copyright
Who owns the copyright on a Polly recording?
<p>This is a follow up to <a href="https://law.stackexchange.com/q/21325/286">this question</a>.</p>

<p>If I record my own work (original texts, phrases, sentences, etc.) using Amazon's Polly, who owns the copyright on those recordings?</p>

<p>In the <a href="https://aws.amazon.com/service-terms/" rel="nofollow noreferrer">AWS TOS</a> section 65.5, they say:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>The distribution of audio output files created by Amazon Polly may
  require that you obtain license rights from third-party owners or
  licensors of content that you include in your text inputs into Amazon
  Polly. You are solely responsible for obtaining these licenses and
  paying any necessary royalties or fees.</p>
</blockquote>

<p>From this excerpt, should I infer that I'm the owner of the copyright on the audio files, if I own the content used as input?</p>

<blockquote>
  <p><strong>may require</strong> that you obtain license rights <strong>from third-party owners or licensors of content</strong> that you include in your text inputs </p>
</blockquote>

<p>(Emphasis mine).</p>

<p>Based solely on the excerpt above, yes, you have the copyright on the audio files if you created the source material, as you are the creator, using Amazon Polly as/to generate a "tangible medium".</p>

<p>One of the central rights granted by copyright is to control translation into a different medium (in this case, from text into audio), as is the right to control distribution, which is what this excerpt is talking about.</p>

<p>"Third party" in this case means neither you nor Amazon. Basically, Amazon is informing you that using their software on <em>someone else's</em> copyrighted material does not grant you copyright on the audio recording.</p>
