Echoes — Clean, Ad-Free Music Player & Hi-Fi Streamer

1. Agreement to Terms

By accessing or using Echoes (https://echoes.mteck.tech) or related services (collectively, the "Service"), you agree to be bound by these Terms of Service ("Terms"). If you do not agree with any part of these Terms, you may not access or use the Service.

2. Description of Service

Echoes is a modern, minimalist web-based music streaming client and personal audio library synchronization manager. Echoes provides features including real-time audio playback, cross-device playlist and library synchronization, TV QR-code device pairing, and audio organization tools.

3. User Accounts & Authentication

You may use Echoes anonymously or authenticate using Google OAuth, Email/Password, or Device Pairing. You are solely responsible for safeguarding the credentials associated with your account and for all activity that occurs under your account. You agree to notify us immediately of any unauthorized use of your account.

4. Third-Party Services & APIs

Echoes interfaces with third-party service providers and public APIs to deliver music metadata, streaming streams, and playlist features:

• YouTube API: Echoes uses YouTube API Services to allow users to authenticate and import their personal YouTube playlists. By using these features, you agree to be bound by the YouTube Terms of Service and acknowledge the Google Privacy Policy.
• Spotify: Echoes enables public playlist track metadata extraction for seamless library transfers. Echoes is not affiliated with, endorsed by, or sponsored by Spotify.

Echoes does not claim ownership of any third-party audio, video, album artwork, or lyrics streamed or displayed via the Service. All trademarks and copyrighted materials belong to their respective rights holders.

5. Acceptable Use & Audio Downloads

Any personal audio caching or download functionality provided in Echoes is intended solely for private, personal, non-commercial offline listening in compliance with applicable copyright laws and fair use doctrines. You agree not to:

• Redistribute, rebroadcast, sell, or commercially exploit audio streams or downloaded files.
• Circumvent or attempt to tamper with security or digital rights management technologies.
• Impair, overburden, or disable the Echoes infrastructure or connected APIs.

6. Disclaimer of Warranties & Limitation of Liability

THE SERVICE IS PROVIDED ON AN "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE" BASIS WITHOUT WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT PERMITTED UNDER APPLICABLE LAW, ECHOES AND ITS CREATORS DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES AND SHALL NOT BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE.

7. Modifications to Service & Terms

We reserve the right to modify or discontinue any feature of Echoes or revise these Terms at any time. Continued use of the Service following any changes constitutes acceptance of the new Terms.

8. Contact & Legal Inquiries

If you have questions regarding these Terms or need to submit a DMCA copyright notice or inquiry, please reach out to us at:

Email: contact.Echoes@proton.me

1. Overview & Privacy Commitment

At Echoes (https://echoes.mteck.tech), your privacy is our core priority. We believe in minimal data collection: we collect only what is strictly necessary to authenticate your account and synchronize your personal music preferences across your devices. We never sell, rent, or trade your personal data.

2. Information We Collect

• Authentication Information: When signing in with Google OAuth, we receive your basic public profile details (email address, full name, profile picture URL, and a unique Google subject identifier). When signing in with email, we store your email address and a cryptographically salted/hashed password (PBKDF2).
• Music Library Sync Data: To allow you to access your music on desktop, mobile, and paired TV devices, we store your saved/liked track IDs, custom playlist configurations, favorited albums, listening history, and audio settings (e.g., equalizer presets, theme selection) in our secure Neon Serverless Postgres cloud database.
• Device Pairing Data: Temporary 6-character alphanumeric pairing codes and short-lived session tokens generated when connecting smart TVs or secondary displays.

3. Google User Data & YouTube API Compliance

Echoes' use and transfer to any other app of information received from Google APIs will adhere to the Google API Services User Data Policy, including the Limited Use requirements:

• Scope Requested: We request read-only access to your YouTube playlists (https://www.googleapis.com/auth/youtube.readonly) solely when you explicitly choose to import your personal YouTube playlists into Echoes.
• Limited Use: Google user data is strictly utilized to provide and improve user-facing features. We do not use or transfer your Google user data for serving ads (including retargeting or personalized advertising).
• No Human Inspection: No human beings ever view your personal Google or YouTube user data unless you have given explicit consent for troubleshooting or if required by law.
• AI / ML Prohibition: We do not use Google user data to train, fine-tune, or develop generalized artificial intelligence or machine learning models.

4. Data Storage, Security & Retention

All communications between your client application and our backend endpoints are secured via Transport Layer Security (TLS/HTTPS). Database storage is powered by Neon Serverless PostgreSQL with row-level segregation by user ID. We retain your synchronized library data for as long as your account remains active.

5. Your Rights & Data Deletion

You retain full ownership and control over your personal data:

• You can disconnect third-party Google permissions at any time via your Google Account Security Settings.
• You can clear your cloud library synchronization directly within the Echoes Account settings.
• You may request complete and permanent deletion of your account and all associated database records by emailing us at contact.Echoes@proton.me. Requests are processed within 48 business hours.

6. Contact Us

If you have questions, comments, or concerns about this Privacy Policy or our data handling practices, please contact our Privacy Team:

Email: contact.Echoes@proton.me

1. What is Echoes?

Echoes is an ad-free, open-source, privacy-focused modern web music player designed for uncompromising fidelity and aesthetic simplicity. It blends a distraction-free user interface with audiophile-grade digital signal processing (DSP), synchronised multi-provider lyrics, real-time cross-device session synchronization, and collaborative listening parties.

Key capabilities include:

• High-Fidelity Web Audio DSP: Parametric and Graphic equalizers (up to 32 bands), AutoEQ headphone correction profiles, spatial stereo widening, crossfeed, and mono downmix.
• Interactive Visualizers: Fullscreen beat-pulse reactive artwork, hardware-accelerated Milkdrop/Butterchurn shaders, and audio spectrum analysers.
• Synchronized Social Listening: Real-time listening parties with room host controls, live chat, and seamless cross-device synchronization.
• Cross-Platform PWA: Fully installable on desktop (Windows, macOS, Linux) and mobile (iOS, Android) with offline audio caching support.

2. Open Source & Architecture Credits

Echoes stands on the shoulders of brilliant open-source projects and community-driven music initiatives:

• Monochrome: The foundational web player architecture, sleek aesthetic direction, audio context management, and Butterchurn visualizer framework.
• ArchiveTune: YouTube Music scraping pipeline, robust search normalization, audio format selection, and streaming proxy architecture.
• Invidious: The decentralized, federated network of privacy-respecting YouTube API and audio stream instances powering resilient playback worldwide.
• Album of the Year (AOTY): Critical consensus, user ratings, reviews, and album metadata integrated via aoty-api.

3. How Does Echoes Run For Free?

Echoes is 100% free with no monthly subscription fees, paywalls, or third-party advertising tracking. We achieve zero ongoing operating costs through deliberate architectural decisions:

• Client-Side Hardware Execution: 99% of computation—including audio decoding, equalizer filtering, spatial audio calculations, beat detection, and visual animations—runs directly inside your browser on your device using native Web Audio and WebGL hardware acceleration.
• Serverless Edge Infrastructure: Instead of running expensive, always-on backend application servers, Echoes leverages lightweight edge serverless functions (Vercel Edge Network) within standard free-tier quotas.
• Decentralized & Federated Streaming: Audio media streams and thumbnails are retrieved directly from public Invidious instances and YouTube CDNs, eliminating multi-terabyte egress bandwidth bills.
• Lightweight Real-time Data Sync: User library bookmarks, cloud sync, and listening party rooms are powered by efficient real-time free-tier databases (Neon Serverless Postgres).
• Non-Profit Passion: Echoes is maintained purely as an educational, non-profit community project for people who love clean music players.

4. Donations & Project Sponsorship

Echoes has zero corporate backing or venture capital. All hosting, edge routing, domain registration (echoes.mteck.tech), and maintenance are funded out of pocket.

If you would like to help cover domain or infrastructure costs, or sponsor upcoming features, please contact creator Manuth Methnidu directly at contact.Echoes@proton.me.

5. Open Source License

Echoes is open-sourced software licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. You may inspect, modify, fork, and distribute the software in compliance with the license terms.

Source code is publicly available on GitHub at github.com/ManuthMethnidu/Echoes.