UTAU is a proprietary vocal synthesizer program unlike VOCALOID and
VOCALOID2, which are commercially-sold programs with an accompanying
voice bank. Distribution of UTAU began in March of 2008.
UTAU, meaning "to sing" in Japanese, has its origin in "Jinriki
Vocaloid" (人力ボーカロイド, translated as "Manual Vocaloid"). It was created by
re-editing an existing singing voice, extracting tones as WAV files
and, reassembling them. For this purpose, a support program was created.
In March 2008, Ameya/Ayame (飴屋/菖蒲) released a free, advanced support
tool as UTAU. Now UTAU is a shareware, yet the developer distributes it free in effect and accepts donations.
The program has at least 50 different usable audio files,
composed of Japanese syllables. It comes with the company's "AquesTalk"
pre-loaded, which allows any user to load their own voice data to be
programmed for usage within UTAU. However, without the explicit
permission of the voice donor, it is a violation of copyright laws.
Those laws protect the rights of any vocalist who may not wish for their
voices to be used within the program, such as celebrities. Any music
made through this program can be used in the commercial sector. The
program can be downloaded here. However, it will not run properly on computers which do not support Japanese text or AppLocale.
Some UTAU are commonly put out as "real" vocaloids such as is the
April Fool's joke origins of Teto Kasane. Songs using both UTAU and
Vocaloid are also not unheard of.
Some users have also began to enforce their copyright ruling over their
voicebanks; UTAU or fanmade vocaloids who are guilty of plagiarizing an
UTAU's name or using a voicebank without permission risk violating UTAU
software agreements and voicebank copyright ownerships.
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