Virtual Singer Uses Crowdsourced Songs To Become a Star In Japan (bloomberg.com)

An anonymous reader quotes Bloomberg. [Alternate version here]: During her 10-year career, she's released more than 100,000 songs in a variety of languages and opened shows for Lady Gaga. And yet Hatsune Miku, who boasts 2.5 million Facebook followers, doesn't actually exist -- at least not in the typical way we think of a flesh-and-blood diva. Miku is a computer-simulated pop star created more than a decade ago by Hiroyuki Ito, CEO of Crypton Future Media in Sapporo, Japan.

She started life as a piece of voice-synthesis software but since has evolved to become a singing sensation in her own right -- thanks to the creativity of her legions of fans. Crucial to Miku's success is the ability for devotees to purchase the Yamaha-powered Vocaloid software and write their own songs for the star to sing right back at them. Fans then can upload songs to the web and vie for the honor of having her perform them at "live" gigs, in which the computer-animated Miku takes center stage, surrounded by human guitarists, drummers and pianists.
Bloomberg's article includes some video clips of the virtual artist -- as well as her real-world fans.

Comments

Miku shows why openness actually promotes art

[DJ Rubbie]

Unlike typical Japanese media enterprises that exert their draconian copyright laws to squash usage of IP (including what Americans consider to be "fair use"), the creative forces that started Hatsune Miku put her design as part of the Creative Commons, thus freeing her design to amateur and professional artists alike for reuse. As a result, the original rights holder receive even greater recognition for their voice synthesizer software line from the artists creating all the derivative visual works involving her likeness.

Re:Well, it was only a matter of time

[AmiMoJo]

That's the thing about Hatsune Miku - she is a genuine grass roots effort, one of the least manufactured pop stars in Japan right now.

As TFA says, she started as a voice pack for the Vocaloid software synthesiser package. Fans used it to create songs and upload them to Nico Nico Douga, a site similar to YouTube. These were pure fan creations, the Vocaloid software was just the firm time that someone working from a PC at home could use high quality vocals without having to record them themselves.

As is often the case in Japan, other people started to supplement the popular songs with fan art and videos. In Japan it's common to have a mascot for your product, and since this was a female vocal synth they had already created Hatsne Miku with the intention of releasing other characters (voice packs) later.

Eventually independent record labels started collecting these songs and releasing them. Since the software is a just a synth like any other, the creators no more own the copyright than the creators of a drum synth or a real instrument would. As her popularity grew they started doing concerts and bigger CD releases, but most of the songs are still created by independent artists and posted for free online.