Creating And Translating Of Terms Of Use

CrimsonNeko

Teto's Territory
Defender of Defoko
With a growing UTAU community there is also a growing risk of UTAU theft. Wether it is Artwork,Voice Banks or anything else, it can get stolen. I know that sometimes these sort of things cannot be prevented because some people are determined to steal UTAU but some things will prevent most people from stealing an UTAU. One of these things is called a Terms Of Use Agreement. While the Terms Of Use Agreement can go by several names, it is basically an agreement that is made upon download or purchase of pretty much anything that is used on a computer.

A lot of the UTAU that are created have no Terms Of Use Agreements. This can leave the creater with nothing legal to back them up if their UTAU is stolen.

Even if an UTAU has a Terms Of Use Agreement, it is usually in either Japanese or English. What about if someone doesn't speak that language? Either they might steal it because they do not know that it is stealing or they do and they use language barriers as an excuse.

This is why I want to call all of the UTAU community here together, To create some Terms Of Use Agreements with varying degrees of freedom. Such as it is with the Vocaloids. Fukase,Hatsune Miku and IA all have Usage Agreements that differ in the amount of freedom they have when using the voice and character.

In order to stop a lot of thieves it is best if many people join in with this just so we can make the agreements be the best that they can be. The more people that can join in also means that there will most likely be more translaters. Anyone who can(or knows someone who can) translate the finished agreements into other languages would be of great use. The more languages that we can translate these documents for means that hopefully more thieves can be stopped before they try to steal an UTAU from the people who have put so much time and effort into making them.

How would you feel if your UTAU was stolen?

(Sorry for my terrible writing skills and also sorry if this is not meant to be in UTAU Diescussion)
 

CrimsonNeko

Teto's Territory
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
I know this might seem way to optimistic but I think that we can do it. Even being translated into languages like Esperanto would be of use.

I can help with actual creating of the Terms Of Use because I know a bit about it. The only things that I could help with other than that would be if we ever needed an Irish translation(A few people in my family can speak Irish).

I really wish that I could help more with the languages but I spend too much time thinking about learning Japanese and not a lot of time actually learning that or any other languages(I am determined to learn Japanese but I don't want to learn another language because I probably won't end up learning Japanese even though I want to live there). Enough of the internal debate and all my inner thoughts and stuff. Just comment what you could do to help and i'm sorry that I don't have too many skills to help out even though this was my idea...
 

Kiyoteru

UtaForum power user
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
Not everyone wants to have the same exact terms of use for their UTAU, so perhaps it ought to be organized in such a way that people can easily mix and match pieces.

I personally only speak English, and Esperanto (a language that doesn't seem to have much of a vocalsynth following at all).
 
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dezzydream

cv bank enthusiast
Defender of Defoko
I have a friend on Deviantart who natively speaks Mandarin Chinese. She can also translate into Cantonese.
 

CrimsonNeko

Teto's Territory
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Not everyone wants to have the same exact terms of use for their UTAU, so perhaps it ought to be organized in such a way that people can easily mix and match pieces.

I personally only speak English, and Esperanto (a language that doesn't seem to have much of a vocalsynth following at all).

A mix and match format would be a great way to give people a unique terms of use agreement for their UTAU that they could understand. I will be sure to include that as an option when I organise where I am going to put this(maybe as a resource on here or maybe on another website such as weebly or tumblr) which will be hopefully in less than 24 hours(I would have organised it now but it's just past 1AM...) .

Even though Esperanto doesn't have much of a following in the vocalsynth community it would be a great addition to the languages because it is a language spoken by people of different languages,which might bring on some non-English speaking translators in this community who actually do speak Esperanto. They would be able to translate from Esperanto into their native language which would increase the amount of UTAU that have terms of use to protect them from theft.
[doublepost=1482801502][/doublepost]
I have a friend on Deviantart who natively speaks Mandarin Chinese. She can also translate into Cantonese.

She would be a great addition if she is willing to translate any finished terms of use agreements into Mandarin and Cantonese.
 
K

Kassandra

Guest
Perhaps maybe create a bigger list of usage rules then what is normally used following specific guidelines about theft?

Honestly, people can just copy and paste what is in the readme to google translate and it gives you at least a rough idea about what the person is trying to say, although if you'd rather have it in a bunch of other languages, that's on you, I just don't really see myself or a lot of others investing all that time into translating everything for multiple languages (unless like, people start translating the gist/most important parts so you can just copy and paste it into your readme or something).
 

수연 <Suyeon>

Your friendly neighborhood koreaboo trash
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
I wouldn't call it a "growing" risk, so much as it's always been a risk - from the day UTAU debuted. At first, the risk was that lazy people were pirating vocaloid, extracting samples, and calling it their UTAU. Granted, many vocaloid voices are generic (as of V3), but even without having instant recognition of a voice, a seasoned user of both synths (or others) will recognize that samples are a little... too pristine. Now the risk has shifted to stealing little known voices from several years back (someone was even bold enough to try and steal Momone Momo). Like anything that gets put on the internet, there's always the risk of someone taking it and doing what they will without your knowledge or permission.

I don't think Usage Agreements, EULA, etc. etc. - translated or otherwise - will deter a would-be thief. I think small scale distribution through a networking system - you have their valid email, their most used socials, a survey before distribution, and download link/password that can't be replicated, maybe even a paywall - will probably keep someone a little less likely to do anything illegal, but of course... you can't babysit everyone who wants to use your banks. No one with real life responsibilities (school, work, bills, taxes, children... normal everyday human activity outside of the internet) has time for that. If Yamaha themselves had time for that, then Vocaloid wouldn't still be so easy to pirate without repercussion. Anyone determined enough to steal someone's bank and claim it as theirs can easily make multiple accounts, play innocent, give the run around... some people are disgustingly desperate to not put in any work of their own merit.

All we as community members can do, is inform each new person who develops an interest in vocasynth and joins the fray (be it through souncloud, youtube, dA, nico, here, etc.) of the community guidelines that are common to all currently available synths (proprietary, shareware, freeware, open source, or closed source)...

- Don't take a voice made for Synth A and port it to Synth B without permission (some synths like Vocaloid will never grant this permission, so just don't bother to even ask)
- Don't take any part of [VB Name]'s official work (voice files, artwork, readme, etc.) and claim it as your own
- If [Company/Person] doesn't wish their copyrighted material (voice, mascot likeness) to be used in a way they do not agree with, then do not violate their terms as a matter of respect (trivial things like head-canon/sexuality/non-music related character stuff need not apply)
- If [VB Name] is no longer a freely public entity, then follow the rules regarding their new distribution policy (this applies to discontinued [Matsudappoiyo/ppoine series], for pay [Macne Series], or upgrades to other synths [Makune Hachi English has been upgraded to the vocaloid Ruby])​
 

CrimsonNeko

Teto's Territory
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
I wouldn't call it a "growing" risk, so much as it's always been a risk - from the day UTAU debuted. At first, the risk was that lazy people were pirating vocaloid, extracting samples, and calling it their UTAU. Granted, many vocaloid voices are generic (as of V3), but even without having instant recognition of a voice, a seasoned user of both synths (or others) will recognize that samples are a little... too pristine. Now the risk has shifted to stealing little known voices from several years back (someone was even bold enough to try and steal Momone Momo). Like anything that gets put on the internet, there's always the risk of someone taking it and doing what they will without your knowledge or permission.

I don't think Usage Agreements, EULA, etc. etc. - translated or otherwise - will deter a would-be thief. I think small scale distribution through a networking system - you have their valid email, their most used socials, a survey before distribution, and download link/password that can't be replicated, maybe even a paywall - will probably keep someone a little less likely to do anything illegal, but of course... you can't babysit everyone who wants to use your banks. No one with real life responsibilities (school, work, bills, taxes, children... normal everyday human activity outside of the internet) has time for that. If Yamaha themselves had time for that, then Vocaloid wouldn't still be so easy to pirate without repercussion. Anyone determined enough to steal someone's bank and claim it as theirs can easily make multiple accounts, play innocent, give the run around... some people are disgustingly desperate to not put in any work of their own merit.

All we as community members can do, is inform each new person who develops an interest in vocasynth and joins the fray (be it through souncloud, youtube, dA, nico, here, etc.) of the community guidelines that are common to all currently available synths (proprietary, shareware, freeware, open source, or closed source)...

- Don't take a voice made for Synth A and port it to Synth B without permission (some synths like Vocaloid will never grant this permission, so just don't bother to even ask)
- Don't take any part of [VB Name]'s official work (voice files, artwork, readme, etc.) and claim it as your own
- If [Company/Person] doesn't wish their copyrighted material (voice, mascot likeness) to be used in a way they do not agree with, then do not violate their terms as a matter of respect (trivial things like head-canon/sexuality/non-music related character stuff need not apply)
- If [VB Name] is no longer a freely public entity, then follow the rules regarding their new distribution policy (this applies to discontinued [Matsudappoiyo/ppoine series], for pay [Macne Series], or upgrades to other synths [Makune Hachi English has been upgraded to the vocaloid Ruby])​

I know that some people will still attempt to steal an UTAU but I am trying to focus on at least putting people off. A decent set of usage rules in a legal looking format might deter some people who were thinking or have already stolen some UTAU. There is no perfect way to prevent every theft but if something helps prevent even just one theft then that is a good thing.

Some people may not be bothered about translating terms of use using google translate or anything, which they then can just say that there was a language barrier issue and that it was not their fault. If the terms of use are in multiple languages then that means one less excuse for a thief to use, that is why I think that translating would be useful.
 

kimchi-tan

Your local Mikotard
Global Mod
Defender of Defoko
The Japanese UTAU community have this checklist version of Terms of Use. Maybe we can use something like this too since it isn't too long and wouldn't take much time to translate?
rirekisyo.gif
 

CrimsonNeko

Teto's Territory
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
The Japanese UTAU community have this checklist version of Terms of Use. Maybe we can use something like this too since it isn't too long and wouldn't take much time to translate?
rirekisyo.gif

This would be perfect to use.
 

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