How we protect your music and video

Playback is streaming-only. Listeners never receive a file, a permanent link, or a raw storage URL — the player fetches short-lived signed audio that expires within minutes and is tied to their verified membership in that room.

Downloads are off by default. A moderator can turn them on per room if the session genuinely calls for it, and can turn them back off at any moment.

Every room has a listener passcode and a moderator passcode. A moderator can rotate either one instantly — the old code and any invite link built on it stop working the moment the new one is issued.

Codes can also be given an expiry: 24 hours, 7 days, or no expiry. Expired codes are rejected on our servers, not just hidden in the interface.

If one person shouldn't be in the room anymore, you don't have to re-invite everyone else. Moderators can revoke a single listener from the room roster, and that person immediately loses access to the tracks, the artwork, the notes and the playback stream. Everyone else's access is untouched.

When a track starts playing, we log who played it, which track it was, when, and a device signature for the session. Moderators see that log in the room, most recent first.

It isn't there to police anyone. It's there so that if a record surfaces somewhere it shouldn't, the room's history is a factual account of who heard what and when.

There is no directory, no public room list, and no way to browse or search for a project. A room exists only for the people holding a current passcode or invite link from its moderator.

Access is also re-checked on the server every time a room loads, so a revoked or expired listener is turned away on their next visit even if their browser still thinks they're inside.

Music videos, trailers and rough cuts run through the exact same chain as audio: the same listener and moderator passcodes, the same expiry, the same per-listener revocation, and the same server-side re-check on every load. A video room isn't a separate product with separate rules.

The video player is locked down. Viewers get play, scrub, volume and fullscreen — and nothing else. There is no download, no picture-in-picture, and no save-video option, because the native browser controls that expose them are turned off.

Every frame carries a forensic watermark. The viewer's access code and a live timestamp are drawn into the video frames themselves at the canvas level, not layered on top as removable page furniture, and the watermark moves around the frame periodically so it can't be reliably cropped out of a screen recording. The exact payload shown during a session is stored with that session, so a clip that surfaces somewhere it shouldn't traces back to a specific viewer at a specific moment.

Watch position is logged as playback runs, so the moderator sees how far each viewer actually got — shown alongside the listen log in the room.

Security questions, disclosure reports and vendor reviews go to support@sonusplayback.com. We answer them properly.