Crypton Future Media, Inc.

Crypton Future Media Inc. is an importer of sound devices in Sapporo, Japan. This company is also known as the developer of Miku Hatsune.

About
Crypton Future Media Inc. was established in 1995 as an importer and seller of music software in Sapporo, Japan. This company is a pioneer of using YAMAHA's voice synthesis program Vocaloid. Crypton's first two Vocaloids were Meiko, released in 2004 and Kaito, released in 2006.

It was not, however, until Miku Hatsune was released in Aug. 2007 that Crypton as well as Vocaloid became popular. When they began to use the vocaloid 2 engine, they created the "Character Vocal Series", which would later influence the use of 'avatars' or 'mascots' by other companies working on the Vocaloid program. This success in commercial strategy made Crypton the leading Vocaloid developer.

Acording to Crypton, because professional singers refused to provide singing data, in fear that the software might create their singing voice's clones, Crypton changed their focus from imitating certain singers to creating characteristic vocals. This change of focus led to sampling vocals of voice actors.

Any rights or obligations arising from the vocals created by the software belong to the software user. Just like any music synthesizer, the software is treated as a musical instrument and the vocals as sound. Under the term of license, the Character Vocal Series software can be used to create vocals for commercial or non commercial use, as long as the vocals do not offend public policy. In other words, the user is bound under the term of license with Crypton not to synthesize derogatory or disturbing lyrics. On the other hand, copyrights to the mascot image and name belong to Crypton. Under the term of license, a user cannot commercially distribute a vocal as a song sung by the character, nor use the mascot image on commercial products, without Crypton's consent.

Crypton has noted that their CV04 vocaloid will be the last of the Character Vocal Series.

Involvement in Super GT Series
The Vocaloid series, particularly Hatsune Miku, has been actively involved in the GT300 class of the Super GT since 2008 Super GT seasonwith the support of Good Smile Racing (a branch of Good Smile company, mainly in charge of car-related products, especially itasha (cars featuring illustrations of anime-styled characters) stickers). Although Good Smile Company was not the first to bring the anime and manga culture to Super GT, it departs from others by featuring itasha directly rather than colorings onto vehicles.

Robot Miku
At CEATEC Japan 2009, Boffin, in joint with Yamaha had the robot model HRP-4C react to the Vocaloid software for demostrational purposes. She was dressed up to look like Hatsune Miku for the demo.

Piapro
Crypton set up Piapro to clear up some of the problems related to copyright issues. Users are encouraged to post illustrations, music and lyrics onto the site. Piapro gives approval to the NON-COMMERCIAL use of these fan-made creations automatically when posted. This arrangement is for the products distributed by and the derivatives adopted by Crypton only. No other company has similar plan currently.

Vocaloid

 * Meiko: Japanese female
 * Kaito: Japanese male

Vocaloid2
Character Vocal Series (CV)
 * Miku Hatsune (CV01): Japanese female
 * Append: Contains improved voicebanks "Soft", "Sweet", "Dark", "Vivid", "Solid" and "Light".
 * Rin and Len Kagamine (CV02): Japanese female (Rin) and male (Len)
 * Act 2: Independant installation with updated voicebanks.
 * Luka Megurine (CV03): Japanese and English female

Current Projects

 * Len Append
 * Unnamed Japanese male (CV04), CV04 will be the last of the Character Vocal Series.
 * "Project if...", a mysterious project involving a "child voice".