Text-to-speech and commercial rights: what you need to know

What does “commercial use” mean for synthetic audio?

In the terms of text-to-speech services, commercial use usually means any use beyond the private sphere: publishing the audio, broadcasting it, building it into a product or monetized content, selling it. A video on a channel that earns money, a podcast, a paid course or an ad are typical examples.

The exact definition changes from one service to another, and some also distinguish free publication from paid publication. So the wording of each service's terms is what counts.

Is the model's license enough to publish the audio?

No, not when you go through a service. The model's license (for example CC BY 4.0, OpenRAIL-M or Apache 2.0 for the neural voice models Readotte uses) governs the relationship between the model's author and whoever runs it, in this case the service.

You, as a user, are bound by the service's terms of use, which can be stricter than the model's license. An open model can perfectly well be offered by a service that keeps the audio for personal use only.

What does Readotte's MP3 allow?

Readotte's MP3 is made for your personal use: listening on your commute, while walking, in the car, on your own devices. Our terms forbid publishing, broadcasting or reselling it.

Readotte therefore grants no commercial rights to the audio, including with Readotte Plus. It is not a tool for producing the voiceover of a video, a podcast or an audiobook meant for the public. How the download works is explained in convert a PDF to MP3.

What about the rights to the text itself?

They matter just as much as the rights to the voice. Even with a service that allows commercial use of the audio, reading aloud and publishing a book, article or course written by someone else generally requires permission from its author or publisher.

For your own text, the question is different. For someone else's text, keeping the listening to yourself remains the safest use, as explained in make an audiobook from a PDF.

What should you check in a service's terms before publishing?

Look for the section about ownership or use of the generated audio, and check whether it depends on your subscription plan. Many services reserve commercial use for certain plans, or ask you to credit the service.

Keep a dated copy of the terms at the time you generate the audio, as they can change. For an important project, have a lawyer review them: this page gives pointers, not legal advice.

• Can the audio be published, and on which platforms?
• Is commercial use included in your plan, or only in a higher one?
• Do you need to credit the service or the voice used?
• What happens if you cancel: do the rights continue for audio already published?
• Are some uses forbidden (political ads, imitating a real person, and so on)?

Which tool should you choose if you need commercial use?

A service whose terms clearly allow publishing the audio, on the plan you pay for. Some voiceover services provide for this; others, like NaturalReader with its Lite plan, also keep the audio for personal use only.

Readotte is not the right choice in that case, and we would rather say so. It is meant for listening to your documents, not for producing content to distribute.