Privacy Policy
songShine® is a place to listen to music, read prose, and watch films. It is not an advertising business, and it does not try to build a picture of who you are. This page says plainly what we collect, which is very little, and what happens to it.
Who we are
songShine® is the creative work of Vasilios "vOz" Kapenekas. If you have a question about anything here, or you want your details removed, email voz@songshine.com and a person will read it.
What we collect
There are exactly two things.
Your email address, if you give it to us
You can hand over an email address in two places: the "Join the community" form at the bottom of most pages, and the sign-up gate in front of certain films. Both do the same thing with it.
We ask for nothing else. No name, no address, no phone number, no date of birth. If a field isn't on the form, we don't have it.
Ordinary web server records
This site is hosted by Cloudflare, which keeps the usual technical records every web server keeps — the pages requested, roughly where in the world the request came from, and what kind of browser made it. These are used to keep the site up and to keep it from being attacked. We do not use them to identify you, and we do not run any analytics, advertising, or visitor-tracking product on this site. There is no Google Analytics here, and no advertising pixel of any kind.
What we do with your email address
It goes into Kit (formerly ConvertKit), the service that stores our mailing list and sends our email. Kit sends you one message asking you to confirm you meant to sign up. After that, you hear from us when there is something worth sharing — a new film, a new song, news about the community. There is no schedule and no automated sequence.
We do not sell your address. We do not rent, trade, or otherwise hand it to anyone for their own marketing. It is used to email you about songShine®, and for nothing else.
Cookies
A cookie is a small piece of text a website asks your browser to hold on to. This site uses very few.
ss_watch — the film pass
Some films ask for an email address before they play. Once you've given
one, we set a cookie named ss_watch so you aren't asked
again on every film. It contains the email address you typed and the
date you gave it, signed so it can't be edited, and it lasts a year.
You can delete it at any time through your browser's settings. Doing so costs you nothing except being asked for your address again the next time you open a gated film.
Cookies set by embedded video
Films and music videos on this site are hosted by YouTube or Vimeo and shown inside the page. The players we place ourselves — everywhere films are listed and watched — use youtube-nocookie.com, YouTube's own privacy-extended mode, which holds its tracking cookies back until you actually press play. Video embedded inside a written piece may use YouTube's standard player instead, which sets them when the page loads.
Either way, once a video plays, that provider may set cookies of its own. Those are governed by YouTube's or Vimeo's privacy policy rather than this one.
Administration
The content management system behind this site sets a session cookie for logged-in editors. If you are reading this as a visitor, it does not apply to you and you will never receive one.
Who else touches your information
These are the only third parties involved, and what each one does:
- Kit — stores the mailing list and sends the email.
- Cloudflare — hosts the site, its content database, and its media files.
- YouTube and Vimeo — host and play the films. They receive your request when a video loads.
- Circle — hosts the songShine® community, when that community is open. It is a separate service with its own sign-up and its own privacy policy; joining it is a decision you make there, not here.
Each of these is a company in its own right, based outside Australia, and handles your information under its own privacy policy as well as this one.
Your choices
- Stop the email. Every message we send has an unsubscribe link at the bottom. One click, no questions.
- See what we hold. Email us and we'll tell you. It will be short.
- Have it deleted. Email us and we'll remove your address from Kit. Clearing your browser cookies removes the rest.
Children
songShine® is made for a general audience and is not directed at children under 13. We don't knowingly collect email addresses from them. If you believe a child has signed up, email us and we'll remove the address.
Changes to this page
If what the site does changes, this page changes with it, and the date at the top moves. Nothing here is retroactive — a change can't reach back and permit something we'd already said we wouldn't do.