Your data when requesting AP Mastering plugins

By sending an email to request AP Mastering plugins, you confirm your explicit consent to:

• Receive a link to access the requested plugins.
• Occasionally receive follow-up emails about new features, plugins, or AP Mastering-related updates.

Data Collection and Usage

• Minimal Information Required: You do not need to provide any personal information beyond your email address. A blank email is sufficient to process your request.
• Storage of Data: Your email address, along with any voluntarily provided additional information, will be securely stored on an encrypted mail server managed by a provider chosen by AP Mastering.

Right to Erasure

• You have the right to request the deletion of any data previously transmitted. To do so, send an email to Alain requesting erasure.
• A search will be performed using your email address, and all matching records will be deleted within a maximum of 30 days, though under normal circumstances, this process will occur much sooner.

Data Security and Sharing

• Your data, including your email address, will never be sold or shared with third parties.
• AP Mastering will only use your data to contact you regarding relevant updates, such as new features, plugins, or announcements.

Communication Frequency

• Communications will be infrequent, defined as a maximum of 10 emails per year.
• If there is perceived demand for more frequent updates, this limit may be adjusted. In such a case, you will be notified in advance and given the option to:
  • Join a separate mailing list for more frequent updates.
  • Opt-out of all communications if the increased volume is undesirable

Collaborations with Third Parties

• In the event that AP Mastering collaborates with third parties (e.g., to produce a plugin), you may receive announcements or updates related to the collaboration.
• However, your personal data will not be shared with these collaborators.

If you have further questions about how your data is handled, feel free to contact directly.

Refund Policy for plugins

Before purchasing any plugin, you are required to evaluate the free version to ensure it meets your expectations and is compatible with your computer setup. By purchasing a plugin, you agree to the following terms:

No Refunds:

• Due to the nature of digital goods and perpetual offline-compatible licenses, all sales are final.
• Once a plugin license is issued, it is not possible to revoke access. This design choice minimizes intrusive DRM bloatware and unnecessary internet traffic and associated inconvenience.
• By completing your purchase, you waive your right to a refund under the EU Consumer Rights Directive, as you are receiving immediate access to a non-refundable digital product.

Chargebacks:

• Fraudulent chargebacks will be contested. If you encounter a genuine issue, please initiate contact directly before initiating a chargeback.

Bug Reporting and Resolution:

• If you encounter a genuine reproducible problem with a purchased plugin that was not present in the free version, please report the issue with detailed proof (e.g. screenshare and crash report).
• Every effort will be made to resolve the issue and issue an updated version of the plugin in a reasonable timeframe, subject to the resources of a tiny (for the most part, one man) development team.
• In some cases, a screensharing session may be requested to better understand the issue.

By completing your purchase, you confirm that you have tested the free version and understand that no refunds will be issued for plugin purchases.

Refund Policy for video courses

Before purchasing any course, you are encouraged to carefully review the course description and marketing materials to ensure the course aligns with your desired area of study. If you are unsure whether a course covers specific subject matter, please contact Alain for clarification before making a purchase. By purchasing an online video course, you agree to the following terms:

No Refunds:

• Due to the nature of digital products and the immediate access provided upon purchase, all sales are final.
• It is not possible to determine how much of the course content has been accessed, watched, downloaded, or retained. Therefore, it is assumed that value has been derived from accessing the course.
• By completing your purchase, you explicitly waive your right to a refund under the EU Consumer Rights Directive, as you are receiving immediate access to a non-refundable digital product.

Chargebacks:

• Fraudulent chargebacks will be contested.
• If you encounter a genuine reproducible issue, please initiate contact directly before initiating a chargeback.

Issue Reporting and Resolution:

• If you encounter an issue with a purchased course (e.g., technical difficulties or missing content), you are encouraged to report the issue with detailed proof, such as screenshots or video recordings.
• Every effort will be made to resolve the issue and provide an updated version of the course within a reasonable timeframe, subject to the resources of a small production team.
• In some cases, a screensharing session may be requested to better understand and address the issue.

By completing your purchase, you confirm that you have reviewed the course description and marketing materials and understand that:

• No refunds will be issued for online course purchases.
• The course is provided as-is, and every effort will be made to resolve genuine issues if they arise.

Your data when creating an account at the AP Mastering website

By creating an account, you do the following:

• Receive an email confirmation link as part of the sign up process.
• Have your email address stored securely by an industry leading third party
• have your password stored as an irreversible hash by an industry leading third party

AP Mastering specifically uses cloud based technology provided by Amazon. Your data is stored securely by Amazon on their servers, using their specialist secure product designed for this purpose, called Cognito. When your purchases are associated with your account in the AP Mastering orders database, none of your personal data is stored directly, and this database is also securely hosted in Amazon's cloud infrastructure.

Right to Erasure

• You have the right to request the deletion of your account at AP Mastering
• Deletion of your account will result in the inability to access any courses that you have previously purchased and the inability to license any plugins that you have previously purchased.
• To delete your account and all personal data (your email address), please send an email to Alain requesting this. The current email is detailed on the contact page.

Data Security and Sharing

• Your email address will never be sold or shared with third parties.
• Your password is not viewable to anyone as it is stored in an irreversible hashed form by Amazon
• AP Mastering will not send you any emails (aside from the email confirmation email) merely because you have signed up to the website.

If you have further questions about how your data is handled, feel free to contact directly.

Your data when making a purchase

By purchasing a product on the AP Mastering website you do the following:

• Allow a secure third party to handle the transaction, including all tax and invoicing
• Allow all of the personal data you enter as part of the transaction to be stored on this third party's secure servers

AP Mastering specifically uses the provider Paddle. Since Paddle is a merchant of record, all issues concerning the transaction, such as invoicing, credit cards, paypal etc is handled by, and the responsibility of, Paddle. Your legal data rights may be exercised in relation to your personal data stored at Paddle directly with them. AP Mastering has access to personal data via logging into Paddle's system and viewing customer transactions. No personal data further than the email address already used to sign up for an account is actively stored at AP Mastering. None of this data is ever used outside of the context of resolving transaction issues and it is never shared by AP Mastering.

Delivery of masters and revisions

The cost of mastering services offered represents the delivery of a master; specifically the administration work and studio time required, listening to mixes, potentially providing mix critique or other advice and producing and delivering one master inline with the best expert judgement of the engineer. It does not cover any subsequent revisions unless they are purchased either as part of a package or individually. Under normal circumstances, either all revision requests will be honoured or a full refund of the amount paid for the affected song will be made. Circumstances which shall be considered to fall outside the scope of normal include those in which the client requests revisions at some substantially later date after the engineer assumed the project had been concluded, and requests which are deemed by the engineer to be disproportionately time-consuming, outside the scope of normal mastering or otherwise unreasonable.

If for some reason the initial master is unable to be delivered within a timeframe agreed to be reasonable by the engineer, or before a deadline which was clearly stipulated in advance of payment, the client has the right to a full refund of the amount paid for the songs which have not been delivered.

DDPs

Concerning the liability of DDPs: a high degree of care is taken to produce high quality, error-free DDPs but the client must double-check the accuracy of the track order, track markers and CD data before sending the DDP to be manufactured. Especially where the artist makes changes to the track names, track order or has confusing file names, care should be taken to ensure no confusion of the track order or names has occurred at some stage. Neglecting to check a DDP before sending it to be manufactured and subsequently finding an error (wrong track order etc) on the finished CDs will not be deemed a failure of the engineer and no liability will be accepted. Liability will be accepted up to the total value of the mastering fee of the project if there is any error found demonstrably caused by the engineer which falls outside the expected scope of checking by the client (audio glitches etc).

Additional versions of the same track

When two versions of a track are deemed by the engineer to be trivially different, then they will be priced as one single track, that is the additional version will be free of charge. An example of such a case is when there is a full version and an additional radio edit version which is identical in every regard to the full version except the fact that it is edited down in length. In such a case, there is normally not a significant amount of work required to produce a master of this radio edit because everything is sonically identical between the two versions. If however there are three versions of a song, say the studio version, a remix and a demo version, and all of these are importantly different in terms of sound, such that different EQ and dynamic settings are necessary during the mastering process, then these are viewed as three different tracks despite the fact they may all be called the same thing.

Vinyl files

Vinyl files means a set of files which can be sent to your chosen facility to be cut for vinyl manufacturing. This does not include the actual cutting or pressing itself, they are just the files to be sent to be cut elsewhere. Generally speaking the files mainly differ from the approved digital masters only in that they are 2db quieter, may have a stricter phase coherence or may have certain frequencies more strictly dynamically controlled if deemed necessary. Regardless of whether vinyl files are offered as an included part of a package or purchased as an add-on service, they are provided only after the digital masters have been approved. As such, if after approving the digital masters and requesting the vinyl files the client changes their mind and requests new revisions of some kind and another round of vinyl files is required to reflect these revisions, another round of vinyl files will have to be paid for at the going rate.

Backups

Infinite backups are not provided. It is assumed that after a month of project approval, the project can be deleted. However, a good amount of backups exist for projects even up to a few years old. Software changes over time. One example is the Catalina update breaking anything 32 bit. Other software updates may pose additional challenges for opening old sessions. More issues may occur as a result of the fallible nature of file archival. This is why requests in respect to historic data retrieval are often fruitful but no guarantee can be offered.