Community Guidelines

Last updated: 2 October 2026

School of Music is a place to learn, teach and make music. These guidelines say what is and is not welcome. They are part of the Terms of Service, and they apply on the Services and to conduct elsewhere that affects people who met here, such as in a lesson. We may update them as Terms of Service section 16 describes; the date above shows the latest version.

Be decent

• Treat people with respect. No harassment, threats, hate, or targeting of anyone for who they are.
• No sexual content or conduct anywhere on the Services or in a lesson arranged through them, including in profiles, joining notes and meeting rooms, and nothing that sexualises minors in any way.
• Adults: never use School of Music to seek out someone you know or think is under 18, to contact them anywhere other than in public forum posts (for example by email, another app, video or in person), or to offer them lessons. Never ask a young person you met here for photos or personal details, or to keep a conversation secret.
• No spam, scams, pyramid schemes, or unsolicited promotion. Mentioning your own music or site, or linking your teacher profile, in a relevant thread is fine; posting it everywhere is not.
• Do not impersonate anyone or misrepresent who you are, including your qualifications, certifications or affiliations as a teacher.
• Do not post other people's private information.

Respect other people's music

• Post only what you have the right to post. Your own work, work in the public domain, or work you have permission to share. Say which, when it is not obvious.
• Do not post transcriptions, tablature, chord charts, lyrics or recordings of copyrighted songs you do not own. "It's for education" does not make it legal. Original exercises, public-domain pieces and your own compositions are always welcome.
• Give credit. If you post an arrangement of someone's public-domain work, name the composer; if you post something under a Creative Commons licence, say so and link the licence.
• If you think something on School of Music infringes your copyright, use the process in the Terms of Service §10.

Lessons

• You must be 18 or older to teach or book a lesson. Book only for yourself: never book for a minor or for anyone else. We do not verify anyone's age, identity or qualifications.
• Arrange lessons with people you meet here only by booking through School of Music. Do not post contact details for arranging lessons, or invite people to contact you elsewhere about lessons, in the forum or your profile, and do not advertise lessons for children or teens anywhere here.
• If you believe the other person in a lesson is under 18, end the lesson and tell us. That never counts as a no-show.
• Show up. If you can't, tell the other person as early as you can, using any contact they have given you. We may restrict or close the accounts of people we learn have repeatedly missed lessons or left requests unanswered.
• Do not record a lesson without the other person's clear agreement, given before recording starts.
• Teachers: a meeting link must lead to your own room on a legitimate service, and you should use a waiting room or passcode so that only the student booked for a lesson can join. Where the Services offer joining notes, anything you put in them goes to every student whose lesson you confirm.
• Do not use a lesson or booking to collect meeting links, to pressure anyone onto another service, or to ask for passwords or for payment "for SwaCo". Do not share another person's meeting link or joining notes.
• If you show a rate, show what you actually charge.
• Disagreements about a lesson are between the teacher and the student. Tell us if someone breaks these rules; we will not referee pricing or quality.

Keep the site working

• No malware, no attempts to break into anything, no scraping, no automated posting.
• Do not try to work around a limit, a block, or a removal.
• Do not book or request lessons you do not intend to take, or hold times to keep others out.

What we do about it

We may remove content, cancel bookings, and warn, suspend or close accounts, at our discretion, with or without notice, including for conduct off the Services (for example in a lesson) that affects people who met here, and including on reports we cannot verify. We are not obliged to monitor anything, and acting or not acting in one case does not commit us in another. We do not promise to look at everything posted, and we do not watch or record lessons, so we rely on what we see and on what people tell us. We may keep a record of what we remove and why.

To report something, email swaco.llc@gmail.com with a link to it, rather than a copy. If someone is in immediate danger, call 911 or your local emergency number first.