Use of Apple System Voice for commercial purposes.

Question

Use of Apple System Voice for commercial purposes.

I apologise if this is posted in the wrong category (I could see no other alternative however).
My question is:

I'd like to be able to make use of Apple's In-Built Voices for both web content and e-book use (recording samples of phrases and including them with their corresponding written content; I would not be selling the voices as part of a software package -not that I would even know how to).

Any help would be greatly appreciated, or perhaps a point in the right direction to 'free-for-commercial-use' voices elsewhere online as I've had a hard time finding anything, and when I do the terms and conditions seem incomprehensible to me.

Many thanks for your time, Matthew.

MacBook 13-inch Aluminum (Late 2008), Mac OS X (10.6.4), 2.4 GHz CPU, 500 GB HD, 2GB RAM

Posted on Jun 30, 2010 7:55 AM

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Answer 1

jsd2

Level 5

6,245 points

Jun 30, 2010 8:11 AM in response to Matthew Nicholas

This page
http://www.apple.com/legal/contacts.html

contains the following:
---------------
If you have any questions concerning the usage or licensing of Apple copyrighted materials, contact the Rights and Permissions/Copyright department by email at copyright@apple.com or by phone at 408-974-2205.
-------------------------

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Answer 2

Jun 30, 2010 2:45 PM in response to jsd2

Many thanks jsd2.

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Answer 3

Jun 30, 2010 9:21 PM in response to Matthew Nicholas

Curious question...

If, say, I were to create a smash record that sold a few million copies using just the tools in Garage Band, would that be considered legal?

How is the sample of a voice different from the sample of a drum? Aren't they both tools for an artist to use?

Since I work in the Advertising production business, I can see the day when voice modeling takes the place of real voices, much like samples of instruments have taken the place of real instruments...

I'm no attorney, but I'd bet you could argue a good case that using the voices for commercial purposes would be legal.... that is, if it isn't legal.

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Answer 4

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

Jun 30, 2010 11:29 PM in response to Jeffrey Lee

Well, if you read the SLA's (here is a link to that page; scroll down to iLife which includes Garageband):

http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/

you will find that all eventualities appear to be covered.

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Answer 5

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

Jun 30, 2010 11:32 PM in response to Matthew Nicholas

This link will get you to the Software License Agreements page:

http://www.apple.com/legal/sla/

Click on Snow Leopard and the SLA specifically covers "Voices" (para 2, E):

+you may use the voices..... while running the Apple Software and to create your own original content and projects for your personal, non-commercial use. No other use of the System Voices is permitted by this license....+

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Answer 6

Jul 1, 2010 12:09 AM in response to babowa

There are commercially available voices such as those from Cepstral - their website doesn't make the situation of commercial use clear but you could ask them: it does rather look as if they expect their voices to be used this way. Some at least of their voices are also rather better than the built-in ones.

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Answer 7

Jul 1, 2010 7:02 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Hi there,

Barbara Daniels1 - thanks for getting the info there, that's exactly what I needed to know.

Roger Wilmut1 - thanks also for pointing me towards Cepstral Voices; I will certainly contact them.

Kind regards,
Matthew

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Answer 8

Jul 1, 2010 7:41 AM in response to Matthew Nicholas

From Cepstral support:

"Thank you for your interest in Cepstral TTS voices. In order to use Cepstral audio on your website you'll need to purchase an Audio Distribution License. The ADL is $1,200 per year and covers all voices.

The license is administered through our VoiceForge service. You can purchase a year or pay monthly through our online store at

https://www.cepstral.com/cgi-bin/store/home?page=voiceforge"

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Answer 9

Jul 1, 2010 8:02 AM in response to Matthew Nicholas

That's a bit steep. You'd think they could licence one specific voice, since you can buy them singly.

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Answer 10

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

Jul 1, 2010 8:41 AM in response to Matthew Nicholas

Glad to have been able to help and thanks for the star!

Added note to Jeffrey (the other poster) which I forgot to add last night: your argument that one could have a "+good case that using the voices for commercial purposes would be legal.... that is, if it isn't legal"+ wouldn't hold up because Apple owns the software and is only granting you a license to use it with certain restrictions. They own it = they can impose any terms they want; you agree to those terms when you buy it (the license).

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Answer 11

Jul 1, 2010 10:30 AM in response to Roger Wilmut1

Roger Wilmut1 wrote:
That's a bit steep. You'd think they could licence one specific voice, since you can buy them singly.

That's precisely what I thought.
Methinks it's time to brush up on my elocution (either that or find decent voice changer software).

In any case, thanks again for your help folks!

Matthew

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Answer 12

Jul 1, 2010 3:02 PM in response to babowa

Well I read the SLA for iLife and the part about Garage Band. Frankly, I didn't see anything there would would prohibit you from using it for commercial purposes.... create a hit record in Garage Band, and from what I read, Apple has no recourse.

All it says is you can't sell the individual samples, which is more than fair.

I'm no attorney, and don't face this legal issue regardless, but I can't imagine that Garage Band hasn't been used yet in some hit records, with no add'l fees paid to Apple.

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Answer 13

Jul 1, 2010 3:11 PM in response to Jeffrey Lee

Well I read the SLA for iLife and the part about Garage Band. Frankly, I didn't see anything there would would prohibit you from using it for commercial purposes.... create a hit record in Garage Band, and from what I read, Apple has no recourse.

The OP is not asking about GarageBand - what you say is correct but it has nothing to do with the use of the text-to-speech voices, which, as Barbara's post above makes clear, are evidently not licensed for commercial use.

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Answer 14

babowa

Level 9

78,097 points

Jul 1, 2010 3:13 PM in response to Jeffrey Lee

+Well I read the SLA for iLife and the part about Garage Band. Frankly, I didn't see anything there would would prohibit you from using it for commercial purposes....+

I didn't say that it was prohibited; I just said that all eventualities are covered; however, the SLA for the OS which includes the Voices is very specific prohibiting the use for anything but personal use.

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