Licensing
Who owns what you make on Fade.fm, in plain words first and the formal terms underneath.
- You keep your copyright. Making, saving or publishing a song never hands it to Fade.fm.
- Fade.fm gets an operating licence, only what it needs to store, stream and show your song where you asked. No promotional use without asking.
- Publishing a link grants CC BY 4.0: anyone may play, remix and reuse the song with credit to you.
- Unpublished songs stay under the operating licence only; a jam shares them with the room, and a guest may keep a copy for their own use.
- The bundled samples are CC0. Patterns and presets are for use in songs, not for redistribution.
- Fade.fm’s own demos are published on exactly the same terms as yours.
You keep your copyright
Everything you make on Fade.fm is yours: the songs, the arrangements, the presets you save, the samples you record. Fade.fm never claims a song, never asks for an assignment, and never needs one. Publishing a song (below) licenses it; it does not transfer it.
What Fade.fm needs from you
To run the service, Fade.fm needs your permission to handle your song. By saving or publishing you give Fade.fm a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to do only what the product does: store it, back it up, stream it, transcode it, render previews, waveforms and link images, show it where you asked (a link, Discover), and run the remix and jam features.
That licence ends when you delete the song, except for routine backups, which are kept for 30 days and then removed, and copies other people already made under the public licence. Fade.fm will not use your song in advertising or promotion without asking you first.
Publishing a link grants CC BY 4.0
When you publish a song, whether you choose Private or Public, from the Publish panel or a phone’s Save, you license it to everyone under CC BY 4.0, the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence. Anyone may play, download, remix and reuse it, including commercially, as long as they credit you.
Why both options? A Private link is a link anyone can open if they have it, and anyone who opens it can remix it. The licence is what makes those remixes legitimate. Private controls where the song is listed, not who may build on it.
The grant is made the moment you publish and, like every Creative Commons licence, cannot be taken back for copies already made. Unpublishing stops new copies; it does not recall remixes that already exist.
Credit means your name as it appears on Fade.fm and a link to the original song. Every remix made on Fade.fm shows a remix of <song> by <you> line while your original is published, linked to your original when it is public.
Unpublished songs and jams
A song you have never published is covered by the operating licence above and nothing else.
In a jam, each participant lets the others hear, edit and fetch their samples inside that room, and a guest who leaves may keep a copy of the jam’s song for their own use. Publishing that copy needs the permission of everyone who contributed to it.
Samples, patterns and presets
The sample packs bundled with Fade.fm are dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Use them in anything, with no credit needed. Your copyright is in what you make with them, not in the samples themselves.
Patterns and presets from the Fade.fm library are licensed to you for use in songs made on Fade.fm. They may not be redistributed as collections.
Samples you upload are yours to upload: you confirm you have the right to use them and to license them under the terms on this page. Fade.fm removes material on a valid takedown notice.
Fade.fm’s own demos
Songs published by Fade.fm’s own account, including the demos in the app, are licensed to you under the same CC BY 4.0 terms as every other published song. There is no separate licence and no separate badge.
Takedowns
If you believe something on Fade.fm infringes your rights, write to the licensing contact and name the link and the work concerned. Fade.fm may take the material off Discover while it reviews the notice, removes it if the notice is valid, and will tell the publisher.
Changes
These terms carry the date of their current version. Changes apply to songs published after they take effect.
Last updated 10 October 2026
Terms
The formal version of the page above. Where the two differ, this section governs.
- Your content
- You own the songs, samples, presets and other material you create or upload on Fade.fm (“Your Content”). Nothing in these terms transfers that ownership to Fade.fm or to anyone else.
- Licence to Fade.fm
- You grant Fade.fm a non-exclusive, worldwide, royalty-free licence to host, store, back up, reproduce, transcode, stream, display and distribute Your Content, and to generate derived technical artefacts (previews, waveforms, link images, song maps), solely to operate, maintain and provide the Fade.fm service and its features, including sharing, listing, remixing and jamming, in the ways you choose through the product. This licence ends when you delete Your Content from Fade.fm, except that (a) copies in routine backups are removed within 30 days and (b) copies lawfully made by others under a public licence you granted are unaffected. Fade.fm will not use Your Content in advertising or promotion without your separate consent.
- Public licence
- When you publish a link to a song, you license that song to the public under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence (CC BY 4.0). This licence applies to whatever rights you hold in the song, is granted at the moment of publishing, and cannot be revoked for copies already made, although you may stop publishing at any time. Attribution under CC BY 4.0 is satisfied by the publisher name shown on Fade.fm together with a link to the original song where it is publicly listed, which Fade.fm displays automatically for remixes made on Fade.fm.
- Jams
- By joining a jam you grant the other participants a licence to listen to, modify and download Your Content within that jam, and to keep a copy of the jam’s song for their own use when they leave. Publishing such a copy requires the permission of every contributor. No other rights are granted by joining a jam.
- Bundled material
- The sample packs bundled with Fade.fm are dedicated to the public domain under CC0 1.0. Patterns and presets from the Fade.fm library are licensed to you for use in songs made on Fade.fm and may not be redistributed as collections.
- Your responsibilities
- You confirm that you have the rights needed to upload Your Content and to grant the licences above, and that doing so does not infringe anyone else’s rights.
- Takedowns
- If you believe material on Fade.fm infringes your rights, write to the licensing contact naming the link and the work concerned. Fade.fm may delist the material while it reviews the notice, will remove it if the notice is valid, and will notify the publisher.
- Fade.fm’s own songs
- Songs published by Fade.fm’s own account are licensed to you under the same CC BY 4.0 terms as every other published song.
- Changes
- Fade.fm may update these terms; the date of the current version is shown on this page. Changes apply to content published after they take effect.