TrakBak Community Guidelines

TrakBak is a community for songwriters, musicians and creators to develop ideas, collaborate, exchange FeedBak and share their work.

Creative communities work best when people can be honest with one another while still feeling safe. You do not have to like someone's music, agree with their creative choices or accept their FeedBak. You do have to treat other people with respect.

These Guidelines apply across TrakBak, including Creator Profiles, tracks, audio, video, lyrics, artwork, descriptions, FeedBak, replies, collaborations, invitations, competitions and other community features.

They protect everyone, including people who do not have a TrakBak account.

1. Respect the creator

Constructive criticism is encouraged. Personal abuse is not.

It is perfectly acceptable to say that you don't like a vocal, lyric, arrangement, production choice or song. It is not acceptable to attack, ridicule or humiliate the person who created it.

When communicating with others, you must not use abusive, threatening, intimidating or harassing language; personal insults or deliberately degrading remarks; discriminatory or hateful language; unwanted sexual comments; or language primarily intended to humiliate, frighten or distress another person.

Profanity directed abusively at another person is not acceptable.

Songs and lyrics may contain mature or explicit language. Profanity within genuine creative work is therefore not automatically a breach of these Guidelines.

2. Harassment, stalking and unwanted contact

You must not use TrakBak to harass, stalk, intimidate or repeatedly target another person.

This includes repeatedly contacting somebody after they have asked you to stop; repeatedly sending unwanted collaboration invitations or FeedBak; persistently targeting someone's activity; threatening or intimidating them; encouraging other people to target them; or continuing unwanted behaviour across multiple areas of TrakBak.

A pattern of behaviour may breach these Guidelines even where individual actions viewed separately might appear harmless.

If somebody blocks you, respect the block.

You must not create another account, use somebody else's account, use another TrakBak feature or ask another person to circumvent a block or continue contact on your behalf.

Using information obtained through TrakBak to stalk, harass or continue unwanted contact with somebody elsewhere is also prohibited.

3. Don't use music to target another person

Songs often come from real life. Relationships, break-ups, arguments, grief, anger and difficult experiences have always inspired songwriting.

TrakBak does not prohibit a song simply because a real person inspired it.

However, creative expression must not be used as a means of harassing, threatening, humiliating, exposing or deliberately targeting an identifiable person.

This applies even when the person isn't named.

Someone may still be identifiable from a combination of circumstances, relationship details, locations, photographs, private events, messages, recordings, nicknames or other information.

You must not use songs, lyrics, recordings, videos, artwork, titles, descriptions or profiles primarily to attack, shame, threaten or expose an identifiable person.

Repeatedly publishing material about the same person may also become harassment even where an individual piece of content might not, by itself, breach these Guidelines.

We will consider the content, context and pattern of behaviour when reviewing reports.

4. Privacy and personal information

Respect other people's privacy.

Do not publish or threaten to publish someone's private or identifying information in order to expose, threaten, intimidate or harass them.

This can include private contact information, addresses, private communications, photographs, recordings or other information that a person would reasonably expect to remain private.

Do not use TrakBak to try to discover or publicise someone's private physical location.

5. Collaborative work belongs to its creators

Collaboration does not mean surrendering control of your rights.

If music, lyrics, recordings, video or other material contains another person's protected creative contribution, you must have the rights or permissions necessary to upload and share it.

Being a collaborator does not automatically give you permission to publish everything another collaborator contributed.

This remains true if the collaboration has ended, the people involved have fallen out or stopped communicating, or one collaborator possesses a copy of the work.

Uploading something to a private collaborative workspace also does not automatically give another collaborator permission to publish it publicly.

Where the necessary rights or permissions are disputed, TrakBak may restrict the material while the issue is investigated.

6. FeedBak isn't ownership

FeedBak exists to help creators develop their work.

Providing ordinary suggestions, opinions or ideas through FeedBak does not automatically make somebody a songwriter, co-author or owner of the work.

Creators are free to consider, reject, experiment with or act upon FeedBak.

Likewise, receiving FeedBak does not give somebody permission to take or republish another creator's work.

7. Threats and dangerous behaviour

Credible threats of violence or serious harm are prohibited.

Do not threaten, blackmail, coerce or attempt to frighten another person.

Do not encourage others to harm somebody or organise harassment against them.

Where we reasonably believe there is a credible and immediate safety risk, TrakBak may preserve relevant records and cooperate with appropriate authorities where permitted or required by law.

8. Sexual harassment and exploitation

Unwanted sexual attention, sexually threatening behaviour and sexual harassment are not permitted.

Sexual exploitation or content that exploits or endangers children is prohibited.

TrakBak is a 16+ platform, and accounts must not be created by people under 16.

9. Hate and discrimination

Do not attack, demean, threaten or encourage hatred against people on the basis of protected or personal characteristics.

This does not prevent creators from discussing difficult social subjects through music or participating in legitimate artistic expression. Context matters.

10. Impersonation and deception

Do not pretend to be another creator or person in a way intended to deceive people.

Do not create accounts designed to impersonate, ridicule or target somebody else.

Parody, tribute and similar legitimate creative activity should be clearly distinguishable from an authentic account where there could reasonably be confusion.

11. Spam and manipulation

Do not use TrakBak for spam, scams or fraudulent activity.

Do not artificially manipulate Charts, competitions, FeedBak, plays, reactions, votes or other community signals.

Coordinating fake engagement or using multiple accounts to manipulate TrakBak features is prohibited.

12. Human creativity

TrakBak exists to support human-created music.

Do not knowingly present substantially AI-generated music, lyrics, vocals, performances or other creative works as human-created original work where doing so breaches TrakBak's AI/content rules.

AI-assisted educational functionality provided by TrakBak, including Creative Companion features, may be used in accordance with the rules applicable to those features.

More detailed AI guidelines may be published as these features develop.

13. Copyright and other rights

Only upload material you have the right to use.

If you believe something on TrakBak uses your music, recording, lyrics or other protected work without permission, you will be able to report it as a rights issue.

This includes collaborative material where you are a relevant rights holder and believe it has been published without the necessary permission.

A report does not automatically establish that infringement occurred. TrakBak may request information from the people involved and may temporarily restrict disputed material while the issue is reviewed.

Repeated or serious infringement may result in account restrictions or termination.

14. Blocking

Blocking is there to establish a boundary, not simply hide someone's profile.

Where blocking functionality is available, a blocked person must not attempt to circumvent it.

TrakBak may prevent or restrict direct interaction between blocked accounts, including collaboration invitations, FeedBak requests and other direct contact.

Creating another account to bypass a block may result in action against both the additional account and the original account.

15. Reporting something to TrakBak

If you believe content or behaviour breaches these Guidelines, report it to us.

Reports may include matters such as Abuse or harassment; Stalking or unwanted contact; Threats or safety; Hate or discrimination; Sexual harassment; Privacy or personal information; Targeted content; Impersonation; Spam or scam; Copyright or rights issue; AI/content rules; or Other.

Reporting something does not guarantee that it will be removed.

We will consider the available information, context and applicable rules. Something is not automatically a policy violation simply because another person dislikes it, disagrees with it or finds creative criticism uncomfortable.

Knowingly making malicious or deliberately false reports may itself result in action.

16. What TrakBak can do

Depending on the circumstances, we may remove or restrict content; issue a warning; restrict particular community features; restrict contact between accounts; temporarily suspend an account; or permanently terminate an account.

We may take immediate action in serious cases.

For less serious incidents, context, previous behaviour and whether there is a repeated pattern may influence the action taken.

Where appropriate, users should have a way to challenge a moderation decision.

17. Creative freedom and community safety

TrakBak isn't intended to sanitise songwriting.

Music can be angry, political, explicit, provocative, painful and deeply personal. Creators should be able to explore difficult experiences and subjects.

But creative freedom isn't a licence to use TrakBak as a tool to harass, stalk, threaten, expose or deliberately target another person.