[DECtalk] IBM viavoice outloud comments

[Don]

On 2/8/2021 10:34 PM, Mohamed Al-Hajamy wrote:
> Nobody really knows for sure, but I suppose it might be a bit less legally
> uncertain since the libraries were made freely available by IBM themselves,
> along with publicly available documentation that explains the API, and on
> Windows, ViaVoice TTS, as far as I know, can't be purchased legally at all
> because the company who last sold it discontinued it in 2011 or so. I don't
> know if the newly discovered languages are available for Linux, though Voxin is
> selling Traditional Chinese which is still missing on Windows.

None of that matters.  The *legal* owner of the product (not any licensees)
issues new licenses.  There's nothing that says they have to KEEP issuing
licenses for a product in order to maintain their claim of ownership.

When you purchased your license, you bound yourself to the terms of
that license agreement.  Only the issuer can change those terms.

The license will also specify terms that apply to libraries/voices used
with the product.  E.g., the licenses may have been offered under terms
that applied to the speech engine (using them with some other product
may be expressly forbidden -- including an UNLICENSED copy of *their*
speech engine).

If you want to know for sure, start SELLING it as if it was your own...
and wait for a lawyer to come along and serve papers on you!  <grin>

["Gee, Windows 7 is no longer for sale, I guess *I* could start selling it!"]

> On 2/8/2021 5:05 PM, Josh Kennedy wrote:
>>
>> Hi,
>>
>> The IBM viavoice outloud tts the latest rare one with Norwegian and Swedish
>> and Danish languages works great. I wonder if this one is legal? It would
>> seem like it is legal and can be legally used by anybody because first its 20
>> or so years old, second, anybody can download it by using FileZilla and IBM’s
>> free ftp site. Does anyone know if there are free versions of these voices
>> for Linux?