or otherwise, is prohibited. This would include:
- Multiple tracks packaged as a new release where those tracks have been delivered under one or more other releases
- Multiple tracks delivered as a new release where that release features the same track more than once
- Tracks delivered under false ISRCs
- Tracks with multiple ISRCs
8. Functional or noise content
Content created for specific uses is undesirable for many Partners, particularly if delivered in large volume. This would include:
- Generic sounds, such as applause, laughter, ringing phone, etc.
- Speech that is not accompanied by music
- White noise, environmental, sleep or meditation sounds
9. AI-Generated Content
Recordings created wholly or primarily by unlicensed generative AI model(s) may be considered as unacceptable content for delivery by The Source. The Source operates a background algorithm in the Release Builder which analyses provider content and if a high likelihood and high percentage of unlicensed generative AI content is detected by our algorithm, provider release may be blocked for delivery to selected outlets.