Little things that will be clear

Hello, Nynthixia here

It's been a little while I didn't post in the news, so I'll start with the good new from one or two weeks ago. I had said earlier that I wanted to change my SSD for Windows by a greater one, which has been done with success. I even posted on Twitter the status of the two discs just after the change. Typically, I just cloned my former SSD onto the new one and everything happened as expected, more space in the Windows part. So now, I'm not worried anymore if someday I'll have to install VOCALOID5 and that the thing forces itself to the C: drive.

Another new, that is sadly, a bad one, is for Meiji. I learnt at the start of the month that Meiji actually died. Her blog doesn't exist anymore and her downloads got locked. Making me only missing the Fantasy voicebank. I'll actually continue to use her for now, but she will probably pass from main singer to just regular one due to that. I just hope the same won't happen with Nyui because these are two with really great quality among UTAUloids...

Finally, the "thing that will be clear". And I think I'll have to reassure some people.

Yesterday, a person sent me a mail saying they actually saw two of my songs via YouTube. One of them was indeed officially uploaded, the other one was never officially uploaded to YouTube, only to the blog and included in an album with a slightly different version (so a demo and an album version). Surprised of this answer, I asked for a link of this unofficial video and... I discovered a channel having reuploaded 63 of my works, including album exclusive tracks, including as well 2 of seleP's album tracks.

So... Yes there is a problem, because album exclusive tracks should never be on YouTube. It breaks a bit the exclusivity for the ones downloading the album... For free.

Because yes, all the songs are downloadable for free. There is no pirates with me. I give my works for free.

But that doesn't mean these can be reuploaded a bit like people wish...

I had to send seven complaints (yes, since YouTube's copyright complaint form only accepts 11 works/complaint, I had rathered if this would be only 1 or 2, but no, I had to make 7 of them...) against the channel yesterday evening. 3 hours ago (when I'm writing the post), YouTube sent me mails saying the content was removed... And the concerned channel got closed. Since there were 7 strikes (1/complaint) and that at 3, the channel gets closed.

To be honest, this is something I hate to do and that is horribly stressful. Very stressful because when you do a complaint for copyright, you have to be precize about what is being "stolen" in the video, that if they contact you again for more info, you have to give proofs it's you who did the work, and that if the form is being abused, it's your own channel who takes a strike. It's just horrible. Typically, the concerned person had no private contact form, neither any social network for a proper contact. In addition, the other videos were very questionable at copyright scale, also, I know seleP doesn't appreciate their album tracks (they're still fine for remixes and covers of these tracks, but not the tracks themselves, and as long they're credited and it's not for commercial purposes (normal...)) being reuploaded publicly like this, I saw no proof the user had actually good faith when reuploading these works.

So, lesson to learn:

do not reupload my works without permission, please, to any platform whatsoever

I might have scared some with that, so I'm going to give some cases where you are indeed authorized to publish something that has to do with my works and which cases it is forbidden to reupload these works:

1 - you are an artist making a cover (human or synthetized) or a remix of one my songs, and you have public proof that you use a vocal synth. Authorized. License grants you the right to use my work without permission if you are part of this group. Be careful to the platforms for some works (no yandere songs on piapro especially, age limits for explicit songs) and you'll be fine.

2 - you are contacting me for a remix or a cover, and I give you the necessary files to do so, whatever you are publicly shown as using vocal synths or not. Authorized. Getting my files say that you have my permission as long you respect the license rights, but I estimate everything will go fine.

3 - you are an artist using vocal synths directly reuploading my public works. Tolerated with conditions. Just be sure your channel does not authorize monetization, that you credit me well and that the reupload is under the same license as the original. And if your channel authorize monetization, it has to be deactivated on this particular reupload. It's better if you contact me first when doing that honestly. There are cases where it may not be authorized, so check the platforms restrictions.

4 - you are an artist using vocal synths directly reuploading album exclusive tracks. Forbidden. Album exclusive tracks are considered as restricted works, exclusive to albums. If I see you reuploading a direct album track, I'll try to contact you first if I have a private way to do so (= no drama), and if it doesn't work or that I don't have the way to do so, it's copyright complaint.

5 - you are not an artist using vocal synths directly reuploading my works, public or not. Forbidden. Per the license, all users that are not in the authorized group have to ask my permission to do so. For the album tracks, the answer to this permission will always be "no". For the other ones, see case 3. If ever I see you doing that, and that I can't contact you or get good faith, I'll send a copyright complaint.

6 - you are using one of my works in the conditions of fair use. Tolerated but not recommended. For this one, the thing is that the fair use is typically something American, and that France does not have a proper equivalent of this right. For this case, it's better to contact me. Just in case and that you won't get any issues.

7 - you are reuploading a nightcore/daycore version of one of my works. Really not recommended. To be honest I tried to nightcore one of my works and the result was just... Awful. If you are an artist using vocal synths, I may spare you (ref case 3) ; if you're not, I'll ask you to take the video down (ref case 5). So, at your own risk for this one.

8 - you are reuploading my work with misattribution, using it for commercial purpose, or do not share under the same license. You may get a notice or a copyright strike depending of the situation. If the failure to comply was done under 30 days since the reupload, I'll first warn you to correct the failures. If you still don't comply or that this delay is expired, I may send a claim.

So in a nutshell:

- if you send me a request of permission, I'm totally aware of what you are doing and I'm happy. Even if I don't publicly promote your work on social networks, this doesn't mean this doesn't affect me. So thanks to everyone who covered or remixed my songs and who showed me the results. You are sweeties.
- if you don't care sending me a permission and that you are not a confirmed artist or that you don't care about the license, this might bring your demise. Rather avoiding that. If it's just for reuploading works for the sake of reuploading works, it's just no. Giving downloads for free doesn't mean you can do whatever you want with. There is still a copyright behind. At legal scale.
- if ever you see someone reusing works without permission, always contact the concerned authors. I'm sure they'll be happy to know that you have found a little mine of unauthorized works and will probably ask to take them down.
- I can estimate if an user is in good faith or not from the start. If it's someone for example doing multiple copyright violations for multiple authors, there I won't ask myself questions and I'll directly go for the harshest solution, even if it doesn't please me. If I see it's a poor mistake, I'll contact you and say "woopsie, I think there is something wrong, can you please correct it?". Being nice with the authors and respect what they want you to do will only bring you sympathy.

If you have any questions, Twitter or mail. Don't hesitate. I'll answer as much as I can if I didn't cover all the cases here yet.

And don't stress, if you are in good faith, that you think there will be no problem seeing the cases, no worries!

Nynthixia