RULES OF THE STAGE

1. A Skill-Based Competition

2. The Short Version

• 30 days per season. The first 14 are open auditions. The next 16 narrow the field through six voting rounds and three interlude days, ending in a 72-hour Finale.
• Free to enter and free to vote. No entry fee, no purchase, no consideration of any kind.
• One song per artist per season.
• Original work only. No covers, no remixes, no recreations of existing songs (even AI-generated ones). You must own the rights to everything you upload.
• Three AI judges score every track. Public voting narrows the field. The Finale is a 72-hour single-pick vote among three finalists, and Finale voting requires a logged-in account.
• Grand prize: USD $1,000 cash, wired to the winner within seven days. Runner-up and third-place receive permanent profile features.
• You retain ownership of your music. We get a non-exclusive license to host, stream, and promote it in connection with the competition (§6).
• Open worldwide except where U.S. sanctions law or local statute prohibits (§3.3).

3. Eligibility

3.1 Age

Each entrant must be eighteen (18) years of age or older at the time of submission. Entrants under the age of 18 must have a parent or legal guardian submit on their behalf, and the entrant and the parent or legal guardian shall be jointly bound by these rules. Where local law sets a higher age of majority, that local age controls; in any event, parental or guardian consent is required for any entrant who has not reached the age of majority in the entrant's jurisdiction of residence.

3.2 Where you can enter

The competition is open to entrants worldwide except as listed in §3.3. The operator accepts entries from any country with which the United States is not legally restricted from doing business under sanctions law and where participation in a skill-based competition awarding a cash prize is permitted by local law.

3.3 Excluded jurisdictions

An entrant is not eligible to submit, vote, or claim a prize if the entrant is a resident of, ordinarily domiciled in, or accessing the service from any of the following jurisdictions:

• OFAC comprehensively sanctioned countries: Cuba, Iran, North Korea (DPRK), Syria, and the Crimea, Donetsk, and Luhansk regions of Ukraine. Under U.S. Department of the Treasury rules, the operator cannot lawfully accept entries from or transfer prize funds to these jurisdictions.
• OFAC SDN List: any individual or entity appearing on the Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons List, regardless of country of residence.
• Other broadly sanctioned jurisdictions: prize disbursements to residents of Russia, Belarus, Venezuela, Myanmar (Burma), and other countries facing broad U.S. sanctions are subject to U.S. Treasury rules and may require a specific OFAC license. The operator will not transmit any prize wire it cannot lawfully complete. Where a finalist resides in such a jurisdiction, the operator will work with the finalist on a licensed disbursement path or, if no such path is available, advance the prize to the next-eligible finalist in podium order.
• Where prohibited by local law: any jurisdiction in which participation in a skill-based competition with a cash prize is prohibited or restricted by statute, regulation, or court order. The competition is void where prohibited by law.
• Paid-entry seasons only, additional jurisdictional exclusions: in any season in which the operator has activated a paid-entry program under §5.7, paid additional entries shall not be sold to or accepted from residents of: Colorado, Maryland, Nebraska, North Dakota, and Vermont in the United States; and the Canadian province of Quebec. The free entry under §5.5 remains available to entrants in those jurisdictions on equal terms with all other entrants. This carve-out applies only when paid entries are on offer; in seasons that are entirely free (including Season 1 and any future season in which §5.7 has not been activated), the consideration-based statutes of these jurisdictions are not implicated and entrants from these jurisdictions participate on the same terms as all other entrants.

Where an entrant is excluded under this section, any submission, vote, or prize claim by that entrant is void, and the operator has no obligation to award. The operator may verify residency, citizenship, and sanctions-list status before payment of any prize.

3.4 Employees and immediate family

Employees, contractors, officers, and directors of Piña Tropical and its affiliates, and their immediate family members (spouses, parents, children, siblings, and members of the same household) are not eligible to win prizes. Such persons may participate for visibility purposes, but any monetary prize and feature placement shall skip them in favor of the next-eligible artist in podium order.

3.5 Accounts

One eligible person, one account. The creation of multiple accounts to evade voting limits, inflate leaderboard rankings, or submit duplicate entries shall result in disqualification of all associated entries and votes, plus a permanent ban from current and future seasons.

4. Competition Format

4.1 Phases

Each 30-day season runs the following arc, with full daily timing on the schedule page:

1. Days 1 through 14: Auditions. Open submissions; the AI judges score every upload within minutes.
2. Day 15: The Draw. The top 100 by judge average is announced. No votes.
3. Days 16 and 17: Round of 100 to 50 (heart voting).
4. Days 18 and 19: Round of 50 to 25 (pair voting; 25 head-to-head matchups).
5. Day 20: Second Listen. The judges re-score the 25. No votes.
6. Days 21 and 22: Round of 25 to 10 (heart voting).
7. Day 23: Top 10 Showcase. Editorial day. No votes.
8. Days 24 and 25: Round of 10 to 5 (pair voting; 5 head-to-head matchups).
9. Days 26 and 27: Semifinal 5 to 3 (single-pick voting).
10. Days 28 through 30: The Finale 3 to 1 (single-pick voting; 72 hours; live tallies are not displayed until the podium reveal).

Rounds open at 00:00 UTC and close at 23:59:59 UTC on the listed day.

4.2 Scoring mechanics

Each round's advancers are determined by the mechanic listed in §4.1, applying the following objective rules:

• Heart voting (R100, R25): unlimited hearts per voter, with one heart per song. The top N songs by total heart count advance.
• Pair voting (R50, R10): seeded head-to-head matchups (#1 vs #N, #2 vs #N-1, and so on, by judge average). The matchup winner advances. One vote per voter per matchup; voters may vote on as many or as few matchups as they choose.
• Single-pick voting (Semifinal, Finale): one vote per voter for the entire round. The top N songs by pick count advance.

4.3 Tie-breakers

Where a tie occurs at any cut (heart-round advance, pair-matchup outcome, single-pick cut, or finale podium), the following tie-breakers apply in this order:

1. Higher judge average across all three judges on the most recent scoring pass. Where a Second Listen score exists, that score supersedes the initial Auditions score for purposes of tie-breaking.
2. Lower score range (greater agreement among the three judges on the most recent scoring pass).
3. Earliest upload timestamp (the artist whose entry was submitted first wins).

Random selection is not used at any stage of tie-breaking. All tie-breakers are derived from the judge-skill scoring pipeline or from the verifiable submission timestamp, preserving the competition's status as a contest of skill.

4.4 AI judges

The three judge personas (Ellie Fountaine for vocal performance, Seung-ho Rhee for production and mix, and Mochi B. Flats for composition and vibe) are powered by the operator's scoring pipeline. The judges evaluate each track on documented criteria including vocal performance, production quality, hook strength, lyrical content, originality, emotional impact, comparable artists, and arrangement. Scores are rendered on a 0.0 to 10.0 scale. Judge feedback (quips, strengths, weaknesses) is generated automatically and is final.

Where a judging-pipeline error materially affects a score, the operator reserves the right to re-score the affected tracks under the same criteria and to re-run the affected round. Any operator force-action (re-scoring, round freeze, schedule shift) is logged in the platform admin log; material force-actions are noted publicly on the affected round page.

4.5 Brigading and round freeze

Where the operator detects coordinated manipulation of a specific matchup or round (including without limitation large coordinated vote bursts from a single IP block, social-media-organized brigading explicitly intended to evade per-voter limits, or paid-vote campaigns), the operator may freeze the affected matchup or round, override the winner using the tie-breaker order in §4.3 (typically the higher judge average), and post a public note on the round page explaining the action and the evidence relied upon.

5. Submissions

5.1 What counts as AI music

Each submission must be primarily generated using AI music tools (including but not limited to Suno, Udio, Stable Audio, AIVA, MusicLM, or any comparable platform). Hybrid tracks are eligible, including AI vocals with human production, AI instrumentals with human lyrics, or any other meaningful collaboration in which AI is a substantial creative collaborator. Pure human-only recordings without AI involvement are not eligible.

5.2 Original work only; no covers

Each submission must be an original composition. Cover versions, remixes, mashups, samples of recognizable existing recordings, and re-records of third-party songs are not eligible, whether or not the cover is generated through an AI tool. The entrant must own or control all copyright in both the underlying composition (the song itself: melody, lyrics, chord progression) and the master recording (the specific audio uploaded). Submissions that adapt, recreate, or substantially derive from a copyrighted work owned by any party other than the entrant shall be disqualified, even where the AI-generation process introduced surface-level differences.

Tracks inspired by a genre, era, or style associated with an artist are permitted, as that is the intended use of generative AI music tools. Tracks that reproduce specific melodies, lyrics, or instrumental arrangements from an identifiable third-party song are not.

5.3 Rights to underlying material

Each entrant must own or have all necessary licenses to every layer of the submission, including:

• All lyrics, whether the entrant's own original writing or properly licensed from the writer.
• All samples used (cleared with the rights-holder, in the public domain, or AI-generated free of any third-party master).
• The output of any AI tool used, in accordance with that tool's commercial-use terms (by way of example: Suno requires a paid plan for commercial-use rights; Udio's terms similarly govern). Free-tier output in which the AI platform retains rights is not eligible for prize-bearing use.
• Any human performances captured in the track, whether the entrant's own performance or the performance of a session musician under written work-for-hire or assignment.

Each entrant represents and warrants that:

• The submission is an original work as defined in §5.2.
• The entrant owns or controls 100% of the rights necessary to grant the license described in §6.
• The submission does not infringe any third party's copyright, trademark, publicity rights, privacy rights, or any other right.

Each entrant agrees to indemnify Piña Tropical against any claim arising from a breach of these representations, with the entrant's aggregate indemnity obligation capped at the value of any prize received from the relevant season.

5.4 Format

• Length: 90 seconds to 10 minutes.
• Audio file: accepted formats are MP3, WAV, FLAC, M4A, OGG, and AAC. Maximum file size is 25 MB. The platform may add or adjust accepted formats as the upload pipeline and the judge pipeline successfully support them.
• Cover art: strongly preferred but not required. JPEG, PNG, or WEBP, with 1024 by 1024 pixels recommended as a minimum. Where the entrant provides cover art, the cover art is included in the license grant under §6 alongside the track.
• Genre tag: optional. The platform may auto-assign a genre at ingest time when the entrant does not provide one; the entrant may override the assigned genre by selecting from the platform's genre list.

5.5 One free entry per artist per season

Each entrant is entitled to one (1) free song submission per season under one (1) artist identity. An entrant who maintains multiple artist projects must select one for each season. Multiple free submissions from the same person under different artist names will be detected and shall result in disqualification of all associated entries. The free entry described in this section is the operator's always-free-method-of-entry and shall remain available in every season regardless of any future paid-entry program described in §5.7.

5.6 Submission window

Submissions open at 00:00:00 UTC on Day 1 of the season and close at 23:59:59 UTC on Day 14. Submissions outside this window are rejected automatically by the platform. The operator does not accept late entries through any other channel.

5.7 Additional paid entries (reserved for future seasons)

The operator reserves the right, in any future season, to offer artists the opportunity to submit additional paid entries beyond the free entry described in §5.5. Any future paid-entry program shall be subject to the conditions in this §5.7 and to applicable law. Where these rules, the website, or the upload form do not announce a paid-entry program for an active season, no paid-entry program is in effect for that season and only the free entry in §5.5 is available.

When the operator activates a paid-entry program for a future season, the following conditions apply, without exception:

• Free entry remains the always-free method of entry. The free entry under §5.5 shall remain available to every eligible entrant in every season. Paid entries are additive to, and do not displace, the free entry. No entrant shall be required to pay any consideration to participate in the competition or to be eligible for any prize.
• No scoring or visibility advantage. Paid additional entries shall be subject to the same originality, AI-generation, rights, and content rules as free entries (§5). Paid entries shall not receive scoring advantages, judge bias, seeding bonuses, leaderboard weighting, or preferential placement of any kind. Each entry, free or paid, is judged and voted on the same merits.
• Disclosure before submissions open. Any season offering a paid-entry program shall publish, on this page and on the upload form, before submissions for that season open: the price per additional entry, the maximum number of additional entries per artist (if capped), the refund policy, and the always-free method of entry. The disclosure shall be in effect for the duration of the affected season.
• Eligibility carve-outs. Paid additional entries shall not be offered to, sold to, or accepted from residents of any jurisdiction in which consideration in a skill-based competition is prohibited or restricted by law, including without limitation: the U.S. states identified in §3.3; the Canadian province of Quebec where applicable; and any other jurisdiction where applicable law prohibits or restricts paid skill-contest entries. The free entry under §5.5 remains available to entrants in those jurisdictions on equal terms with all other entrants.
• Refunds. A paid additional entry shall be refundable in full where: (a) the entrant withdraws the additional entry before it has been judged or has otherwise entered the active competition; (b) the operator suspends, cancels, or materially reschedules the affected season under §15 and the entrant elects to withdraw rather than continue; or (c) the operator disqualifies the entry on a ground that is not the fault of the entrant. Once a paid additional entry has been judged or has otherwise entered the active competition, no refund is owed.
• Prize-pool use. Revenue from paid additional entries may, at the operator's discretion, be applied to increase the cash prize, the prize pool, or any podium-tier perk for the affected season under the upward-only modification clause in §8.1. Paid-entry revenue shall not be used to reduce any previously published prize amount.
• Tax and disbursement. Payments for additional entries are sales of an entry into a skill-based competition and are not refundable except as provided above. Where the operator is required by law to collect sales, value-added, or similar transactional tax on a paid entry, the operator shall do so. The tax-on-prize provisions in §9 are unaffected.
• No retroactive activation. The operator shall not activate a paid-entry program retroactively in an active season. The paid-entry rules for any season are those published on this page before that season's submissions open and shall not be changed during that season except as permitted by §16.1.

6. License Grant

6.1 Rights granted

By submitting a track to Music Idol AI, each entrant grants Piña Tropical and its affiliates a worldwide, royalty-free, non-exclusive license to:

• Host, store, transcode, cache, and stream the track on the Music Idol AI platform and on any successor platform during and after the competition.
• Display the track's metadata (title, artist name, cover art, and any lyrics provided) on the platform and in related publications.
• Use the track in full or in part, including full plays and excerpts, in marketing and promotional materials related to the competition, including without limitation:
  • Social media posts on Music Idol AI's, Piña Tropical's, and showtune.ai's channels.
  • Promotional videos including trailers, recaps, judge highlights, and podium reveals.
  • Press materials and editorial coverage.
  • The /seasons archive on the website and any historical anthology of past competitions.
• Create video content, audio content, image content, and other derivative or composite works related to or derived from the season as a whole and from any individual entry track. Such derivative works may incorporate the track in full or in part, in original or remixed/edited form, alongside other entries, judge commentary, host narration, on-screen text, motion graphics, and additional audio. Distribution channels include without limitation the platform itself, the operator's social channels, and the operator's affiliated properties (Music Idol AI, Piña Tropical, showtune.ai).
• Reference the track and the artist name in season recaps, podium reveals, and any historical or archival publication about the competition.
• Use the track, any cover art, and any metadata associated with the entry to train, fine-tune, evaluate, and benchmark artificial-intelligence and machine-learning models, including without limitation generative-audio models, AI judging and scoring models, audio-classification models, and music-information-retrieval systems, whether developed by the operator, by the operator's affiliates, or by third-party partners under contract with the operator. The outputs of such models are the property of the model developer and do not constitute the entrant's track. The entrant retains all underlying ownership of the entrant's original recording per §6.3.

6.2 Duration

The license is perpetual for archival and historical purposes (so the operator can display "Season 1 winners" on the season page indefinitely without renegotiation), and active for active marketing for two (2) years following the season's Finale. After the two-year active-marketing period, marketing use of the full track in new campaigns requires the entrant's renewed permission, except for: (a) archival display on the season page, which remains permanent; and (b) continued distribution, republication, and use of any derivative work the operator created during the two-year active-marketing period in accordance with §6.1, which remains valid in perpetuity.

6.3 Rights retained by the entrant

Each entrant retains all underlying ownership of the entrant's music. The license granted under §6.1 is non-exclusive, and the entrant retains every right not expressly granted to the operator. Without limitation, the operator does not:

• Claim copyright, songwriter credit, or master ownership in the entrant's work.
• Sub-license the track to third-party music libraries, sync agencies, or commercial advertisers.
• Distribute the track on commercial streaming platforms (Spotify, Apple Music, Tidal, Amazon Music, or comparable services) without the entrant's separate written agreement.
• Take any portion of any future earnings from the entrant's music.

Each entrant remains free to release the track on commercial streaming platforms before, during, or after the competition.

6.4 Right of publicity

Each entrant additionally grants the operator the right to use the entrant's artist name, handle, and (where the entrant provides it) likeness in connection with promoting the competition and announcing its results. An entrant may opt out of likeness use specifically (without forfeiting the rest of the license) by emailing the address in §16 with the subject line "Likeness opt-out."

6.5 Account deletion

Where an entrant deletes the entrant's account during or after the competition, the operator shall remove the entrant's track from active streaming on the platform within thirty (30) days. The license to use already-published marketing materials referencing the track (including videos, social posts, and season recaps that have been published) survives account deletion for the full two-year active-marketing period; the operator is not obligated to take down already-published material referencing prior competition entries.

7. Voting

7.1 Free and open

Voting is free for any user worldwide, subject to the eligibility exclusions in §3.3. No purchase is necessary to vote, and no payment is accepted from voters at any stage of the competition.

7.2 Anonymous voting in early rounds

Voting in the early rounds (Round of 100, Round of 50, Round of 25, and Round of 10) does not require an account. Anonymous voters are identified by a one-way fingerprint derived from the voter's IP address, browser user-agent, and the round identifier; the fingerprint cannot be reversed to identify the voter and is used solely to enforce per-voter vote limits and to deter coordinated manipulation. Anonymous voters retain the right to vote anonymously in those rounds.

7.3 Authenticated voting in final rounds

Voting in the Semifinal and the Finale is restricted to authenticated users. Each voter must hold an active Music Idol AI account, signed in at the time of vote, in order to cast a Semifinal or Finale vote. The operator may verify voter authenticity through reasonable means (including email verification, sign-in provider claims, and velocity-based fraud detection) and may reject votes that fail those verifications. This authentication requirement protects the integrity of the rounds in which a single vote materially affects podium order.

7.4 Per-mechanic limits

• Heart rounds (R100, R25): one heart per song per voter; unlimited songs per voter.
• Pair rounds (R50, R10): one vote per matchup per voter; voters may vote on as many or as few matchups as they choose.
• Single-pick rounds (Semifinal, Finale): one vote total per voter for the entire round, by an authenticated user only (per §7.3).

7.5 Anti-fraud

The operator uses anonymized fingerprinting (a SHA-256 hash of IP address, user-agent, and round identifier) to enforce vote uniqueness in addition to per-account limits in the authenticated rounds. The fingerprint cannot be reverse-engineered to the voter's identity by the operator or any third party.

Suspicious activity (including without limitation vote buying, bot-driven voting, coordinated brigading, and use of VPNs or proxies to evade fingerprint limits) shall result in the following:

• Removal of suspicious votes from the tally.
• Possible disqualification of the artist whose ranking benefited from the activity, where there is documented evidence of artist involvement in the manipulation.
• Possible permanent ban of the voter accounts involved.

8. Prizes

8.1 The spoils

• 1st place (The Champion): USD $1,000 cash, wired to the winner within seven (7) calendar days of the Finale settling, plus a permanent winner badge on the artist profile, a featured artist spotlight on musicidol.ai, a detailed scoring report from all three judges, and promotion on showtune.ai's social channels.
• 2nd place (Runner-Up): a silver runner-up badge, featured leaderboard placement for the next season, and a detailed judge feedback report.
• 3rd place (Bronze): a bronze badge, featured leaderboard placement for the next season, and a detailed judge feedback report.

The cash prize amount and the perks attached to each podium tier may be revised between seasons. The amount and structure stated above govern the current season; future seasons shall publish their own prize structure on this page before submissions for that season open.

Upward-only modification during an active season. The operator reserves the right to increase the cash prize, the prize pool, or any podium-tier perk during an active season, including without limitation in connection with sponsorships, partnerships, audience-engagement milestones, or revenue from any paid-entry program activated under §5.7. Any such increase shall be announced on this page and on the platform before it takes effect, and the announcement shall identify the round at which the increase becomes effective. The operator shall not, during an active season, reduce the published prize, prize pool, or podium-tier perks below the amounts stated above; the amounts stated above are a floor, not a ceiling, for the active season.

8.2 Payment method

The cash prize is paid by wire transfer in U.S. Dollars. The winner shall provide accurate banking details (bank name, SWIFT or BIC code, IBAN where applicable, account number, routing number, and any local equivalent) within fourteen (14) calendar days of being notified. Failure to provide accurate disbursement information within thirty (30) calendar days shall result in forfeiture of the prize, in which event the operator reserves the right to advance the prize to the next-eligible finalist in podium order.

8.3 Currency, fees, and net amount

The prize is denominated in U.S. Dollars. Wire transfer fees on the sending side are paid by the operator. Receiving fees, currency conversion fees, and intermediary bank charges are the winner's responsibility. The winner shall receive the gross prize less any applicable tax withholding (per §9) less any receiving-bank fees imposed by the winner's financial institution.

8.4 No substitution

Prizes are non-transferable, non-substitutable, and have no cash equivalent above the stated amount. The operator may, in its discretion and in unusual circumstances (including but not limited to a lawful-disbursement obstacle), substitute a prize of equal or greater value with the winner's written consent.

9. Tax Obligations

9.1 Winner's tax responsibility

The winner is solely responsible for all federal, state, local, provincial, and foreign taxes owed on the prize, including without limitation any applicable income tax, prize tax, gift tax, or value-added tax in the winner's jurisdiction of residence. The amounts described in §8.1 represent the gross prize value; any tax withheld at source under §9.3 forms part of that gross value and counts toward the winner's tax liability.

9.2 U.S. winners (W-9, 1099-MISC)

Where the winner is a U.S. person (citizen, resident alien, or U.S. business entity), the operator shall require a completed IRS Form W-9 prior to disbursing the prize. Where the prize, when aggregated with any other prizes paid to the same person within the same calendar year, totals USD $600 or more, the operator shall issue an IRS Form 1099-MISC reporting the prize as Other Income.

9.3 Non-U.S. winners (W-8BEN, 1042-S, 30% withholding)

Where the winner is a non-U.S. person, the operator shall require a completed IRS Form W-8BEN prior to disbursing the prize. Under U.S. tax law, the operator is generally required to withhold thirty percent (30%) of the gross prize amount at source on payments to non-U.S. persons.

The winner may be entitled to a reduced withholding rate or a complete exemption under an applicable income tax treaty between the United States and the winner's country of tax residence. To claim a treaty benefit, the winner shall complete the relevant section of Form W-8BEN and provide a valid foreign Taxpayer Identification Number. The operator does not provide tax advice and strongly recommends that the winner consult a qualified tax professional in the winner's jurisdiction.

The operator shall issue IRS Form 1042-S reporting the gross prize and any tax withheld to the winner and to the IRS no later than March 15 of the year following the year in which the prize was paid.

9.4 Where lawful disbursement is not possible

Where U.S. sanctions law, anti-money-laundering rules, or any other binding legal obligation prevents the operator from disbursing the prize to the winner (including without limitation a winner located in a sanctioned jurisdiction, appearing on the OFAC SDN list, or subject to a court order against payment), the operator shall withhold disbursement until the legal restriction is lifted, work with the winner to seek a specific OFAC license where eligible, or, where the prize cannot lawfully be paid, void the prize without further obligation. In any such event, the operator may, in its discretion, advance the prize to the next-eligible finalist in podium order.

10. Code of Conduct

10.1 Submitted content

Each entrant's track and the metadata provided shall not contain:

• Hate speech, slurs, or content targeting people on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion, national origin, gender identity, sexual orientation, disability, or age.
• Direct threats, calls to violence, or content that could reasonably be construed as incitement.
• Sexually explicit content involving minors. This prohibition is categorical, admits no exceptions, and the operator shall refer any such material to law enforcement.
• Content that violates any third party's copyright, trademark, publicity rights, or privacy rights.
• Content that violates the terms of service of Suno, Udio, or any other AI tool used to generate it.
• Spam, low-effort placeholder uploads, or content unrelated to music.

10.2 On-platform behavior

On the platform's commenting, reaction, and engagement surfaces, each user shall not engage in:

• Harassment, threats, doxxing, or coordinated attacks against any artist, voter, judge persona, or staff member.
• Spam, link farms, or unsolicited promotion of unrelated products or services.
• Coordinated voting manipulation, brigade organizing, or vote-trading networks (whether in comments, direct messages, or off-platform channels).

Disagreement with the judges, the schedule, or these rules is permitted and welcomed. Personal disrespect of other users is not.

10.3 Off-platform conduct

The operator does not police the off-platform personal conduct of artists. The operator does, however, reserve the right to disqualify an artist whose off-platform conduct in connection with the competition (including without limitation paying for votes, threatening other artists publicly, or soliciting brigading) is documented and verified through public posts, screenshots, transaction records, or first-party complaints that the operator can corroborate.

11. Disqualification

The operator reserves the right to disqualify any entry, votes, or artist for any of the following:

• Violation of any provision of these rules.
• Fraudulent voting activity (per §7.5).
• Misrepresentation of identity, age, or geographic location.
• Submission of a cover, remix, or derivative work of any third-party copyrighted song (per §5.2).
• Submission of content that infringes third-party rights (per §5.3).
• On-platform conduct in violation of §10.
• Off-platform conduct that materially harms the integrity of the competition (per §10.3).

Disqualified entries shall forfeit all standings and prizes. Disqualified votes shall be removed from tallies. Disqualified artists may, in the operator's discretion, be permanently banned from current and future seasons. The operator shall make disqualification decisions in its reasonable discretion and document them in the platform admin log.

12. Privacy and Data

12.1 What the operator collects

• Account data (email address, name, optional profile fields) provided by the user at sign-up.
• Submission data (audio file, metadata, optional cover art) uploaded by the entrant.
• Voting and engagement data (which songs were hearted, voted for, reacted to, or commented on) for purposes of operating the competition.
• Anonymous vote-fingerprint data (per §7.5) for anti-fraud purposes.
• Standard server logs (IP address, user-agent, timestamps) for security and operational purposes.

The operator does not sell user data to third parties.

12.2 Data retention

Account data is retained for the lifetime of the account. Submission audio is retained for the active-marketing period defined in §6.2 (two (2) years after the relevant season's Finale) and indefinitely as part of the season archive in lower bitrate. Voting and engagement data is retained for two (2) years after the relevant season's Finale, after which it is aggregated into anonymous statistics and the per-user records are deleted. Server logs are retained for ninety (90) days. Anonymous fingerprint hashes are retained for the duration of the active competition and deleted within thirty (30) days of the season's Finale.

12.3 EU and UK residents (GDPR / UK GDPR)

For users subject to the GDPR or UK GDPR, the operator's legal bases for processing are as follows:

• Contract (Art. 6(1)(b)): data needed to operate the user's account, deliver the user's submission, and run the competition.
• Legitimate interest (Art. 6(1)(f)): anti-fraud, security logs, and basic platform analytics. Users may object to processing under this basis at any time.
• Consent (Art. 6(1)(a)): any marketing email beyond direct competition updates is processed only with the user's separate explicit opt-in. Users may withdraw that consent at any time.

Users have the right to access, rectify, port, and erase their personal data; to object to processing under legitimate interest; and to lodge a complaint with their local data protection authority. To exercise these rights, see §16.

12.4 Marketing

Direct competition emails (round openings, prize disbursement notices, account security alerts) are operational and do not require separate marketing consent. Any other marketing email (newsletters, cross-promotion of showtune.ai, season-launch announcements unrelated to the user's active participation) requires a separate explicit opt-in. Users may withdraw that consent at any time through the unsubscribe link in any marketing email or through the user's account settings.

12.5 Privacy Policy

The full Privacy Policy describes the operator's data practices in detail and shall prevail over any inconsistency with this section.

13. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, Piña Tropical, Music Idol AI, their affiliates, employees, contractors, officers, directors, and agents disclaim all liability for indirect, incidental, special, consequential, exemplary, or punitive damages arising out of or related to participation in the competition, including without limitation:

• Technical failures, network outages, or platform downtime.
• Errors in scoring, voting, leaderboard display, or prize calculation, subject to the operator's re-scoring right under §4.4.
• Disqualification under §11.
• Tax liability or withholding under §9.
• Disputes between artists, between voters, or between artists and voters.

The operator's aggregate liability arising from any artist's participation in any single season shall be capped at USD $1,000 (the value of the grand prize), except where applicable law prohibits this limitation, in which event the lowest amount permitted by such law shall apply.

Nothing in these rules excludes or limits liability for fraud, willful misconduct, gross negligence, death, personal injury, or any liability that cannot be excluded or limited by applicable law.

14. Governing Law and Disputes

14.1 Governing law

These rules shall be governed by the laws of the State of Texas, U.S.A., without regard to its conflict-of-laws provisions, and (for the substantive law of the competition itself) the federal laws of the United States.

14.2 Venue (non-arbitrable matters)

For any matter not subject to binding arbitration under §14.3 (including without limitation actions for injunctive or equitable relief, qualifying small-claims actions, and the confirmation or enforcement of an arbitral award), the exclusive venue shall be the state and federal courts located in Austin, Texas. Each party consents to personal jurisdiction in those courts.

14.3 Binding arbitration

Except for matters expressly excluded in §14.3.1 below, any dispute, claim, or controversy arising out of or relating to these rules, the competition, the platform, or the entrant's participation, whether based in contract, tort, statute, fraud, misrepresentation, or any other legal theory, shall be resolved by binding individual arbitration administered by the American Arbitration Association ("AAA") under its Commercial Arbitration Rules and, where applicable to a consumer dispute, its Consumer Arbitration Rules. The arbitration shall be conducted by a single arbitrator. Hearings shall be held in Austin, Texas, U.S.A.; an entrant may elect, at the entrant's option and where the AAA rules permit, to participate by telephone, video, or written submission rather than in-person hearing. Judgment on the award rendered by the arbitrator may be entered in any court of competent jurisdiction.

14.3.1 Carve-outs from arbitration

The following are expressly excluded from this arbitration agreement and may be brought in the courts identified in §14.2: (a) any action seeking only injunctive or other equitable relief to prevent the actual or threatened infringement, misappropriation, or violation of a party's intellectual-property or confidentiality rights; (b) any action that qualifies for and is brought in a small-claims court of competent jurisdiction; and (c) any action brought by a consumer in a forum where mandatory arbitration is unenforceable under that consumer's local law (see §14.7).

14.3.2 Costs

Filing, administrative, and arbitrator fees shall be allocated under the AAA rules then in effect. Where the AAA Consumer Arbitration Rules apply, the operator shall pay all such fees to the extent those rules require.

14.3.3 Thirty-day opt-out

A first-time entrant may opt out of this arbitration agreement by sending written notice to the address in §16.3 within thirty (30) days of the entrant's first submission of a track. A timely opt-out preserves the entrant's right to litigate disputes in the courts identified in §14.2 and does not affect the entrant's eligibility to participate. An entrant may opt out only once; opting out for one season opts the entrant out for all future seasons in which that entrant participates.

14.4 Mandatory consultation before arbitration or suit

Prior to initiating arbitration under §14.3 or filing any non-arbitrable claim under §14.2, each entrant shall make a good-faith effort to resolve the matter by writing to the contact in §16. The operator shall respond within fourteen (14) calendar days. This consultation period is mandatory; the limitation period for any subsequent claim shall be tolled for the duration of the consultation period.

14.5 Class-action and class-arbitration waiver

Any dispute shall be brought, and any arbitration shall proceed, on an individual basis only. No class, collective, consolidated, or representative arbitration is permitted, and no class action may be brought in court. Each entrant waives any right to participate as a class member, class representative, or in any private attorney-general capacity in any arbitral or judicial proceeding. If a court or arbitrator decides that this waiver is unenforceable as to any particular claim or request for relief, then that claim or request shall be severed and may proceed in court under §14.2; the remainder of the arbitration agreement and the waiver shall remain in force as to all other claims.

14.6 Severability

Where any provision of these rules is found invalid or unenforceable, that provision shall be severed, and the remaining provisions shall continue in full force. The invalid provision shall be interpreted as closely as possible to its original intent within the bounds of applicable law.

14.7 Local-law overrides

Where a mandatory provision of an entrant's local law materially conflicts with any rule herein and cannot lawfully be waived in the entrant's jurisdiction (for example the consumer-protection rights granted by EU and UK law to consumers; statutory contest-rule disclosures in certain Canadian provinces; or the right to opt out of binding arbitration in certain U.S. states), the local-law provision shall apply to that entrant to the extent of the conflict, and the remainder of these rules shall continue in force.

14.8 Controlling language

These rules are written and shall be interpreted in the English language. Any translation provided for convenience does not modify the legal effect of the English text, and the English text shall control in the event of any inconsistency.

15. Force Majeure and Cancellation

15.1 Force majeure

The operator shall not be liable for any failure or delay in performance under these rules to the extent that the failure or delay is caused by an event beyond the operator's reasonable control, including without limitation: acts of God; natural disasters; armed conflict; civil unrest; pandemic or public-health emergency; government action including sanctions changes; outage, suspension, or material change to the terms of any third-party AI scoring service or AI music tool that the competition relies upon; sustained outage of cloud-infrastructure providers; or cyber-attack against the platform.

15.2 Cancellation, suspension, and rescheduling

Where a force majeure event materially impairs the operator's ability to run a round, the operator may, in its discretion: (a) suspend the affected round and resume it once the impairment is resolved; (b) reschedule the affected round and adjust the season's downstream timing accordingly; (c) cancel the affected round and advance the field on the most recent objective scoring (typically the judge average); or (d) in extraordinary circumstances, cancel the season in its entirety, in which event no prize shall be awarded and any submitted music shall be returned to the entrant's exclusive control. The operator shall communicate any such action to all active participants by email and via a public note on the affected round page.

15.3 No obligation to award if no eligible winner exists

Where no eligible artist is available to receive the prize after the application of all eligibility rules and the next-eligible-finalist advancement procedures in §3.3 and §9.4, the operator shall have no obligation to award the prize for that season.

16. Changes and Contact

16.1 Changes to these rules

The operator may update these rules between seasons or as required by law. The "Last updated" date at the top of this page reflects the latest revision. The operator shall not change rules governing an active season retroactively in a manner that disadvantages an artist who has already submitted, except where required to comply with law or to address a material rule violation. Where a non-compelled retroactive change would otherwise apply, the operator shall notify affected artists by email and on the platform and shall offer those artists the option to withdraw their entry.

16.2 Notice and takedown (DMCA / equivalent)

Any party who believes that content on the platform infringes that party's copyright may submit a notice under Section 512 of the U.S. Copyright Act (the Digital Millennium Copyright Act) or a comparable notice under applicable foreign law to the operator's designated agent at the address in §16.3. A valid notice shall include: identification of the copyrighted work claimed to have been infringed; identification of the allegedly infringing material on the platform; the complainant's contact information; a statement that the complainant has a good-faith belief that the use is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law; a statement under penalty of perjury that the information in the notice is accurate and that the complainant is the copyright owner or authorized to act on its behalf; and the complainant's physical or electronic signature.

16.3 Contact

For rule questions, eligibility verification, prize disbursement, GDPR or UK GDPR data-rights requests, takedown notices, or any other matter described in these rules, please write to:

The operator shall respond to substantive inquiries within fourteen (14) calendar days. For urgent operational matters during an active round (vote-fraud reports, takedown requests), responses are typically faster.