Rules
of the call

The Nova Armonia festival, AI Music Festival San Marino (“the Festival”) is organised by the Associazione Vo.Ci. Nei Castelli, based at Via Cà dei Lunghi 132, Cailungo, Republic of San Marino (“the Organisation”), in collaboration with the Giunta di Castello di Serravalle.

The final of Edition Zero takes place on 29 January 2027 at the Auditorium Little Tony in Serravalle, Republic of San Marino.

For information: [email protected].

The Festival selects and presents to the public songs made with the contribution of generative artificial intelligence tools. It does not assess the generation itself, but the authorial direction: the idea, the choices, the dialogue with the machine, the story of the process.

The Festival Charter is an integral part of these rules and is binding on all participants.

Participation is open to people aged 18 or over at the time of submitting the application, of any nationality and residence.

A track made by more than one person (band, duo, collective) is submitted by a single contact person, who declares having the consent of the other authors and is accountable for them towards the Organisation.

Members of the jury and people who collaborate in organising the Festival cannot take part.

Each participant may submit up to 3 applications, one per track.

The track must have been made, wholly or partly, with generative artificial intelligence tools. Tracks born from a single prompt are as welcome as those from many iterations: what matters is the truth of the story.

The track may be in any language, or instrumental. Tracks already released are also accepted, provided the participant holds the rights needed to grant the permissions in article 9.

The track must not be protected by SIAE or by any other collective rights management organisation, in any country: it must not be registered with such organisations or entrusted to publishers or intermediaries that manage its performance and broadcasting rights. The participant undertakes not to register it until the final evening; if it is registered afterwards, the participant informs the Organisation, and the permissions in article 9 remain valid for uses that have already taken place and for the recordings of the evening.

The following tracks are not accepted:

• tracks that deceptively imitate living artists or use recognisable voices without authorisation;
• tracks that use protected works or parts of them (lyrics, melodies, samples, recordings) without the consent of the rights holders;
• tracks with unlawful, defamatory or discriminatory content, or content that offends people’s dignity.

The participant is responsible for complying with the terms of use of the artificial intelligence tools used, in particular those governing ownership and public use of the generated content.

Applications are submitted exclusively through the website www.nova-armonia-festival.eu, from the reserved area, after creating an account, confirming the email address and completing the participant details.

The call is open from 1 October 2026 at 08:00 to 31 October 2026 at 23:59 (San Marino time). The deadline, originally set for 25 October 2026, has been extended. Applications not submitted by the closing time are not considered.

Each application includes:

• the track as an audio file (mp3, wav, flac, m4a, aac, ogg; up to 80 MB);
• the lyrics, if any;
• the process sheet: the story of how the track came to be (idea, tools, human role, choices and discarded options);
• the transparency declaration on the tools used and the authorial contribution;
• the staging proposal for the live evening (projected video, choreography, live performance or other, also combined);
• any optional materials (pdf, images, video; up to 90 MB each).

Truthful completion of the process sheet and of the transparency declaration is a condition for admission.

Until the call closes, a submitted application can be edited from the reserved area. Each submission is confirmed by email.

Each application requires a registration contribution of €10.00, paid online via PayPal when the application is submitted. The contribution supports the organisation costs of the Festival.

The author of each track selected for the final is refunded the contribution paid for that track. No other refunds are provided: travel, accommodation, staging production and any other costs incurred to take part are borne by the participant.

The contribution is not refundable if the application is withdrawn or excluded for breach of these rules. If the Festival is cancelled by decision of the Organisation, the contributions paid are refunded.

Selection takes place in two stages:

• pre-selection: a technical committee checks eligibility, materials and process sheet and draws up a shortlist of tracks;
• final selection: the jury listens to the shortlisted tracks and chooses between 8 and 12 finalists. The finalists are expected to be announced on 16 November 2026.

The assessment considers the technical and artistic quality of the track, the quality and truthfulness of the creative process and its consistency with the principles of the Festival Charter.

The jury is made up of professionals from music, research, journalism and education. The names of the jurors will be revealed during the final evening.

The decisions of the technical committee and of the jury are final. The Organisation may ask the participant for further materials (for example the final audio version or documentation of the process) to verify what has been declared.

The outcome of each stage is communicated by email to the address of the participant’s account and is shown in the reserved area.

The finalist tracks are presented live during the final evening, together with the story of their creative process and the proposed staging. The Organisation may adapt the staging to the technical and timing needs of the evening.

Finalists may be asked for materials for the evening and for communication: final audio version, video, photographs, a short interview or clip about the creative process.

The presence of finalists at the evening is welcome but not mandatory. If a finalist cannot attend, or withdraws the application after being selected, the Organisation keeps the permissions in article 9 and may present the track with its own staging.

The Festival awards are presented during the evening: Best Artistic Idea, Best Human-Machine Dialogue, Best Narrative Use of AI, Creative Transparency Award and Audience Award. The Audience Award is voted by the audience in the hall, in ways announced before the evening. The nature of the awards is announced on the website before the final. The Organisation may decide not to present an award if no suitable tracks are found.

All rights on the tracks remain with the authors: taking part does not transfer their ownership in any way.

By submitting the application, the participant grants the Organisation, free of charge and on a non-exclusive basis, permission to:

• play the track, in full or in part, during the final evening and the other events of the Festival;
• broadcast the track on radio, television, web, streaming, podcasts and social networks, including within programmes and content dedicated to the Festival;
• include the track in the audio and video recordings of the evening and in the Festival’s presentation and promotional materials;
• stage the music of the track, even without the author taking part;
• use the participant’s name or stage name, the title, the lyrics, the process sheet and the materials submitted to present the track.

These permissions do not allow the Organisation to sell the track or to exploit it commercially outside the Festival’s activities.

The permissions last two years from the date of the final evening, that is until 29 January 2029. Withdrawing an application before the finalists are selected ends the permissions for that track, except for uses that have already taken place. For finalist tracks, withdrawing the application after the selection does not revoke the permissions.

When the permissions expire, the Organisation makes no new uses of the track, but may keep and leave accessible, for documentary purposes and as the Festival’s historical archive, the recordings of the evening and the materials published while the permissions were valid, including on the Festival’s website and channels and in the archives of the media that broadcast them.

A participant attending the evening consents to being filmed and photographed and to the use of the images for the same purposes and for the same duration.

The participant guarantees being the author of the track or holding all the rights needed to grant these permissions, including those arising from the terms of use of the artificial intelligence tools used, and that the track and the materials submitted do not infringe third-party rights. The participant holds the Organisation harmless from any third-party claim relating to the track and the materials submitted.

The Organisation may exclude at any time, even after the selection or the awards, applications that do not comply with these rules or with the Festival Charter, in particular in the case of untruthful statements in the process sheet or in the transparency declaration. In the event of exclusion, any award already presented is revoked.

Personal data are processed in accordance with the privacy policy published on the website.

The Organisation may change dates and organisational aspects of the Festival for technical or organisational reasons or force majeure, announcing it on the website and, for significant changes, by email to participants. Changes to these rules do not apply to applications already submitted, unless they benefit the participants.

These rules are governed by the law of the Republic of San Marino. Any dispute falls under the jurisdiction of the courts of the Republic of San Marino, without prejudice to mandatory consumer protection rules.

Submitting an application requires express acceptance of these rules, which is recorded with date, time and the version accepted.