Terms and Conditions

1. About Bytte

Bytte LTD ("Bytte," "we," "us," "our") builds, validates, and licenses African language datasets for AI development. We collect speech and text data from native speakers, validate it through rigorous annotation protocols, and license it to AI companies, research institutions, and enterprises for model training and evaluation.

Bytte operates from Abuja, Nigeria and serves clients globally.

2. Who These Terms Apply To

These Terms apply to:

• Contributors: Individuals who provide voice recordings, text samples, or annotations
• Clients: Organizations that license datasets from Bytte
• Website visitors: Anyone accessing bytte.xyz

3. What Bytte Does

Bytte provides:

• Production-grade African language datasets (speech and text)
• Dataset licensing under exclusive, semi-exclusive, or non-exclusive terms
• Quality documentation including Data Cards, provenance records, and validation metrics

Bytte does not:

• Build AI models or consumer applications
• Provide SaaS platforms or ongoing software services
• Offer data annotation as a service to third parties

4. Terms for Contributors

If you provide voice recordings, text, or annotations to Bytte:

4.1 Eligibility and Consent

You confirm that:

• You are at least 18 years old (or the age of majority in your jurisdiction)
• You are providing data voluntarily and with full understanding of its use
• You understand your contributions will be included in datasets licensed to third parties for AI training

4.2 Work-for-Hire and IP Transfer

By contributing data to Bytte, you agree that:

• All contributions are either your original work or you have the legal right to provide them
• All submitted data is provided under a work-for-hire arrangement
• You transfer all intellectual property rights, including copyrights and neighboring rights, to Bytte
• Bytte becomes the exclusive owner of your contributions and may license, modify, and distribute them without restriction
• You retain no ownership rights, usage rights, or future royalty claims over contributed data

4.3 Compensation

If you are compensated for contributions:

• Payment terms are specified in your contributor agreement
• Payments are processed through third-party payment providers
• You are responsible for any applicable tax reporting unless Bytte is required by law to withhold
• Compensation is a one-time payment; no ongoing royalties apply

4.4 Data Usage

Your contributions may be:

• Combined with other data in aggregated datasets
• Licensed to multiple clients under non-exclusive agreements
• Licensed exclusively to a single client (your identity remains undisclosed)
• Used in benchmark evaluations, case studies, or public research (with all personally identifying information removed)

5. Terms for Dataset Clients

If you license datasets from Bytte:

5.1 License Grant

Bytte grants you a license to use licensed datasets according to the terms specified in your Dataset License Agreement. This is a license, not a transfer of ownership. Bytte retains all intellectual property rights in the datasets.

5.2 License Types

Exclusive: You are the only licensee for the specified dataset during the license term. Bytte will not license the same dataset to other parties.

Semi-Exclusive: Limited number of licensees as specified in your agreement.

Non-Exclusive: Bytte may license the same dataset to multiple parties.

5.3 Permitted Use

Unless explicitly stated in your agreement, you may use licensed datasets solely for:

• Training, fine-tuning, and evaluating AI models
• Internal research and development
• Commercial deployment of models trained on the data

5.4 Prohibited Use

You may not:

• Resell, sublicense, or redistribute the raw datasets to third parties
• Attempt to identify or contact individual contributors
• Use the data for illegal surveillance, discrimination, or human rights violations
• Reverse engineer the data collection or annotation methodology to recreate similar datasets
• Remove or alter attribution, provenance documentation, or Data Cards

5.5 Attribution

When publishing research or publicly discussing models trained on Bytte data, you must provide appropriate attribution as specified in your license agreement (e.g., "Trained on datasets from Bytte").

5.6 Derivatives and Model Outputs

You own models trained on licensed datasets and any outputs generated by those models. This ownership does not extend to the underlying training data itself.

6. Ethical Use Requirements

All parties agree not to use Bytte datasets or services to:

• Violate human rights or dignity
• Enable illegal surveillance or unauthorized tracking
• Create deceptive, manipulative, or exploitative systems
• Discriminate against protected classes
• Identify or target individual contributors

Bytte reserves the right to terminate licenses and pursue legal remedies for misuse.

7. Data Quality and Warranties

7.1 Quality Standards

Bytte datasets are:

• Collected from native speakers
• Validated through multi-annotator consensus protocols
• Documented with quality metrics (inter-annotator agreement, WER, BLEU, F1 scores as applicable)
• Delivered with Data Cards including provenance, methodology, and known limitations

7.2 Disclaimers

Datasets are provided "as-is." Bytte does not guarantee:

• That models trained on our data will achieve specific performance metrics
• Fitness for any particular commercial purpose beyond general AI training
• That datasets are completely free from errors or biases (we document known limitations)

Model performance depends on your architecture, training methodology, and use case.

8. Payment Terms

For dataset clients:

• Payment terms are specified in your Dataset License Agreement
• All fees are non-refundable once data delivery is complete
• Late payments may result in license suspension
• Prices are subject to change for future purchases; existing agreements are honored

9. Intellectual Property

Bytte owns all rights to:

• Datasets created and licensed by Bytte
• Annotation methodologies and quality control processes
• Data Cards, documentation, and metadata schemas
• The Bytte brand, trademarks, and website content

Contributors transfer all IP rights to Bytte upon data submission. Clients receive usage licenses as specified in their agreements but do not acquire ownership of the underlying data.

10. Confidentiality

Both parties agree to:

• Keep pricing, contract terms, and proprietary information confidential
• Not disclose dataset contents to unauthorized third parties
• Maintain confidentiality obligations even after contract termination

Public attribution (e.g., "Trained on Bytte datasets") is permitted unless otherwise agreed.

11. Data Protection and Privacy

Bytte operates under:

• Nigeria Data Protection Act (NDPA)
• EU GDPR (when applicable)
• International best practices for AI data governance (ISO 42001, OECD AI Principles, NIST AI RMF)

See our Privacy Policy for details on data collection, processing, security, and contributor rights.

12. Limitation of Liability

To the maximum extent permitted by law:

• Bytte is not liable for indirect, incidental, or consequential damages
• Bytte's total liability is limited to the amount paid by the client in the 12 months preceding the claim
• Bytte is not responsible for how clients use licensed datasets or the performance of models trained on them

This limitation applies to all claims, whether based in contract, tort, or any other legal theory.

13. Indemnification

Clients agree to indemnify Bytte against claims arising from:

• Misuse of licensed datasets
• Violation of ethical use requirements
• Breach of license restrictions
• Third-party claims related to client's deployed models

14. Term and Termination

Dataset licenses have terms specified in individual agreements. Bytte may terminate access if:

• Client breaches license terms or ethical use requirements
• Payment obligations are not met
• Required by law or legal process

Upon termination, client must cease using the datasets and destroy all copies unless otherwise specified in the agreement.

15. Governing Law and Disputes

These Terms are governed by the laws of the Federal Republic of Nigeria. Disputes shall be resolved in Nigerian courts unless otherwise agreed in writing.

For international clients, we may negotiate alternative dispute resolution mechanisms including arbitration.

16. Changes to Terms

Bytte may update these Terms to reflect changes in our business practices or legal requirements. Material changes will be posted on our website. Continued engagement with Bytte after changes constitutes acceptance.

Existing dataset licenses are governed by the terms in effect at the time of execution and are not retroactively modified.

17. Severability

If any provision of these Terms is found unenforceable, the remaining provisions continue in full force and effect.

18. Entire Agreement

These Terms, together with any executed Dataset License Agreements and Contributor Agreements, constitute the entire agreement between you and Bytte.

19. Contact

For questions about these Terms or dataset licensing:

Email: contact@bytte.xyz

Address: Bytte LTD, Abuja, Nigeria

Website: https://bytte.xyz