Tutorial LEGAL REQUIREMENTS WITH UPLOADING [Deleted]

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bodytemp

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bodytemp submitted a new resource:

LEGAL REQUIREMENTS WITH UPLOADING - What you can and CANT do when it comes to recording/uploading japanese music

This is far from finished. If you have any questions or any suggestions on what you would like added please comment!

Okay so there has been a lot of confusion of both western and eastern side about policies to do with Vocaloid releases so having discussed with a couple of producers on both sides of the field we all agreed on one thing. There needs to be a guide in place.
I am here to set the record straight painfully and brutally honest. Take this as your warning that things that I might...

Read more about this resource...
 

DraygonChan

Teto's Territory
Wait, so if I want to cover a song (with an UTAU, mind you), I have to learn Japanese, somehow find the creator, and convince them to let me cover it? Dear god, this just made UTAU near impossible for me.
 
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bodytemp

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Its law unfortunately this goes with utau/vocaloid/covers with vocals anything that can infringe on the rights of the original artist.
 

zipperworks

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
I'm running on fumes right now, so it's wholly possible I'm misunderstanding, but...

Expecting people to ask permission for non-commercial covers with released off-vocals is ridiculous, and seems rather "overseas users gtfo" to me. If the producer releases the off-vocal, I think permission is implied.

Monetizing covers is wrong, though, no matter what. I have no arguments there.
 
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✧ Elfrida ✧

The Space Witch
Defender of Defoko
I'm running on fumes right now, so it's wholly possible I'm misunderstanding, but...

Expecting people to ask permission for non-commercial covers with released off-vocals is ridiculous, and seems rather "overseas users gtfo" to me. If the producer releases the off-vocal, I think permission is implied.

Monetizing covers is wrong, though, no matter what. I have no arguments there.
I definitely agree with you there. There should be no harm in not letting someone directly know you covered their work unless you didn't properly credit them or unless you're trying to make money off their work. (both of those things are just plain wrong and I don't condone them) I can kinda see where they're coming from with the translation thing, though. Besides the point if a creator ever contacted me and said a cover of mine was infringing on their rights, I would take it down out of respect though.
 
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SCARYCHEWINGGUM

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Can I just ask, since you seem to know quite a bit on this subject. What about when it comes to non-vocaloid Japanese songs (such as Me!Me!Me! and songs from animes like Love Live!). Should I just avoid covering them all together or is there some kind of protocol I can follow?
 
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bodytemp

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Ah
Can I just ask, since you seem to know quite a bit on this subject. What about when it comes to non-vocaloid Japanese songs (such as Me!Me!Me! and songs from animus like Love Live!). Should I just avoid covering them all together or is there some kind of protocol I can follow?
they still apply the same ruling except on a less of a stricter level. Mind you that permission for that stuff is difficult to obtain so they just let it go really. It is OK to cover it but still take procautions and no monetization can be made but warning you that they might monetise it themselves. Its too popular to control is pretty much what happens with it. Unless your like downloading illegal animu then your pretty much screwed if caught some dude in Japan got 5 years for uploading TV shows.
 
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SCARYCHEWINGGUM

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Ah

they still apply the same ruling except on a less of a stricter level. Mind you that permission for that stuff is difficult to obtain so they just let it go really. It is OK to cover it but still take procautions and no monetization can be made but warning you that they might monetise it themselves. Its too popular to control is pretty much what happens with it. Unless your like downloading illegal animu then your pretty much screwed if caught some dude in Japan got 5 years for uploading TV shows.

Okay! Thank you!
 

✧ Elfrida ✧

The Space Witch
Defender of Defoko
*rereads* Ohhhh, I see ... so its more than a legality thing but also a cultural thing and such to just ask ahead of time? This is stuff I wish I would have known earlier on when I started my YT channel.
 
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bodytemp

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*rereads* Ohhhh, I see ... so its more than a legality thing but also a cultural thing and such to just ask ahead of time? This is stuff I wish I would have known earlier on when I started my YT channel.
Yeah its more of a cultural thing BUT theres still a massive legal side as well.
 

Leah

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Bear in mind that this basically disqualifies people like JubyPhonic from what she's doing, unless she is asking for permission every time, then pardon me. She also has a patreon, and whilst that's not monetizing things from her covers directly, it's still a form of obtaining money. And, don't get me wrong, I think monetizing simple singing covers is wrong, and monetizing remixes/arrangement covers should only be done with a permission and some kind of agreement between the artists.

Personally, I have two last translyric projects on which I've worked for months, and after that I don't intend on continuing since I'll most likely be focusing on original music anyway. DECO*27 has maybe seen my (now deleted) English cover of Streaming Heart since I uploaded it on his official FB (which I know is not maintained by him, but I think he has an idea of it). He didn't seem to mind, but I can ask him about my next cover.

Whilst bodytemp claimed this is a Japanese universal cultural and legal law, it doesn't mean that all producers are really angry at you for covering a song or writing translyrics for it. Although I'm sure all of them will be mad if you monetized those, obviously. To me, it's odd that they don't give out off-vocals with only permission or make you pay for them if you really need to be allowed/authorised to do a cover.

Additionally, does the translyrics thing apply to normal translations, too? I understand producers don't want their songs to be misunderstood, but at the same time, they are basically kicking the Western fandom out. We're not allowed to interpret their song, whether it's by trying to understand the lyrics or making a cover, and I rarely ever see a Japanese producer putting out an English translation or translyrics or even caring about trying to contact some Japanesr to English translator. Of course, the song is their property and I fully agree that they do have a complete control of what happens with their song. They also have a right to not care about the Western fandom. In short, we're the only ones losing. Although they could potentially be also losing fans, although they may not care about it if all they care about is obtaining money from their music (which is perfectly fine, some people use that money to support themselves after all).

And on a side note, since Japanese producers expect the Western fandom to have really good Japanese to understand their songs from-word-to-word, can we expect them to understand English if we're asking for permission to cover their song? I don't mean this to be an aggressive question, as it's a genuine inquiry. This is because if a Japanese producer messaged me in Japanese about any of my covers, I would make sure to get someone to translate the message for me.

On piapro, we're told we can do whatever with an instrumental as long as we don't monetize it. So what has changed? It appears that nothing has. And yet only now the apparent producers' wishes (which may be not representative of all producers mind you, unless someone has done the inferential statistics so that bodytemp's findings can be generalized to all producers) are revealed. Primarily, I'm surprised that producers don't make any announcement or/and not contact people who made a cover they don't like to take it down. If, like bodytemp claimed, making undesirable covers/translyrics were an issue, asking permission would become an unwritten rule. But instead, producers complain to themselves and friends, which in the end makes no change to the whole situation. And because of that, writing translyrics and making vocal covers exists the way it does, hurting producers that don't say anything about it.

As for a conclusion, I'd like to highlight that I'm certainly against monetizing covers and I will from now on ask for permissions to cover songs, but producers not saying a thing until now is absolutely weird to me, since the culture of writing translyrics and making covers without permission has grown so much that one single post on an UTAU forum cannot stop it. There are no statistics to show that what you say is true, bodytemp; only a qualitative analysis which may not be appropriate to generalize to the whole population. So put to all of my point simply, it's a bit late to suddenly stop the whole notion of creations, but that doesn't mean we can't change for the better.
 
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zipperworks

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Thank you, Leah, for putting this into better words than I could.

I think it would be a nice gesture to at least comment and tell the producers you appreciate their work and maybe that you did a cover, but for the most part, I think expecting all of us to request specific permission when the producer already released the off-vocal is 1. unnecessary (it hasn't been necessary in the 5 years I've been in this fandom, why suddenly now? Because you said so?) 2. incredibly difficult, since there is a language barrier if we can even find how to contact them and 3. a waste of everyone involved's time. I just think producers have better things to do than give specific permission to each and every one of us...

re: translations - obviously, it's the author's choice whether or not they want to allow reprints of their videos with translations, but I think putting out a blanket "don't do it" is, again, wrong. I'm with Leah, here - saying "no translations/no translyrics" is essentially kicking out Western fandom, and aside from one instance you mention, it's been happening for as long as I've been in this fandom and it's never been a problem before that I recall. I could be wrong, but if it were really a problem, I would think the big translators/translyricists I can think of wouldn't still be doing what they're doing...

A lot of this just... really rubs me the wrong way. I think it's unfairly generalizing a lot of Japanese producers based off the words of one anonymous producer, and it really reads as "overseas users aren't welcome." You're essentially asking the entire fandom to just stop doing things we've been doing for over 5 years, and I'm really concerned this sort of thing is going to scare off a lot of newer people.

I need to stop writing when I'm half-asleep, but it's unfortunately the only time I have during the week. I hope this makes sense. If any of it doesn't: tl;dr, I'm with Leah.
 

Enriku

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
Monetizing Covers = Okay I'm going to have to say, yes it's wrong to monetize producers covers. It even says on Piapro it's illegal to make money out of the off vocals provided by the users. Also if they're making arrangements (like their own midi composition or musical composition) they should ask before making money since they put effort in the work but legally it's not theirs to make money out of. Remixes that aren't using the original Off vocals can be put into the arrangement situation.

Language translation = So this is kind of simple but not. I think the one thing producers who are JPN are worried about are the authentic meanings in their lyrics being miscommunicated as something else thus creating a different meaning in the song as a whole. To be honest if they don't want their songs translated all they need to put on their videos is 'Please do Not Translate' or in the description. Honestly don't complain if you're not writing on your originals those type of warnings because no one is psychic.

Also as people who don't really know JPN but love the music, they're basically cutting off most of their fans off and leaving them blinded to their songs. A huge percentage of their fans are Westerners probably so if your not allowing translations your basically asking for less fans lol plus it's kind of ungrateful to say 'DON'T TRANSLATE MY SONGS' because people generally want the producers song to be understandable for everyone.

Edit: I agree if the translator doesn't know any Japanese or anything about the language at all they should not translate songs and post it as they're probably going to mess up the messing of the song.

Off vocals = okay I do not believe people would just put out off vocals JUST to listen to it, that's kind of hard to believe lol sorry but I find them interesting but it's not something I would be like 'HEY I listen to off vocals of songs I like' like you could just listen to the original and it would be just as good. Also if you're giving your off vocals out freely you're technically asking people to cover your content unless you write 'PLEASE DO NOT COVER' on your videos or something. We're all going to assume it's for reasons of wanting your original covered.

Just going to say why is it even an issue when UTAU and VOCALOID has been a thing since years ago, like honestly it's kind of stupid? Like why now when we're like already in V4 and UTAU has evolved so much lol.

Js, not trying to be rude but this is kind of what I think
 
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bodytemp

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Again let me remind you I have talked to at least 15-20 producers about this. I am still not finished and I'm still writing.
 

Leah

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
If you've been talking to 20 producers (which isn't representative of all producers anyway, but still), then I would like to ask: If they were bothered by people making hundreds and hundreds of subbed videos, translyrics and covers all over YouTube, then why, after years of all of this, they decided to step up now? Why are they distributing off-vocals although you need permission to cover their songs? Why have they never said, 'please don't cover this' or 'please don't translate this' in descriptions? Visual artists do it all the time, so I don't see why producers wouldn't make announcements or just put messages in their videos. And do they not care about their Western fans; after all, they could be providing their own translations. Is it because they don't make profit out of them?
 
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na4a4a

Outwardly Opinionated and Harshly Critical
Supporter
Defender of Defoko
I'm gonna say this: FOLLOW THE PRODUCER'S WISHES.

I don't care about the rest of this thread tbh. It should be as simple as No Monitization and no reprints of any sort if that's what they have requested.

Monitization on YouTube, for example, is only acceptable if it's copyright enforced and all the money actually goes to the producer (you would get a notification about this in that situation, otherwise don't monitize.).

Translations can be pretty terrible and they should ask for permission first anyways.

Covers depend per-producer, in the situation of real/human covers then you might need to ask. (Vocaloid and utau covers get the short end of the stick because there are SO MANY users that they can't answer or grant permission to them all.)

Some off-vocals are downloadable for personal enjoyment, some people like listening to music without the vocals.

It's a big, fat ..."it's depends"...always double check per-producer to see their terms. They made the content after all.

Thete doesn't need to be a discussion about this, it should be more cut and dry then that.
 

zipperworks

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
I can't speak for everyone, but at the very least, I'm not discussing this because I want to disrespect the producers' wishes. I just want to know why this is the first time in five years I've ever heard "oh, you need to ask producers before you cover their work, even if they released the off-vocal." I don't translate, I have no horse in that race, and I've already made my feelings on monetization known.

I just don't want people to get the wrong impression and give up on this fandom, because while I understand this is a work in progress, it's written in such a way that it may dissuade people. There've already been a couple people who sound like they're going to give up entirely because now they "can't" cover songs...
 

Leah

Ruko's Ruffians
Defender of Defoko
It's pretty clear you should ask for permission. I don't argue against it. I'm just asking why have producers not said anything about it before after at least 7 years of fan translations and cover-making. I'm asking this here, since bodytemp can communicate with some of them. There's no need for any discussion, just a clear-cut answer.

And yes, I am irritated by the fact that after these 7 years only now they're telling people what to do and what to not do. Because I wish I could have followed these guidelines before and not after the 'crime' was done. If a producer is releasing an off-vocal, sometimes even in different keys, and doesn't say that we can't cover it (or translate it), how were we meant to read their minds?
 
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