Privacy

1 What this covers

This page covers publicsh.com and everything you can reach from it.

PublicSh is run by PublicSh LLC, registered in the State of Georgia in the United States, at 110 Mansell Circle, Ste 204, Roswell, GA 30075. Write to legal@publicsh.com about anything on this page. Open question, needs a lawyer: whether a named privacy contact or a representative is required where our users are, and whether that one address answers it

2 Written from the code, not from a template

Every line below was checked against what the software actually stores and sends. Where the answer depends on how this copy of the site is set up rather than on the code, it says so. Where nobody here can answer, it is marked and left open.

3 What PublicSh records about you

Grouped by where it comes from.

• Your account — your email address, the name you display, your picture, whether the email address has been confirmed, and whether the account is open or closed.
• Signing in — every sign-in session, with the time, the network address it came from and the browser or app it reported. You can see that list and end any of them in your security settings.
• Passkeys, if you add one — the public half of the key, the kind of device it lives on, and the name you gave it. The private half never leaves your device.
• What you publish — the files themselves, the original file name, the type and size, how long it runs, and any title, artist or album details already written inside the file.
• What you play and read — which work, when you started, how far you got, and whether you finished.
• What you do around other people — who you follow, what you like, comments, playlists, direct messages, live chat, notifications, and anyone you have blocked.
• Shows — tickets you hold, admissions scanned at a door, and attendance. Attendance is not shown on your profile unless you turn that on.
• Helping others listen — a record of which work went from your device to which listener, how much was sent, and which of your devices signed for it. Those records are what earnings are worked out from, so they are kept as evidence rather than cleared.
• Money — the customer and payout identifiers Stripe gives you, what you bought and sold, and, if you order something physical, the delivery name, address and phone number you typed in. Card numbers never reach PublicSh.
• Support you send a creator — the amount, the name you had at the time, and any private note. Choosing to be anonymous hides your name from the creator; it does not remove the record.
• Reports and complaints — what you reported and why, and, on a copyright notice, the name, email address and organisation you gave.
• Preferences — your theme, your language, whether you are sharing works from your device, and the limits you set on that.
• Being found — whether people who already have your email address can find you here, a scrambled form of your email address that makes the lookup work while that is on, and, if you bring in your own contacts, a record of how many you brought in and when. That record holds numbers only — no names and no addresses, because they never reached us.

4 People who never signed up

PublicSh also holds details about people who have no account: the email address and note on an invitation somebody sent, a request to join, and the name, email address and organisation on a copyright notice. A ticket scanned at a show door is recorded whether or not the person holding it uses PublicSh.

When somebody brings in their contacts to see who is already here, the addresses in their file are scrambled on their own device and only the scrambled forms reach PublicSh. They are compared against members who have chosen to be findable, answered, and not kept. A person who is not on PublicSh is not recorded anywhere — unless the importer chooses to invite them, which stores that one address the same way a typed invitation would.

Open question, needs a lawyer: what those people have to be told, and who is responsible for telling them when the scanning is done by a creator at their own show

5 What it is used for

Six things, and nothing else.

• Running your account and signing you in.
• Storing what you upload and delivering it to the people you have allowed to have it.
• Working out who is owed what, and paying it.
• Showing a creator how their own work is doing.
• Reading reports, handling copyright notices, and stopping abuse.
• Sending the few emails listed further down.

PublicSh does not sell what it records about you, does not swap it for anything, and does not use it to target advertising. There is no advertising anywhere in the product.

6 Who else sees it

Only the services that do the actual work, and only what they need to do it.

• Stripe, for payments and payouts. Stripe is sent your email address, the amounts and what was bought. Card details go straight to Stripe and never pass through PublicSh.
• Whoever delivers our email — either Resend or a mail relay chosen by the people running the site. They see the address the email is going to and what it says.
• The file store that holds uploads. It is private; nothing in it is readable by the public.
• If it is switched on, a delivery network that sends video and audio faster. It sees the viewer’s network address and which file was asked for.
• If it is switched on, signing in with a Google account. Google is told somebody is signing in to PublicSh and passes back the name and email address on that account.
• If it is switched on, an outside writing service used to draft titles and descriptions for a creator’s own uploads. It is sent file names and the details written inside the file, never the file itself.

Which of those are switched on depends on how this copy of PublicSh is set up, so the code cannot answer it on its own. Open question, needs a lawyer: the confirmed list for the live site, the agreement with each of them, and where each one handles the data

PublicSh will hand records over when the law requires it. Open question, needs a lawyer: how legal requests are answered, and whether the person is told

7 Tracking, cookies, and what your browser keeps

There is no analytics service, no advertising network and no outside tracking script anywhere in PublicSh. The one script that runs before the page appears reads your theme choice so the page does not flash white; it makes no network request.

PublicSh sets its own cookies only: one that keeps you signed in, one that remembers your theme for a year, one that remembers your language, and one that remembers you dismissed a prompt. Signing in with a Google account adds two more that last only as long as that round trip takes. None of them are for advertising, and none of them are anybody else’s.

Your browser also keeps things on your device that we never see: the player’s volume, queue and whether you folded it away, how far you got in a document, your shopping bag, sales you took in person while the signal was down, the page shown when you are offline, and — while you are helping others listen — a key that identifies your device to other listeners, the pieces of works it is holding for them, and records that have not been sent to us yet.

Signing out clears what belonged to you: the queue, your place in a document, your shopping bag, and the note that you dismissed the ask about helping others listen. If you were helping, it also clears the key that identified this device to other listeners, the pieces of works it had cached, and any records of listening not yet sent — those are sent first if they still can be, so being late does not lose them.

Three things are kept on purpose. Two of them describe the machine and not you: how loud the player is, and whether you folded it away. The third is the one we will not throw away — if you took sales at a merch table while the signal was down, those unsent sales stay until they reach us, because deleting them would destroy the only record that the money was taken. The page shown when you are offline stays as well; it is the same page for everybody.

8 Keeping, and deleting

Closing your account is not deletion. Your name is replaced with a placeholder everywhere it appears, your sign-in sessions end, and you cannot sign in again. Payments, licenses, ownership and anything agreed with somebody else stay as they are, because most of those records are not only yours — a payment has two sides, and removing one corrupts the other person’s books.

Some records cannot be removed at all while they tie you to somebody else: money records, a share of a group, an action taken by a moderator. In that case deletion is refused outright rather than done halfway.

Some things do clear themselves: sign-in sessions, sign-in links, invitations, and the short-lived addresses used to play media.

Open question, needs a lawyer: how long each kind of record is kept, when a record that pays somebody can be reduced to something anonymous instead, and what a request to delete has to be given

9 What you can change

All of these are in the product today.

• See every sign-in session and end any of them, in security settings.
• Add or remove a passkey.
• Turn sharing works from your device on or off, choose which works, and set limits for mobile connections and battery.
• Block somebody so they cannot message you.
• Choose whether being at a show appears on your profile. It does not unless you turn it on.
• Choose whether people who already have your email address can find you here. It starts off. Publishing work turns it on — the publish screen says so at that moment and lets you decline right there — and you can turn it off at any time in settings. Turning it off wins over everything, including publishing again.
• Close your account.

10 How it is protected

Uploading requires you to be signed in and to own the work you are uploading to. Only an allowed list of file types is accepted, each with a size limit. Before any of it is saved, the start of the file is read and compared with the kind of file it claims to be: if those disagree, it is refused and nothing is kept. The media processor then checks it again, more thoroughly, before anything is made from it.

Media is never served from a public address. Playing something goes through a signed link that expires: ten minutes for the links the app issues itself, and longer where a separate delivery network is switched on.

Who is allowed to do what is decided on the server every single time, never by the browser.

Open question, needs a lawyer: what has to happen if there is a breach, who has to be told, and how quickly

11 Children

You must be at least 13 years old to use PublicSh. PublicSh does not ask your age and has no way to check it today. Open question, needs a lawyer: what age checking is required where our users are, and what to do about an account found to be below that age

12 Where it is kept

The servers, the database, the file store and the backups are held in the United States. Open question, needs a lawyer: whether serving people outside the United States needs anything further, and what those people have to be told

13 Your rights

Open question, needs a lawyer: which privacy laws reach PublicSh, what rights they give, how a request is made and answered, and where somebody complains

Until that is answered this page makes no claim about any particular law. What it does describe is accurate.

14 Changes, contact, and when this takes effect

Open question, needs a lawyer: how this notice may change, and what notice is given first

Write to legal@publicsh.com about privacy.

The version and the fingerprint at the top of this page identify the exact wording you are reading. PublicSh records which version you were shown, in which language, and when. A version is not a claim that a lawyer has read it. Open question, needs a lawyer: the date this notice takes effect