Summary
- Rev is one of the oldest and most recognized transcription companies in the United States, offering both human and AI transcription.
- Recently Rev has shifted their focus to legal transcription claiming “Rev is the #1 platform for legal transcription accuracy and secure discovery review for attorneys and investigators”
- Rev’s terms give them broad rights over your files and personal data. They can train their AI models on your content forever.
- Their license is perpetual and extremely wide. We strongly disagree with this approach and don’t recommend using Rev if privacy matters to you.
- Good Tape never trains on your data, never takes perpetual rights, and never uses your files for anything other than your transcription.
Rev has been around for more than a decade and built its reputation by initially offering human transcription services for media companies, legal offices, and government organizations in the United States. The company later introduced AI transcription and focuses primarily on the US legal niche.
Why we don’t recommend using Rev
I normally prefer to keep things positive. There’s enough negativity online already. If you look at some of our other blog posts we actually compliment and support our competitors. But sometimes a company’s terms are so far from what we consider acceptable that staying silent feels wrong.
This is one of those times.
Over the past few weeks we’ve been hearing from users who ask whether Rev is a safe alternative to Good Tape. They want to compare pricing, accuracy, features and everything else. All fair questions.
But the moment we read Rev’s Terms of Service, especially the sections covering user content and personal data, it became clear that we don’t just disagree with their approach. We fundamentally oppose it.
This isn’t about competition. It’s about trust. Check out our CEO statement here.
Rev trains on your files. Forever.
Rev’s Terms explicitly say that anything you upload, whether it’s audio, video or other material, can be used to train and improve their AI models. Not just during your subscription. Not for a limited period. Forever.
They also keep a perpetual, worldwide license to your content. That’s a huge red flag for anyone working with sensitive interviews, confidential meetings, legal recordings, research, journalism, or even private conversations.
At Good Tape, we don’t train on your data at all. We don’t take rights we don’t need. And we certainly don’t keep your files forever. Your recordings are yours, and they stay yours.
They take broad rights over your personal data
Not just your files. Your personal data too.
Rev’s Terms let them copy, modify and create derivative works from user data as long as it’s for providing the service or detecting security issues. That’s still far more than we think is appropriate for a transcription service that should focus on privacy and simplicity.
Privacy shouldn’t be flexible. It should be clear, strict and user controlled.
We believe in a different way of doing things
Good Tape was built with a simple belief. If someone trusts us with their voice, their story or their work, we should respect that trust completely.
That means:
- We don’t train on your data
- We don’t reuse your content
- We don’t take perpetual rights
- We don’t overreach
- We don’t write terms that confuse people into giving away more than they intended
We want to be the tool you can trust without reading a 10,000 word document.
Rev has chosen a different philosophy. They’re allowed to. But it’s not a philosophy we can stand behind. You can read our fair terms here.
What we recommend when privacy matters
If privacy matters to you. If you’re working on anything sensitive. If you’re a journalist, researcher, lawyer, creator or someone who simply cares where their data goes, then Rev’s terms are not in your favor.
And that’s why we cannot recommend using Rev. There are other companies like Klang, Turboscribe and Good Tape that offer better terms. Good Tape is here for people who want a transcription tool they can trust. A tool that exists to help you, not to use your work to train its systems.
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Transcription you can actually trust
Good Tape will never train on your data