1. Rights you confirm
You confirm that you own or control all rights and permissions reasonably necessary for the requested audiobook production, including the right to reproduce, adapt, perform, record, distribute, and—only if requested—publicly promote the manuscript and materials you submit.
If a publisher, coauthor, estate, illustrator, translator, employer, licensor, or other party controls relevant rights, you confirm that you have obtained permission covering the requested service. You also confirm that submitted material does not knowingly infringe copyright, trademark, privacy, publicity, contract, or other rights and is not unlawful.
We do not provide a legal title search or guarantee that a work is in the public domain. For client orders, responsibility for chain of title remains with you. We may request documentation or decline a project where ownership or consent is unclear.
2. Limited license to produce the order
You grant The Authors Echo a limited, nonexclusive, worldwide license during the order and reasonable retention period to copy, store, process, format, perform, edit, and transmit the submitted materials solely as needed to verify, produce, revise, secure, and deliver the purchased service.
For a hosted API package, this limited license includes sending necessary manuscript text to the disclosed voice-technology provider. For a local package, we will not move narration to a hosted voice API without your approval. This production license does not allow us to sell your manuscript, train a general-purpose model on it, or publish it without separate authorization.
3. Rights in finished deliverables
You retain all rights you already hold in your manuscript and other preexisting materials. After full payment, and subject to the exclusions below, The Authors Echo assigns to you any transferable rights we own in the custom final audio edit, custom arrangement, and custom artwork created specifically for the order. Where an assignment is not legally effective, we grant you a perpetual, worldwide, transferable license to use, reproduce, distribute, publicly perform, market, and monetize those final deliverables.
Copyright protection for AI-assisted material can depend on the amount and nature of human authorship and is determined case by case. We therefore do not guarantee that every synthetic voice output, generated image, or other machine-produced element is independently copyrightable or exclusively ownable.
Drafts, rejected concepts, internal templates, software, workflows, prompts, tools, general production methods, and reusable know-how remain ours or their respective owners. Your rights apply to the final approved deliverables, not those internal materials.
4. Third-party and licensed elements
Voice models, software, fonts, stock assets, music, sound effects, and platform services may be subject to third-party terms. We will use assets intended for the agreed commercial use, but cannot transfer ownership of third-party technology or content. Any material limitation that materially affects intended use should be stated in the order or delivery notes.
You are responsible for platform-specific rules and disclosures when distributing the audiobook. We will provide reasonable information about the production class and included assets upon request.
5. Voice, name, and likeness protections
You may not request an imitation, clone, or confusing simulation of a real person without that person’s documented authorization or another valid legal basis we accept. If you supply a voice recording or model, you confirm you have authority for the requested use.
Approval of an original synthetic character voice does not grant ownership of the underlying model or prevent a provider from offering voices with similar general qualities. We will not knowingly market a synthetic voice as the performance of a real person who did not participate.
6. Optional publication and promotion
No promotional license is granted by the standard rights checkbox alone. If you separately opt in to YouTube, Facebook, portfolio, or website promotion, you grant us a nonexclusive license to host and use the approved audiobook or excerpts, cover image, title, author name or pen name, and supplied description for the agreed campaign and reasonable archival references.
You may revoke future promotional use by email. We will stop new promotion and remove content under our control within a reasonable time, subject to platform processing, records needed to document prior authorized use, and third-party copies we do not control. Revocation does not make earlier authorized use wrongful.
7. Rights claims and takedowns
If we receive a credible ownership, privacy, or publicity-rights claim, we may pause production, withhold delivery, or remove promotional content while the claim is reviewed. You agree to provide reasonably requested documentation and cooperate in resolving the issue.
Send rights concerns to theauthorsecho@outlook.com with the work title, your contact information, the right at issue, and supporting information. Do not send unnecessary sensitive identity documents by ordinary email.