UTAU Adoption?

Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Hi, this is a fairly new topic, I believe, or at least, has yet to see the light here. So recently I'd caught sight of some interesting UTAU that didn't actually belong to the person posting covers and VB releases with them. Instead, the UTAU were adopted, basically the UTAU were abandoned/inactive and picked up again by another user.

I thought it was interesting, seeing old UTAU get redesigns and fixed voicebanks, but at the same time had kind of mixed feelings on it. Some people think it's wonderful, others are a bit wary and think that there's a line. Consent doesn't really come into play so much in this case, as generally the original creator has not been online for years and therefore has not been contacted and is unaware that their character was 'adopted' in this way. So what are your thoughts? Any questions, concerns?

I personally am somewhat jumbled(partially my stances come from the people I see doing this but idk, I feel as though if one of the more common people on UF for example did the exact same thing, they'd catch fire, just a thought)
 

melobuniiP

Queen of Bunnies, Thou shalt not forget.
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
That way of adoption is not good to me. The way I did the I the adoption back in '13. Some adopted Masami Suzu, Ringone Yukihyo, and my best friend adopted Kanaka Tora and I got the cash for it.

Update: I was half asleep up there.
Anyways, in all honesty, if it was me, I literally wouldn't give a shiz if my abandoned utau was redesigned, refixed and everything if I have left. If I leave, it means I want absolutely nothing to do with the fandom. Now I'm not saying I left, I still consider Tora and Usagi as UTAU. If they are inactive 100%, basically dead in the fandom, no actions, no activities, literally nothing, wouldn't that mean they don't care and want nothing to do with UTAU, and the fandom? I'm not saying its OK, Im saying there's such thing as people not giving a crap if their characters were revived. I know I wouldn't. "You love my dead utau? Awesome, do whatever you want because I'm not in the fandom and I don't care" If this is about The Guy Reviving Them, I'm 90% sure they got permission to fix and revive them. No one is obligated to say "I got permission!"
 
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VocAddict

The Voice Within Us
Defender of Defoko
Some would like to say it's a gray area but there really shouldn't be. Most creators don't allow redistribution of their banks so even if they're not active in the community, people would respect their wishes. If you get permission, then yeah but otherwise, you should just leave it alone. Fickle with the bank however if you want to make it sound better for your own personal use but don't redistribute it.
 

Nohkara

Pronouns: He/him
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
I wouldn’t mind if someone redesigned an old UTAU (in a tasteful manner & with a common sense of course) that haven’t got any updates for like over 5 years. I wouldn’t mind if someone fix their oto and modify wav samples (as long as not pitching samples, anything ok if doesn’t decrease sound quality and that isn’t forbitten in TOS).

I have seen one user doing this and I do think that what they have made is very impressive and I personally love their re-designs. I personally love to see how older VB can shine with a love, effort and being in right hands. However what I wasn’t very OK was that that person redistribute a VB one of those abandoned, discontinued, old UTAU.

Even if wav files were fixed/modified, unable to contact to creator and lack of TOS/readme.txt, I think that redistribute of voicebank should not be done.
 

RaccoonButler

Founder of The Church of Mawarine Shuu
Defender of Defoko
Though I like the idea of old UTAU being given a new chance, I am strongly against taking people's voicebanks and distributing them without their permission, especially if they've been changed a lot

Doesn't matter if the person has been dead for 1 year, 10 years, or 100000 years- it's still theirs and you didn't get their permission.

Plus, it comes off as a little pretentious to me. It's like saying, " hey- I could do better than this lousy job. Lucky for you, I came along. This UTAU is mine now since you're so incapable of taking care of it. You're welcome."
 

Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
Though I like the idea of old UTAU being given a new chance, I am strongly against taking people's voicebanks and distributing them without their permission, especially if they've been changed a lot

Doesn't matter if the person has been dead for 1 year, 10 years, or 100000 years- it's still theirs and you didn't get their permission.

Plus, it comes off as a little pretentious to me. It's like saying, " hey- I could do better than this lousy job. Lucky for you, I came along. This UTAU is mine now since you're so incapable of taking care of it. You're welcome."
Ahh that's basically the sense I've been getting too!! It's almost like the person is showing off and exerting a bit too much creative freedom, almost acting as if the bank is their own(plus it doesn't help when it seems that the person changed most details as they saw fit)
 

RaccoonButler

Founder of The Church of Mawarine Shuu
Defender of Defoko
Ahh that's basically the sense I've been getting too!! It's almost like the person is showing off and exerting a bit too much creative freedom, almost acting as if the bank is their own(plus it doesn't help when it seems that the person changed most details as they saw fit)

Yeah, I agree. Normally it would be really nice to see old banks get revamped and see someone else's personal take on their art. But to go so far as to basically rebrand them by naming yourself as their new owner and redisrtibuting them with all the changes you made- that's pretty much just short of stealing
 

수연 <Suyeon>

Your friendly neighborhood koreaboo trash
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
It's almost midnight, so hopefully this is coherent and makes sense...

Fan-art is fine... Oto fixes are fine... My personal line in the sand is...
- Unauthorized public distribution. I don't think this needs explanation on why...
- Trying to pull a Kaai Yuki V4 Natural. By this, I mean the act of pulling a Frankenstein - be it through grabbing samples from an unrelated but similar source or using the sounds that already exist in the bank - and trying to "update" the source to VCV or CVVC. This isn't Vocaloid. You don't gain anything by trying to "update" someone's samples to VCV or CVVC - it won't even sound entirely natural. Oto around the limitations of the samples as they exist. CV can sound decent just like VCV can sound like a non-programmed mess. Nothing wrong with adding silence to samples (we all know those banks that have no silence and sound like a speak-n-spell), but trying to make a totally new bank? No. Just... No.

In any case, all voicebanks should be credited to the original creator - living or dead, active in the community or not, discontinued or not.
 

m170

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
It's almost midnight, so hopefully this is coherent and makes sense...

Fan-art is fine... Oto fixes are fine... My personal line in the sand is...
- Unauthorized public distribution. I don't think this needs explanation on why...
- Trying to pull a Kaai Yuki V4 Natural. By this, I mean the act of pulling a Frankenstein - be it through grabbing samples from an unrelated but similar source or using the sounds that already exist in the bank - and trying to "update" the source to VCV or CVVC. This isn't Vocaloid. You don't gain anything by trying to "update" someone's samples to VCV or CVVC - it won't even sound entirely natural. Oto around the limitations of the samples as they exist. CV can sound decent just like VCV can sound like a non-programmed mess. Nothing wrong with adding silence to samples (we all know those banks that have no silence and sound like a speak-n-spell), but trying to make a totally new bank? No. Just... No.

In any case, all voicebanks should be credited to the original creator - living or dead, active in the community or not, discontinued or not.
wait, is that what actually happened to kaai yuki?
 

the-neo-romantic

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
I think that if something is abandoned, it's not up for grabs. You can't really grab a voicebank, change it and name it "kinda" your own, just because it was sitting there for years - its owner isn't giving it to anyone. I would probably be mad if someone took an old character of mine and "made it better" because I didn't use it for a period of time.
However, other ways of utau adoption seem nice - I would like to see what other people can do with an abandoned character, but only if the original author gives them full permission. (or maybe people exchanging two characters - with permission too - that would be awesome)
Doing that without being given the rights to the character seems very out of place.
 

kimchi-tan

Your local Mikotard
Global Mod
Defender of Defoko
The only loophole I can think of that would make a move like that valid would be if the creator allowed derivatives for the utau in question but even that can still be questionable since you aren't putting up the new voicebank as a derivative utau but rather as an "update".
 

Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
That way of adoption is not good to me. The way I did the I the adoption back in '13. Some adopted Masami Suzu, Ringone Yukihyo, and my best friend adopted Kanaka Tora and I got the cash for it.

Update: I was half asleep up there.
Anyways, in all honesty, if it was me, I literally wouldn't give a shiz if my abandoned utau was redesigned, refixed and everything if I have left. If I leave, it means I want absolutely nothing to do with the fandom. Now I'm not saying I left, I still consider Tora and Usagi as UTAU. If they are inactive 100%, basically dead in the fandom, no actions, no activities, literally nothing, wouldn't that mean they don't care and want nothing to do with UTAU, and the fandom? I'm not saying its OK, Im saying there's such thing as people not giving a crap if their characters were revived. I know I wouldn't. "You love my dead utau? Awesome, do whatever you want because I'm not in the fandom and I don't care" If this is about The Guy Reviving Them, I'm 90% sure they got permission to fix and revive them. No one is obligated to say "I got permission!"
The thing is, and the person reviving has stated this multiple times, that a few of these creators haven't been online so he doesn't technically have permission. (and this matter isn't on simple redesigns). It's not an absolute obligation, but to avoid misconceptions and even backlash it's a good idea(and common practice) to state that permission was obtained(as many people can get skeptical and whatnot in the first place ;-; ). And technically it's rather unknown what's happened to the creators and if they're even still alive, but generally people in these cases would respect the standard UTAU TOS if the creators are not present.
 
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Arissa

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Thread starter
This is just my opinion, but it seems like this thread was lowkey created to talk behind this persons back... ;;
Sorry if it seems that way, but that's not really what this thread was for. It was a new topic I was curious about but also wary of, and wondered how some of my friends and others felt about it. But tbh I saw how big it was and that the matter was actually becoming an issue and stopped talking about it
 

Nohkara

Pronouns: He/him
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
If you don’t what that when you leave an UTAU community for reason or another and don’t want that a some random person does anything they hella want to your UTAU/Voicebank, please have a clear “terms of use” that tells what’s OK and what’s not.

I think that it’s good to write this things:

-is distribution of oto/FRQ/wav/voicebank ok
-is editing wav files anyway ok, if so what kind of editing you allow
 

kimchi-tan

Your local Mikotard
Global Mod
Defender of Defoko
This is just my opinion, but it seems like this thread was lowkey created to talk behind this persons back... ;;
Sorry if it seems that way, but that's not really what this thread was for. It was a new topic I was curious about but also wary of, and wondered how some of my friends and others felt about it. But tbh I saw how big it was and that the matter was actually becoming an issue and stopped talking about it
If many feel strongly about this, I can lock this thread should it be so.

And @Arissa, if you regret bringing up the topic, you have the choice to delete the thread should you choose.
 

Nohkara

Pronouns: He/him
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
If many feel strongly about this, I can lock this thread should it be so.

And @Arissa, if you regret bringing up the topic, you have the choice to delete the thread should you choose.
I think that Arissa bringing up this topic was a good thing. The odds that anything like this would happens to someone’s UTAU is really SMALL but it’s good to knowledge that anything can really happen on this Earth: especially when this community will be a decase old very soon! It was a matter of time when this happen - and it happened now

I think that this is a good warning what CAN happened if no ToS written in UTAU’s readme.txt or Wiki page for current and future users.

TBH I was surprised that any big drama didn’t blown up in this thread, I’m proud that everyone spoken mature way on this topic and didn’t call anyone by name.

I agree with Kimchi that this thread can be locked for no more answers
 

HixaiU

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
From a personal view I find it wrong. You shouldn't take someones voicebank even if its been abandoned sorry but thats just it.
All of the voicebanks that I have provided (including abandoned/discontinued) are not allowed to redistributed, sold, altered or redesigned and by downloading you have agreed to said terms. *not talking to anyone here its just my TOS*
You guys need to think about putting something like that in your ToS because if they somehow use your files and make tons of money off it you kind of have to protect yourself.
Don't forget its your voice. You only have one of them.
Point being its wrong and it shouldnt happen.
 

OngakuCD

Ritsu's Renegades
Defender of Defoko
Unlike last nights chat, this thread seems to focus on the action itself and not a particular user. However, due to a specific user, we are now able to have a conversation about the ethics of refurbishing voicebanks when the user is no longer active.

I agree, everyone needs to put in their ToS that their voicebanks can not be redistributed and commercially used. That way, if you are no longer active, your voicebank will always not have or have your consent. I think that if you are able to get into contact with a user and they agree, then thats fine. However, if the user can not be reached, then I think the voicebank needs to be left alone.

Also, if you find an old voicebank that you clean up and oto correctly, that is also ok as long as you do not redistribute it. Along with that, I feel that redesigning the UTAU may not be appropriate as well.

I think this is a good thread to have an open discussion with and there should be no reason for it to become out of hand.
 

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