News
Upcoming Changes to our Terms of Service
Effective May 9th, 2021, our Terms of Service (T.O.S.) is getting an update. These changes clarify a number of things, including:
- the categories of services our talent can offer, and our clients can source, through our platform;
- the definition and formalization of important job-related terms;
- payment methodologies and responsibilities;
- the minimum age of users able to create an account and enter into agreements through Voices;
- the ownership, timing of transfer of ownership, and responsibility for files and content, and;
- the closure of user accounts.
Why are we making the changes now?
With our plans to expand into new creative services, the upcoming introduction of multi-usage job postings, and improvements to Job Agreements, we felt now was the time to make these changes.
What’s changing?
You’ll see updated language throughout our T.O.S. to reflect the introduction of new creative services, specifically around audio production, music, and translation-related services.
You can review a section dedicated exclusively to important terms that are related to how Voices operates. Importantly, you’ll see the distinction between a Job Agreement (between a client and talent) and a Service Agreement (between a client and Voices), as well as more definitions around important job and Job Agreement-related language.
You’ll notice clearer language around how and when payment is released to talent, including payout timing and how this could differ with jobs managed by Voices Managed Services.
You can see how we define who is able to create an account and enter into agreements through Voices, Job Agreement-related or otherwise. In other words, customers must be at least 18 years old to create an account and use Voices.
You’ll see clearer distinction between when ownership of working and final files (or ‘work product’) transfers from talent to client, how and where usage is defined and agreed upon via the Job Agreement, and how that may differ with certain Managed Services engagements. As with our previous T.O.S., this differs from user generated content, client content, and talent content.
Finally, you’ll be able to better understand what happens following the closure of a talent or client account, either at the request of the customer or by Voices. There’s also clearer language around what happens to a customer’s access to Voices, their user information, and their financial information.
What’s not changing?
Importantly, when and how talent receive funds and get paid for their work is not changing. The 14-day auto-release and weekly payout window is still in place, with the exception of Managed Services jobs, as was the case before.
Also as before, talent are still the owners of their demos or portfolio samples, and clients still own any content they upload in the process of posting, hiring or working a job. Voices (and our third-party vendors) maintains ‘non-exclusive’ rights to host and promote these files through our site and mobile application in order for us to provide services to clients and talent. This could mean, for example, featuring a talent in a search result, a directory listing or a Top 100 leaderboard.
Lastly, these particular changes do not impact talent or client fees and subscriptions in any way.
How you can help shape the future of Voices
As you can see, we have clear policies and strong protections in place to support you and your continued success on our platform.
Should you have any questions regarding these changes when they go into effect on May 9th, please contact us at [email protected]. If you’ve got feedback about your experience using Voices and how we can improve, send an email to [email protected].
Thanks for continuing to be a member of the global Voices community.
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