Any other written agreement between the parties has priority over, but defaults to, these general Terms of Use. ReadSpeaker speechMaker Studio (the “Service”) is an online text-to-speech service enabling customers to convert text to synthetic speech and is owned and operated by ReadSpeaker B.V. (“ReadSpeaker”), registered in the Netherlands No. 30235244, whose registered office is situated: Princenhof Park 13, 3972 NG, Driebergen-Rijsenburg, the Netherlands.
This agreement is an agreement between you (either a sole proprietor or entrepreneur or a single legal entity, referred to in this agreement as “you”) and ReadSpeaker for the Service, including (i) the user interface, (ii) any associated media, printed materials, and electronic documentation (the “Documents”), and (iii) any audio data files generated (“Audio”).
The Service also includes any updates, add-on components, services, and/or supplements that ReadSpeaker may provide to you or make available to you, or that you obtain from the use of features or functionality of the Service after you obtain the right to use the Service in as far as such items are not accompanied by a separate license agreement or terms of use.
By accessing or otherwise using the Service, you agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement.
1. GRANT OF USE & LICENSE
In consideration of payment by you of the agreed license fee and you agreeing to abide by the terms of this agreement, ReadSpeaker grants to you a non-exclusive, non-transferable license to use the Service on the terms of this agreement.
You may: (a) use the Service for your internal business purposes only: (i) by one individual if the License is a single-user license; or (ii) if the License is a multi-user or network license, by the number of concurrent users agreed; (b) receive and use any update of the Service as may be provided by ReadSpeaker from time to time; and; (c) use any Documents in support of the use permitted above.
The Service and Audio are protected by intellectual property laws and treaties. Access to the Service and Audio and the rights attached thereto are licensed, not sold. You may use the Service as identified in this agreement. All rights not expressly granted are reserved by ReadSpeaker. Audio produced using the Service is owned by ReadSpeaker or any of its suppliers, which may vary depending on which voice is used, and is, by this agreement, perpetually licensed to the customer. ReadSpeaker reserves the right to revoke this license if this agreement is violated.
2. FEES & CHANGES
You can sign up as an individual business user (such as a sole proprietor or entrepreneur) or a legal entity (such as a company or organization).
If you sign up as an individual user, an account will be created for you, and you can use the Service for free during a trial period for the purpose of evaluating the Service. You will receive a limited amount of trial credits to test the Service using the preview function. Downloading Audio is not available when using the trial. Audio generated during the trial shall not be used for commercial purposes in any way. To use the service beyond the initial trial, you must purchase credits, which are available in different "buckets".
One credit is charged per character when Audio is downloaded. The characters are counted excluding whitespaces and including any changes dictated by pronunciation dictionary entries.
Credits must be consumed within 12 months of purchase. Credits are non-refundable. We do not offer refunds for partial months of service, upgrade/downgrade refunds, or refunds for unused credits after they have expired. All fees are exclusive of all taxes, levies, or duties imposed by taxing authorities, except for VAT, which is included. You shall be responsible for payment of all such taxes, levies, or duties.
ReadSpeaker may introduce changes to the Service provided such changes do not change the basic functionalities of the Service. If you are using the Service free of charge during the trial period, ReadSpeaker has the right to modify or discontinue, temporarily or permanently, your access to the Service with or without notice.
Fees for companies or organizations are determined in the order confirmation. You acknowledge that ReadSpeaker’s subsidiaries and affiliates may act as representatives of ReadSpeaker in relation to the Service under these Terms of Use, including billing and collecting of fees.
3. DESCRIPTION OF OTHER RIGHTS AND LIMITATIONS
Internet Access, Traffic Charges, and Bandwidth Consumption
You will not be able to exercise your full rights to the Service unless you have Internet access. All traffic charges or access charges incurred by the use of the Service are subject to your normal terms with your service providers.
Copy Protection
The Service may include copy protection technology to prevent unauthorized copying or unauthorized access.
Limitations on the Use of the Service
The intended use of the Service is to make it possible for you to convert text into audio files consisting of spoken output through use of the Service and the underlying automatic text-to-speech engines. The maximum text length for converting text to speech is determined by the order confirmation but cannot be more than 20,000 characters (approximately 4,000 words).
By using the Service, you acknowledge and agree that certain voices and functionalities may contain limitations regarding the purposes for which the Audio generated by the Services can be used or otherwise and agree to abide by and shall not attempt to exceed, violate or circumvent such limitations.
When using the Service you agree not to:
- use the Service for any illegal or unauthorized purpose,
- violate any laws or regulations (including, but not limited to, copyright laws),
- broadcast the Audio over radio or television networks,
- use parts or segments of the Audio in any form of computer program,
- modify, adapt, or hack the Service or the Service or modify another website to falsely imply that it is associated with the Service, ReadSpeaker, or any other ReadSpeaker service, or permit the Service or any part of it to be combined with, or become incorporated in, any other programs or software;
- reverse engineer, decompile, or disassemble the software components comprising the Service, or create derivative works based on the whole or any part thereof except if, and only to the extent that, such activity is expressly permitted by mandatory law,
- reproduce, reengineer, duplicate, copy, sell, resell, rent, lease, sub-license, loan, translate, merge or exploit any portion of the Service, use of the Service, or access to the Service without the express written permission of ReadSpeaker,
- provide or otherwise make available the Service in whole or in part (including but not limited to program listings, object and source program listings, object code and source code), in any form to any person other than your employees without prior written consent from ReadSpeaker;
- transmit any viruses or any code of a destructive nature within or in relation to the use of the Service,
- produce Audio or transmit through the Service any unlawful, harassing, libelous, abusive, threatening, harmful, vulgar, obscene, hateful, or racially, ethnically, or otherwise objectionable content of any kind or nature, or
- transmit or post any material that encourages conduct that could constitute a criminal offense, give rise to civil liability, or otherwise violate any applicable law or regulation.
Your Responsibility
You agree to be solely responsible for the use of the Service and any Audio created using the Service. You must supervise and control use of the Service and ensure that the Service is used by your employees and representatives in accordance with the terms of this agreement, including the limitations regarding the number of users who have access to the Service on your behalf.
4. SUPPORT
Technical support via email is available for paying account holders.
5. TERMINATION
Your account will be deactivated if you do not purchase new credits within 6 months after your credits expire. You may receive advance notifications per email saying when 90% of your credits have been used, warning you that your credits will expire soon, and/or warning you one week before deactivation. If you fail to purchase credits for another three months after deactivation, your account will be permanently deleted. ReadSpeaker may terminate your account at any time but must give at least 3 months' notice. Fees paid and pertaining to the period after such termination will be refunded. ReadSpeaker may terminate your account immediately and without prior notice if you fail to comply with this agreement. In such an event, no fees will be refunded, you will be unable to use the Service, and you must destroy all Audio created with the Service.
The responsibility for keeping your account active by making sure there are active credits lies with the administrator of the Service and how this is done will depend on the contract between the organization and ReadSpeaker.
ReadSpeaker may terminate this agreement immediately if you commit a material or persistent breach of this agreement. On termination for any reason, (a) all rights granted to you under this agreement shall cease; (b) you must immediately cease all activities authorized by this agreement.
6. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS
All title and intellectual property rights related to the Service are owned by ReadSpeaker, its subsidiaries or affiliates, or its suppliers. This Agreement does not grant you any rights in connection with any trademarks or service marks of ReadSpeaker. All title and intellectual property rights pertaining to content handled by the Service are the property of the respective content owners and may be protected by applicable copyright or other intellectual property laws and treaties. This agreement grants you no right to use such content and you agree to hold ReadSpeaker harmless from any losses, costs, or damages incurred or suffered as a result of any use, distribution etc. of such content.
By agreeing to these Terms of Use, you also grant ReadSpeaker a perpetual, non-restricted and royalty-free license to use any pronunciation dictionary entry you may have added to the Service.
7. LIMITED WARRANTY
ReadSpeaker does not warrant that the Service will be uninterrupted or error-free. ReadSpeaker warrants that the Service will perform substantially in accordance with the descriptions available at www.readspeaker.com. Any supplements or updates to the Service, including any service packs or hot fixes provided to you (if any) are not covered by any warranty or condition, express, implied, or statutory. You acknowledge that the Service has not been developed to meet your individual requirements, including any particular cybersecurity requirements you might be subject to under law or otherwise, and that it is therefore your responsibility to ensure that the facilities and functions of the Service as described in the Documents meet your requirements. ReadSpeaker only supplies the Service for internal use by your business, and you agree not to use the Service for any re-sale purposes.
Your exclusive remedy for any breach of this agreement is as set forth below. You are not entitled to any damages if the Service does not meet ReadSpeaker's Limited Warranty, including but not limited to consequential or indirect damages, loss of profits, sales, business, or revenue, business interruption; loss of anticipated savings, wasted expenditure and/or loss or corruption of data or information, loss of business opportunity, goodwill or reputation and/or any special, indirect or consequential loss, damage, charges or expenses. ReadSpeaker's entire liability and your exclusive remedy shall be, (a) an extension of the period of validity of your credits, or (b) extra credits added to your account to compensate for the period during which the Service malfunctioned or was not available. This Limited Warranty is void if failure of the Service has resulted from accident, abuse, misapplication, abnormal use, or a virus. To the maximum extent permitted by applicable law, ReadSpeaker provides the SERVICE AS IS AND WITH ALL FAULTS, and hereby disclaims all other warranties and conditions.
8. INDEMNIFICATION
You agree to indemnify and hold ReadSpeaker, its subsidiaries, affiliates, officers, and employees, harmless from any claim or demand, including reasonable attorneys' fees, made by any third party due to or arising from your use of the Service, the violation of this agreement, or the infringement by you of any intellectual property or other rights of any person or entity.
9. NOTICES
Notices to you may be provided at any time through posts or blogs on the ReadSpeaker website (www.readspeaker.com), via email to your registered email address, or through the Service’s web interface.
10. DISCLAIMER
ReadSpeaker does not manually or automatically check or qualify the content of texts or documents which are converted to speech by the Service.
ReadSpeaker does not take responsibility for content or rights of any third party, this is solely your responsibility.
The Service uses Speech Synthesis (computer generated speech) to read the texts out loud; ReadSpeaker cannot guarantee that all words will be pronounced correctly.
11. PROTECTION OF PERSONAL DATA
Under applicable data protection legislation, ReadSpeaker is required to provide you with certain information about how ReadSpeaker and its subsidiaries and affiliates process the personal data of those individuals who use the Service and for what purposes, and those individuals’ rights in relation to their personal data and how to exercise them. This information is provided in the ReadSpeaker data protection notice available here and it is important that you read that information.
12. MODIFICATIONS AND UPDATES TO THESE TERMS
ReadSpeaker may update the terms of this agreement at any time on notice to you. Your continued use of the Service and Documents following the deemed receipt and service of the notice shall constitute your acceptance to the terms of this agreement, as varied. If you do not wish to accept the terms of the agreement (as varied) you must immediately stop using and accessing the Service.
You acknowledge that ReadSpeaker may transfer its rights and/or obligations under this agreement to another organization, but this will not affect your rights or our obligations under this agreement. You may only transfer your rights or your obligations under this agreement to another person or entity if ReadSpeaker agrees in writing.
13. ENTIRE AGREEMENT
This agreement together with the ReadSpeaker Privacy statement for the Service constitutes the entire agreement between you and ReadSpeaker relating to the Service. In case of any individual or special arrangements between you and ReadSpeaker relating to the Service, these shall take precedence over these Terms of Use to the extent they contain provisions that deviate from these Terms of Use.
14. APPLICABLE LAW AND JURISDICTION
This agreement is governed by the laws of the Netherlands. Any dispute, controversy, or claim arising out of or in connection with this agreement, or the breach, termination, or invalidity thereof shall be submitted to the court of Utrecht (the Netherlands).