SONUSCORE CREATOR CONTEST 2026 – RULES & CONDITIONS
Rules and Regulations
1. Competition Rules
2. Voting & Prizes
3. Rights
4. Additional Provisions
1. Competition Rules
- The Competition is open to everybody.
- The Composers participating in the Competition must create and publish a 30-90 seconds video of their own composition.
- The Composers need to use at least one Sonuscore instrument, including free Sonuscore instruments. Any MIDI instruments, electronics, or live recordings can be used.
- The video needs to be in 16×9 or 9×16 format and at least in HD quality.
- By participating, the Composers agree that the composition is solely original to them.
- Video assets need to be licensed.
- AI music will be disqualified, but composers are allowed to use generative AI for the video.
- Each Composer must deliver the video with the composition by Thursday, April 30th 2026 11:59:59PM CEST.
- The video must be uploaded as public on YouTube and shall use our contest hashtag in the title and the description: #Sonuscore-CC26
- Afterwards, the video link must be submitted together with the Composers’ name to the official submission formular: https://forms.gle/hdxkRKAbGwjaP6iF9 .
- Composers selected for the final vote must submit a DAW screencast of their composition to confirm that Sonuscore products were used.
2. Voting & Prizes
- Up to ten (10) finalists will be selected by a team of Sonuscore’s staff composers.
- The videos of the up to ten finalists will be announced on Sonuscore’s newsletters, website, and social media accounts.
- Voting starts on Thursday, May 7th 2026 and runs until Thursday, May 14th 2026 11:59:59PM CEST
- The conditions of the public voting will be shown here as soon as the voting starts.
- The top three creators of the videos with the most votes will each receive prizes.
- 1st Place:
The grand prize is a live orchestra recording session for a composition up to 60 seconds of the winner’s choice. It will be played by the Budaprest Art Orchestra, a 63-piece orchestra including Brass, Strings and more. The recording will take place in the middle of June 2026 in Budapest, Hungary.
This includeds pre-production, post-production, and orchestration services by Dynamedion.
Additionally, the winner will receive all Sonuscore products that have been or will get released in 2026. - 2nd Place:
The second winner will get an exclusive 1:1 feedback and coaching session from Sonuscore co-founder and Dynamedion Lead Composer Tilman Sillescu (ANNO Series, Age of Empires IV, Total War: Warhammer, and much more).
Additionally, the second winner will receive all Sonuscore products that have been or will get released in 2026. - 3rd Place:
The third winner will receive all Sonuscore products that have been or will get released in 2026.
3. Rights
We have no intention of selling your compositions or earning money with them. This is simply a creative contest and by holding this, there are some general regulations we must comply with so that all parties are legally on the safe side.
In normal language:
- We receive the right to publish the composition and the video without any restrictions in terms of time and space – we need this to share your submission and especially the winning entry on our own channels (website, social media and all channels related to Sonuscore where we might mention the contest now and in the future. For example: Assuming there will be a brand-new social network in the future and we want to show all previous contest winners and their compositions in a throwback post. For this we would need the aforementioned publishing rights.) You will always retain the full ownership and copyrights of your composition.
- You grant us the right to publish your name in the context of the contest.
- We might want to publish your composition across our channels, maybe even in the far distant future. This would not work if you would grant any third party the exclusive rights of your composition. The other way around, we do not explicitly request exclusive rights on your composition, allowing you to make use of it in the future.
- You assure that you are the sole copyright owner of your work and licensed any third-party video footage. If you’re not and we publish your composition in good faith and belief, Sonuscore cannot be held liable for this in case of any third-party claims.
- We are composers ourselves and do not want to take away anyone’s rights to their work. We only need the rights to host the contest and to report about it. Nothing more and nothing less. Your copyrights remain untouched. If you have any further questions, please contact us via contest@sonuscore.com .
In official language:
- The Participant retains full ownership of their work. By entering the competition, the organizer (Sonuscore) is being granted, on a non-exclusive basis and free of charge, the right to use the composition submitted for the Competition and their artistic performances and recordings in a territorially and time unlimited way.
- The participants of the competition and the voting grant the organizer their permission to publish their full name, which has been recorded for the needs of organizing the Competition and in accordance with the statutory purposes of the Competition Organizer.
- The Contestant does not have the right to assign rights to their version of the entry.
- The individual submitting a score to the organizer hereby warrants that it is authorized to commit the score for consideration. You agree to indemnify and hold harmless the organizer, judges, sponsors, and partners, individually and collectively, from and against any and all claims, liabilities, losses, damages, and expenses (including but not limited to attorney’s fees, and costs of the court) which may be incurred by reason of any claim involving copyright, trademark, credits, publicity, screening, and loss of or damage to submitted material. The burden of determining that any material is not protected by copyright, trademark, rights of privacy, publicity or any other proprietary rights rests with the composer. The entrant shall bear the sole liability for any damage resulting from any infringement of copyrights, proprietary rights, or any other harm resulting from such a submission.
- By taking part in the Competition the participant declares they hold the exclusive and unlimited copyright of the sent compositions and assumes responsibility towards the organizer for legal faults of the submitted compositions and in particular for claims of third parties against the organizer connected with breaking their copyright. The participant also declares the have a license for all third-party video footage that has been used in the competition video.
- Should third parties lay a claim against the organizer on account of breach by the participants of copyright or personal rights of third parties connected with the usage of the compositions, the participants of the Contest shall indemnify the organizer against any and all such third parties.
4. Additional Provisions
- YouTube is not a sponsor of the Competition and is released from any liability related to this contest.
- All submissions must be wholly compliant and consistent with the YouTube Community Guidelines and the YouTube Terms of Service. All entries that don’t comply with them will be disqualified.
- The privacy policy of the Sonuscore Orchestra Recording Contest 2026 is subject to the privacy policy of Sonuscore.com, with regard to Youtube, the Youtube privacy agreement shall apply accordingly.
- Unless otherwise provided by applicable law, a complete legal relation between the participant of the Competition and the organizer shall be governed by the Law of the Federal Republic of Germany.
- The organizer of the competition makes final decisions upon all organizational issues. Such decisions are irrevocable and non-claimable.
- The organizer has the right to change the rules of participation.
- By participating in the Sonuscore Orchestra Recording Contest 2026 and the Voting, participants agree that they shall be bound by the terms of this agreement.
