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FAQ

Here you can find questions that are frequently being asked. If you still haven't found what you are looking for please reach out to our engineering team and we will help you out. You can reach out to us here.

How do I get track details?​

Track details could be received either by searching for the tracks using /tracks endpoint or by listing existing collections /collections or collection details /collections/{collection_id} respectively.

How does music curation work?​

Our API provides access to professionally curated collections of music. There are two types of collections:

  1. Curated collections: These are professionally maintained collections created by Epidemic Sound's curation team
  2. Custom collections: These are collections that you can create and manage for your specific needs

What music can I access through the API?​

Your content access level depends on your partnership agreement and the authentication method used:

Partner Token Authentication

Your access is determined by your partnership agreement and negotiated as part of your contract:

  • Curated Collections: Access to handpicked collections maintained by Epidemic Sound's music team. You can choose from a selection of more than 100 professionally curated themes.
  • Full Catalogue: Access to the entire Epidemic Sound library of 40,000+ tracks across 160 genres and 90,000+ sound effects.

You can manage your collections in the Developer Portal. You may also import collections from existing Epidemic Sound playlists by providing the playlist URL (requires an ES account to create and manage the playlist).

Connect Authentication (OAuth)

When users authenticate with their Epidemic Sound accounts, they automatically get:

  • Full library access (40,000+ tracks)
  • Personalized content (liked tracks, playlists)
  • All features available to their subscription tier

Contact your Epidemic Sound partner manager to discuss your content access level for Partner Token Authentication.

Can I choose which music I get?​

Yes, you can choose which collections will be exposed in your app. Partners with curated collections access can select from a library of more than 100 professionally curated & maintained themes. Partners with full catalogue access can use search and filtering to discover any tracks in our library.

You may also import collections from existing Epidemic Sound playlists by providing the playlist URL (requires an ES account to create and manage the playlist).

Can I cache collections and track metadata?​

Even though it is possible to cache metadata we don’t allow you to do that. If you want more information you can read more about it in our Acceptable Use Policy.

What can users do with their soundtracked content?​

With Free Tier music, users are granted a personal user license allowing them to post anywhere online. Users with an active paid Epidemic Sound subscription connected to your app through ES Connect receive a commercial user license which allows them to monetize their content and use their content for advertising and promotion.

What is a collection and how is it curated?​

Collections are a group of tracks representing moods (epic, happy, dreamy), themes (top 40, travel, workout), and events (Halloween, Diwali, Christmas).

Collections are updated regularly by Epidemic’s curation team and delivered dynamically via the API.

Collections help you build a best-in-class music discovery experience by letting Partners select the Collections they want to be exposed in-app via API Admin Interface.

Which formats of audio files are supported?​

Currently API supports low and high quality MP3 files and adaptive HLS Streaming.

Read more about it under Tracks.

How do I get a User Token?​

User Tokens are obtained through the Partner Token Authentication flow. See the Authentication guide for detailed instructions.

When requesting a User Token, you must provide a userId parameter. This should be an anonymized version of the user identifier from your system. You can use a one-way hashing function to generate it, ensuring it's suitable for GDPR compliance and safe to expose to third parties.

What are the expected latencies for API and content delivery?​

Our infrastructure is optimized for global performance:

  • API Servers: Located in Europe. All API requests (authentication, search, metadata retrieval) are processed from our European data centers.
  • Music Content Delivery: Stored on Fastly's global CDN network. While API verification happens in Europe, the actual music data (audio files) is downloaded from the nearest Fastly point of presence to the end user, ensuring optimal download speeds worldwide.

This architecture means that while API responses may have slightly higher latency for users outside Europe, music streaming and downloads benefit from Fastly's distributed CDN for fast content delivery regardless of user location.

What is the User Tokens Time to Live?​

The User Token is currently valid for 7 days. The expiration time is available in the "exp" claim of the JWT token, but you can also request a new one when your requests fail due to the token having expired.

However, the expiration time of the Partner token isn’t bound to the User Token issued using it. So when the Partner Token expires, all the User tokens will remain valid until their own expiration time. It is recommended to cache Partner Tokens in your backend and not store or send partner authentication credentials from the app directly if possible.

Test out your Production credentials in our Production swagger: https://partner-content-api.epidemicsound.com/swagger.