The terms an address is held under: one to a holder, one recording at a time, and nothing taken back once it airs.
Terms
What you are using
finite.fm is a prototype and an artwork. It offers 206 frequencies. Each holds exactly one recording, that recording degrades continuously over 30 days until it is unlistenable, and there is no refresh, no restore and no archive. That is the point of it, not a defect.
Using the site means accepting that.
Listening
Listening is free and requires nothing of you. You may not scrape the band, automate tuning, or attempt to download the recordings for redistribution: what is offered here is the act of tuning, not a catalogue of files.
Holding an address
An address is taken on the deck and needs an account, because it has to belong to somebody. One account holds one address: there is no second and none is reserved for you.
An address is bought, once, for a price the band sets. An address nobody has ever taken costs $1.00. One that has been held before is sold by descending auction: it returns to the band at 2 times what it last sold for and the asking price falls each day for 7 days until it reaches half that figure, never going below $1.00. Payment is taken by Stripe, who will show you the amount in your own currency; the band itself is priced in US dollars and the conversion is theirs, not ours.
Nothing is refunded, in any circumstance: not when you give an address up, not when a recording is stopped by the check, not when a frequency is taken back, and not if the service is switched off. What is bought is a place on a band that is designed to wear out, and the wearing out is the product.
An address is yours until you give it up or until you lose it. Giving it up puts the frequency back on the band for whoever takes it next and destroys the recording on it at the same moment; there is no grace period and nothing to restore from. The same happens if the operator has to take an address back, which may be done for the reasons in the section below.
There are two ways to lose one without choosing to. An address that has never had a recording on it goes back on the band automatically after 7 days. And an address whose recording has decayed all the way to the end of its 30 days goes back on the band as well: a frequency is held by broadcasting on it, and a recording that has finished wearing out is not broadcasting. Committing a new recording resets that clock in full, as often as you like.
Do not take addresses through more than one account. Holding part of a finite band away from the people who would use it is reason enough to have every address involved reclaimed, with no refund, and the accounts closed.
Broadcasting
If you commit a recording to a slot, you confirm that:
- you hold every right needed in what you are broadcasting, including any music in it;
- everyone audible in it agreed to be;
- it is not unlawful, and is not intended to harass, deceive or endanger anybody;
- you accept that it becomes publicly audible, and that it will decay and be destroyed on schedule.
You keep the rights in your recording. You grant only what is needed to run the band: to store it, to serve it to listeners, and to destroy it at the end of its life.
Checking and removal
Every recording is checked automatically when it is committed, against the content guidelines, and is inaudible until that check has finished. A recording that fails is stopped: the frequency carries noise and the tape does not play. It goes on decaying on exactly the same schedule it would have on the air — being stopped costs you the time it takes, and nothing is refunded in time.
A slot can also be silenced or emptied at any time, without notice and at the operator’s discretion — for a report, for a legal complaint, for abuse, or because the service is being taken down. Anybody listening can report a frequency; no number of reports stops one by itself, and a person decides.
Write to the address in the imprint to contest a stopped frequency. Nothing here is guaranteed to be recoverable afterwards, and there is no undo anywhere in this system.
Availability
The service is offered as it stands, with no promise that it works, stays up, or continues to exist. It may be changed or switched off entirely, taking every recording on the band with it.
Liability
To the fullest extent the law allows, the operator is not liable for lost recordings, for interruptions, or for anything a broadcaster puts on the band. Liability is not excluded for intent, gross negligence, or injury to life or health, and nothing here limits any right you have as a consumer that cannot be limited by agreement.
Applicable law
Swiss law applies. The place of jurisdiction is 8053 Zürich, to the extent that a mandatory place of jurisdiction does not say otherwise.
finite.fm is a receiver, and the band, the dial and the sound are all built in the browser. With scripts off there is nothing here to hear.