ai · ElevenLabs
You’re creating on ElevenLabs, which means…
You keep every right in your voice recordings and in the audio the model returns. You just hand ElevenLabs a licence to both — and to your voice itself — that the contract says in its own words “cannot be withdrawn”.
ElevenLabs gives you a different contract depending on where you are. This page reads all 2; every clause below says which one it comes from.
What they own
Nothing you made. The Terms of Service say it twice — “you retain all rights in and to your Input” and “you retain all rights in and to your Output.” What they own is the machinery: your audio “may be generated by, but does not include” ElevenLabs’ voice models.
What you own
Your recordings, your prompts, and the audio that comes back. The licence you give is “nonexclusive (which means you can license your Input to others)” — ElevenLabs’ own gloss — so you can license the same work elsewhere. Selling what you make is gated by the contract rather than by copyright, and the two documents gate it differently. On the main Services the gate is the plan: a free account may “only use the Services for non-commercial purposes”. Inside ElevenReader it is not a plan at all — everyone is there “for your personal and non-commercial use”, paying subscribers included, unless they join a separate publishing program.
What you don’t
Any way to take the licence back. It is “perpetual and irrevocable (which means this license cannot be withdrawn),” and there are two of these grants — one over your Content, a second over any voice model built from it. You can switch training off in your account settings, but the opt-out “does not affect any uses of (or materials resulting from uses of) your Content prior to that date.”
What they can do with it
Reproduce it, modify it, translate it, make derivative works from it, distribute and perform it — “to provide the Services…, to improve the Services, and to develop new services and products”, and pass all of that on through multiple tiers of sub-licence. The grant expressly reaches “your voice, and other indicia of your persona”. The one line they draw is that they “will not commercialize your voice on a standalone basis” without your permission.
The clauses
The grant, glossed in brackets by the company itself
(i) Except as expressly set forth herein, as between you and ElevenLabs, you retain all rights in and to your Input.
(ii) For the avoidance of doubt, Output may be generated by, but does not include, ElevenLabs’ foundational and other artificial intelligence voice models (the “ Voice Models ”) or ElevenLabs’ foundational and other artificial intelligence or language learning models (“ LLMs ”) (Voice Models and LLMs, collectively, the “ Models ”). Except as expressly set forth herein, as between you and ElevenLabs, you retain all rights in and to your Output.
(d) License to Your Content. You hereby grant to ElevenLabs a license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly or otherwise perform and display, and use your Content to provide the Services (including the trust and safety features therein), to improve the Services, and to develop new services and products.
… Such license shall be:
perpetual and irrevocable (which means this license cannot be withdrawn),
nonexclusive (which means you can license your Input to others),
royalty-free and fully paid (which means there are no monetary fees for this license),
worldwide (which means it’s valid anywhere in the world), and
sub-licensable, through multiple tiers (which means we can make it available to others).
They define it for you
Most contracts leave “perpetual and irrevocable” for you to look up. ElevenLabs writes the meaning in brackets: “this license cannot be withdrawn”. Deleting the recording, or the account, ends your copy and not their licence.
What is theirs, not yours
The one thing 4(c) reserves is the machinery. Your Output “may be generated by, but does not include” the Voice Models and LLMs — you own the audio file, never the model that produced it.
Through multiple tiers
They can pass the rights to another company, which can pass them on again. Their own gloss is “we can make it available to others”, and the sentence never says who.
Develop new services and products
The purposes are not limited to running the app you signed up for. Improving the Services and building new ones sit in the same sentence, and that is where model training lives — see the opt-out clause below.
The licence running the other way
Section 5(b) is the mirror image: ElevenLabs “hereby grants to you a limited, non-exclusive, non-transferable, non-sublicensable, revocable license to access and use our Services.” Yours to them cannot be withdrawn. Theirs to you is revocable.
Your voice is inside the content licence, not beside it
ElevenLabs Terms of Service (non-EEA) — Section 4(d), License to Your Content ↗
For avoidance of doubt, to the extent that your Content includes your voice, the foregoing license allows ElevenLabs to reproduce, modify, publish, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly or otherwise perform, and use your voice, and other indicia of your persona that may be contained therein, to provide and improve the Services, and to develop new services and products. Notwithstanding the foregoing, we will not commercialize your voice on a standalone basis without your permission to do so.
Not a separate deal
On most platforms the likeness grant is its own clause on its own terms. Here it is a sentence inside the content licence — which means your voice inherits perpetual, irrevocable and sub-licensable from the bullets above it.
Indicia of your persona
The grant is not limited to the recording. It reaches whatever else in the recording identifies you as you.
The one limit, and its edge
The single carve-out is commercialising your voice “on a standalone basis”. Nothing in the sentence restricts using your voice as a component of something else.
The voice model is a second, separate grant
ElevenLabs Terms of Service (non-EEA) — Section 4(e), License to User Voice Models ↗
To the extent you own or acquire any intellectual property rights in or to any User Voice Models, you hereby grant to ElevenLabs a license to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly or otherwise perform and display, and use the User Voice Models to provide the Services (including the trust and safety features therein) to you, to improve the Services, and to develop new services and products. Such license shall be:
perpetual and irrevocable (which means this license cannot be withdrawn),
Two grants, not one
The recordings you upload are licensed under 4(d). The clone built from them is licensed again under 4(e), on the same five terms. Reading only the first clause understates what you signed.
You can delete the model
Section 4(b) gives you a route out of the artefact: “You may request deletion of your User Voice Models created with your Input recordings through your account.” The model can be deleted. The licence, by its own words, cannot be withdrawn.
There is a training opt-out — and it only runs forwards
ElevenLabs Terms of Service (non-EEA) — Section 4(i), Data Deletion and Opt Out ↗
You may request for us to delete your personal data as required under applicable law. … In addition, you may opt out of our use of your Content for training at any time by navigating to the 'Data use' menu in the 'Terms and Privacy' section of your ElevenLabs account. Your Content will no longer be used to improve our Services (including the Models) once the request has been processed by our team, except as may be necessary to provide the Services to you, but does not affect any uses of (or materials resulting from uses of) your Content prior to that date.
Yes, they train on it
This is the only place the word “training” appears in either ElevenLabs document — once in the Terms of Service, and not at all in the ElevenReader Terms. The licence clause never uses it; it says “to improve the Services, and to develop new services and products.” This sentence is what tells you those words include training the Models.
An opt-out, not a consent
Training is on unless you go and switch it off, and the switch is in your account settings rather than in the contract. Nothing in the Terms requires ElevenLabs to keep offering it.
What it can’t undo
Turning it off stops future use. It does not touch what was already done, or anything already built from it — the clause names both: “uses of (or materials resulting from uses of) your Content prior to that date.”
Said a third way
Section 2 lists what ElevenLabs may do with your data for its own business purposes, and “research and development of its AI models” is on that list, alongside billing and technical support.
The second contract is shorter on time and stricter on money
By using ElevenReader, you acknowledge and agree that you are (A) at least 16 years of age and (B) using the service for your personal and non-commercial use, unless you are participating in our Publishing Program (as defined below) or are publishing to ElevenReader via Studio (as defined below).
… By uploading, importing, or generating Content via ElevenReader, you grant ElevenLabs a non-exclusive, worldwide, sub-licensable (through multiple tiers), royalty-free and fully paid to use, reproduce, modify, adapt, publish, translate, create derivative works from, distribute, publicly or otherwise perform and display, and use your Input to provide the Services (including the trust and safety features therein), to improve the Services, and to develop new services and products. For clarity, this license grant does not transfer ownership of your Content but allows ElevenLabs to enable the functionality of ElevenReader.
Non-commercial for everyone
Section 1 puts the whole of ElevenReader on a personal, non-commercial footing — paying subscribers included. The way out is not a plan you buy but a programme you join: the Publishing Program, or publishing through Studio.
The two words that aren’t here
“Perpetual” and “irrevocable” each appear twice in the Terms of Service and zero times in the ElevenReader Terms. Same company, same list of licence verbs, and no sentence saying the grant cannot be withdrawn.
It still improves and develops
The purposes are identical to the main grant: providing the Services, improving them, and developing new services and products. What differs between the two documents is not what ElevenLabs may do with your Input, but for how long, and what you are allowed to do with the result.
Which contract wins is not settled here
The same paragraph says two things. These Terms “supplement the ElevenLabs Terms of Service … and, together with the Terms of Service, apply to your use of ElevenReader” — and, four lines on, “notwithstanding anything to the contrary in any existing agreement that you may have with ElevenLabs, these ElevenReader Terms exclusively govern your use of ElevenReader”, with conflicts resolved by “these ElevenReader Terms shall prevail solely with respect to your access or use of ElevenReader.” Whether the missing “perpetual” is a conflict that displaces the Terms of Service grant, or a gap the supplementing Terms of Service fill, is what decides whether an ElevenReader upload is licensed forever. The document does not answer it.
Two documents we do not have
Sections 4 and 5 hand the Publishing Program and all monetisation to the ElevenReader Publishing Terms of Service and the ElevenReader Publishing Payment Terms, hosted at elevenreader.io and outside this corpus. They are also the terms that “shall control” over these on anything Publishing Program-related. What they say about your rights has not been read here.
A word is missing
The sentence reads “royalty-free and fully paid to use” — the noun “license” never arrives between “paid” and “to use.” It is quoted here exactly as it stands in the live document.
Owning the output is not the same as being allowed to sell it
ElevenLabs Terms of Service (non-EEA) — Section 1(c), Use Restrictions ↗
(i) if you access or use our Services free of charge (such a user, a “ Free User ”), you may only use the Services for non-commercial purposes; (ii) if you access or use our Services through a paid subscription plan (such a user, a “ Paid User ”), you may use the Services for commercial purposes, but in either case, your access and use of the Services and any Output must still comply with the Prohibited Use Policy.
Two documents, two gates
On the main Services the gate is the plan: free is non-commercial, paid is commercial, and either way you keep your rights in the Output. Inside ElevenReader the gate is not a plan at all — Section 1 puts everyone there “for your personal and non-commercial use” unless they are in the Publishing Program or publishing via Studio. Either way the restriction sits in the contract, not in your copyright.
It follows the file off the platform
Section 4(a) says downloaded audio stays bound: you “are permitted to use such Output outside of the Services but always subject to these Terms and our Prohibited Use Policy.” The non-commercial restriction travels with the file.
Your output may not be unique
Section 10 warns that “the Output generated by you using the Services may not be unique across users,” and that two people submitting similar Inputs may receive the same or similar Output.
The 2 agreements
Due Dilly reads the paperwork and reports what it says. This is not legal advice.