GIMMESOUND.COM HELP

We have the strictest privacy policy on the Internet -- no legal jargon, just plain language. Simply put: we will not give, sell, loan or make any of your personal information available to anyone outside of gimmesound.com for any reason. This includes your personally identifiable information, such as name and address. It also includes your song-plays, downloads, preferences and any messages you send through gimmesound.com. None of this information is ever made available to anyone outside of gimmesound.com.

Membership in gimmesound.com is free. If you purchase advertising on gimmesound.com (or something else from our Web site, such as concert tickets, merch, CDs or DVDs) our credit card clearing company will ask for only the information necessary to clear your credit card. Our credit card clearing company has the same strict privacy policy as we do.

WE DO NOT TRACK YOUR ACTIVITIES OR MESSAGES IN ORDER TO TARGET ADS
Unlike most other ad targeting systems, we never target advertising based on the contents of messages you send or by tracking your activities on gimmesound.com.

We offer our advertisers the ability to target by location and musical taste (click here to see how gimmesound.com advertising works). For example, if you click on a Boston artist, you may see an ad for a Boston area establishment. Or, if you click on an artist who plays rock music, you may see an ad targeted to people who like rock music.

However, we never give our advertisers any information on you personally -- and we do not track your activities or messages for use in ad targeting.

NEWSLETTERS, CONTESTS & SPECIAL OFFERS
If you sign up for special offers, contests, surveys or newsletters, we will deliver them to you ourselves. Even if you check the box saying you want to receive newsletters from artists we think you will like, we will deliver those newsletters to you ourselves, and we will NOT give your email address to those artists.

ARTIST FANCLUB & CONTACT ARTIST
If you contact an Artist or join an Artist's fan club (by clicking on the CONTACT ARTIST or JOIN FANCLUB link on the Artist's Profile page), then you are making your email address available to that Artist and we have no control over what that Artist does with your email address.

LINKS TO OTHER WEB SITES
GIMMESOUND.COM has links to many other Web sites. We do not endorse the privacy or tracking policies of any of those Web sites. Please read their privacy policies before making your information available to any of them.

If you ever receive an unsolicited email from gimmesound.com that you believe is not appropriate, please click on the link at the bottom of that email to report the problem.

If you have any questions about how we protect your privacy, please contact us and we will answer your question quickly.

All gimmesound.com downloads are free, and you are welcome to download as many songs as you like.

We pay artists for every download out of our ad revenue (more info on artist payments).

Downloads are unrestricted MP3 files. No burn limits. No digital rights management (DRM). No embedded personal data. No tags. No tracking software. No kidding.

gimmesound.com downloads will play on nearly every MP3 player. And you can burn them onto a CD to play in your car or living room.

We encourage you to share music you like with your friends, but please do not send your friends the files you download. Instead, just click on the email icon next to the song you want to suggest and we'll send your friends a link to that song. Your friends can download the song for free -- and the artist will get paid for that download.

Music on gimmesound.com is for your personal entertainment use only. Please do not distribute or broadcast any of this music or use it for any commercial purposes without the express written consent of the artist who owns the rights to the music. You can contact the artist by clicking on the CONTACT ARTIST button in the Artist Profile (just to the right of the music player controls).

It’s easy to create a new Artist Profile and takes only a few minutes.

We have created the tutorial (at right) to help you get started.

Every time you download a song from gimmesound.com, we set aside money to donate to a cause. We calculate the amount to donate in much the same way we calculate payments to artists. At the end of the year we take 2% of our net revenue and divide it by the total number of downloads for that year. That's the amount we pay to a cause for each download.

Then we check the chosen cause for each download. Artists and music lovers both have a say in the chosen cause. Here's how our system decides which cause to pay for each download:

• If the music lover who downloaded the song has chosen a cause, the music lover's chosen cause is paid.
• If not, we check whether the artist has chosen a cause. If so, the artist's chosen cause is paid.
• If neither the music lover who downloaded the song, nor the artist has chosen a cause, we choose one.

Once you join gimmesound.com you can select a cause to support. Join Now.

GIMMESOUND.COM raises even more money by prodicing benefit concerts for causes chosen by artists and fans (see here). If you're an artist or music lover, we can help you raise money for your favorite cause by designing, promoting and producing a benefit concert. Click here to inquire about having gimmesound.com produce a concert to benefit your favorit cause.

Our Discover Music feature helps you find music you will love. Simply enter your search criteria and click on the SEARCH button. Each field you select will narrow your search. For example, if you select the Genre Rock and the Country United States, only artists who live in (and/or tour) the US who play Rock music will show in the list.

When you search by location (for example a city or country) you will get a list of all artists who live in that location, plus all artists who are performing in that location. For example, if you select Canada, your list will contain all artists from Canada along with all artists who are performing in Canada.

You can find artists who support a particular cause, by selecting that cause as your search criterion. For example, select Feeding America from the Cause Supported by the Artist field, press the SEARCH button and see who shows up.

You can search for a specific artists by typing in some or all of the artist's name. For example: if you enter "Andrew" into the field labeled Artist or Band Name, then all artists with Andrew in their names will show. Try it and see what you get.

You can search for a specific venue and get a list of artists who are appearing at that venue. Just enter the venue name in the field labeled Venue.

You can search for a specific song title and get a list of artists who have a song with that title. For example, type the word "flowers" into the field labeled Song Title and you will see all the bands who have a song named flowers.

When searching for venues or song titles, you must enter the entire name (not just a part of the name as you can do with the artist or band name). For example entering the word "flower" (without the s) will not show the bands who have a song named flowers.

If too few artists show in the list of search results, you might try entering fewer criteria. For example, if you have selected a genre, city, country and a cause, you could change the genre to Any Genre, change the country to Any Country, delete anything you typed into the City field, leave the cause you had previously selected and press the SEARCH button to find all artists who support that selected cause.

If you have any trouble or find any bugs, we would really like to hear about them. Please fill out our Contact Form and describe your problem. Someone will get back to you with a solution.

When you upload your music to gimmesound.com, it must be in an unrestricted MP3 format. If your music is in iTunes, it may be in a proprietary format and it may not play on devices that do not have the iTunes software installed. If your files are not in an unrestricted MP3 format, you will need to convert those files. It's easy to do and there is free software for both the PC and the Mac available here. If you get an error when trying to upload your music, try converting it. If that doesn't work, please contact us and we will help you.

We do not modify your MP3 file in any way, and we have no limits on the bit rate used. Any information you embed into your MP3 file (album name, composer, song title, etc.) will remain intact.

When you upload music to gimmesound.com (the "Site"), you represent and warrant that you own all necessary legal rights to upload, stream, download and otherwise digitally distribute any songs you have uploaded to the Site (the "Songs"). That means you own all the rights to perform and distribute the music -- and the right to be paid for selling downloads of that music. Please do not upload any music to gimmesound.com unless you own all the rights to perform and distribute that music. [see full Artist Agreement]

Here's how artists get paid:
It’s a 50/50 split. That means half our revenue goes directly to paying artists based on the number of downloads each artist generates.

It works like this: every month we take half our net revenue and divide it by the total number of downloads that month. This gives us an amount to pay you for each download of your songs for that month. Every month we credit your Payment Account for the total amount due for all of your songs that were downloaded that month.
Every month the amount we pay per download may differ, but every artist gets the exact same amount per download. In the example above, every artist got $0.50 per download. Let's say that in the next month, half of our net revenue is $1,500 but the total downloads remained the same (2,000 downloads). For this month, each artist gets $0.75 per download. Once again please remember that real numbers may not necessarily be anything like this example.

While we cannot guarantee the the amount per download will be the same every month, we do guarantee that we will split our net revenue 50/50 with all the artists every month.

Payments are made using PayPal
By the end of every month, we pay all artists whose Payment Account is at least $100. Each time we pay, we send an email to everyone whose Payment Account is at least $100. If your Payment Account is at least $100.00 and you do not have a PayPal account, you will get an email explaining how to claim your payment.

Net Revenue Defined:
We define net revenue as the amount of advertising and sponsorship revenue paid to gimmesound.com, less payments to salespeople and agencies who sell for us. That's it. We do not include any overhead, production costs, research & development, programming, hosting, A&R, marketing, PR -- nothing else comes out of net revenue. All the other costs associated with running this business and providing this free service to you come out of our half.

Your advertising supports rising and aspiring artists, along with charities chosen by artists and fans. Each time your ad shows on gimmesound.com counts as one impression. You pay $0.05 (USD) per impression. This is much less than the cost of advertising in most other local media, including local Web sites. Plus, you have complete control over your budget. Click here for details on how the Sponsor Payment Plan works.

You can create an ad in three easy steps:

1. Enter a Company/Campaign Profile. We just need your contact and other information required to clear your credit card.
2. Fund the Campaign. Select an appropriate Budget for your Campaign (we recommend a Monthly Budget) and use your credit card to make an Account Deposit
3. Create your Ad by completing the simple form.

Once you have created your ad, you can see it and manage it at any time by going here. You are not charged for any ad impressions that show while managing your ads.

To create an ad, you enter the following information:

• Ad Name. This is for your reference only. You can create more than one ad for each Campaign. If you do, the Ad Name shows in a list that lets you choose which ad to manage.
• Start and End Dates. These dates determine when the ad will run. Ads begin at Midnight on the Start Date and run through 11:59:59 PM Eastern Time on the End Date.
• Web Page. Enter the URL of the Web page you want users to go to when they click on your ad. This is not required, but if you do not enter a Web Page, the ad will not link to any Web site. If you want to run a Flash ad with an embedded link, please select Custom/Personalized and indicate that you want to run a Flash ad. Someone will contact you with instructions.
• Ad Budget. Enter the amount of money you want to budget for this ad. Every time your ad shows on gimmesound.com counts as one impression. We charge $0.05 per impression. For example, if you enter $150.00, you will get 3000 impressions (that's $0.05 per impression). We will never charge you more than the amount you enter into the Ad Budget field. This means we will spread your impressions out evenly during the days beginning on the Start Date and ending on the End Date. In the example, above, if you choose to run the ad for 30 days, you will get 100 impressions per day, for a total of 3000 impressions over 30 days -- all for $150.00.
  You can have multiple ads in one Campaign, each with its own budget. If you choose to place multiple ads during the same period, you can allocate your Account Balance among the ads. For example, say you want to run 2 ads in the same month and you have a budget of $300 for that month. You could enter $150 in the Ad Budget field for each ad.
• Type of Ad. Select one of the following types: Display: Leaderboard (a 728x90px image that shows at the top of the page right above the search), Display: Box (a 300x250px image that shows at the bottom of the page to the right of the Genres and Cities and Text (which shows in the body of the page near the rest of the content).
  
  NOTE: If you want to run a Flash ad or you want a custom size or branding campaign, please select Custom/Personalized and describe your request. Someone will be in touch with you soon.
• Image Files for Display Ads (Leaderboard and Box). If you choose a display ad, you can upload an image file. Please be sure the image file is the correct size (728x90px for a Leaderboard and 300x250px for a Box). If you are not sure what this means, please consult a Web designer or select Custom/Personalized and we will help you.
• Integrated Text Ads give you a small image, plus 3 text fields: Headline, Ad Text and Anchor Text. If you choose to upload an image it will appear to the left. Images can be no larger than 90 pixels wide and 90 pixels tall. The Headline will appear in Bold at the top of your ad. The Ad Text is the body of your ad and appears under the Headline. The Anchor Text appears under the body of the ad and contains the words that link to your Web site. TIP: In order to help you boost your position in search engines, you should select Anchor Text relevant to people who search for what you sell. For example, if you sell used guitars, put Used Guitars For Sale in the Anchor text.

AD TARGETING - REACH A TARGETED AUDIENCE.

If you are a local business, it's easy to target gimmesound.com ads to people who live in your area. If you target by location, Ads will also be shown when people visit profiles of artists who live in your area. Remember, you are only charged when your ad shows, so targeting by location makes a lot of sense if you are a local business.

Here's how to target your ad to your local area:

• City. If you enter a city, your ad will be targeted to that city. Large cities include their metro areas. For example, if you enter New York into the City field, you will reach people in the entire New York Metro Area -- including people who live in parts of New Jersey.
  
  We can also create smaller metro areas at your request -- as we have done for Gloucester, MA. If you would like to request a metro area for your city or town, please fill out our contact form (here) and tell us the name of your city/town and the number of miles you would like to include in your metro area.
• State or Province. If you enter a State or Province, this ad will be targeted to that State or Province. For example, if you want to target your ad to everyone who lives in Massachusetts, leave the City field blank and enter the MA into the State field. The State field is also useful when the name of your city is also the name of a city in another state. For example, if you want to target your ad to Gloucester, MA (and not show it to people who live in Gloucester, VA) you enter Gloucester into the City field and MA into the State field.
• Country. If you select a country, your ad will be targeted to that country. For example, if you want to target everyone in the US, but not show your ad to people who live outside the US, leave the City and State fields blank, and select United States as the Country.

Target by Musical Taste
(If you only want to target by location, just ignore this section.)

You can target your ad to people who like (or artists who play) various genres. We determine when to show ads, targeted by genre, in several ways. Two major factors influence when genre targeted ads are shown: 1) we show genre targeted ads to users who have selected the same genre in their Profiles, and 2) we show genre targeted ads when users visit the profiles of artists who have selected the same genre. For example, if you target your ad to the genre Rock, we will show your ad to users who have selected Rock as a preferred genre and we will show your ad when users visit the profile of an artist who has selected Rock as a genre played by that artist -- even if the user has not selected Rock as a preferred genre.

You can select up to three genres to target. If you select more than one genre, you will increase the number of times your ad shows. For example, if you select Rock and leave the other two genre choices blank, your ad will only show to people who like, or artists who play Rock music. If you select both Rock and Blues, your ad will show to people who like or artists who play Rock and to people who like, or artists who play Blues.

You may wonder why our Discover Music section offers many more genres than you see in the Ad form. That is because each genre you select for ad targeting automatically includes all sub-genres. For example, if you select Rock, we will target your ad to Rock, Folk Rock, Pop Rock, Punk Rock, etc. You will notice some overlap, here. For example, if you select Pop, we will target your ad to Pop, Pop Rock, Dance Pop, etc. Some genres, such as World, include up to 10 sub-genres.