Contributor terms

1.What this is

• Guest writing for SongsBrew is a voluntary contribution. It is unpaid, and you are not hired to do it. We do not pay you for pieces, gigs, travel or anything else, and you do not pay us.
• You are not our employee, freelancer, contractor, intern or agent. There is no employment contract or contract for services between us, and you cannot act or sign anything in SongsBrew's name.
• You decide whether to write, and what, when, where and how. We may suggest an idea or a gig, and you can ignore it. There are no quotas, set hours or deadlines. If you tell us roughly when a draft might come, that only helps us plan, and nothing happens if it changes.
• Neither of us has to do anything more than these terms say. We do not have to accept, edit or publish anything you send, or offer you gigs.
• You can stop at any time, and so can we (section 11).

2.Who can write for us

You must be 18 or older. If you are not, please do not accept these terms. If we learn that a writer is under 18, we end their place in the Writers Pool and take their pieces down.

3.You keep your copyright

Your piece stays yours. You own the copyright in what you write, and in photos you took yourself. These terms only give us a licence to use it.

Your rights as an author, such as the right to be named and the right to object to your work being distorted, also stay with you. The law does not let you give them away, and these terms do not try to. Where these terms say what we may do, that is your permission for those specific things.

4.What you let us do

Each piece you send us from your writer space is covered by these terms on its own. For each piece you give Hernas OÜ a licence that is:

• non-exclusive - you can let others use it too, after the hold in section 5;
• free - we pay you nothing for it, you pay us nothing, and you agree to that;
• worldwide;
• for SongsBrew only - the uses listed below, and nothing else;
• for as long as copyright lasts, unless it ends earlier under section 4, 9, 10 or 11.

Under the licence we may:

• publish the piece on songsbrew.com under your byline, and keep it published;
• make the changes and additions in section 6;
• share it, link to it and quote from it in the SongsBrew newsletter and on SongsBrew's own social media accounts;
• keep copies in our archives and backups.

You also agree that:

• the companies that host, send and display SongsBrew for us, such as our web host and email provider, may handle the piece, but only to do that work for us;
• when we post a link or an extract on a social platform, that platform gets the rights its own terms need to show the post.

We give no one else any rights in your piece. We will not sell it, license it to anyone else, use it for another Hernas OÜ brand, or put it in a book or other product unless you agree to that separately.

When the licence starts and ends. If we accept a piece, we aim to publish it within 3 months. If we have not published it within 6 months of accepting it, the licence for that piece ends and the piece is yours again, unless you tell us you want us to keep it. For a piece we decline, or one you take back before we publish it, the licence ends then. The licence also ends when a published piece is taken down (section 10). In each case we keep one copy in our records (section 13).

5.Publishing elsewhere

• Before we publish: while a piece is with us, please do not publish it anywhere else. If you want it back, tell us and it is yours again.
• After we publish: you can link to your piece and quote from it anywhere, straight away.
• From 30 days after it goes up on SongsBrew, you can publish the full piece anywhere else you like. A line saying it first appeared on SongsBrew, with a link, is appreciated but not required.
• If the piece is taken down before the 30 days are up, the hold ends then.
• If you republish, the version you send elsewhere is yours. Our edits that made it into the published piece come with it - you do not need to undo them.

6.Editing

By accepting these terms, you let us make these changes and additions to your pieces:

• fix spelling, grammar, house style and facts, cut for length, and make sentences clearer;
• write or change the headline, subtitle, summary and image captions;
• add links to the music and to other SongsBrew posts, a cover image, tags, a line saying where press access or free items came from, and correction notes (section 12);
• format the piece for the site, email and social posts, and use short extracts of it.

And these are the limits:

• We do not change what you mean without asking you first.
• Before a piece goes live, we show you the edited version, and we publish it only once you have approved it. If you do not approve it, you can take the piece back.
• After it goes live, we may still fix small things - a typo, a broken link, a date - without asking. If we correct a fact, we tell you.
• We will not cut, change or present your piece in a way that distorts it or could harm your reputation as its author.

7.Credit

• We publish every piece under your name, with a byline that links to your author page on SongsBrew. Your author page shows your name, the bio line and photo you send us, and the pieces you wrote for us.
• You can use a pen name. Ask us before the piece goes up.
• You can ask us at any time to take your name off a published piece. We do it within 14 days and show the piece as by "a guest writer". We do not charge you for it.

8.Your promises

When you send us a piece, you confirm that:

• it is your own original work, written by you, and not copied from anyone else; where you quote or use someone else's words, you say so and credit them;
• it is new and has not been published anywhere before, in print or online, including on your own blog, newsletter or social channels;
• you took the photos and images you upload yourself, or you have permission to use them and tell us whose they are so we can credit them;
• it does not, as far as you know, break the law or anyone's rights, for example by being defamatory or by sharing someone's private information;
• facts are true as far as you know, and you tell us where a claim comes from if we ask;
• you have told us about any link between you and what you write about: if you are paid by, work for, or are related or close to the artist, label, promoter, venue or brand; if you got free tickets, records or gear; or if you have any other interest a reader would want to know about. Telling us does not rule a piece out. We decide whether to run it and how to say so on the page.

If one of these turns out to be wrong, tell us as soon as you know, and we will fix or remove the piece. An honest mistake does not make you liable to us under this section. If you broke one of these promises on purpose or through gross negligence, and someone makes a claim against us because of it, you cover our reasonable resulting loss. In that case we tell you about the claim promptly and let you have your say before we settle it.

9.Declined pieces and taking a piece back

• Declined pieces are yours. If we decline a piece, you can publish it anywhere, straight away. We do not publish it, and it is deleted with your other drafts. You can ask us for a copy at any time.
• Taking a piece back. Until a piece is published you can take it back by telling us, or from your writer space. The licence for it ends then.

10.Taking a published piece down

• You can ask us to take a published piece of yours down at any time. We do it within 14 days, and we do not charge you for it. If you would rather keep it up without your name, say so (section 7).
• We may also take a piece down ourselves at any time, for example if it breaks section 8. We tell you when we do.
• When a piece comes down, for any reason, the licence for it ends for anything new. We take it off the site, stop sharing it, and delete our own social posts of it where the platform lets us. What we cannot undo stays as it is: newsletters already sent, other people's shares, and copies made by others.
• After that, the piece is fully yours again, and the hold in section 5 no longer applies.

11.Leaving the Writers Pool

• You can leave at any time by telling us.
• We can pause or end your place too. Unless you broke these terms or there is another serious reason, we give you 14 days' notice. We always tell you why. Pausing is not a judgement on your work.
• While you are paused, and after you leave or we remove you, you can still read your own pieces in your writer space and download them.
• Your unpublished drafts and declined pieces stay yours. We keep them for 12 months after you leave or we remove you, so you can download them or ask us for a copy, and then delete them. We delete them sooner if you ask.
• Leaving does not by itself take your published pieces down. They stay on SongsBrew under section 4 until you ask us to take them down (section 10) or we do.
• Sections 3 to 10, 12, 13 and 16 continue after you leave.

12.Corrections

If a published piece has a factual error, we correct it and, where the error mattered, add a short note at the end saying what we changed and when. We tell you when we correct a piece of yours. If you spot an error yourself, tell us.

13.Records we keep

• We record which version of these terms you accepted and when.
• We keep one copy of each piece of yours that we published or took down. We keep it only in our records, to deal with questions or legal claims about it, and do not publish it again.
• We keep these records for as long as we keep any piece of yours, and for 5 years after that, which is how long legal claims about a piece can usually be made. Then we delete them.
• The Privacy Policy has the details.

14.Gigs and press access

• When we offer you a gig, you can say yes or no. Saying no is fine.
• Press access is arranged by us with the artist's team. It is for you only, for that show, unless they say otherwise. It is access to cover the show, not payment for your piece. It is not ours to sell or give away, and it is not yours to sell or give away either.
• At the show, people will know you are there for SongsBrew. Be respectful to the artist, their team, venue staff and the audience. Follow the venue's rules, including on photography, recording and press areas, and the instructions of staff.
• If you said yes and cannot go, tell us as early as you can so we can tell the artist's team.
• Press access does not buy a good review, and nobody gets to check your piece before we publish it. If the artist's team asks to, tell us and we will handle it.
• Every gig piece notes that SongsBrew was given press access. If you were given free tickets, drinks or anything else beyond that, tell us.
• Going to a show is your own choice, at your own cost. We are not responsible for travel, entry, belongings or what happens at the venue, except where the law says we are. This does not limit our liability for death, personal injury, intent or gross negligence.

15.The newsletter

The SongsBrew newsletter is written by the editor. Guest writers do not write the newsletter or sections of it. We may link to your piece, or quote from it, in the newsletter.

16.Liability, law and disputes

• The money limit in section 12 of our Terms of Use does not apply to guest writing. We do not exclude or limit our liability to you for death, personal injury, intent or gross negligence, or for anything else the law does not let us limit.
• These terms are governed by Estonian law. If the law of the country where you live gives you protection that cannot be overridden by agreement - as an author or as a consumer - you keep it. For example, if you live in the Netherlands, the Dutch rules on author contracts apply to you as well.
• Please write to us first if something goes wrong. Section 14 of the Terms of Use explains where a dispute can be taken.

17.Changes to these terms

We change these terms only when the law changes, when we change how the Writers Pool works, or to make something clearer. A new version gets a new number and date. We email you to say what changed, and ask you to accept it the next time you open your writer space. If you do not want to, you can leave (section 11), and the version you accepted keeps applying to the pieces you already sent. A change never takes away, for a piece you already sent us, a right an earlier version gave you.

18.Contact

Write to hi@songsbrew.com, or reply to any email from us. Hernas OÜ, Kentmanni 4, 10116 Tallinn, Estonia.