Hi - I’m trying to find out in simple language if I need to reference dreamtonics and the synth singer’s name, if I use synthesiser V on a commercial recording, for example to create backing vocal harmonies? Am I legally allowed to do that for free, with no costs once I bought the synthesiser V software and the voice packs? Thanks!
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First off solely AI projects are not legally copyrightable (at least in the U.S.).
Furthermore, the percentage of the copyright of the work afforded (copyrightable) depends upon the amount of human effort.
According to Dreamtonics’ TOS (subject to change at any time), you have two choices:
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Attributes the vocals to the “singer’s” assigned software title, i.e. Solaris, Kevin, etc.
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Give no attribution at all! And def. do not say it’s you or someone else if it’s not.
Option 1, “featuring Solaria”, etc. will get you more views.
Covers of song is not considered “fair use” under most circumstances.
Option 2 will probably work the best for most people.
The choice is yours, but do take time to read the TOS of the company that paid the singer for their services.
Every company is different and it’s what they say, not what I said in this post that matters.
Proceed at your own peril. I am not a lawyer and I am not giving you legal advice, or counsel.
ymmv
edit: Important! Only full voices (no demos or lite voices) are allowed to be used for profit – donations o.k., but directly for profit, no!
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I have this question also. The SynthV terms state that you cannot “Distribute works created with this voice database under a different name than the original name for the voice database”
That’s a very ambiguous statement for a legal agreement.
I suspect that it means you could not say the singer was you, but must attribute the vocal to the SynthV voice you used.
However, I also read that as - if you want to release music under the name, say, “My Song”, you could not, but would have to release it under the name of the SynthV voice you used.
All very ambiguous and unless they clarify this, I fear it will stop a lot of people using this AI commercially for fear of getting sued!
The exact wording in the license is “(1) When Presenting a Rendition, the User must not use names other than designated by Dreamtonics to identify the SVD.”
(“SVD” stands for “singing voice database”)
So the wording in the actual EULA is really not ambiguous at all. You just can’t lie about how the vocals were created or attempt to mislead the audience (but again, no attribution is necessary, this is only relevant if you choose to identify the SVD in some manner).
It’s always best to refer to the license itself rather than the phrases at the top which have been reworded to sound less technical (to varying degrees of success…).
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Thanks for the clarification Claire - and for the user manual!
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Yes, you can use any name for the song. The attribution has to do with naming the vocal singer, (Solaria or nothing).
Only full voices are allowed if the song is for profit. If you make $1000 off the song the company may want more contribution, but for most people not a problem.
All voices can be used if asking for donations as things currently stand. Companies are subject to change their TOS at any moment, but probably won’t.
Doing covers without a mechanical license is still a dark to gray area (not 100% legal under fair use), but noone is chasing anybody down and suing them to the best of my knowledge.
I could see U.S. law changing in the future as AI develops.
For now, as always, enjoy your freedoms to the fullest. These are very special times we are living in.
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Hello, just to clarify your comment regarding ‘covers’, if I produce a cover version of a song, and use Solaria, for example, as the lead vocalist, what attributions are required and is there a cost involved and I’m not sure what is meant by the term mechanical license?
Thanks, in anticipation.
Generally covers don’t require any sort of special permission or license so long as you aren’t making money off it. If the original artist provides an instrumental version or stems it’s generally assumed that someone will use those for a cover or remix.
If you fully remake the instrumental rather than using one provided by the original artist, then you might be able to monetize the result similar to a remix. In this case you should reach out to the copyright owner to confirm before monetizing something like a YouTube video or Bandcamp upload. This isn’t 100% required but it’s best to be safe.
As far as streaming services are concerned it’s a bit simpler. I believe you can indicate that something is a derivative work when uploading it and your distribution platform (DistroKid, TuneCore, etc.) will handle any sort of revenue split, but I don’t have any personal experience with this.
For attribution nothing really changes. Claim credit for the things you changed (“cover by ___”), attribute the rest to the original creators, and if you want to specify the vocals say “ft. Solaria” or something similar.
There are many examples you can refer to. Search around and see how other people credit their derivative.
It doesn’t have to be super complicated, for example:
Original by @PrettyPatterns
Remixed by unit.0
Voicebank: SOLARIA
As for a “mechanical license”, it’s the basically the method by which you get permission to make a cover or other derivative work.
A famous example would be Weird Al Yankovic. His work (parody songs) would technically be protected by fair use laws, but he still gets permission from the copyright holder for every song, both as a precaution and out of respect for the original creator.
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Thank you for comprehensive answer to my question.
As it so happens, DistroKid is my music distributor as I only upload my material to streaming services.
Cover versions are generally processed without complications and for handling the licensing agreements and other formalities, DistroKid charges the applicant an annual fee of around US12.95 which seems to me to be more than reasonable.
The stipulation is that source material which contains samples from the original work are not to be used and that the original artist name is not permitted to be used as part of the cover song title or description.
A recent project of mine involved a full remake of the instrumental track of a well known song but I sampled the vocal track of the original artist. Being none the wiser I attempted to obtain licensing approval by following all the appropriate legal licensing procedures but kept hitting a brick wall. I now know, that licensing approval of a track made under the circumstances I just outlined is almost never given, unless you are an artist of significant standing.
So my current project has me strip the vocal from track which was denied copyright approval and substitute a vocal made with the help of Solaria, Mai and Kevin.
Hi I’m still a bit confused.
Let’s say I’m making original music presented as a virtual band and will be using SynthV for the vocals, for this example let’s say I’m using ANRI.
Within the fiction of the band, let’s say the vocalist is named Zoe; will this a problem?
Which of these are acceptable under the license?
a. I have to name the fictional vocalist within the virtual band as ANRI.
b. I can name the fictional vocalist as Zoe in the narrative, but must disclose that the vocal performance comes from the ANRI SVD.
c. I can name the fictional vocalist as Zoe in the narrative, and not disclose anything regarding the SVD.
Or are there any blind spots I’m missing out in this scenario that is required for me to produce music with the SVD?
My concern is that it could possibly be misleading if I name the character differently from the SVD but I might not find that the SVD’s name is appropriate for the fiction of the band, as an example.
My original plan was to credit it within any video description or audio file metadata that the vocals are performed using the SVD much like any other credit involved on the song, but I’d like to make sure if it’s acceptable.
The safest option would be to state “Zoe voiced by Anri” or something similar.
But Anri isn’t a Dreamtonics voice database, and she doesn’t have the same clause in the license. You can always check the license in the install directory, and the terms vary somewhat between the various companies.
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