Controversy Concerns

Since VOCALOID™ was first released, there have been some controversial issues that have sprung up in regards to it. While VOCALOID™ is not without its criticism, these issues have become subject to much attention or outcry. The issues discussed by this page are particularly upsetting for VOCALOID fans at times as they are often used to question the validity of VOCALOIDs or the software itself.

Singing Vocal Clones
One of the earliest concerns for VOCALOID™ is the idea of producing a vocal so near-perfect there is no need for the original vocalist. Or alternatively, there is the temptation to publish a song while crediting the provider, rather then the Vocaloid, as the singer.

According to Crypton, because professional female singers refused to provide voice samples, 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 the vocals of voice actors and the Japanese voice acting agency Arts Vision supported the development.

Similar concerns have been expressed throughout the other studios using VOCALOID, with Zero-G refusing to release the names of their providers. Miriam Stockley - who provided the voice for Miriam - remains the only known Zero-G voice provider who receives acknowledgement on the VOCALOID product page.

For more, see this page on Wikia Answers.

Vocal Misuse
The agreements of the VOCALOID™ license prohibit users from producing works which are considered degrading, aimed at undermining individuals or controversial, but this does not stop users from doing such acts.

The result is some songs such as "Wash My Blood" become subject to outcry for their lyrics or topic matters. In this particular song, Luka is often taken to be portrayed as a nun who broke her vows and had sex, then aborted her unborn child. For some cultures, this is simply unacceptable behaviour, making the song controversial if this is taken as the interpretation.

The concern of the misuse of the Vocal was raised by Miriam Stockley in regards to her Vocaloid Miriam and its own release noting that there was little that could be done once a vocal is released.

Mascot Portrayals
Some producers treat the VOCALOIDs like they are dolls and that they can make a VOCALOID do anything they want.

As noted by Crypton Future Media in regards to their Project If..., releases presented as young children risk becoming subject to pedophilic sexual portrayals. In particular AH Software's first three VOCALOIDs and Voiceroid products caught attention and were accused of serving to fulfill the lolicon fandom.

Pirated Versions
See POCALOID for more details

One of the most common concerns for any software is pirated versions of software. It has been proven over the course of time that there is little that can be done to prevent software from being cracked by software crackers and also arguable the impact on the legit copies of any software.

The main concerns on illegal software versions are normally as followed;
 * 1) Harm to user computers; torrents can at times contain Trojans and viral based software inflections. When a user downloads pirated versions of software from non legit sources rather then the legit source,
 * 2) Lack of technical support; there is no technical support offered for illegal versions of software such as Vocaloid.
 * 3) The Law; The act of software downloading is considered a act of stealing, therefore persons can be held accounted for their actions.
 * 4) Publishing; work published with illegal versions lead to shame within the music industry and destroy producer reputation. As such, illegal versions of VOCALOID™ do not comply with the end user agreements of VOCALOID™.
 * 5) Support for further Development; further software can only be produced if it sells. Piracy can at times take away potential sales from the software.
 * 6) Capabilities; sometimes the capabilities of pirated versions are different from the legit version of the software. Sometimes it contains unsupported functions, altered interfaces or "bug fixes" that can interfere with software updates or functionality. One of the most common function removals of illegal vocaloid is the security measures put in place within the software.
 * 7) Software Conflict; lastly, illegal versions of a software are known to at times cause conflict with legal versions of the software.

These concerns aside, there is often little overall difference between the illegal versions of software and legal versions. However, due to the moral implications behind support of illegal vocaloid, the software is often shunned within the Vocaloid fandom. the illegal version of Voaloid has also been known to have been sold as its legal counterpart, so buyers of Vocaloid need to check their software sources when purchasing Vocaloid and ensure they are purchasing from legal vendor.

The main concerns for studios resolves to the issue on loss potential customers; there will always be users who are unwilling to ever purchase the software so long as the illegal "free" version exists. Impact of loss on sales are potentially hurt Vocaloid development, especially when the sales expectancy for Vocal synthesizers is often as low as 1,000 units. If the software fails to sell, then there is less chance of the studio or company behind the software producing more vocaloids. For some studios this is important as their finical support given to produced software is based on the success of the previous one, and less sales result in less money for the next vocal.

Essentially, the use of illegal and legal versions often is down to a cultural trend, with some cultures being more likely to download pirated versions then others.

Within the Vocaloid fandom, there is support for alternative software such as UTAU as a legit method of producing works, rather then use of illegal VOCALOID™.

Non-Licensed Versions
Another form of illegal VOCALOID usage is the act of literally creating a new voicebank from existing ones or claiming to create a new product without creating a licensing agreement with Yamaha in the process. This latter issue is relatively much rarer than the illegal downloads as it requires the re-recoding of entire vocal banks. To date this has yet to be a serious problem.

Validity of Work
The VOCALOID software is regarded as a virtual instrument in Japan, therefore this is a controversial issue amongst the VOCALOID fandom. Overseas (outside of Japan and its neighboring Asian countries) VOCALOIDs are sold as virtual singers. This small classification also brings about the question on how far one can go to call Miku a "singer" when she is just a synthesized vocal or an "instrument".

Regardless of the classification, the controversial issues related to VOCALOID "singers" has led some music fans to ask if it is real music if nothing is real to begin with and if the software is even on par with real singers. The VOCALOID2 software was often commented to be far from perfect and was noted to be far from being a top rate singer due to its limitations. At times media will often also fail to report VOCALOID correctly, leading a general confusion as to what VOCALOID is. Some reports label it as a "game" based on Project Diva, others a "band" based on the concerts, some mistake the PVs for part of an anime. All these attributes as well as anti-VOCALOID points of view, often leave further questions open on if the VOCALOID songs are really legit songs. Furthermore, because of Miku's fame there is also a tendency for some reports to presume all VOCALOIDs sing in a similar tone or pitch of voice to Miku. This renders all VOCALOIDs judged based solely on one vocal.

During his tweets, GazettE's Aoi questioned if VOCALOID and such virtual singers should be compared on the same level, when producers and bands such as his own exist. Criticizing the VOCALOID songs and questioning if they were even real music can led to fan outburst. Generally, VOCALOID producers often regard their work as "real". Many famous song writers have already gone onto greater works beyond VOCALOID.

Design Influence
The elements in Hatsune Miku's design were commonplace in the early days of VOCALOID and owe their birth to the numerous derivatives of Hatsune Miku and other Crypton Future Media VOCALOIDs; however, it was not found to be associated with VOCALOID prior to Miku's release. The overall layout of Hatsune Miku's boxart has been largely referenced within the Japanese culture and is often easily noticed. KEI himself has been fully aware of Miku's fame to the point that he has parodied his own artwork of Miku from time to time.

The design influence of Hatsune Miku lead to other cultural sources referencing the design. One such example is Kasane Teto, a UTAU, being one of the most easily acknowledge example of this. Her success to pass as a Vocaloid during a April Fools' joke partly owed to how similar in design she appeared to existing Crypton Future Media Vocaloids, though was not the soul factor in this. Furthermore, mascots of other music related software and hardware had been created based on the popularity of Miku's own design, such as FL Chan who owes her character creation to Hatsune Miku's popularity.

Her design also influenced other Vocaloids. For example, cyber-style clothes, as seen on the Crypton Future Media VOCALOIDs, were implemented onto Gackpo's design in accordance with their belief that this was a popular element of the current VOCALOID design. Macne Nana was created as a "sound princess" for the Mac computer; her working name was actually "Macne Miku" and she took influence from Miku herself.

Despite its influence on popular culture, by 2010, Miku's mascot was the source of some controversial opinions within the fandom, causing incidences of possible influence to be met with dispute and at times negativity.

In 2012, a Chinese virtual singer concert hit a particular point by Miku fans for a "Miku-esque" appearance of the main singer Dong Fang Zhi Zi. The conclusion was made that she was an attempt to 'cash in' on Miku's popularity by borrowing elements from her design and using the same virtual diva concept. This caused a negative reaction from Miku fans, and videos of the singer received several thousand "dislikes". This proved that singers who are similar to the point where fans believe they are 'ripping off' Miku are met with controversial outcry. However, designs are not restricted to post-Miku designs, but other pre-Miku designs on occasion are brought up.

However, this is not always a common reaction as many companies use "Formulas" within their products, these are based on the popularity of certain trends from popular culture. "Formulas for success" are found in books, movies, games and television already and are also often applied to something to allow the developers time to focus on other aspects of the end product without having to worry about the consequences of experimenting with unknown or complex elements.

As VOCALOID becomes increasingly more popular, more VOCALOIDs are made, and therefore finding new and unique designs becomes more difficult for studios. Therefore, the creation of VOCALOIDs whose designs resemble other VOCALOIDs may occur more often. Some cite CUL and Big Al as such an example.

{{Gallery|position=center|captionsize=0.9em|width=120|height=160
 * CUL illust.jpg|Miku's design isn't the only VOCALOID fans have seen similarities in; for example CUL...
 * Ofclboxart pwrfx Big Al-illu.png|... has a familiar design with Big Al

Design and Vocal capabilities
Despite the fact that artwork also has no effect on VOCALOID vocal performance, there are many who judge a VOCALOID upon their initial release getting excited or not based purely on design. Therefore, there is also a risk of a VOCALOID being judged by vocal performance based on the design, with fans downgrading VOCALOID vocals they like because they dislike the design. VOCALOIDs who have been effected by this include (but not restricted to) Sweet Ann, Megpoid/GUMI and Bruno.

Racial Representation
Most VOCALOIDs have been noted to have pale or Caucasian coloured pigmentation of the skin during both the VOCALOID and VOCALOID2 era of voicebanks, with the lesser being the most noteworthy because of its more driven marketing of VOCALOID character design. As with all character design issues, some minority groups feel left out because their ethnic group appears to not be represented in VOCALOID, despite the fact that many influential musicians were "black" or of African descent. Music genres such as jazz, soul and the blues were all highly influential on modern music, yet darker skinned musicians have difficulty getting recognized despite their influence on modern music genres.

For Japanese VOCALOIDs, this is all a result of their culture. In general characters tend to have pale pigments and therefore since the avatars of their VOCALOIDs are released into their culture, their VOCALOIDs follow standard anime influenced designs.

Some cited their reason for liking the VOCALOID Merli upon her design unveiling because it featured "the first VOCALOID with dark skin". However, Merli was actually the 3rd VOCALOID to feature darker skin. Both Bruno & Clara were featured with darker skin colours upon their initial unveiling, while their final designs featured the same skin colour which was paler. While this would be considered controversial, it is somewhat debatable if paling the skin would be considered an issue since their final designs were selected as part of a contest via fan vote. Many of the other entries also featured the same skin tone.

It has also been noted that both LEON and LOLA were released as "soul singers" in the VOCALOID era, so depending on personal interpretation could have also represented darker coloured tones. However, the lack of a mascot design to begin with has led to both LEON and LOLA commonly being portrayed as pale or Caucasian coloured pigmentation skin tones based on their most popular fan-made based character designs. Furthermore some individuals have difficulty viewing them without using their most common design at all. Thus, this can often eliminate the chances of them being depicted with darker skin tones despite the genre they were released to support. There are pale skinned singers in Soul music, particularly British soul music (and being made by a British company, this is also plausible for LEON and LOLA to not be featured with darker skin), but these singers are still a small percentage of the singers within the soul genre. In the case of LEON's most common fan design, this design was merely based on the fact that LEON was made by a western studio as opposed to a Japanese one and the design is based on a stereotypical westerner design.

VOCALOID and politics
Miku was also the subject of one of the most controversial uses of the legal agreements of any VOCALOID producing studio from the Democratic Party of Japan, whose running candidate, Kenzo Fujisue, attempted to secure the use of Miku's image in the Japanese House of Councillors election of July 11, 2010. The hope was that the party could use her image to appeal to younger voters. Although Crypton Future Media rejected the party's use of her image or name for political purposes, Fujisue released the song "We Are the One" using her voice on YouTube, by simply replacing her image with the party's character in the music video.

Another political issue that has haunted VOCALOID is racism. Generally this comes mostly from the Japanese VOCALOID fandom, although it is not absent from the overseas fandom. Some producers like "SolPie" and VOCALOIDs like SeeU have failed to completely establish themselves because they were Chinese or Korean, when they uploaded their work onto Niconico they were met with hate or flame. Some producers have managed to tolerate it, but others have been put off venturing into Japanese websites for it and instead use other websites like YouTube or CreCrew.

The racial intolerance issue has also been extended to VOCALOIDs and while SeeU is largely popular in the overseas fandom, within the Japanese fandom she is ignored or recieves hatred. Her voicebank has received little use in Japan despite Yamaha's advertisements and the inclusion of a Japanese voicebank.

Plagiarism
Plagiarism and other forms of copyright infringement have caused both drama and serious consequences for those involved. Plagiarism and copyright infringement often overlap each other and as serious as the act either can be, it is particularly innocent as it affects only the naive individuals who are unaware of what they or anyone else has done. Some specific cases of plagiarism or direct copyright violation, however have become particularly famous.

Copyright infringement
A example of direct violation of this level issue being the numerous Lady Gaga covers that use the background music of her song "Bad Romance". This is one of the most common occurrences of this level of act, and even when granted that the uploader acknowledges the owner, some labels such as Sony Entertainment have been known to defend their property and pull the video. Karen-T, Crypton Future Media's own label, tends to only pull PVs and videos that have been re-uploaded from their original source.

Usually, when fans commit acts such as use of illegal VOCALOIDs, other VOCALOID fans may drop the license holder an alert of what videos the user has uploaded. The result may be that the entire uploaders account ends up being removed or closed. Cover songs, therefore, are dangerous grounds that easily violate copyright without care and even experienced users such as Giuseppe have been a target for such acts. However, not all copyright claims have proven to be genuine with some false claims made every so often. For example, SEGA has been known to claim copyright on certain songs such as "World is Mine" even though their copyright of the song is only via the Project Diva games. This does not mean that the uploader was not in the clear, as Japanese producers rarely give permission for their works to be re-submitted outside of their own account and the vast majority find it upsetting.

Some YouTube reprinters also claim their re-submission, usually done without permission, help promote the VOCALOID artists despite upsetting them in the process. Regardless of circumstances, the main issue has always been a result of the fact VOCALOID itself is a commercial product and open for anyone to use as they please and despite there being licensing agreements in place there is little studios can do to prevent this from occurring.

Plagiarism
Yunomi-P was subjected to hate after being forced to admit plagiarism when VOCALOID fans began to notice works by the artist were often from other sources. The stress and drama surrounding the event caused the artist to retire from VOCALOID illustrations. Songs where Yunomi had done the illustrations were targeted by trolls and anti-Yunomi messages. Karen-T also was forced to remove some songs from their listings such as Magnet while the issue was resolved. In January 2011, Japanese boyband KAT-TUN were forced to admit plagiarism against their song "Never×Over~「-」Is Your Part~", after the producer of the song admitted it was influenced by the VOCALOID song "Dye" produced by AVTechNO, after fans expressed their outrage over the similarities of the two songs. AVTechNO went down on record as stating that the band was not at fault and it was the producer of the song who committed the plagiarism.

Often, the drama was uncalled for and unnecessary. Yunomi's plagiarism, for example, was not a direct violation of copyright material as the images were used mostly as source material or were already from stock images, the use of which is common in the art world already. KAT-TUN's indirect violation resulted in both the songs "Dye" and "Never×Over~「-」Is Your Part~" receiving a particularly large amount of attention, with "Dye" itself receiving a previously unseen amount of views on Nico Nico Douga and Youtube.

Stealing Songs
The song known to VOCALOIDs fans as "Secret" is an example.Originally it was stolen from the account of Ryuuuu by aRth (who stole many other songs from Ryuuuu and other Producers). However, aRth's act of stealing the song results in Ryuuuu's otherwise previously unknown song receiving much fame and attention on a song that otherwise may not have had the attention it had.

Language Capabilities
A cause for controversial concern is also language capabilities and is based around language capabilities and abilities. While VOCALOIDs are able to sing certain languages, this has not stopped Producers attempting to use them for lyrics beyond what they were designed for. For instance, having Miku sing in "World is Mine" the lyrics "hey baby". So while it is true you can warped currently phonetics into new words, a VOCALOID cannot fully replace a language it was not programmed for, despite what fans or producers may claim otherwise.

One Language Vs Another
One of the oldest claims and controversial issues related to language spurns from VOCALOIDs earliest days in 2007-2008 when Miku's sudden rise to popularity occured. A sudden rediscovery of English vocals led to a sudden interest in ones like LEON, LOLA, and Miriam who were released prior to KAITO and MEIKO in the VOCALOID era.

However, for many English speakers, the reaction towards the English VOCALOIDs were often mixed and many were biased towards them for their contrasting portrayals to the Japanese VOCALOIDs and different marketing.

Furthermore, because many could hear the flaws of their own language, the results were that English VOCALOIDs were often labelled "low-quality" in comparison to Japanese VOCALOIDs. Further more, many myths were passed amongst VOCALOID fans, such as Luka's Japanese voicebank was able to produce better English results then her English one.

For a variety of reasons, English VOCALOIDs had many more hurdles to leap over than Japanese ones as they tended to attracted negative responses more then positive. Over time interest has risen in regards to them and in 2010 Crypton Future Media announced English voicebanks for Miku, since there was marketing value in English voicebanks when it came to selling songs to overseas fans. Later in 2011 and 2012, MEIKO, KAITO and the Kagamines were announced as having English voicebanks also. GUMI also joined the ranks of English voicebank production and along with SeeU for the first time the number of known English voicebanks being produced reached over 10, whereas in the past the most seen coming were 3 (Luka, SONiKA and Big Al). Further more, Oliver managed to gain a large audience from his demos, successfully gaining views on his demos "Circus Monster" and "Scarborough Fair", putting the response to his demo songs on par with Japanese VOCALOIDs. Furthermore, his voicebank gained more interest then a few of the Japanese VOCALOID3 vocals, which was unheard. By July 2012, OLIVER's "Circus Monster" and "Scarborough Fair" demos had gained 60,000+ views, whereas previously most English VOCALOIDs had struggled to get views about a 10,000+ within their first year.

Also, as VOCALOID expanded into new languages, it has become increasingly difficult for many past myths and claims to maintain their strength. This along with information on VOCALOID becoming more easy to access has managed to clarify some of the incorrectness on them. However, there are still some issues based on language remaining leaving Clara, Bruno and SeeU still facing discrimination based on their language.

Capabilities Claims
When SONiKA was misunderstood to be able to sing in "any language", Zero-G confirmed it was possible to "edit" VOCALOIDs to sound like they are indeed singing words they were not built for. Even though Zero-G never said she could fully replace a voicebank of another language, fans weren't too impressed with any suggestion that SONiKA could do any other language besides English and criticised Zero-G for it, especially when the comment about editing to make other languages was placed on her product page.

But one VOCALOID who was a subject to controversy claims was SeeU. In the early VOCALOID3 demos, SBS Artech claimed you could use SeeU's voicebank to create English, even though it was set up for Korean and had no support for using it to make English. They even went so far as to label her a "trilingual" VOCALOID, even though with only two voicebanks she was bilingual. Upon inspection of the voicebank, some producers discovered that SeeU had several English phonemes that were not needed for Korean and SBS were again heavily criticised for both the claim and inclusion of phonetics SeeU didn't need. Inclusion of unneeded phonetics is nothing new as every English VOCALOID2 after Prima's release (with the exception of Luka) was given the rolling r phonetic data "R" because Prima couldn't do opera without it. Despite this, this led to jokes about SeeU being made for "Konglish" rather then "Korean" and as of note, criticism for the focus on her English capabilities against the Japanese capabilities she was given thanks to an additional Japanese voicebank.

Eventually SBS Artech addressed the language issue by confirming that they will make an English voicebank and stated the reason for the past claims was they wanted to release her with a English voicebank but also wanted to meet the VOCALOID3 release. In the end they did not have time to make a English voicebank and included the phonetic data to allow SeeU to create English as most sounds for English were already in the Korean language. Despite this, as many pointed out, the way the language is structured and the fact she is largely not smooth results in English that is either choppy/broken or odd sounding thanks to a Korean accent. They then confirmed a English voicebank that will allow her to fully do English.

Demo Songs
Both GUMI and MAYU had a song where they sung in "English" using their voicebanks ("Fly Me to the Moon" and "Dreamin'", respectively). Except, both were using a Japanese voicebank to sing in English. The original "Fly Me to the Moon" demonstration was more welcomed with Megpoid then the second version done for her V3 update. Back then, many fans were interested by her more closer English pronunciations than past Japanese VOCALOIDs, as a common western practice was to use Japanese VOCALOIDs for English because some fans preferred their vocals over what the English vocals offered. However, by the second time the demo appeared it was questioned why Internet Co. was persisting with the same demo song when its also possible to do a version with Japanese lyrics. For MAYU's demonstration, English fans have also complained that they can barely understand MAYU's "English".

A similar prospect can also be said for English VOCALOIDs who have been used for demonstrations in other languages, such as what was seen in demos for Prima and Tonio. Some argue that showing a demo with the VOCALOID being forced to sing in a language they were not designed for is a bad demonstration of the VOCALOIDs capabilities, since it can generate a wrong impression of the real strengths and weakness of the voicebank, either making believe a voicebank is more flexible than it's in the reality or showing some flaws that aren't present in its original language as the voice pushed away from their safe zone. This wrong impression can be worst if the listener isn't a native speaker, or at least someone with a deep knowledge of that that language.

External links & See also

 * Zettai Ryouiki - Pixpedia's Article (English)
 * TVTropes: Zettai Ryouiki
 * VOCALOIDs Unofficial illustrations