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Voiceover buyer rights on Youtube


chobtoons

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I will begin animating short cartoons for my personal YouTube channel and need a voiceover artist.

If I order a VO for a short, fiction cartoon which is intended for a personal YouTube channel am I required to buy the rights to use that VO?

More importantly, if I am required to purchase a license, which one is more suited to my need?
• Commercial Use License
• Full Broadcast Rights

CUL detail:

“Choose this option if you intend to use this voice over for promoting your product or service in non-paid marketing channels.”

FBR detail:

“Choose this option if you intend to use this voice over for advertising your product or service in paid broadcasting channels, like Radio, TV and Internet.”

In the straight reading of these two outlines, it’s not clear that I need to purchase rights as I am not promoting nor advertising a product or a service. Unless the terms ‘promoting’ and ‘service’ literally just means to upload a video on a public forum which, in some cases, offers monetisation on popular videos.

I am not trying to squirm out of paying (Fiverr is 50/50 on reasonable Rights prices) but after reading several threads, it’s still not clear to me in my VO need if I require the additional Rights or if these are more for, y’know, ‘professional’, ‘marketable’, ‘commercial’ buyers.

Please help.
Thanks, S.

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It actually depends where and how you publish or show this work.

If you just show it at family slide night, no need for extra license rights. If you show it at Church then it becomes public and you are selling something (yup peace sells - but who’s buying if you ask Megadeth).

If you are using the VO in any way to promote yourself or a product/service, it is commercial usage.

Ultimately though it all comes down to between you and the VO talent and what agreement you are both happy with. If they ask for credit in liu of coin, be 110% sure you honor that or they can pull rights. I find most people drop credits which is terrible as it is stealing the talent’s moral right to be identified which is illegal in most countries.

🙂

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Not sure, but one of these threads might help?

. Transfer of copyright is too vague

. You Don’t Understand Commercial Usage

Haha not particularly - they are as equally in the air as the other threads I’d searched earlier. But thanks!

I guess it’s just going to have to come to asking the Seller directly which seems a bit silly that the Fiverr TOS can’t make more clear determinations about which one you need and why. If you ask a Seller which one you should choose or if you need one, you’re likely to get the answer that’s going to make the most money.

(Again, I’m happy to pay for one if necessary but wouldn’t want to buy one when even many Sellers (if all of these threads are to go by) don’t fully understand the usages either.)

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It actually depends where and how you publish or show this work.

If you just show it at family slide night, no need for extra license rights. If you show it at Church then it becomes public and you are selling something (yup peace sells - but who’s buying if you ask Megadeth).

If you are using the VO in any way to promote yourself or a product/service, it is commercial usage.

Ultimately though it all comes down to between you and the VO talent and what agreement you are both happy with. If they ask for credit in liu of coin, be 110% sure you honor that or they can pull rights. I find most people drop credits which is terrible as it is stealing the talent’s moral right to be identified which is illegal in most countries.

🙂

Using your Church example – Seems like personal YouTube cartoons just to make something for people to watch would likely fall under Commercial Use, then.

Shame Fiverr can’t be a little less vague in its TOS when all of the Buyers and Sellers can’t seem to agree on a definitive answer.

Thanks for your input.

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Have a look through this: Thinking of hiring a voice over? Here's some things you need to know

It’s up to the seller to define the licences, in my mind Anything on YouTube has the potential for monetisation so would require a commercial licence.

Google: “Gravy for the Brain Rates” and “GVAA Rates” to see what the industry should be charging for voices used in animations.

If you ask a Seller which one you should choose or if you need one, you’re likely to get the answer that’s going to make the most money.

I disagree, I’d say you’re going to end up paying the right amount and depending on the talent that could be much cheaper than you imagine. Examples: I’ve hired a nationally known voice to read me a page of A4 lines for a radio station, he cost me just fifty quid, and I had YouTube, commercial and IVR lines recorded with another well known voice for the standard £200 a session plus VAT.

Both nationally known and respected voices, both cheaper than I had imagined. Both were paid within seconds of getting their quote and both were a dream to work with. You’ll be amazed at how happy talent is when you pay them well ahead of expectations, makes me think some big agencies and national brands must be terrible at paying on time. At least with Fiverr there’s no chasing late paying accounts.

(Again, I’m happy to pay for one if necessary but wouldn’t want to buy one when even many Sellers (if all of these threads are to go by) don’t fully understand the usages either.)

You’re right there, some sellers don’t have a clue about usage, but to be frank, some voice over talent here lacks both the quiet environment to record, and the required talent to deliver a read, as for the buyers, I’m certain some of them are deaf and buy audio which sounds so bad it’s not fit for any purpose.

On the flip side of the coin, there are some amazingly talented folks selling their voice here: there’s a guy in the next village along from me who is a successful voice here and in the real world, a girl I used to work with years and years ago is here too, we used to do traffic and travel bulletins on several stations and I know she’s amazing to work with so the talent is certainly here, it’s just tedious listening to crap demo after crap demo to find that voice which fits.

It’s certainly got harder to find good new voices here with the influx of new users thinking they can “meksell” and get rich overnight. It’s almost like every day there’s a new idiot selling robot voices to the deaf and hard of thinking.

Shame Fiverr can’t be a little less vague in its TOS when all of the Buyers and Sellers can’t seem to agree on a definitive answer

Nothing vague in there, those terms give sellers flexibility, there are conditional statements in there which when understood, and applied, are pretty damn cool actually.

Ultimately though it all comes down to between you and the VO talent and what agreement you are both happy with

Spot on. “can’t seem to agree on a definitive answer” translates in my head to "we didn’t communicate, and therefore didn’t reach a mutual understanding.

That’s the fault of the seller for not enlightening the buyer in their gig description and FAQ section.

Anyway, @chobtoons hopefully you’ll find the voice which is right for both your ears and your wallet!

Tell me about it when it comes to knowing good audio quality. I work in China and the company I work for made an animation in partnership with an outside Health and Safety group. They demanded changes to some dialogue and sent what they said was a professional to our office to re-record parts whilst I was away. When I got back, this ‘professional’ had re-recorded dialogue in an echoey room with (I assume) the actor angled away from the microphone, and with the gain set too high. (In the companies I’ve worked at here people will settle for ‘acceptable’ A/V and speed of production over quality. It drives me nuts!)

When it comes to A/V production, normally I do everything myself and haven’t had a need to hire externally before. As a Seller last year (using a different account), I knew my labor parameters and made my gigs and FAQs very clear and detailed based on the different types of Buyers I expected and what I required/what people should have expected from me. Still, even after going to that detailed trouble, my personal experiences with several Buyers were still poor (hence my dig in an earlier reply at some buyers asking for the highest price regardless).

I agree that communication is key. I guess, as a novice Buyer (always sold on Fiverr, never bought), when the information I was looking for in the Sellers’ gigs wasn’t clear, I was hoping that the TOS would be a little more solid. I agree with you about flexibility, though I think my frustration with the TOS comes down to this quote from your linked thread:

Don’t look a gift-horse in the mouth, know when you’re getting a good deal and compared to industry rates, Fiverr is one hell of a good deal. Don’t try to haggle it down further, it just makes you look tight and nobody wants to work for tightwads.

I think flexibility is good but for a novice, it’d be nice to get some more detail for the layman than the relatively vague wording in the TOS - because not all novice buyers can correctly assess whether they are getting a good deal even compared to an industry rate (a $200 licence fee is a lot for someone with a subscriber base of 11 who’s just doing some YouTube skits on the side for a hobby) – if Sellers don’t want to take the flexibility that Fiverr gives them and lay out some clearer terms and list them as different tiers of a gig, then that flexibility should still work both ways in the communication. Depending on the Buyer, I don’t think it’s bad to haggle a higher license fee. My initial frustration came from thinking that it would be uncouth to haggle a lower license fee (depending on Seller, and if their license fee is particularly high).

That aside – At least, thanks to your detailed response I think I can make a reasonable call to look at the CUL fee rather than the FBR one (which is what this whole post was about!).

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Have a look through this: Thinking of hiring a voice over? Here's some things you need to know

It’s up to the seller to define the licences, in my mind Anything on YouTube has the potential for monetisation so would require a commercial licence.

Google: “Gravy for the Brain Rates” and “GVAA Rates” to see what the industry should be charging for voices used in animations.

If you ask a Seller which one you should choose or if you need one, you’re likely to get the answer that’s going to make the most money.

I disagree, I’d say you’re going to end up paying the right amount and depending on the talent that could be much cheaper than you imagine. Examples: I’ve hired a nationally known voice to read me a page of A4 lines for a radio station, he cost me just fifty quid, and I had YouTube, commercial and IVR lines recorded with another well known voice for the standard £200 a session plus VAT.

Both nationally known and respected voices, both cheaper than I had imagined. Both were paid within seconds of getting their quote and both were a dream to work with. You’ll be amazed at how happy talent is when you pay them well ahead of expectations, makes me think some big agencies and national brands must be terrible at paying on time. At least with Fiverr there’s no chasing late paying accounts.

(Again, I’m happy to pay for one if necessary but wouldn’t want to buy one when even many Sellers (if all of these threads are to go by) don’t fully understand the usages either.)

You’re right there, some sellers don’t have a clue about usage, but to be frank, some voice over talent here lacks both the quiet environment to record, and the required talent to deliver a read, as for the buyers, I’m certain some of them are deaf and buy audio which sounds so bad it’s not fit for any purpose.

On the flip side of the coin, there are some amazingly talented folks selling their voice here: there’s a guy in the next village along from me who is a successful voice here and in the real world, a girl I used to work with years and years ago is here too, we used to do traffic and travel bulletins on several stations and I know she’s amazing to work with so the talent is certainly here, it’s just tedious listening to crap demo after crap demo to find that voice which fits.

It’s certainly got harder to find good new voices here with the influx of new users thinking they can “meksell” and get rich overnight. It’s almost like every day there’s a new idiot selling robot voices to the deaf and hard of thinking.

Shame Fiverr can’t be a little less vague in its TOS when all of the Buyers and Sellers can’t seem to agree on a definitive answer

Nothing vague in there, those terms give sellers flexibility, there are conditional statements in there which when understood, and applied, are pretty damn cool actually.

Ultimately though it all comes down to between you and the VO talent and what agreement you are both happy with

Spot on. “can’t seem to agree on a definitive answer” translates in my head to "we didn’t communicate, and therefore didn’t reach a mutual understanding.

That’s the fault of the seller for not enlightening the buyer in their gig description and FAQ section.

Anyway, @chobtoons hopefully you’ll find the voice which is right for both your ears and your wallet!

It’s almost like every day there’s a new idiot selling robot voices to the deaf and hard of thinking.

Is that actually happening in the VO category? I know of numerous whiteboard/explainer video sellers who tack on a robo-voice so to skimp out on hiring an actual human, but are there actual voice over sellers who don’t actually perform at all?

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Is that actually happening in the VO category? I know of numerous whiteboard/explainer video sellers who tack on a robo-voice so to skimp out on hiring an actual human, but are there actual voice over sellers who don’t actually perform at all?

I suspect that linking to specific gigs would breach the forum’s terms so I’ll refrain, but sadly yes, there are robo voices in the market.

b0a72261e3b38eee2800a70930b2964a5782cba7.pngFiverr.com
aa2b5cb413b607e697f42a018dc3d99e3560b5a1_2_690x362.png

Fiverr / Search Results for 'voice over'

One marketplace, millions of professional services. Browse. Buy. Done.

Listen to the varying quality, the levels are all over the place, some need the sound cranking right up to hear and there’s even a demo which is silent and I’m sorry, but I’m not actually joking: there really is a silent demo. No, slap me with a fish, there are two silent demos, honestly what the hell is wrong with these people?

There’s a demo with a dog barking in the background. I’m sort of speechless about how bad some of them are, but like I said, there’s some great talent too. They’re just harder to find these days, same in all categories too I guess.

Search for “I will do voiceover your video or video narration” and find the seller with a name which matches a type of lighting, they’re a robot and out of the twenty or so demos I just listened to, there were two who I thought of as being pros.

Two had a good environment, a good voice, a good delivery and the rest, well, there’s wheat and chaff as they say.

Guess I haven’t noticed. I occasionally look over other VO gigs and profiles to keep up on trends, descriptions, and FAQs, but I am looking at established, leveled, and successful profiles/gigs and not brand new sellers with little/no platform record.

Some of the examples you’ve mentioned are hilarious, and sound like complete novices learning as they go, but I don’t have a problem with that. Everyone has to start from somewhere, and hopefully learn, adapt, and improve with time and experience.

The use of text-to-talk is unforgivable however, and ticks me off.

A voice actor has a proprietary gift, their unique, individual voice. Of course, people can and will mimic famous/iconic voices such as James Earl Jones, Morgan Freeman, David Attenborough, Don LaFontaine, etc., but mimicry also requires study and innate skill.

There is nothing proprietary about using a pre-existing text-to-talk speech program. It’s not unique, it’s not emotive, it’s not natural; it is however, soulless and easy to mass replicate. Trying to sell a widely available text-to-talk service in the voice over category is the antithesis of voice acting.

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Have you seen Mike Delgaudio / Booth Junkies recent video about sites which take recordings of several scripts to build the components to replicate a voice digitally?

That’s clever tech but people are literally giving their voices away to robots.

I’ve watched some stuff on that and heard some examples. Feed a program enough speech examples of an individual and it can synthesize a surprisingly accurate replication of their voice, and you can have them say whatever you want…

Even with such a sophisticated program, it still sounds unnatural when emotion is invoked. For straight speech, it becomes almost undetectable. Guess programs and machines still have a hard time reenacting some human qualities.

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