Terms of Use & License
The plain-English agreement for using the OpenVerba software and this website. We've kept it short and honest — OpenVerba is free, open source, and runs entirely on your machine. This summary is for convenience only; the full terms below govern.
1. Acceptance of these terms
These Terms of Use (the "Terms") are a legal agreement between you ("you" or "your") and the OpenVerba project and its maintainers ("OpenVerba," "we," "us," or "our") governing your use of the OpenVerba desktop application and any related installers, updates, and components (collectively, the "Software"), as well as your use of the website at openverba.com and its subpages (the "Website").
By downloading, installing, copying, accessing, or using the Software or the Website, you agree to be bound by these Terms. If you do not agree, do not download, install, or use the Software, and do not use the Website. The Software is also distributed under the MIT License (see Section 2); to the extent these Terms and the MIT License conflict as to the licensing of the Software itself, the MIT License controls.
2. The Software is free and open source (MIT License)
OpenVerba is free and open-source software licensed under the MIT License. This means you are free to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, subject to the conditions of the MIT License — chiefly that the copyright notice and the MIT permission notice are included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
The complete MIT License text accompanies the Software's source code (for example, in the
LICENSE file of the
project repository)
and is incorporated into these Terms
by reference. In the event of any conflict between these Terms and the MIT License with
respect to your rights to use, modify, or redistribute the Software, the MIT License
prevails. Nothing in these Terms is intended to limit the rights granted to you under the
MIT License or under any applicable open-source license.
3. No account, no fees
The Software is provided to you at no cost. There is no account to create, no trial, no subscription, and no purchase required to use it. We do not charge you for the Software or the Website, and we do not collect payment information. Because the Software is free and open source, we are under no obligation to provide support, maintenance, updates, or new features, although we may choose to do so.
4. On-device processing and your responsibility for your content
OpenVerba performs speech-to-text transcription locally on your own computer's CPU or GPU. Captured microphone audio is processed on your device and then discarded; it is not uploaded to us or to any third party by the Software. The optional AI text-editing feature likewise runs on a language model on your own machine and does not send your text to the cloud.
You are solely responsible for the words you dictate, the text you select or paste, and any content you create, edit, transcribe, or insert into other applications using the Software. You agree that you have the necessary rights to the audio and text you process with the Software, and that your use complies with all applicable laws — including, where required, obtaining the consent of others before recording or transcribing their voice. The Software types or pastes text into whatever application window is focused; you are responsible for ensuring it is directed to the correct destination and for reviewing its output, which (like all speech recognition and AI tools) may contain errors and should not be relied upon without review for any important purpose.
5. Acceptable use
You agree not to use the Software or the Website to:
- violate any applicable law or regulation, or infringe the rights (including privacy, publicity, or intellectual-property rights) of others;
- record, transcribe, or process the voice or communications of any person without any consent required by law;
- create, edit, or distribute content that is unlawful, harassing, defamatory, or otherwise harmful;
- attempt to disrupt, overload, or gain unauthorized access to the Website or the systems that host it (for example, the update-check or download endpoints);
- misrepresent modified versions of the Software as the official OpenVerba release, or use the OpenVerba name or logo in a way that implies endorsement or affiliation that does not exist.
Apart from these limits and any applicable laws, your rights to use, modify, and redistribute the Software itself remain governed by the MIT License.
6. Third-party components and licenses
The Software incorporates or works alongside third-party open-source components, each of which is provided under its own license. These include, among others, the faster-whisper speech-recognition engine (an optimized build of OpenAI's Whisper model), the underlying speech models that you download on first run, and — if you enable the optional AI editing feature — a locally run large-language-model runtime such as Ollama and the model(s) it serves.
Your use of these components is governed by their respective licenses and terms, not by these Terms. We do not own these third-party components, make no representations about them, and are not responsible for them. You are responsible for reviewing and complying with the licenses of any models or components you download or run, including any restrictions on commercial or other use.
7. Automatic update checks
To help keep you on a current version, the Software may periodically check openverba.com for a newer release (by retrieving a small update-information file) and notify you when one is available. If you choose to update, the Software downloads the new version, verifies its integrity (for example, using a SHA-256 checksum), and installs it per-user without requiring administrator rights; your settings and downloaded model are preserved. This update check is the only routine network activity the Software performs after the one-time model download, and the automatic check can be turned off in the Software's settings. You may also download and install updates manually. We may change or discontinue the update service at any time.
8. The Website
The Website is provided to describe and distribute the Software. Downloading the installer is a normal web request, and our hosting provider (Vercel) keeps standard server access logs as part of operating the site. The Website loads web fonts from third-party content-delivery networks (Google Fonts and Fontshare), which means those providers receive your IP address and browser information when fonts load. Our handling of this is described in our Privacy Policy. Your use of the Website is also subject to these Terms.
9. Disclaimer of warranties ("as is")
THE SOFTWARE AND THE WEBSITE ARE PROVIDED "AS IS" AND "AS AVAILABLE," WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED. TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, WE DISCLAIM ALL WARRANTIES, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, TITLE, ACCURACY, AND NON-INFRINGEMENT.
We do not warrant that the Software or Website will be uninterrupted, error-free, secure, or free of harmful components, that defects will be corrected, or that transcriptions or AI edits will be accurate, complete, or suitable for any particular purpose. You use the Software and Website at your own risk and are responsible for backing up your data. Some jurisdictions do not allow the exclusion of certain warranties, so some of the above exclusions may not apply to you.
10. Limitation of liability
TO THE FULLEST EXTENT PERMITTED BY APPLICABLE LAW, IN NO EVENT WILL OPENVERBA OR ITS MAINTAINERS, CONTRIBUTORS, OR LICENSORS BE LIABLE FOR ANY INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, CONSEQUENTIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR PUNITIVE DAMAGES, OR FOR ANY LOSS OF DATA, PROFITS, REVENUE, GOODWILL, OR BUSINESS, ARISING OUT OF OR RELATING TO YOUR USE OF (OR INABILITY TO USE) THE SOFTWARE OR THE WEBSITE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES.
BECAUSE THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED TO YOU FREE OF CHARGE, OUR TOTAL CUMULATIVE LIABILITY TO YOU FOR ALL CLAIMS RELATING TO THE SOFTWARE OR THE WEBSITE WILL NOT EXCEED ZERO U.S. DOLLARS ($0.00). Some jurisdictions do not allow the limitation or exclusion of certain damages, so some of the above limitations may not apply to you; in such cases our liability is limited to the smallest amount permitted by law. This limitation is independent of, and in addition to, the limitations in the MIT License.
11. Your indemnification
To the extent permitted by applicable law, you agree to indemnify and hold harmless OpenVerba and its maintainers and contributors from any claims, damages, liabilities, and reasonable expenses arising out of your use of the Software or Website, the content you process with them, or your violation of these Terms or of any law or third-party right.
12. Changes to these terms
We may update these Terms from time to time. When we do, we will revise the "Effective date" above and post the updated Terms on this page. Changes take effect when posted. Your continued use of the Software or Website after an update means you accept the revised Terms. If you do not agree to a change, stop using the Software and Website. (Any copy of the Software you have already obtained under the MIT License remains yours to use under that license.)
13. Governing law
These Terms are governed by and construed in accordance with the laws of the State of Florida, USA, without regard to its conflict-of-laws principles. You agree that the courts located in the courts of the State of Florida, USA will have exclusive jurisdiction over any dispute arising out of or relating to these Terms or your use of the Software or Website, to the extent permitted by applicable law.
14. General
If any provision of these Terms is held to be unenforceable, the remaining provisions will remain in full force and effect. Our failure to enforce any provision is not a waiver of it. These Terms, together with the MIT License and our Privacy Policy, are the entire agreement between you and us regarding the Software and Website.
15. Contact
Questions about these Terms? Contact us at hello@openverba.com, or open an issue on our GitHub repository.