Rights & Licensing

Your music stays yours

You keep ownership of your music and creative work.

Vanguard does not become your label, publisher, distributor, manager, producer, agent, or owner.

Participation does not transfer your copyright, master rights, publishing rights, performer rights, monetization rights, or authorship.

Your submission must be cleared

You are responsible for making sure your submission is original, lawful, and properly cleared.

This includes any:

beats;
samples;
loops;
vocals;
lyrics;
melodies;
artwork;
collaborators;
producers;
performers;
names, images, likenesses, or voices;
third-party materials.

If you use anything created by someone else, you must have the rights, licenses, permissions, releases, and credits needed to submit it to the Event.

Do not submit work if it violates a beat license, sample license, collaborator agreement, label agreement, distribution agreement, publishing agreement, or any other agreement.

What Vanguard needs to run the Event

By submitting, you allow Vanguard to use your submission as needed to operate the Event.

This includes the right to:

receive and host your submission;
make it available to Judges and Event personnel;
review, score, rank, and process it;
display it on Event pages, rankings, participant pages, winner pages, showcases, or archives;
keep Event records;
protect the integrity of the competition.

This is limited to Event operation and Event records.

Promotional use

Broader promotional use is handled by the separate Vanguard Content Promotion & Media License.

That license may allow Vanguard to use your submission or excerpts in highlights, recaps, social posts, trailers, newsletters, partner decks, ads, showcases, and other promotional formats connected to Vanguard or the Event.

You can review the full license here:

Content Promotion & Media License

What Vanguard does NOT do

Vanguard does not:

sell your track as a standalone product;
release your track as a paid album, compilation, playlist, mixtape, or music product without a separate written agreement;
transfer your music rights to a label, publisher, distributor, sponsor, or third party;
claim authorship or ownership of your work;
stop you from publishing, monetizing, licensing, or promoting your own work elsewhere.

A real standalone commercial release would require a separate written agreement with the relevant rights holder or rights holders.

Privacy and public records

This is a public competition.

Submissions, excerpts, rankings, placements, winner records, finalist records, Judge comments, Event reviews, and Event archive records may be displayed as part of the ordinary Event context.

Simple version

Your work stays yours.

You must submit work that you own, licensed, or have permission to use.

Vanguard can use your submission to run, judge, display, document, and archive the Event.

Broader promo use is covered by the Content Promotion & Media License.

Vanguard cannot sell your track as a standalone product without a separate written agreement.

Full version