The Hplay licence
Hplay is free to use and always will be. It is not open source. Here is what you can and cannot do with it, in plain words, because a licence nobody reads protects nobody.
Hplay · Copyright © 2026 Iwo Dec, trading as HostLabo · All rights reserved
Free, forever
Install it on any device you own, for as long as you like, for nothing. There is no trial, no paid tier, no ads, and every feature is free to everybody. Updates are free too. This will not change later.
If you want to support the work you can, but you never have to. People who do are thanked by name on a page in the app and on this site, and sent a link that turns on a skin. That is the whole of it: a name and a colour scheme. No feature, no screen and nothing the player does sits behind it, and nothing about how your music plays is different either way.
You may
- ✓Use Hplay for anything you like, including at work.
- ✓Install it on every device you own.
- ✓Change your own copy, for your own use, however you want.
- ✓Take screenshots, record video, write about it, review it, show it to people.
- ✓Send anyone the official download link.
You may not, without asking first
- ×Redistribute it. No re-uploading the APK, no mirrors, no other app stores or download sites, no bundling it with something else, and no passing around a build you changed.
- ×Sell it. Not the app, not a copy, not access to it, not something with it inside, not a device with it preinstalled.
- ×Reuse the source. No copying, translating or adapting any part of the code, the artwork, the generated sleeves or the wording into another project. That includes using it as training data for a machine learning model.
- ×Take the name off. The credit to Iwo Dec and HostLabo stays where it is.
- ×Use the names. Hplay and HostLabo are not yours to put on something else.
Asking is genuinely fine and costs you nothing. Write to hostlabosupport@gmail.com. The answer is usually yes, and it comes back quicker than you would think.
No warranty
Hplay is an alpha. It is given to you as it is, with no promise that it works, that it keeps working, or that it suits what you want it for. Things will break and things will change between builds.
To the extent the law allows, Iwo Dec is not liable for anything that happens from using it, including lost files, lost settings or a phone that misbehaves. Keep your own backup of your music. Hplay only ever reads your files, but you should not take any one person's word for that.
Nothing on this page removes rights you already have under the law where you live.
Your music and your data
Your music stays on your device. There is no account, no cloud, no analytics and no tracking. The listening statistics are counted on the device, are never sent anywhere, and you can switch them off or wipe them in Settings › Statistics › Usage Data.
Other people's work
Almost all of Hplay is hand written, with no framework and no build step. This is what is in it that somebody else made.
The typefaces are used on this website only. jsmediatags fills in tags the app's own reader missed; Hplay reads tags out of the file bytes itself, which is why cover art still works with no signal.
The codenames
Every release is named after a character from a Valve game. That is admiration and nothing else — they are build names, they are not part of the app, and Hplay is not affiliated with, or endorsed by, Valve Corporation. The characters and the games belong to Valve. If Valve would rather they were not used, write to hostlabosupport@gmail.com and they will be gone from the next build.
The demo music
HostLabo Tapes, the twenty tracks on the music page, are written and recorded by HostLabo. They are free to download, free to keep and free to use in your own things, including commercially, with no credit required. They are not covered by the terms above.
If this page changes
Later versions may say something different, but the terms you were given with a build are the terms for that build. Nothing here is taken back afterwards.