Privacy

Last changed 15 October 2026. Questions: thisdudestartedsomething@gmail.com

DAWVID turns a music project (Ableton Live, FL Studio, Studio One, or MIDI from another DAW) into a video. To do that it has to receive the project. This page says exactly what is received, what is kept, for how long, and how to remove it.

DAWVID is run by Garded LLC, a Delaware limited liability company, 150 Central Park S, New York, NY 10019, United States. Garded LLC is responsible for the information described on this page.

What you upload

• The project file you drop (for example an .als, .flp or .song file, or a MIDI file).
• The song audio you drop with it or add later: your bounce, an MP3, or any other version of the song. If you drop a whole project folder, up to six audio files found in it are sent so the bounce can be found among them.
• If you drop a video (the Reel you posted, for example), only its sound is kept. The video is deleted as soon as the sound is taken out of it, and the sound keeps none of the video's details (no title, no place it was filmed).
• If you paste a Dropbox or Google Drive link, the server downloads that one file and keeps it the same way. The link itself is not kept.
• Never your Samples folder, and never anything you did not drop.

What is made from it

• A reading of the project (its tracks, notes, colours and arrangement) and a plan of the video, as two data files.
• A working copy of the audio, and the mp4 files you export. A hosted server keeps the newest three exports of a song.

How long it is kept

• Everything above is deleted 14 days after the upload, automatically. Nothing is kept in a backup.
• Delete now: every song in the app has a Delete now button. It removes the project, the audio, the reading, the exports and the working files at once.

Who can open a song

• There are no accounts and no passwords. A song is reached only through its own address, which holds a long random id. Anyone who has that address can open the song, so treat it like a private link.
• Nothing is listed, published or posted. DAWVID gives you an mp4; where it goes is up to you.
• Your files are used to make your video and for nothing else. They are not shared, sold, or used to train anything.

The behaviour log

To learn what works, the server writes one line when something happens in the app: the time, the id of the song, the name of the event (for example uploaded, remix, export_finished, deleted), and a few small facts such as a number of seconds, which dial was turned, the answer to "Where is this going?", or the DAW you make music in (your answer to "What do you make music in?", or the kind of project you dropped).

• It holds no file names and no song titles: a word that looks like a file name is stored only as a short scrambled code.
• It holds no IP addresses, no email addresses, no payment details and no browser fingerprint. A visitor has no id in it. Someone invited by a personal link appears under the name on that invite.
• If you arrived by a link we posted that ends in a word (for example dawvid.com/funkytown), that word is written on the lines about your visit, so we can tell which post brought people. It names the link, not you. Your browser keeps the word only until you close the tab.
• The log is not deleted with a song. It keeps the song's id and the event names.
• To stop abuse, the server counts requests per network address for up to an hour, in memory only. This is never written down.

The company that hosts the server may keep its own connection logs, which include network addresses, for a limited time for security. We do not use them to identify you.

Cookies and what your browser keeps

• If you open an invite link: dawvid_i remembers the invite for 60 days so the app works without the link.
• dawvid_v gives this browser a random id, signed by the server, kept for up to 400 days. It is how the server knows that this browser has had its free song, and whether it is on a paid plan. Scripts on the page cannot read it. It is needed for the service and is not used for anything else.
• Beside that id the server keeps a small record: the id of your free song, and, if you pay, which payer's plan this browser belongs to. This record is not deleted with your song after 14 days (otherwise every deleted song would be a new free one).
• To stop one person taking many free songs, the server counts how many free songs were started from a network address each day. It stores a scrambled code made from the address, never the address, and drops it after two days.
• Your browser's own storage keeps, on your device only: the list of your recent songs (their ids, names, colours and dates, so the page can show them again), your takes while a tab is open, which hints you have already seen, the look you chose, the DAW you said you make music in, and the invite from your link. None of it is sent anywhere, except that DAW answer, which is written on the log lines as said above. Clearing your browser data removes it.
• We use Google Analytics to count visits and see how people find and use the site. Its script sets cookies (_ga and _ga_*) that give your browser a random id, and Google receives your network address and browser details to work out an approximate location and device. We send it the page you are on (with song ids and private links removed), the word of the link you arrived by, and the names of the steps you take (for example "uploaded" or "export finished"), never a file name, song, email address or invite. Google handles this under its own privacy policy. If your browser sends Global Privacy Control or Do Not Track, the script is not loaded. No advertising, no tracking pixels.

"Send this to my computer"

On a phone, that button hands a link to your own share sheet, clipboard or mail app. We never see where you send it. The link holds the demo song, the take and the Energy value you had, a random number so we can count how many links are opened, and the word of the link you arrived by, if it had one. It holds nothing about you.

"Email me the link"

On a phone you can instead type an email address and have the link sent there. If you do:

• One email is sent to that address, automatically, right away. It is a short welcome with the link to DAWVID, and nothing else. It is the only email: the address is not added to any mailing list, and it is not shared or sold.
• The email is sent for us by Resend, a mail-sending service acting on our behalf. It receives the address and the text of that one email in order to deliver it, and keeps its own delivery records under its own privacy policy. The email holds no tracking image: its one picture is our logo, the same file for everyone, loaded from dawvid.com.
• We keep the address, the time it was typed, whether the email was sent (with the service's id for that message), and the word of the link you arrived by, if it had one. Nothing else: no network address and nothing about your browser. It is kept in a private file on the server, apart from the behaviour log, which records only that an email was asked for and sent.
• The same address is not mailed again for a few minutes, and at most twice in a day, so the form cannot be used to pester anyone. If an email from us reached you and you did not ask for it, someone typed your address; nothing more will come.
• To have the address deleted, write to thisdudestartedsomething@gmail.com from it, or reply to the email.

Payments and email

• Payments are taken by Stripe on its own page. You give your email address and your card to Stripe, not to DAWVID. DAWVID never receives your card number.
• From Stripe DAWVID receives and keeps: the email address you paid with, Stripe's ids for you and for your plan, whether the plan is paid, when the paid month ends, and whether a payment failed. It is kept while you have a plan and afterwards for as long as the law requires records of payments to be kept.
• Beside that, the server keeps which plan you are on, the dates of your current month, and the ids of the songs you have started in it, each with a scrambled fingerprint of the project file (a SHA-256 code). The fingerprint is how the same project dropped twice is counted once; the file cannot be worked out from it. The list starts again each month.
• Your email is used to know that the plan is yours and to answer you. It is not used for marketing and is not in the behaviour log.
• Your restore link turns the plan on in another browser. Anyone who has the link can do that, so keep it to yourself.

Stripe is Stripe, Inc.; its own privacy policy is at stripe.com/privacy. We keep payment records for as long as tax and accounting law requires. Wherever you live, you can ask for a copy of what we hold about you, or to have it corrected or deleted, by writing to thisdudestartedsomething@gmail.com.

If you write to us, we have your message and the address you wrote from, and use them only to answer.

Asking for something to be removed

Use Delete now in the app, or write to thisdudestartedsomething@gmail.com with the song's address and it will be removed. To have lines about a song taken out of the behaviour log, send the same address.