What do you get when you "buy a voice over"?

Video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8gKMKbf818s

When you hire a voice actor to do work, what are you actually getting? Is it just an mp3 or wave file, or something else?

Think of it this way - if a lawyer sends you a legal document, is that document just a pdf file with words on it, or does its value go beyond the medium used to deliver it?

When a voice actor is hired, you are purchasing a license to use that person to deliver a message. The audio file is just the vessel for doing so. It is my way of speaking to potentially millions of people on your behalf. That is where the value comes from.

For commercial voice over you're usually acquiring a license to use that voice over for a defined period of time (e.g. 1 year, 13 weeks), as well as specific distribution channels such as TV, Radio, Cinema, etc).

For internal videos you'll often be purchasing a license to use that work for a very limited use such as training videos for company employees. This is usually agreed verbally and in Europe there's rarely a usage fee that goes on top of that.

For video games you'll often be purchasing a "buyout" for the voice lines to be used for that game. What that means is my voice lines become the voice lines of the character, and the character is the property of the game developer. A contract may specifically define this transfer of ownership. Video games are really the exception in voice over.

More often than not you don't actually own the contents to the audio file, you have been authorised to use it for specific reasons.