Terms of use

speech.name, its consoles and the per-handle hostnames under speech.name (the "Site") is owned and operated by Grid Heap, Inc. ("Grid Heap", "we", "us"). These terms govern your use of the Site. By using it, or by creating an account, you agree to them for yourself or for the organisation you represent, and you confirm you are at least 18 and have the authority to agree. If you do not agree, do not use the Site. The privacy policy and the handle and dispute policy are part of these terms.

Please read section 12. It requires disputes to be resolved by individual arbitration rather than in court, and it waives class actions and jury trials. You may opt out within 30 days.

1. Accounts

You must give accurate information when you register and keep it current. You are responsible for everything done under your account and for keeping your sign-in credentials confidential; tell security@gridheap.com at once if you believe your account has been used without your authorisation. An organisation account binds the organisation, and the person who creates it confirms they may do so. You may delete your account as described in the privacy policy, and we may suspend or terminate it as described in section 9.

2. Your record and your handle

A handle is an address in the registry. Claiming it does not give you a name, a trademark or an identity, and the handle and dispute policy governs who may hold which handle, how disputes are decided, and when we may reserve, suspend or reassign one.

You keep every right you have in your voice and in the content you publish. You grant us only the licence needed to store, display, resolve, cache and back up your record as a public registry entry for as long as it is published, and to keep its version history afterwards. You must have the right to make the statements your record makes, you must not use a handle to impersonate a person or an organisation, and you must not publish a grant about a voice that is not yours to grant.

3. What a record means

A record is evidence that a statement was published, by a handle, at a time. It is not consent, not a licence in itself, not proof of identity and not a technical control. A verification level states what we checked, never who a person is. We do not verify that a holder owns the voice described, we do not adjudicate ownership, and we cannot prevent anyone from generating audio. Nothing in the registry substitutes for the legal advice, the permissions or the contracts a particular use of a voice may require in your jurisdiction.

4. The voice library

If you list a voice

You confirm that the voice is yours, or that you hold and can show a written right to license it, and that you are at least 18. You grant us the licence needed to store your reference sample, to generate a demo from it, and to synthesize speech with it for licensees, only within the use classes, territories and terms of your listing and of your record's grants. You set those terms and you may withdraw a listing at any time; withdrawal ends new licences and does not revoke audio already generated under an existing one. We pay you the share of licence revenue shown in the console for your listing, on the schedule and above the minimum shown there, through Stripe Connect, and you are responsible for the tax consequences of what you receive.

If you license a voice

A licence lets you generate speech with the voice, for the uses the listing and the record permit, in the territories they permit, for the term of your plan. It is personal to your organisation and cannot be transferred or sublicensed. You must not use a licensed voice to deceive, to defraud, to harass, to impersonate the speaker in a way that suggests they said something they did not, or in any way the listing forbids or the law forbids; where the law requires you to disclose that speech is synthetic, you must. You must not remove, alter or defeat the watermark or the fingerprint we place in generated audio. Metering is per minute of generated audio and our records of it are conclusive absent manifest error.

Your own providers

If you connect your own account with a third-party speech provider, you are the customer of that provider, its terms govern what you send it, and we act only as your tool in calling it. We store the key you give us in a vault, use it only for your requests, and delete it when you disconnect.

5. Acceptable use

You may not: use the Site to infringe anyone's rights, including rights of publicity and privacy; upload audio you have no right to upload; attempt to access accounts, records or audio that are not yours; probe, scan or test the Site's security except as our security page invites; interfere with the Site or place unreasonable load on it; scrape the registry beyond what the public resolution API is for; misrepresent a resolution, verification or watermark result; or resell access to the Site. API keys are confidential; you are responsible for calls made with yours. We may rate-limit, suspend or block use that we reasonably believe breaches this section.

6. Plans and billing

On this edition every organisation is on an included preview plan. Nothing is billed. We may change or withdraw the preview plan on notice; when paid plans arrive with the AWS Marketplace listing, the order you place there will set the plan, price, term, renewal, cancellation and refund terms, and the marketplace's customer terms will apply between you and Amazon Web Services.

Claiming a handle, publishing grants and public resolution are free and we intend to keep them free.

7. Our content and your feedback

The Site, its software, its design and its documentation belong to Grid Heap or its licensors. You may use them only as these terms allow, and you may not copy, modify, reverse engineer or build a competing service from them beyond what the law permits notwithstanding this clause. If you send us feedback, you grant us a perpetual, irrevocable, worldwide, royalty-free licence to use it without attribution; please do not send feedback you consider confidential.

8. Third parties

The Site links to and relies on third parties: the sign-in provider, the marketplaces, Stripe, and the speech providers you may connect. We do not control them, their terms and privacy practices apply to your use of them, and we are not responsible for them. Your dealings with other users, including speakers and licensees, are between you and them; we may, but need not, become involved in a dispute between users, and the handle and dispute policy describes the disputes we do decide.

9. Suspension and termination

These terms apply while you use the Site. You may stop at any time. We may suspend or terminate your access, or withdraw a record or a listing, if we reasonably believe you have breached these terms or the law, if a marketplace order that backed your plan ends, if the law requires it, or if we discontinue the Site, in which case we will give reasonable notice where we can. On termination, sections 2 through 4 as they concern content already published or licensed, and sections 7 through 13, survive.

10. Disclaimers and limitation of liability

THE SITE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE". TO THE FULLEST EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE AND NON-INFRINGEMENT, AND WE DO NOT WARRANT THAT THE SITE WILL BE UNINTERRUPTED, ERROR-FREE OR SECURE, THAT A RECORD, A VERIFICATION LEVEL, A WATERMARK OR A FINGERPRINT RESULT IS CORRECT, OR THAT A RESOLUTION RESPONSE IS SUFFICIENT FOR ANY PURPOSE. WHERE THE LAW REQUIRES A WARRANTY, IT IS LIMITED TO 90 DAYS FROM YOUR FIRST USE.

TO THE MAXIMUM EXTENT THE LAW ALLOWS, WE AND OUR SUPPLIERS ARE NOT LIABLE FOR LOST PROFITS, LOST DATA, THE COST OF SUBSTITUTE SERVICES, OR ANY INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES ARISING FROM THESE TERMS OR THE SITE, AND OUR TOTAL LIABILITY FOR ALL CLAIMS IS CAPPED AT THE GREATER OF US$50 AND THE AMOUNT YOU PAID US, OR A MARKETPLACE PAID US ON YOUR BEHALF, IN THE SIX MONTHS BEFORE THE EVENT GIVING RISE TO THE CLAIM. MULTIPLE CLAIMS DO NOT INCREASE THE CAP. Some jurisdictions do not allow some of these limitations, in which case they apply to the extent permitted.

11. Indemnity and release

You will defend, indemnify and hold harmless Grid Heap and its officers, employees and agents from claims, and the reasonable costs and legal fees they cause, that arise from your use of the Site, your content, a voice you listed or licensed, your breach of these terms or your breach of the law. We may take over the defence of such a claim at your expense, you will cooperate with it, and you will not settle it without our written consent. To the fullest extent the law allows, you release us from claims arising from other users and from third-party services. If you are a California resident you waive California Civil Code section 1542, which says that a general release does not extend to claims the releasing party does not know or suspect to exist at the time of the release.

12. Dispute resolution

Agreement to arbitrate. You and Grid Heap agree to resolve every dispute arising out of or relating to the Site, the registry, a licence or these terms by binding individual arbitration and not in court, except for claims that qualify for small-claims court, brought individually, and requests for equitable relief concerning intellectual property. This applies to claims that arose before you agreed to these terms.

Try to resolve it first. Before starting arbitration, the party raising the dispute sends a written notice describing it to the other; ours goes to the email on your account, yours goes to legal@gridheap.com. A postal address for notices is available on request from that address. Within 45 days the parties meet by phone or video in good faith. If the dispute is not resolved within 60 days of the notice, either party may start arbitration.

Rules. Arbitration is administered by JAMS under its Streamlined Arbitration Rules for claims under US$250,000 and its Comprehensive Arbitration Rules otherwise, before one arbitrator, in the county where you live unless the parties agree otherwise, and it may be conducted by video. The demand must state your contact details and handle, the claims and the facts behind them, the relief sought with a good-faith estimate of damages, confirmation that the informal process was completed, and proof of any filing fee paid. The arbitrator decides every question of arbitrability except the enforceability of the class-action waiver, disputes about fees, whether the informal process was completed, and which version of these terms applies, which a court decides. The arbitrator may award what a court could, on an individual basis only; the award is final and may be entered in any court with jurisdiction. Arbitration materials are confidential.

Waivers. BY AGREEING TO ARBITRATE, YOU AND GRID HEAP WAIVE THE RIGHT TO A TRIAL BY JUDGE OR JURY. ALL CLAIMS MUST BE BROUGHT INDIVIDUALLY; NEITHER PARTY MAY BRING OR JOIN A CLASS, REPRESENTATIVE OR COLLECTIVE PROCEEDING. If a court finds the class-action waiver unenforceable for a claim, that claim proceeds in the courts named in section 13 and every other claim stays in arbitration.

Fees. Each party bears its own legal fees unless the arbitrator finds a claim frivolous or brought for an improper purpose. If 100 or more substantially similar demands are filed against us within 30 days by the same firm or coordinated group, JAMS will batch them in groups of 100 with one arbitrator and one set of fees per batch.

Opt-out. You may opt out of this section within 30 days of first accepting these terms by writing to legal@gridheap.com with your name, the email on your account and a clear statement that you opt out. Opting out affects nothing else in these terms.

Severability. If any part of this section is found invalid, it is modified to the minimum extent needed to make it enforceable and the rest stays in effect.

13. General

Governing law. These terms and any dispute about them or the Site are governed by the laws of the State of Delaware, without regard to its conflict-of-law rules. For a claim that is not subject to arbitration, you and we consent to the exclusive jurisdiction of the state and federal courts in New Castle County, Delaware, except that either party may seek injunctive relief to protect intellectual property in any competent court and may bring an individual claim in small-claims court.

Changes. We may update these terms. For a material change we will email the address on your account or post a prominent notice on the Site before it takes effect, and your continued use afterwards means you accept it. The version on the Site on a given date is the version that applied on that date.

Export. You will not export or re-export anything obtained from the Site in breach of U.S. export controls or the laws of another country.

Electronic notices. You consent to receive notices from us by email and by posting on the Site; they satisfy any requirement for written notice.

Accessibility. We aim to conform to WCAG 2.1 level AA. Tell contact@gridheap.com about anything you cannot access and we will address it.

Entire agreement. These terms, the privacy policy, the handle and dispute policy and any listing terms you accept are the entire agreement between you and us about the Site. If any provision is unenforceable it is modified to the minimum extent needed and the rest stands; our failure to enforce a provision is not a waiver of it; "including" means "including without limitation". You may not assign these terms without our written consent; we may assign them to a successor.

California residents may report complaints to the Complaint Assistance Unit of the Division of Consumer Services of the California Department of Consumer Affairs, 1625 N. Market Blvd., Suite N-112, Sacramento, CA 95834, telephone (800) 952-5210. The provider of the Site is Grid Heap, Inc., reachable at legal@gridheap.com. Residents of California, Colorado, Connecticut, Virginia, Nevada, Texas and other states with consumer privacy laws have the rights described in the privacy policy.

Contact. Legal notices: legal@gridheap.com. Support: contact@gridheap.com. Security: security@gridheap.com. Copyright 2026 Grid Heap, Inc. All trademarks and logos are the property of their owners.