Community Guidelines & Acceptable Use
Last updated: 2026-05-25
SoundAssist is a working space for everyone who works with sound; music is the heart of it: producers, mastering engineers, labels, podcasters, and sound designers. The bar for what counts as a problem here is different from a general-purpose social network: the work is usually private, the relationships are usually professional, and disputes mostly come from collaboration that went sideways.
These guidelines describe what we do not allow, how enforcement decisions are made, and how to appeal a decision. The tone is descriptive, not punitive; the goal is for both sides of a dispute to know where they stand.
What is not allowed
1. Infringing intellectual property
Uploading content you do not own or do not have permission to share. The detailed process for handling this is at /legal/dmca (copyright) and /legal/music-rights (covers, samples, AI-generated).
2. Harassment, threats, doxxing
Personal attacks, threats of violence, repeated unwanted contact after the recipient has said stop. Doxxing - sharing a person's home address, phone, government ID, or other identifying private info without their permission. Reports land at info@soundassist.online with subject harassment.
3. Sexualised content involving minors (CSAM)
Zero tolerance. Account permanent ban immediately upon credible report; we preserve the material as required and report to, and cooperate with, the competent authorities as required by law. No appeal process for this category.
4. Spam + abuse of communication features
Bulk-uninvited messages, fake collaboration requests to farm engagement, repeated invite-bombing the same email, using the platform to send marketing that isn't about music work. Per-feature rate-limits catch most of this automatically; serial offenders are suspended.
5. Account abuse + evasion
Creating new accounts to evade a previous suspension. Sharing your account login with someone whose own account was banned. Buying / selling SoundAssist accounts. All of these void the warranty + immediately re-trigger a ban on the new account.
6. Malware, phishing, exploit-attempts
Uploading non-audio files crafted to exploit a vulnerability. Sharing phishing links via DM or comment. Attempting to probe routes for security vulnerabilities outside the channel described in .well-known/security.txt.
7. Misuse of session-recording / Connect
Connect lets you capture audio from your DAW for collaboration. Using it to capture audio you do not have permission to capture (e.g. someone else's session by screen-sharing into their workstation) is a violation. Recording another collaborator without their knowledge is also a violation - the in-session recording toggle is consensual + visible to all participants.
How enforcement works
A report is reviewed by a human; we do not auto-remove content on reports alone. After review we take one of three actions, matched to how serious and how clear-cut the violation is:
For a first or minor issue we email you to explain what was wrong and how to avoid a repeat. Your account stays fully operational.
We take the specific content offline. A track is set private and its share link is revoked; a post is deleted. The rest of your account is unaffected.
For serious or repeated violations we suspend the account, which blocks sign-in. We tell you why and how to appeal.
Some categories skip straight to suspension: CSAM (zero tolerance), a repeat infringer under our DMCA policy (see the repeat-infringer rule at /legal/dmca), and credible threats of violence.
Appealing a decision
If you believe a removal or suspension was wrong; because the report was incorrect, the content didn't violate guidelines, or there's context we missed; you can appeal.
- Email info@soundassist.online with subject
Appeal: <ticket-id>. The ticket ID was in the original notification. - Explain what you think we got wrong + provide any context we didn't have at the time of the original decision.
- We respond within 5 business days. Appeals are reviewed by someone other than the person who made the original call where possible.
- If the appeal succeeds, the content is restored and/or the suspension lifted where applicable. If it doesn't, the original decision stands and we explain why.
For CSAM-related terminations there is no appeal process; those decisions are final and may also be reported to law enforcement. For DMCA takedowns the appeal mechanism is the counter-notice (see /legal/dmca).
How to report a problem
Trust & Safety transparency
We intend to publish a yearly summary of moderation actions taken, broken down by category + outcome. The first such report will land at the end of the first full calendar year of operation (2027).