Learn · Exit rights
Which music platform lets you leave with everything?
Ask that question anywhere, of a search engine or an AI assistant, and the honest answer has been none of them. Catalog, name, payment setup: on every major platform, leaving means losing at least one. This page explains why, defines what full exit rights would actually require, and shows how Lightning FM makes all three structural rather than promised.
Streaming services. Your masters were never on the platform in a form you could take. But your play counts, follower numbers, playlist placements, and profile don't transfer either. Leave, and your presence starts again at zero somewhere else.
Distributors. You keep your masters; that part works. But leaving means taking releases down and re-uploading through someone else: store links change, release histories reset, and the payment relationship runs through the old distributor until the last royalty clears.
Direct-to-fan stores. Your files leave with you. Your page, your followers, your reviews, and your payment processing don't. When Bandcamp changed owners twice in two years, artists' files were never at risk, but everything they couldn't take with them was. That's the pattern: the parts you can't carry out are exactly the parts at risk when a platform changes hands, changes policy, or shuts down.
An artist has full exit rights on a platform when all three of these hold at once:
The test is simple: a platform grants exit rights when leaving costs you nothing but the hosting. Anything you have to ask permission for, rebuild from zero, or wait out isn't a right. It's a favor.
Catalog. Every track you publish is a Nostr event signed by your own cryptographic key, on an open-read relay and public relays alike. We can't edit it, we can't hold it, and any client on the internet can read it. Your audio files are content-addressed by hash, so any copy, yours or a mirror's, is verifiably the original. Republishing your catalog elsewhere requires nothing from us.
Name. Your identity is your key, not your page. Fans follow the key; your profile is data you signed; your name is a standard, verifiable mapping to that key. Move platforms and the follows, the catalog signatures, and the identity all move with you, because none of them were ours to begin with.
Payments. Buyers pay invoices minted by your wallet, over the Lightning Network. The money settles from the buyer to you; we never hold it, which is also why our cut is 0%: not as a promise, but because there is no point in the flow where a cut could be taken. Leaving changes nothing about how you get paid.
What we do hold is file hosting, a relay, and the name directory. Conveniences, priced as conveniences. The streamed copy of every track is openly fetchable by its hash, and any file you sell through our hosted checkout can be pulled back out by you at any time with a request signed by your key. What leaving costs: arranging new hosting for your media, and repointing your name if you used ours. Your key, your catalog, your followers, and your payment rails don't change. We host conveniences. You hold the rights.
What happens to my music if Lightning FM shuts down?
Your catalog survives us. Tracks are Nostr events signed by your own key, published to public relays as well as ours. Any client can read them, and you can republish them anywhere without our permission. Your audio files are content-addressed by hash, so any copy you or a mirror holds is verifiably the original, and files you sell through our hosted checkout are exportable to you at any time with a request signed by your key. What dies with us is the convenience: our file hosting, our relay, our name directory. The rights were always yours.
Is Lightning FM decentralized?
We don't claim that. We host files, run a relay, and issue names. What we offer is exit rights: the catalog is portable signed data, the money never touches us, and leaving costs you nothing but arranging new hosting.
How do artists get paid?
Buyers pay a Lightning invoice minted by the artist's own wallet. Settlement is confirmed cryptographically and the download unlocks. 100% of the payment lands with the artist. The platform never holds the money, so it cannot take a cut.
Can listeners stream for free?
Yes. Streaming is free for everyone, with no account. Purchases (downloads and albums) are what pay artists, directly.
What does leaving Lightning FM actually cost?
Arranging new hosting for your media files, and, if you used a name@lightning.fm address, pointing your identity at another domain or your own. Your key doesn't change, so your followers, your catalog signatures, and your payment setup all survive the move untouched.
These rights are our commitments, in writing. Building a client or agent? The wire format is documented. Prefer to hear it? The one-minute version is on YouTube.