Terms of Service

These Terms govern your use of the Dubrate marketplace at dubrate.co.uk and the Dubrate native apps. By creating an account you agree to these Terms.

Who you are contracting with

Dubrate is a trading name of Showday Tickets Ltd, a company registered in England and Wales under company number 17168332.

Address for service: 66 Paul Street, London, EC2A 4NA, United Kingdom

Email: legal@dubrate.co.uk
VAT: Dubrate is not currently registered for UK VAT, so no VAT is charged on the prices shown.

1. Definitions

• Buyer — anyone who purchases a track, pack, subscription, or wallet top-up from Dubrate.
• Seller / Artist — anyone who uploads tracks and accepts payouts through Dubrate's Stripe Connect platform.
• Platform — Showday Tickets Ltd, the operator of this marketplace.

2. Buyer terms

2.1 What you're buying

You are buying the file, and it is yours to keep. No DRM, no expiry date, nothing that phones home, and you can re-download it from your library for as long as your account exists — subject to the cold storage rules in section 3.6, which delay a download but do not take it away. That is what "own the file" means on this site.

Some things do end a re-download rather than delay it, and the one to know about is a takedown: if a track is removed from Dubrate because a rights claim against it was sustained (section 3.2, and our copyright and takedown policy), we stop serving that file to everyone — prior buyers and the uploading artist included. That is not a delay; the download goes away, and comes back only if the removal is reversed. If you paid for a track this happens to, email support@dubrate.co.uk. A refund ends re-download too, for the obvious reason: cancel a purchase under 2.5 and the download goes back with the money. Either way, a copy already on your own devices stays yours — we cannot reach it and we do not try.

What a purchase does not buy is the music itself. Copyright in the recording and in the underlying song stays with the artist and their publisher; you get a personal, non-transferable licence to use the recording as set out in 2.2, and no copyright, master or publishing right transfers to you.

2.2 What the licence covers

• Personal listening on any device you own.
• Local backup copies for your own use.
• DJing with it. Playing the track out as part of a DJ set — in a venue, in a recorded mix, or in a live-streamed set — wherever the venue, station or platform holds the licences that cover playing recorded music (in the UK, PRS and PPL; elsewhere the local equivalent). That includes mixes uploaded to a licensed platform such as Mixcloud, and streamed sets on a licensed platform, whether or not you are paid for the set. This is the use this shop exists for and we are not going to pretend otherwise.

Checking that the venue, station or platform is licensed is your responsibility, not ours — that licence is what pays the artist for the play, which is the whole point.

2.3 What the licence does NOT cover

• Passing the file on. No redistribution, resale, file sharing, re-uploading it as a download or as a standalone stream, and no licensing it on to anyone else.
• Playing it out anywhere the venue, station or platform does not hold the licences described in 2.2.
• Synchronisation — putting the track to picture in a video, advert, film or game, including a video you monetise. Sync needs a separate licence from the rights holders that no shop can grant on their behalf; email legal@dubrate.co.uk and we will put you in touch with the artist.
• Using the recording to make a new release of your own — a remix, edit, bootleg or sampled work — without the artist's permission.

2.4 Your statutory rights

These rights are given to you by law. Nothing in these Terms limits or excludes them, and you do not have to ask for them as a favour.

• Under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 ss.34-36, every download must be of satisfactory quality, fit for any purpose you made known to us, and as described on the track page — including its stated format, bitrate, length and key.
• If it is not, s.42 gives you the right to have it repaired or replaced at no cost to you, and s.44 gives you the right to a price reduction — up to the full amount you paid — where repair or replacement is impossible or is not done within a reasonable time.
• Under s.47, any term of this contract that tried to exclude or restrict those rights would not be binding on you.

To exercise any of them, email support@dubrate.co.uk with your order reference. Where you paid by card, a refund goes back to that card. Where you paid from your Dubrate wallet, the refund returns to your wallet balance by default; if you would rather have it back on the card you originally topped up with, say so in that email and we will do that instead.

2.5 Cancelling a purchase (14-day right)

Buying online is a distance contract, so the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you 14 days from the day the contract is made to cancel a purchase of digital content and receive a full refund of everything you paid.

That right ends early in one situation only, and only if all three of the following are true (reg. 37):

1. you expressly asked us to start supplying the download before the 14 days were up;
2. you acknowledged that doing so means you lose the right to cancel; and
3. we sent you confirmation of the contract, including this cancellation information, on a durable medium.

We ask for that request and that acknowledgement at checkout, with an unticked box you have to tick yourself, and we record the exact wording you agreed to along with the time, IP address and browser. If you did not tick it, or you have not downloaded anything, the 14-day right is unaffected — email support@dubrate.co.uk and we refund you in full, to your original payment method, within 14 days.

Separately from all of the above, and as a matter of goodwill rather than law, we will refund any purchase within 24 hours if you have not started a download — for example if you bought the wrong track. This is in addition to your statutory rights, not instead of them.

2.6 Downloads can be individually marked

We may stamp the copy you download with an identifier unique to you, in the filename and in the file's tags, so that a copy shared without permission can be traced back to the account it was issued to. It does not change what you may do with the file under 2.2, it does not restrict playback, and it says nothing about you — it is a lookup key into our own records. What gets recorded, why, and for how long is section 2.5 of our Privacy Policy.

3. Seller terms

3.1 Rights warranty

By uploading a track, you represent and warrant that you own or control the copyright in the sound recording and are authorised to sell it as a paid download through Dubrate; that you wrote the underlying musical work, or have the permission of everyone who did; and that where PRS for Music, MCPS, another collecting society or a publisher administers any rights in that work, nothing in your agreement with them prevents this release. This attestation is recorded with timestamp, IP address, and user agent at upload time.

3.2 Indemnification

You indemnify Dubrate against any claim, loss, or legal cost arising from breach of your rights warranty.

Where a rights claim about one of your tracks is sustained, we remove the track and hold your payouts while the claim runs. Because payouts are run by hand and a balance cannot be released in part (section 3.4), that hold applies to your whole payable balance, not just the sales in question; refunds we make to the buyers of that track are recovered under section 3.5, and whatever is left is paid in the next batch. Repeated sustained claims will cost you your seller account — the standard we apply is in the repeat-infringer section of our copyright and takedown policy.

3.3 Your share, and where it is held

• Dubrate retains 15% of each sale and you keep 85%. On a fee-free day we take nothing and you keep the lot. Where a track has collaborator splits, those collaborators are paid out of your 85%, not on top of it.
• Stripe processing fees (typically 1.4% + 20p in the UK) are paid by the Platform, not flowed through to the artist.
• Dubrate is the merchant of record on a sale, and your 85% is not in your Stripe account until a payout is run. The buyer pays Dubrate. Your share is recorded as an earnings balance on your Dubrate account — you can see it at any time on your payouts page— and it only reaches your own Stripe Connect account when we run a payout and transfer it. Until that transfer happens the money sits in Dubrate's own Stripe balance and is not segregated from Dubrate's own funds. It is a debt Dubrate owes you, not money held in an account of yours, and if Dubrate became insolvent before a payout was run you would rank as an unsecured creditor for the unpaid balance.
• Artists are responsible for declaring and paying any tax owed on their income.

3.4 How payouts actually work

This is the part sellers most often assume is automated. It is not, and we would rather say so than let you plan around a cycle that does not exist.

• Payouts are run manually, in batches, by Dubrate. There is no scheduled job, no fixed payout day and no rolling cycle. Nothing moves until someone at Dubrate runs a payout batch.
• There is no minimum payout amount. Any positive balance can be paid.
• We can only pay you once you have completed Stripe Connect onboarding and your connected account can receive transfers. Until then your earnings keep accruing but cannot be sent anywhere.
• What gets paid is your payable balance: earnings not already paid out, less any outstanding refund or chargeback recoupment under section 3.5.
• There is no self-service "request a payout" button in the product. If you want your balance paid out, email support@dubrate.co.uk and we will run a payout for you as soon as we reasonably can.

Once we have made the transfer, when it lands in your bank is governed by Stripe's payout schedule for your connected account, which is between you and Stripe.

3.5 Chargebacks and refunds

If a buyer disputes a payment with their bank, the affected order is suspended while the dispute runs and the buyer's access to the files is withdrawn. If the dispute is sustained, your share of the disputed amount plus the card network's dispute fee is recouped: from your unpaid balance where one is available, and otherwise as a debit against your next payout, until the amount is cleared. The same applies where we refund a buyer under section 2.4 or 2.5 above.

Repeated unfounded chargebacks against a seller may result in account restriction.

3.6 Storage of your catalogue

Keeping master files instantly downloadable costs money, so your catalogue is tiered. This applies automatically and you need to know about it before you upload a back catalogue.

• The 180-day rule. A track that has not been bought for 180 days is moved to cold storage. The 180 days run from its last sale, or — if it has never sold — from the day it was published, or from the day it was uploaded if it was never published.
• What cold means. Nobody loses anything they own and the track stays listed and stays buyable. But it cannot be downloaded on the spot: someone who already owns it, or who buys it while it is cold, has to have it restored first. Restores are processed by us and are not instant.
• How to avoid it. A Hot Storage subscription at £9.99 per month keeps your entire catalogue permanently hot and exempt from the 180-day sweep for as long as it is active. It is a separate monthly charge to your card, billed through Stripe. It is not part of the 15/85 split and is not deducted from your earnings.
• Cancelling Hot Storage. Email support@dubrate.co.uk at any time. The exemption runs to the end of the month you have already paid for, and that month is not refunded. Any statutory cancellation right you have is unaffected.

3.7 Tips, fan subscriptions and free downloads

• Tips. A fan can tip you from their Dubrate wallet. Dubrate takes the same 15% of a tip as it does of a sale; you receive 85%, transferred to your Stripe Connect account when the tip is made rather than waiting for a payout batch. You need a completed Connect account before you can be tipped at all.
• Fan subscriptions. If you turn them on, you set the monthly price. Dubrate takes a 15% fee and the rest is transferred to your Stripe Connect account by Stripe on each billing cycle, so this income does not wait for a payout batch. Dubrate remains the party the fan contracts and pays through, handles the billing, and is the party that fields their cancellation and refund requests.
• Free downloads.If you run a free-download campaign, no money changes hands and Dubrate takes no cut. What a fan must do to unlock the file depends on the gate you set. A follow on Dubrate is checked against our own records and enforced. A Spotify or YouTube follow is verified through that platform's own sign-in before the file is released. Any other external link you add is click-through only — we do not check it, and the fan receives the file whether or not they actually followed you there.

3.8 How we decide where your music appears

Placement on Dubrate is editorial and manual. There is no ranking algorithm, and nothing on the site is ordered by sales, revenue or play counts.

• Charts and curated packs — the Top 100, the Hype Top 100, genre charts, staff picks and the weekly pack are compiled by hand by Dubrate. Every position in them is a number we set. We pick on editorial judgement: what our curators rate, what fits the chart, and how recent it is.
• DJ charts— any artist with a Dubrate seller account can create one, choose the tracks and their order, and publish it. What is in a DJ chart, and in what order, is the curator's choice and not ours.
• Hype — individual tracks — the Hype flag on a track is set by Dubrate alone. You cannot set it on your own tracks. Within the Hype page, tracks are ordered by publication date, newest first.
• Hype — releases — the Hype flag on a release is set by you, when you create or edit the release ("Mark as Hype"). We may remove it where it is misused. Within the Hype page, releases are ordered by release date, newest first.
• Browse, genre, label and artist pages — ordered by publication or release date, newest first.
• Money buys none of it. We do not sell placement. Subscribing to Hot Storage, buying any other Dubrate product, the size of your catalogue and the price you charge have no effect on charts, on Hype, or on the order of anything on the site. If that ever changes, we will label the paid placement in the product and amend this section before we take a penny for it.

4. Subscriptions

4.1 Your 14-day right to cancel

A subscription bought through this site is a distance contract, so regs. 29-30 of the Consumer Contracts (Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 give you 14 days from the day the contract is made to cancel it, for any reason and without giving one. This right applies to every tier and to both the monthly and the annual billing option, and it cannot be excluded by anything in these Terms.

To cancel inside those 14 days, email support@dubrate.co.uk or use the cancel control on your dashboard. Under reg. 34 we reimburse everything you paid, using the same payment method you used, within 14 days of being told.

One deduction is permitted, and only in one situation. If you expressly asked us to start your subscription immediately — which we ask you to confirm at checkout with an unticked box you have to tick yourself — then under reg. 36 we may keep a proportionate amount for the part of the subscription period already supplied before you cancelled, plus the value of any download credits you have already spent. If you did not make that request, no deduction may be made and you are owed the whole amount back.

4.2 Cancelling after the 14 days

Subscriptions are billed monthly or annually in advance. After the 14-day period you can still cancel at any time from your dashboard; that cancellation takes effect at the end of the current billing period, and there is no refund of the period already paid for. Any unused rollover credits expire per the tier's rollover schedule.

5. Acceptable use

You agree not to:

• Upload content you do not control rights to.
• Use Dubrate to launder money or commit fraud.
• Scrape the catalogue, or bypass the access controls on downloads, previews and paid features.
• Use Dubrate from a country subject to UK or US sanctions.

6. Limitation of liability

To the extent permitted by law, Showday Tickets Ltd's liability for any claim arising from your use of the platform is limited to the total amount you paid Dubrate in the preceding 12 months. Nothing in these Terms limits liability for death, personal injury or fraud, and nothing in this section limits the statutory rights and remedies described in sections 2.4, 2.5 and 4.1 — which apply in full whatever this cap says.

7. Governing law

These Terms are governed by the laws of England and Wales. Any dispute is subject to the exclusive jurisdiction of the courts of England and Wales.

8. Changes

We may update these Terms. We'll give 30 days' notice via email for any material change. Continued use of Dubrate after that notice constitutes acceptance.

9. Contact and complaints

legal@dubrate.co.uk, or in writing to the address for service at the top of this page. If we cannot resolve a complaint between us, you can also refer it to Citizens Advice or your local Trading Standards service.