[DECtalk] A very interesting program

Jayson Smith ratguy at bellsouth.net
Sat Aug 19 15:46:53 EDT 2006


Hi,
I'm not sure if you've read the license agreement for the Modeltalker and
Invtool programs, but they are not for commercial use, and you aren't
allowed to distribute them.  That having been said, I asked about rights a
creator of a voice has.  Here's Tim's reply.  Note that earlier, he'd told
me they have a better voice creation program in their lab that's too
experimental to be released right now, so someone who wanted could register
to upload their voice to the lab for processing.  Anyway, here's his reply,
followed by my original questions.
Jayson.

These are important questions, some of which are not definitively
answerable until a final product emerges for commercial use. At that
point, the policy will need to be carefully and fully laid out.

There is a fully laid out policy regarding voices you upload to our
laboratory for processing. It is laid out in a page you read when going
through the registration procedure, but in brief, we take the privacy
issues related to your speech files very seriously. We ask for your
permission to use them in certain ways, but will make the voice for you
whether you grant the permission or not. There is nothing coercive in
the policy or its intent.

As far as I'm concerned, once you have a voice, whether you make it or
we do, you are free to give it to others (they will need to get their
own copy of ModelTalker).

Best Regards,

t

Jayson Smith wrote:
> Hi,
> Ok, this is a nitpicky question, but when I installed both MT and Invtool,
I
> actually read the license agreements.  Yes, honest, I really did read
them!
> Amazing, isn't it?  Since nobody reads those things!  Anyway, as far as I
> can tell, there are no provisions for what rights a person or the
developers
> have over a voice database created by Invtool.  Obviously if I make a
voice
> and only keep it for myself, never giving it to anybody, this doesn't
> matter.  But, do I have the right to allow others to download and use that
> particular voice, provided they already have the MT software through legal
> means?  What about if I send in a voice to be processed with your latest
and
> greatest BCC.  By doing this, am I signing my life away as far as rights
you
> aquire to the voice, or is it still my voice to do with as I choose?
> Obviously I'd assume that I wouldn't have the right to make commercial use
> of even my own voice, since commercial use of the MT software is not
> allowed.
> Jayson.




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