Terms of Service

Archived copy. This version of our Terms of Service took effect on 2 October 2026. It was replaced on 5 October 2026, when an example was removed from section 9; nothing else changed. The current version is at music.swaco.co/terms.html.

Effective: 2 October 2026

Last updated: 2 October 2026

These Terms of Service ("Terms") are a contract between you and SwaCo LLC ("SwaCo", "we", "us"), a limited liability company organised in the State of Pennsylvania, United States. They govern your use of the websites and applications we operate, including swaco.co, music.swaco.co (the homepage and the Community) and guitar.swaco.co (School of Guitar and Guitar Studio), and any other service that links to these Terms (together, the "Services").

By using the Services, creating an account, or clicking a button that refers to these Terms, you agree to them. If you do not agree, do not use the Services.

Please read sections 5, 12, 13, 14 and 17 carefully. They include a release of claims against SwaCo, disclaimers, a limit on our liability, a promise by you to cover certain claims against us, and a waiver of jury trials and class actions, to the extent the law allows.

1. Who may use the Services

You must be at least 13 years old to use the Services. If you are under 18, you may use the Services only with the permission of a parent or legal guardian. A parent or guardian who gives that permission agrees to these Terms for themselves and on the minor's behalf, and is responsible for the minor's use of the Services. You must be at least 18, with or without a parent's permission, to create a teacher profile, offer or book lessons, enter a giveaway, or contribute recordings or transcriptions; where a giveaway's Official Rules set a higher age, those rules apply.

We do not verify anyone's age. We rely on what you tell us. If we believe someone does not meet an age requirement, we may cancel their bookings, remove their content, and suspend or close their account.

We do not knowingly collect personal information from children under 13. If you believe a child under 13 has created an account, contact us; if we find that one has, we will delete it, except anything the law requires us to keep (Privacy Policy section 6).

You may not use the Services if you are on a U.S. government list of restricted parties, if you are in a country or region subject to comprehensive U.S. sanctions, or in any way that breaks U.S. export-control or sanctions law.

2. Your account

One SwaCo account works across every SwaCo service. You are responsible for keeping your password secret and for everything done with your account. Tell us promptly at the address in section 15 if you think someone else is using it. You may sign in with Google; Google's terms govern your Google account, not ours.

Your display name, bio, the skills you choose from our list, whether you teach, your profile picture, and any teaching details your profile shows (for example your time zone, lesson lengths or rate) are public. Do not put anything in them you would not want strangers to see.

You can ask us to delete your account at any time (section 15). Deleting your account deletes your profile, your forum posts and your lesson bookings as the Privacy Policy describes; a booking is deleted for the other person in it too. Replies other people made in a thread you started may stop being shown, and copies may persist as section 4 and the Privacy Policy describe. We may keep information as Privacy Policy section 6 describes.

3. The free tools

Guitar Studio and the other in-browser tools are free to use, with or without an account. What you make with them — your compositions, transcriptions, recordings, and practice data — is yours, and it stays on your device unless you deliberately export it, sync it to your own cloud storage, or contribute it to us. We claim no rights in it. That is as between you and SwaCo: it gives you no rights in music that belongs to someone else, and you are responsible for having the rights to what you play, record, transcribe, export or share.

The tools use your microphone only when you press a control that says so, and only in your browser. Audio is never transmitted to us except when you deliberately contribute a recording under the Contributor Terms (section 6).

4. Content you post

The Community lets you publish a profile, post to a public forum and, if you teach, publish lesson details. "Your Content" means anything you submit to the Services other than a Contribution under section 6: for example your display name, bio, skills, profile picture, forum posts, and any teaching or lesson details you enter, such as a meeting link or joining notes. You keep ownership of Your Content. You grant SwaCo a worldwide, non-exclusive, royalty-free licence, which we may sublicense to service providers acting for us and transfer under section 18, to host, store, copy, display, distribute and transmit Your Content, and to modify it only as needed to format, resize, re-encode, compress, remove metadata from or shorten it, in each case to operate and provide the Services. We may show Your Content as it appears on the Services (for example in a screenshot) when describing the Services, with your name and picture removed unless you agree, and we will not use your name, picture or likeness in advertising without your permission. The licence ends when Your Content is deleted from the Services, except for copies that remain in logs, caches or backups as the Privacy Policy describes, copies of Your Content that another user has quoted in their own content, and copies we must keep by law or to resolve a dispute or enforce these Terms.

You are responsible for what you post. You promise that you have the rights to post it, that it does not infringe anyone's copyright, trademark, privacy or other rights, and that it follows our Community Guidelines. In particular, do not post transcriptions, tablature, lyrics or recordings of music you do not own or have permission to share. Original work and public-domain work are welcome. Links you post or supply, and the places they lead, are your responsibility.

We may, but are not obliged to, review, refuse, remove or restrict any content, and we may suspend, limit or close any account or access to any part of the Services, at our discretion, with or without notice, including if we believe it breaks these Terms, the Community Guidelines or the law, or creates risk for SwaCo, our users or others. We may act on a report we cannot verify. We are not obliged to monitor content and do not promise to; we may look at it when we choose or when it is reported. We are not responsible for content users post or link to, or for any delay or failure in removing it. We may set and change limits on the Services, such as how much or what kind of content you can add.

5. Lessons between users

When the Services offer lesson booking, people who teach ("Teachers") can publish times they are available to teach a skill from our list, and people who want to learn ("Students") can request those times. The Teacher confirms or declines each request, and a lesson is booked only when the Teacher confirms it. A request the Teacher has not answered lapses 48 hours after it was made, or when the lesson was due to start if that is sooner, and the time becomes available again. SwaCo is a venue, not a party to the lesson. Specifically:

5a. Additional terms for Teachers

If you choose to teach (for example by choosing "Teach" or "Both" when you register, turning on "I give lessons", completing teacher setup, publishing times you are available, or confirming a lesson request) you also agree that: you are at least 18; you are an independent contractor and nothing here creates employment, partnership or agency; you are responsible for your own taxes, licences, insurance and equipment; you will use only the tools you are entitled to use and will comply with their terms; you will not record a lesson without the Student's consent; you will not teach a minor through the Services, and you will not use the Services, or contact details or other information you obtained through them, to seek out, privately contact, or arrange lessons or communication off the Services with, anyone you know or reasonably suspect is under 18; any meeting link you supply leads to a room you control on a service you are entitled to use, and neither the link nor your joining notes contains anything harmful or asks a Student for passwords or payment details; you are responsible for securing your meeting room (for example with a waiting room or passcode) so that only the Student booked for a lesson can join, knowing that, where the Services show a meeting link, every Student whose lesson you confirm receives the same link and joining notes and may keep them, so you will not put anything in joining notes you would not give every such Student; any rate you show is your own and is accurate; you keep all rights to your own teaching materials and grant us only the licence in section 4 for what you submit to the Services; and you will follow the Community Guidelines.

6. Contributing recordings and transcriptions

Some tools let you contribute a recording, its labels, or a transcription to SwaCo for training and evaluating music-transcription models (a "Contribution", as the Contributor Terms define it). That is always a separate, deliberate choice (made per item in the app, or under a separate arrangement with us), and it is governed by the Contributor Terms, which are part of these Terms; section 18 says which governs if they conflict. Contributions are for people 18 and over.

7. Donations

Donations through music.swaco.co support SwaCo LLC, a for-profit company. They are not tax-deductible as charitable contributions. They are processed by Stripe under Stripe's terms; we never receive your full card number, and Stripe shows us only limited card details, as the Privacy Policy describes. Donations are voluntary and non-refundable except where the law requires otherwise or we choose to refund one. Donations are gifts to SwaCo LLC: they buy no goods, services, rewards, ownership or other rights, and give no say in what we build. You must be 18, or have a parent's or guardian's permission, to donate.

8. Giveaways

Any giveaway or sweepstakes we run is governed by its own Official Rules, posted where you enter. No purchase or donation is necessary to enter or win. Giveaways are open to people 18 and over (or the age of majority where they live, if higher) where permitted by law and void where prohibited.

9. Our content and licences

The Services, including the software, designs and text, and the SwaCo name and the schwa (ə) logo, belong to SwaCo LLC or its licensors. We reserve all rights we have in them, including under copyright and trademark law, and nothing in these Terms grants you any right in our names or logos. We grant you a limited, revocable, non-transferable licence to use the Services for personal, non-commercial learning and music-making, and for Teachers, to offer lessons through them. Do not copy, scrape, resell, reverse-engineer, or build a competing service from the Services, except as the law allows regardless of these Terms.

Some parts of the Services use open-source software and open data under their own licences; those are listed at guitar.swaco.co/credits and nothing in these Terms limits your rights under them. Content we identify as belonging to another author remains theirs, and this section lets you use it only on the Services. Material we publish under Creative Commons or public-domain dedications (for example, in Music Commons) is available under those terms.

If you send us ideas or suggestions, we may use them without any obligation to you. This does not apply to Contributions, which the Contributor Terms govern.

We respond to notices of alleged copyright infringement under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act. If you believe content on the Services infringes your copyright, send a notice containing the information required by 17 U.S.C. §512(c)(3) to our designated agent:

Copyright Agent, SwaCo LLC
20 W. Montgomery Ave, Apt 202, Ardmore, PA 19003, United States
swaco.llc+dmca@gmail.com — +1 (610) 420-6639

We will remove or disable access to material that a valid notice identifies and notify the user who posted it, and we may remove material we believe infringes without waiting for a notice. If your material is removed after a notice, you may send our agent a counter-notice containing the information required by 17 U.S.C. §512(g)(3), and we will handle it as the DMCA provides. We may forward a notice or counter-notice, including the contact details in it, to the other party. Under 17 U.S.C. §512(f), anyone who knowingly materially misrepresents that material is infringing, or that it was removed by mistake, may be liable for damages. In appropriate circumstances we disable or terminate the accounts of users who repeatedly infringe. Complaints that are not about copyright go to the address in section 15.

11. Acceptable use

Do not use the Services to break the law, to harass, threaten or deceive anyone, to send spam, to upload malware, to probe or overload our systems, to impersonate anyone, to exploit, endanger or sexualise a minor, or to seek out a minor for private contact, to collect other users' information (including by booking or requesting lessons to obtain meeting links), to share another person's meeting link or joining notes, or to circumvent any limit or control. Do not use automated tools to access the Services other than ordinary search-engine indexing. See the Community Guidelines for the rest.

12. Disclaimers

The Services are provided "as is" and "as available", without warranties of any kind, express or implied, including warranties of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement, and accuracy. We do not promise that the Services will be uninterrupted, error-free, or secure, that transcriptions or pitch detection will be correct, that any content is suitable for you, or that lessons will meet your expectations. Data you keep only on your device, or in storage you connect such as your own Google Drive, can be lost; export what you care about. Features labelled preview, beta or test are provided as is, may change or disappear, and may lose data. Section 13 says what these disclaimers do not affect.

SwaCo is not a school. "School of Music" and "School of Guitar" are names of our Services. SwaCo is not an accredited or licensed school, awards no qualifications, and does not itself teach in lessons between users. Our tools and content are general learning material, not medical, hearing-health or other professional advice. Playing an instrument carries some physical risk, such as strain and overuse injuries, injury from equipment like a breaking string, and hearing damage from loud sound or headphones. Warm up, take breaks, keep the volume safe, and stop and get advice if something hurts. You are responsible for your own safety, and that of people around you, while you practise or take a lesson.

Links and services we do not control. The Services may contain links to sites and services we do not operate, including links other users post or supply. We do not check or control them, and you use them under their own terms and at your own risk. Google's sign-in and Drive, and Stripe's checkout, are provided by those companies under their own terms.

13. Limitation of liability

To the fullest extent permitted by law, SwaCo LLC, its members and managers, its licensors, and the contractors it engages to run the Services (which do not include Teachers or other users) will not be liable for any indirect, incidental, special, consequential or punitive damages, or for any loss of data, profits, goodwill or opportunity, arising from or related to the Services or these Terms, however caused and under any theory of liability, even if advised of the possibility. The total liability of SwaCo LLC and everyone listed above, together, to you for all claims arising from or related to the Services or these Terms will not exceed the greater of US $100 or the amount you paid us in the twelve months before the claim.

Nothing in these Terms excludes or limits any liability that cannot be excluded or limited under the law that applies, which may include liability for fraud, recklessness, gross negligence or wilful misconduct, or for death or personal injury caused by negligence, or any consumer right that cannot be waived by contract. Where such a law applies, sections 5, 12, 13 and 14 apply only as far as it permits.

14. Indemnity

To the extent the law allows, you will defend, indemnify and hold harmless SwaCo LLC, its members and managers, its licensors, and the contractors and agents it engages to run the Services (which do not include Teachers or other users) against any third-party claim, and any resulting loss, liability and expense (including reasonable legal fees), to the extent it arises from Your Content or a Contribution, your conduct in connection with a lesson, your breach of these Terms, or your violation of any law or of anyone's rights, except to the extent it was caused by SwaCo's own negligence or misconduct. For a claim arising from a Contribution, your liability to us is limited as section 9 of the Contributor Terms provides; where that limit does not apply (for example because you acted knowingly or fraudulently), this section applies in full. We may control the defence of any claim you must indemnify, and you will not settle it without our consent.

15. Contact, notices, and deletion requests

SwaCo LLC · 20 W. Montgomery Ave, Apt 202, Ardmore, PA 19003 · swaco.llc@gmail.com. We may send you notices by email to the address on your account or by posting them on the Services. You agree that notices, agreements and other communications we provide electronically satisfy any legal requirement that they be in writing. Notices to us go to the address in this section; copyright notices go to the agent in section 10. To delete your account or exercise privacy rights, email us from the address on your account or, if you have no account, from the address you used with us.

16. Changes to the Services and these Terms

We may change or discontinue any part of the Services at any time. We may change these Terms. When we do, we post the new Terms here with a new "Last updated" date; if the change is material, we also give it a new effective date and make reasonable efforts to tell account holders, by a notice on the Services or by email. A change takes effect when we post it, or on any later effective date we show. Continuing to use the Services after a change takes effect means you accept it. If you do not, stop using the Services and, if you wish, ask us to delete your account. A change does not apply to a dispute that arose before it took effect.

We may suspend or end your access to all or part of the Services, including teaching or booking, at any time, as section 4 describes; where practical and lawful, and unless we believe it could put someone at risk or hinder an investigation, we will try to tell you. If we do, bookings you are part of may be removed. You may stop using the Services at any time and ask us to delete your account. If we close your account, your licence to use the Services ends and you may not open another account without our permission.

Earlier versions. The version in force before 2 October 2026 took effect on 13 September 2026; our copyright agent's contact details and our postal address were added to it on 24 September 2026, and the trademark wording in section 9 was narrowed on 26 September 2026. It is kept here. What changed on 2 October 2026: we rewrote section 5 (lesson requests and bookings, meeting links, rates, adults-only lessons and safety) and added to it a release of claims against SwaCo about disputes and lessons between users, including a waiver of California Civil Code section 1542; added Teacher duties to section 5a; made a parent or guardian who permits a minor's use of the Services responsible for it, and added a sanctions restriction (section 1); added a 30-day step before any lawsuit and made the named courts the only ones that hear disputes (section 17); added rules against exploiting or seeking out minors (section 11); added an age rule for donations (section 7); and revised account deletion and what your profile shows publicly (section 2), the content licence and our moderation rights (section 4), our names and logos (section 9), the copyright process (section 10), our disclaimers, liability limits and indemnity (sections 12 to 14), notices and changes (sections 15 and 16), and which document governs if two conflict (section 18). We also said that we do not verify anyone's age and what we may do when someone does not meet an age requirement (section 1), that the free tools give you no rights in other people's music (section 3), what a Contribution is (section 6), and the giveaway age (section 8).

17. Governing law and disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the State of Pennsylvania, United States, without regard to conflict-of-law rules. Before starting a lawsuit, a party must send the other a written description of the claim and the relief sought and try in good faith to resolve it for 30 days, and any limitation period is suspended for those 30 days; this does not apply to a claim for an injunction described below or to a claim within the jurisdiction of a magisterial district court. Any dispute arising from or related to the Services, these Terms or any document listed in section 18 will be brought exclusively in the state courts located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, or the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania, and you and SwaCo consent to their personal jurisdiction and venue. Where the Contributor Terms refer to "the state or federal courts located in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania", they mean these courts. Either party may seek an injunction in any court of competent jurisdiction to stop actual or threatened infringement or misuse of its intellectual property, or unauthorised access to or interference with the Services. You and SwaCo each waive any right to a jury trial and to participate in a class action, to the extent the law allows.

18. General

If any part of these Terms is unenforceable, it will be enforced to the maximum extent permitted and the rest remains in effect. Our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver. You may not assign or transfer these Terms. We may assign or transfer them, in whole or in part, without your consent, including to an affiliate or in connection with a merger, acquisition, reorganisation or sale of assets. We are not responsible for any failure or delay caused by events beyond our reasonable control, including outages of our hosting, identity, email or payment providers or of a Teacher's chosen service, internet or power failures, natural disasters, epidemics, war or government action. Sections 4 (for content that remains after deletion), 5 (the release and what we are not responsible for), 7, 9, 10, 12, 13, 14, 17 and 18 survive the end of your use of the Services or the deletion of your account. These Terms, the Privacy Policy, the Contributor Terms, the Community Guidelines, any Official Rules you enter under, and any other written agreement you have signed with us are the entire agreement between you and SwaCo about the Services. If they conflict, a written agreement you have signed with us governs the matters it covers, the Contributor Terms govern Contributions, a giveaway's Official Rules govern that giveaway, the Privacy Policy governs how we handle personal information, and otherwise these Terms govern; the Community Guidelines add rules of conduct and never limit our rights or your obligations under these Terms. This English text governs; translations are for convenience only.