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What are the Featured Artist Rules and why is my upload unavailable for copyright reasons?

You may notice that your upload is unavailable to some (or all) listeners, or is currently in your drafts and can't be published. This may be because we've detected content that exceeds the limits of our Featured Artist Rules.

In this article, you can read more about what the Rules are, why they exist, and steps you can take to get your show published for listeners to enjoy. 

Read on or jump ahead in this article:

Why are the Featured Artist Rules in place?

Mixcloud is a user-generated Internet audio platform. We have many rights-holder partners including record labels, publishers, collecting societies and more.

The Featured Artist Rules are in place as part of our agreements with these organizations, and enforcing these rules allows us to operate Mixcloud as a fair and legal platform. 

Sticking to the limits of the Featured Artist Rules means you can confidently upload to Mixcloud without the need for organizing licensing and royalties yourself and without the stress of takedowns.

What are the Featured Artist Rules?

For Shows (uploads over 15 minutes):

Recommended limits for shows for all listeners

If you want your show to be available to all visitors to the Mixcloud platform, we recommend you keep your shows under these limits:

  • Maximum 3 songs from one release (eg. EP/album/compilation) (and no more than 2 consecutively)

    • You can play up to 2 songs per release back-to-back, and if you want to include a 3rd track from a release, please add a 30+ second break (of content from another release) in between. 

  • Up to 4 songs from one artist (and no more than 3 consecutively)

    • You can play up to 3 songs per artist back-to-back, and if you want to include a 4th track from the same artist, please add a 30+ second break (of content from another artist) in between.

Increased limits for subscriber-only shows

You can include up to 8 songs from one recording artist, however:

  • Shows with 4-8 songs from one artist are only available to Premium subscribers, fans with Creator Subscriptions, or you as the creator. Listeners without a subscription will not be able to play these shows. 
  • The rules for consecutive songs per artist still apply, and you must make sure there are no more than 3 songs played in a row per artist.
  • The rules for songs per release still apply and you must ensure you include no more than 3 songs per release (and no more than 2 in a row). 

This means that if you'd like to showcase 4-8 songs for an artist in your show, you should break these up into groups of up to 2-3 songs with 30+ seconds of talking or other content in between, and make sure that the songs are from several releases.

For Tracks (uploads under 15 minutes)

Please note that the rules are different if you're uploading a Track. Please review the information for Tracks here.

Why is my upload unavailable?

All content uploaded to Mixcloud is scanned so we can identify and track the songs played and make sure that the artists you're playing get paid. This also allows us to detect uploads that are over the Featured Artist Rules. 

This normally happens at the point of upload, which is why you may be unable to publish your show. This can also happen after your show has been published. In this case, your show will be moved to your drafts and will no longer be available for listeners. 

If your show appears to be published but cannot be played by others, this may indicate that your show contains 4-8 songs by the same artist, and is only available to subscribers and the uploader.

How can I publish my show for all listeners?

I believe there's an error with the detected content

If you believe that our audio fingerprinter has incorrectly identified the content in your show, please contact our Support Team. We can review the restriction and provide more information to help you make your show available again.

I own the rights to the songs causing the restriction

If you own the master sound recording rights for the songs causing the restriction, you can complete and return a Featured Artist Rules waiver for this show.

Please note that only the rightsholder or their authorized representative is eligible to complete and return this waiver, and we're unable to accept a waiver if it doesn't cover all of the tracks causing the restriction. 

I do not own the rights to the songs causing the restriction

If you do not own the rights to the sound recordings causing the restriction, we recommend editing your show so it meets the limits set out by the Featured Artist Rules, and re-uploading the new versions to Mixcloud. You may wish to consider the following:

  • Splitting up a show into two or more uploads (of over 15 minutes).
  • Removing one or more tracks from your upload.
  • Spacing out tracks by adding in extra segments of over 30 seconds (eg. content from another album or artist, or a talking segment).

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