is it ok to use vocaloids to voice a different character
- Thread starter リカ・ハナ
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For non-commercial purpose? Totally, it's more than okay. For commercial, I'd tipically say yes, there are exceptions like Fukase where you need a license and such but for vocaloids, tipically when you're using the voice, not the mascot, it's perfectly fine, def look into Mikoto's license for this. Also to make talking easier she does have a talkloid voicebank so if you care looking into it:o
It's okay to use an OC in place of a Vocaloid's "real" design! There are a lot of popular producers who use an OC in their music videos in order to avoid asking permission to use an official character's name/design. Vocaloid is technically an instrument for DTMers (desktop musicians), so the usage isn't very strict in terms of sound, more like they only care about their terms that have copyright ("Vocaloid (TM)", a character name like "Hatsune Miku").
So to reiterate: You normally have to get permission/pay for a character usage license if you want to use the name/official design of a character (ex: "Hatsune Miku") commercially (ex: as in put their name in a song title or use their likeness for album art) since you are riding the coattails of the company who has a popular character, which you would benefit from. You can avoid this by using an OC (I've emailed a couple companies about this so far and the answer has always been the same). The exception being Fukase, who you have to get permission even if you use an OC because his keepers want payment for use of his special voice for commercial use. But this is an extremely unusual case compared to other Vocaloids.
In the talking synth world (ex: Voiceroid, GynoidTalk), people use the voices of characters for their OCs or even for VTuber activities (ex: using Satou Sasara's talk voice but using an OC for the artwork).
So to reiterate: You normally have to get permission/pay for a character usage license if you want to use the name/official design of a character (ex: "Hatsune Miku") commercially (ex: as in put their name in a song title or use their likeness for album art) since you are riding the coattails of the company who has a popular character, which you would benefit from. You can avoid this by using an OC (I've emailed a couple companies about this so far and the answer has always been the same). The exception being Fukase, who you have to get permission even if you use an OC because his keepers want payment for use of his special voice for commercial use. But this is an extremely unusual case compared to other Vocaloids.
In the talking synth world (ex: Voiceroid, GynoidTalk), people use the voices of characters for their OCs or even for VTuber activities (ex: using Satou Sasara's talk voice but using an OC for the artwork).
It's worth adding on that from my understanding Fukase's restriction also applies to most (all?) CeVIO banks as well as Miku NT. I believe Voiceroids and other AI Talks also require permission+licensing for commercial usage regardless of name use.
That said, non commercial use? None of this applies, you can do anything you want re: characters just mentioned.
