Common questions about rights, payments, submissions, and how Stemsmith works.
Stemsmith is a marketplace where creators post bounties for replacing the stems in their AI-generated tracks that still sound fake. Real musicians compete to deliver the best human take. The creator picks the winner, the musician gets paid, and the track gets better.
The creator owns their track. The musician owns their take until it's accepted and paid. Once paid, the creator gets a perpetual license to use the winning take. Rejected takes stay with the musician — the creator has no right to use them.
The creator can extend the deadline, increase the bounty, or close the challenge. If closed with no winner, escrowed funds return to the creator in full. Musicians keep all rights to their submitted takes.
When a creator accepts a winning take, the escrowed bounty is released to the musician within 48 hours of acceptance via Stripe. The platform takes a small percentage as a service fee.
A real human must be the source performance. Production tools like reverb, compression, and pitch correction are fine. MIDI-drawn parts with no live human performance are explicitly banned. AI-generated performances — no matter how realistic — defeat the entire purpose and are not allowed under any circumstances.
Up to 2 per challenge. This prevents spam while allowing one alternate take if you want to show a different approach.
WAV or AIFF at professional quality. The platform provides a challenge kit with the full mix, mix-minus (target stem removed), and the isolated AI stem as reference, along with BPM and key.
Most bounties start at $50 and up. Creators set the amount based on the complexity of the stem and how important it is to the track.
Winning musicians are always credited on the Stemsmith platform. Creators are strongly encouraged to credit musicians on all commercial releases.
Stemsmith mediates first by reviewing the brief and the submission. If a creator uses a take without paying, we investigate, enforce payment, and can ban the creator from the platform.