StarSync Privacy Policy

1. Who we are

StarSync is provided by Marley Miller, an individual based in Washington State, USA, doing business as StarSync Studio ("StarSync", "we", "us"). Marley Miller is responsible for your personal data (the "controller" under EU and UK law).

This policy covers the StarSync desktop app, the StarSync server at server.starsyncstudio.com, the website starsyncstudio.com, and the emails we send. It doesn't cover third-party plugins you load into StarSync, Stripe's and Link's checkout pages, or other sites we link to. Those have their own policies.

Contact: marley@starsyncstudio.com.

2. What we collect, and why

2.1 Your account

What: your username, email address, first and last name (both optional), the date you signed up, and your password. We store the password only as a salted hash (scrypt), never the password itself. (If your account is older than our switch to scrypt, its older salted hash is replaced with a scrypt hash the next time you sign in.) We also keep a counter that lets us sign you out of every device at once.

Why: to sign you in, to show the people you work with who you are, to let you reset your password, to connect your account to the alpha tester list and to your Plus subscription.

If you sign up on our website (server.starsyncstudio.com/account/signup), we also keep the date and time you ticked "I agree to the Terms of Service and Privacy Policy", to show which terms you agreed to and when. It's deleted with your account. The "I'm 13 or older" box is checked on the page only; nothing about it is stored.

Do you have to give it? A username, an email address and a password are needed to make an account. Without them we can't create one. Your names are up to you.

Who sees it: other signed-in users can see your username and your first and last name, and search results also show the date you signed up. They can find you by searching for part of your username or name, or by typing your exact email address. Your email address is never shown to them, but a search for your exact address does show that an account exists for it.

2.2 Signing in

Session tokens. When you sign in, the server gives the app a token that lasts about an hour and that the app renews while you use it. The server doesn't keep a list of tokens.

Remember me (Windows). "Remember me" is ticked by default. It keeps your token, user id, username and server address on your computer, sealed with Windows' own data protection so only your Windows account can open it. Untick it when you sign in, or use Settings, "Forget My Sign-In", to remove it. On a Mac, nothing is kept.

Older app versions. Before version 1.1.5, the app also sent your computer's name and the full name on your computer account when you signed in with your password. The server never stored, logged or used them, and since 1.1.5 the app sends only your username and password.

Signing in on the website. On the website's account page (server.starsyncstudio.com/account/plus), your sign-in token is kept only in that page's memory while it's open: no cookies, no local or session storage. Signing out, leaving or closing the page, or the token running out (about an hour) forgets it.

Password reset codes. If you ask for a reset code, we email you a code, with your first name and username. We store only a hash of the code and when it expires. An emailed code works for 60 minutes. A code we give you by hand works for 24 hours.

2.3 Your projects and music

When you work in a shared project, the app sends your changes (notes, patterns, clips, mixer and plugin settings, and the like) through our server to the others in the project. Most of this is passed on and not stored. What the server does keep:

• Project details: the project's name, its owner, its members and their roles, and dates.
• Live notes: the project's current notes and its last 1,000 batches of note edits, each with the id of the person who made it, so everyone stays in sync.
• Snapshots: save points of the whole project as StarSync shares it with collaborators (patterns and notes, the arrangement, the mix, instrument and plugin settings, automation, markers, comments, and the project's name and notes; audio by reference, not the audio itself), with an optional description, whether it was automatic, who made it, when, and its size. The app makes one when you save a shared project (at most once every 15 minutes), you can make one with Create Snapshot, and the server makes one before a snapshot is restored.
• Activity feed: a record of edits and events, such as a note added, a pattern moved, "Saved project" or a snapshot made, with who did it and when.
• Audio: files used in a shared project are uploaded so collaborators can play them. We keep the audio, its original file name, its size, who uploaded it, when, and which projects use it.
• Your profile picture, if you choose one: the app makes a small 128 by 128 pixel copy and uploads it into each shared project you open as an editor, so your collaborators see it. "Remove Your Picture" stops StarSync showing it, but copies already uploaded stay in those projects' storage until the project is deleted, and collaborators' apps may keep a copy they downloaded.
• Comments on patterns: the text, the pattern, track and position, and who wrote it.
• Plugins: when you use a plugin in a shared project, its name, maker, version and settings, and whose copy it is, go through the server to your collaborators. The list of all plugins on your computer never leaves your computer.

The server can also store a full saved copy of a project, but today's app doesn't use this.

Why: storing, syncing and showing your shared projects to the people in them is what StarSync does.

Who sees it: everyone in that project.

Listen links. If you make a listen link (Plus or Lifetime), we store the song as you rendered it (a FLAC audio file), the title you give it, whether to show your username, which project it came from, its size and length, and when it was made. Anyone with the link can play and save the song, and sees its title, and your username if you chose to show it. The link itself isn't stored: the server works it out from a secret key.

People who open a listen link don't need an account. The page sets no cookies, loads nothing from other companies, and keeps no play counts or analytics. As with every request, the web server's access log records the page and file addresses (which contain the link), the listener's IP address, the time and browser details (see 2.10). Rate-limit counters named after the IP address last up to 10 minutes. The pages ask search engines not to list them. If someone pastes a listen link into a chat app such as Discord or iMessage, that app's servers read the page to show the song's title (and your username, if you chose to show it) in the preview.

2.4 Working together live

• Presence: while a project is open, the app tells the server every 5 seconds that you're there (your user id, username and a reference to your profile picture). It also shares where your cursor is, what is playing and what you have selected. You can turn off cursor and playback sharing in the Collaboration menu, Sync Settings. These are passed on to the others in the project and not stored, but if you can edit the project, the server's log notes each 5-second update and each selection with your user id (see 2.10).
• Edit locks: the server can hold a lock on something you are editing, with your user id, username and the time, for up to 60 seconds, so two people don't change it at once.
• Project chat: passed on live to the others in the project and not stored on our server. The app keeps the last 200 messages of each project's chat on your computer.
• Voice chat: when you press Join, your microphone audio is passed on live to the others in that project's voice channel. We never record it. The server's log notes when you join and leave.
• Invitations and friends: who invited whom to which project, with the role, status and dates; your friends and friend requests.
• Shares to someone offline: held in the server's memory for up to 30 minutes until they reconnect, then dropped.
• Invite links: when a project's owner makes an invite link, we store which project it is for, whether it lets people join straight away or asks the owner first, who made it and when. We don't store the link itself: we keep a hash that lets us recognise it, and a random value that, with a key only our server has, lets us show the link to the owner again. A link is deleted when the owner turns it off or replaces it, or when the project or the owner's account is deleted. Anyone who opens a working link sees the project's name and the owner's username. Our web server's logs record visits to invite pages with your internet address, but never the link's code.
• Join requests: when you ask to join a project through a link, we store your account, the project, when you asked, and when and how it ended (the owner said yes or no, or turned off or replaced the link first). The owner sees your username and name. A request is deleted 30 days after you made it, or sooner if you withdraw it or the project or either account is deleted. If you join through a link, you become a collaborator like anyone invited, and the project's members see your username and name. StarSync on your computer keeps the time of the last answer it showed you, so it shows each answer once.

Why: so you can see and hear each other and work on the same project at the same time.

2.5 Direct messages

What: the text of each message (up to 10,000 characters), who sent it, who it was to, when, and when it was read.

Why: so you can see your conversation history.

Good to know: messages are stored on our server. They are not end-to-end encrypted, so we could technically read them. We only look at them to deal with a report of abuse, to fix a problem you ask us to look into, or when the law requires it. Right now any signed-in user can send you a message, and there is no way to delete a single message.

2.6 Problem reports and feature ideas

What: when you use Help, Report a Problem or Suggest a Feature in StarSync, or the feedback page on our website (signed in to your StarSync account), we receive your text (up to 5,000 characters), the app version, your operating system and its version, your user id and username, and the time.

With a problem report, unless you untick the box, the app also sends:

• the last 400 KB of StarSync's log; and
• if StarSync crashed or didn't close properly in the past 3 days, the text of that report: when StarSync started and crashed, its version, its process id, and that run's log lines.

The log names your projects and files with their full paths on your computer, which usually include your computer account's name, and your user id. StarSync doesn't write your password to it and removes sign-in tokens from it. The crash dump file (.dmp) is never sent.

Why: to find and fix problems, and to decide what to build next.

Where it goes: our server keeps it, and every Monday the week's reports are emailed, with logs attached, to marley@starsyncstudio.com.

Send anonymously: if you tick it, we keep only what you wrote, whether it is an idea or a problem, whether it came from the app or the website, the app version and the day it was sent. We don't keep your account, username, system or logs with it, so anonymous feedback is not linked to your account. Our server's access log (2.10) still records that a request came from your internet address, for up to 30 days. Because anonymous feedback is linked to no account, it stays until its 12 months are up even if you delete your account.

Feedback rewards: when your feedback earns a reward, we keep a record that your account received one: its code, when it was given, and when and how it was used (at checkout or on your subscription). The record doesn't say which feedback earned it. To apply the reward, we ask Stripe to add a discount to your checkout or subscription. The record is deleted when you delete your account.

2.7 StarSync Plus and billing

What we keep: your Stripe customer id, subscription id and status, the price, when the current period ends, any cancellation date, when we last checked with Stripe, and the ids and types of the Stripe notices we have handled. We also record how your account got its plan: a subscription, an access code, or a plan we gave you; and whether your account has the alpha tester discount, which you claim with your alpha passcode, with the tester record that claimed it.

What we send to Stripe and Link: your email address, your username (as the customer name) and your StarSync user id.

What Link collects itself: your payment details, and your name and billing address, which it needs for tax. Sold through Link, LLC ("Link"), a Stripe company, is the merchant of record for Plus and handles this under its own privacy policy.

What Link shares with us: the order details: your name, email address and billing address, the type of payment method with its last four digits and country, the tax charged, and your subscription and invoices. These stay in our Stripe account, not on StarSync's server, and this policy covers how we use them. Your full card number never reaches us. If you cancel in the customer portal, we also see the reason you pick.

If you ask Link to delete your data, Stripe cancels your Plus subscription and deletes your details from our Stripe account, and tells us.

Why: to sell Plus, manage your subscription, and know which plan your account has.

Tips on Ko-fi: if you tip StarSync at starsyncstudio.com/support, Ko-fi takes the tip and its payment goes through our Stripe account. Ko-fi shows us the name you give, your message and your email address, and our Stripe dashboard shows the payment with the card type, its last four digits and your country. Ko-fi handles your details under its own privacy policy. We use them only to thank you and for our accounts.

Access codes: we store only a hash of each code, a private note we write when we make it (for example who we made it for), when it was made, which account redeemed it and when, and whether it was cancelled.

2.8 The alpha program

Applications. When you apply on our website, we receive your name, email address, what you make, your platform, and any links you give (for example Spotify, SoundCloud or Instagram). The server adds the application's status, any screening notes, a keyed hash of your IP address (not the address itself), your tester id once invited, and dates.

Screening. To keep out bots and spam, the server checks that your email's domain can receive email (a DNS lookup), compares it with a list of throwaway email services, checks your name for links, numbers or random letters, looks for spam words or lots of links in your answers, and counts how many applications came from the same network address that day. Each email address can apply once. Applications that look suspicious are never turned down automatically: they are held for Marley to review by hand. The others are invited automatically, oldest first, up to 50 a day.

Copies. After you apply, the website also sends your name, email, what you make, platform and links to our Google Sheet. On days when anyone is invited or held back, Marley gets an email at marley@starsyncstudio.com listing them, with those same details and the reasons. The same list is written to the server's log.

Testers. When you are invited we keep your name, email address, a hash of your passcode, and the dates it was made and, if it happens, cancelled. We email you your passcode, and later we email testers when new builds come out.

Downloads. When you enter your passcode on the website, you get download links that work for 15 minutes and include your tester id. We record each download: tester id, version, platform (Windows or Mac) and time. When the app updates itself, the server matches your account's email address to the tester list and records the download the same way.

Why: to run a fair waiting list, keep bots out, and know who has which pre-release build.

2.9 The newsletter

If you enter your email in the newsletter form on our website, it goes, with the time, to our Google Sheet only, not to our server. We use it to tell you about StarSync news and launches. We haven't sent a newsletter yet. To be taken off the list, email us and we'll remove you. Every newsletter we send will also have a link to unsubscribe.

2.10 Technical data and logs

IP addresses. Our server sees the IP address of every request. It uses the raw address briefly to limit how often someone can try things like signing in, signing up, resetting a password or applying (counters last 10 minutes to an hour). IP addresses are never stored with your account or in our main database.

The web server's access log. Every request to server.starsyncstudio.com or to the website (starsyncstudio.com), from the app or a browser, is written to an access log: your IP address, the time, the address requested, and technical details your app or browser sends, such as its type. Some addresses include extra details: a user search term (which could be an email address), the name of an audio file being uploaded, a listen link's address, the tester id in a download link, a checkout session id, and user and project ids.

The server's own log. For running and debugging StarSync, the server logs user ids, project ids, project names in invitation notices, connection events (including a line for each 5-second presence update while you're in a project you can edit), voice joins and leaves, password changes and resets, account deletions, tester ids, Stripe customer ids, errors, and the daily invitation list (with applicants' names and emails). It doesn't log passwords, your music, your messages, or account email addresses.

Update checks. Each time the app starts, it asks the server whether a newer version exists. This happens before you sign in, and sends nothing that identifies you or your computer. The server sees your IP address.

While you're signed in, the app also renews your sign-in, checks the server is up, fetches your plan, listens for invitations and friend requests, and measures your connection quality every 2 seconds.

Why: to keep StarSync running, secure, and fixable when something goes wrong.

2.11 What StarSync keeps on your computer

These stay on your computer and are not sent to us, except where this policy says so:

• Settings: the server address, your remembered username, audio and MIDI device names, a volume for each collaborator's voice (by user id), plugin and export folders, and your preferences.
• Your kept sign-in (Windows only, see 2.2).
• StarSync's log, trimmed to its last 1 MB each time StarSync starts. It goes to us only inside a problem report you send.
• Crash reports: when StarSync crashes or doesn't close properly, it saves a report folder with that run's log lines and, on Windows, a crash dump, which can contain pieces of what StarSync had in memory, such as project or chat text. Crash reports are never uploaded automatically. To send us one, use Help, Report a Problem, which attaches the report's text (see 2.6). The crash dump is never sent by the app. If we ask you to email us a crash dump to fix a crash, we use it only for that.
• Backups of your work: copies of your open project, with the 20 most recent kept for each project by default (you can change this in Settings, Projects and Backups).
• Project chat: the last 200 messages of each project.
• Shared audio: audio from shared projects and your collaborators' profile pictures, so they don't download again.
• Your recordings, bounces and frozen plugin tracks, your profile picture, your recent projects, your pattern library and the list of plugins on your computer.

StarSync also looks for the sample folders of some common music tools and sample services on your computer, to suggest them in its file browser. It doesn't send what it finds.

To remove all of this, delete StarSync's folder: %APPDATA%\StarSync on Windows, or ~/Library/StarSync and ~/Library/Application Support/StarSync.settings on a Mac. StarSync also leaves temporary plugin-settings files in your computer's temporary folder, and downloaded updates in that folder (on a Mac, in Downloads). Uninstalling StarSync on Windows leaves its folder in place on purpose, so your settings and backups survive a reinstall.

2.12 Our website

• Hosting: the website (starsyncstudio.com) is served by our own server in Germany, the same Hetzner server as the app's. Like every request, its access log records your visit (see 2.10).
• No cookies or analytics from us. Our pages set no cookies and use no analytics or tracking tools.
• Forms: the newsletter form and the alpha application form also send what you enter to Google (Apps Script), which sees your IP address and browser details.
• Videos: video preview pictures are part of our page. A video loads from YouTube only when you press play, and YouTube may then set cookies under its own policy.
• Account pages: the sign-up and Plus pages (server.starsyncstudio.com/account) are served by our own server too. They set no cookies, load nothing from other companies and use no analytics. Like every request, our web server's access log records them (see 2.10). Get Plus and Manage subscription send you on to Stripe's checkout and customer portal.
• Checkout: Stripe's checkout and customer portal pages, and link.com, are run by Stripe and Link under their own privacy and cookie policies.

2.13 Emails we send

From noreply@starsyncstudio.com, through Google Workspace:

• password reset codes, when you ask for one;
• your alpha passcode, when you are invited;
• release announcements, to active alpha testers.

Two more go only to us, at marley@starsyncstudio.com: the weekly email of problem reports and ideas, and the list of invited and held-back applicants.

If you joined the newsletter, we may also email you StarSync news. None has been sent yet (see 2.9).

3. Our legal bases (EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland)

If you are in these places, the law requires us to tell you the legal basis for each use of your data.

Where we rely on legitimate interests, you can object (see Section 8).

Automated decisions. We don't make decisions about you that have legal or similarly significant effects by automated means alone. The only automated check is the alpha screening in 2.8: it can invite you, but it never turns anyone down. Applications it flags wait for a person to decide.

4. Who we share it with

Other StarSync users, as described in Section 2: people in your projects, people you message, and people who search for you.

Service providers who handle data for us:

Your email provider receives the emails we send you. When we check an applicant's email domain, the DNS servers that answer see the domain, but not the address or anything else about the applicant.

People who help run StarSync. Marley Miller, and anyone who helps build and run StarSync, can see this data when their work needs it, and must keep it confidential.

AI tools. We use Claude, an AI assistant made by Anthropic (United States), to help build StarSync and fix bugs. When a problem report, log or crash report is needed to fix a bug, it may be shown to Claude. We don't give it your music, messages or account details for any other purpose.

When the law requires it. We may share data if we must by law, or to protect people's safety, StarSync or its users.

If StarSync changes hands. If StarSync moves to a company, for example one Marley Miller sets up to run it, or to a buyer, your data moves with it under this policy, and we will tell you.

What we never do: we don't sell your personal data, we don't share it for advertising, and StarSync has no ads.

We use GitHub to build the app, but no user data goes there. Our domain's DNS provider and the certificate authority for our HTTPS certificate don't receive any personal data.

5. International transfers

StarSync is run from the United States. Our server is in Germany. Some of our service providers handle data in the United States and other countries. When data about people in the EU, EEA, UK or Switzerland leaves those places, we rely on the safeguards in our providers' data protection terms: Stripe and Google take part in the EU-US Data Privacy Framework and its UK and Swiss extensions, and their terms also include the European Commission's standard contractual clauses and the UK's addendum to them. Hetzner keeps our server in Germany. Email us for details.

6. How long we keep it

7. Deleting your account, and what stays

You can delete your account at any time in StarSync: Settings, Account, "Delete account". You'll need your password. If you pay for Plus, the subscription is cancelled first.

What is deleted: your account; the projects you own, for everyone in them, with their live notes and note history, snapshots, activity, comments, invitations and any audio no other project uses; your place in other people's projects; your comments and activity entries everywhere; invitations you sent or received; your friends and friend requests; the direct messages you sent and their read receipts, and your own read receipts; your problem reports and their logs; your listen links and their audio; and your plan record.

What stays, and why:

• In other people's projects: snapshots you made (with your user id), audio you uploaded and your profile picture (with your user id and the file's name), and your user id in the note history. These are part of projects that belong to other people.
• Direct messages other people sent you stay with them.
• Payment records: your Stripe customer record (email, username and user id) and Link's receipts, which are needed for refunds, tax and accounting.
• Alpha records: your application, tester record and download records, which are kept by email address rather than by account.
• Access codes: if you redeemed one, the code stays marked as used, with the date, but no longer points to your account. The private note we wrote when we made the code stays too, and it may name you.
• Copies: backups for about 15 days, logs until they are cleared (see Section 6), emails already sent to our mailbox, and the Google Sheet copy of your application.

If you want any of these removed too, email us. We'll remove what we can, such as your alpha records, the Google Sheet row and emails in our mailbox, and tell you about anything we have to keep.

8. Your rights

Wherever you live, you can ask us to:

• show you the personal data we hold about you, and send you a copy;
• correct it. The app can't change your name, email or username yet, so email us;
• delete it. The quickest way is "Delete account" in the app (Section 7);
• give you a copy in a reusable format. Your projects are already on your computer as project files, and we can send your account data as a file;
• stop using it for something you object to, or withdraw consent you gave (for example to the newsletter).

How to ask: email marley@starsyncstudio.com from the email address on your account. If you write from another address, we may need to confirm it's you. We answer within one month, and tell you if we need longer. It's free.

In the EU, EEA, UK and Switzerland, you also have the right to restrict how we use your data, to object to uses based on legitimate interests, and to complain to your local data protection authority (in the UK, the Information Commissioner's Office). We'd like the chance to help first.

In California and other US states with privacy laws, you have the right to know what personal information we collect, use and disclose; to delete it; to correct it; to opt out of its sale or sharing; and to limit the use of sensitive personal information. We don't sell or share personal information (in these laws, "share" means for cross-site advertising). The sensitive personal information we handle is your account login (username and password) and the contents of your direct messages and project chat. We use it only to sign you in and deliver your messages, never to infer anything about you. We won't treat you differently for using these rights. You can use an authorised agent, and we may ask them for proof. If we refuse a request, you can appeal by replying to our answer.

For these laws, the categories we collect in the last 12 months are:

• identifiers: name, username, email address, user id, IP address;
• commercial information: your plan and subscription status;
• internet or network activity: logs of your use of StarSync and the website;
• audio and electronic information: voice chat (passed on live, not recorded), audio files and recordings you upload, your profile picture;
• the contents of your messages, chat, comments and problem reports;
• sensitive personal information: your account login, and the contents of your direct messages and project chat.

We keep each category for the times in Section 6.

Do Not Track and Global Privacy Control. We don't track you across other websites or services, and we don't sell or share personal information, so there is nothing for these browser signals to switch off. YouTube, once you press play on a video, follows its own policy.

Where your data comes from. From you, from your device, from people who add you to their projects or message you, and from Stripe (your subscription status). We use it for the purposes in Section 2 and disclose it only as in Section 4.

9. Security

What we do:

• the app and website talk to our server only over encrypted connections (HTTPS and secure WebSockets);
• passwords are stored as salted hashes (scrypt); reset codes, alpha passcodes and access codes are stored only as hashes; applicants' IP addresses are stored only as keyed hashes;
• the server's database and services accept connections only from the server itself, behind a web server that handles encryption, and the server blocks repeated failed log-in attempts;
• backups are readable only by the server's administrator account;
• the app removes sign-in tokens from its own log, and on Windows seals a kept sign-in with Windows' data protection;
• full card numbers never reach us.

No system is perfectly secure. Direct messages, projects and other content are stored on our server in a form we could read, and are not end-to-end encrypted. If a breach affects your data, we will tell you and the authorities as the law requires.

10. Children

StarSync is not for children under 13. Where the law sets a higher age for using an online service without a parent's permission (up to 16 in some EU countries), people under that age need their parent or guardian's permission. We don't knowingly collect data from children under 13. If you think a child under 13 has given us data, email us and we'll delete it.

11. Changes to this policy

We'll update this policy when StarSync changes what it collects or how. If a change matters, we'll tell you in the app or by email before it takes effect. The date at the top shows the current version.

12. Contact

Marley Miller, StarSync Studio
Washington State, USA
marley@starsyncstudio.com