Hi, Tira here! It's awesome you want to cover our music! We think the vocal synth community's love of covers and animation are cool as hell, and this page is to explain the terms you can do that with our music, in an easily understandable way, because the Creative Commons website isn't the most understandable to most people. This is aimed mostly at other neurotypical people and people whose native language isn't English, any big words I use I will do my best to explain.

The TLDR for those who just want to know the terms: CC BY-NC-SA, our name [tiramika] credited and a link back to the original video, if you're interested in discussing commercial use [like putting covers on streaming platforms or using our music in a game for example] contact me at java@tiramika.net to discuss.

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A license is something that, in the area of creative works like music and art, gives you permission to do something with that creative work that you couldn't do otherwise, for example to create a cover and post it to the internet. Our original work in particular is licensed under Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-Sharealike. Creative Commons is an organisation that does a lot of cool stuff, but the relevant part is they make open-to-use licenses for creatives. And they're especially good for use cases like the vocal synth community, which is why we use them and plenty of other creatives do too.

Here's a breakdown:

• Attribution: This means we want to be credited for our work when others make things based off of it. In our case, that means our name [tiramika] in the description of the upload somewhere, and a link back to the original video. That's it. You're welcome to do other things in addition to that like if the platform you're uploading to has an area to enter credits or something, but our name and the link are all required by the license,.

• Non-Commercial: This means we do not [by default] allow things based off our work to be made or used for commercial purposes. In terms of music, it means you can't [again by default] upload your covers or derivative work to a site or service that will pay you for your music. This includes a lot of things, but the most known ones are Bandcamp, Spotify, Itunes, that sort of thing. Part of the reason I decided to write out this page is to talk about Bandcamp and similar user-controlled music storefronts.
  • In this case, “Bandcamp and similar user-controlled storefronts” refers to sites where an artist can directly make an account and upload music, and has full control over their account with no middleman service. I believe it's also called direct-to-fan.
  • Without contacting me first and receiving a reply from me giving written permission, you cannot upload covers onto Bandcamp and similar user-controlled music storefronts where there is no ability to disable purchases on a song [for example Bandcamp will let you have an option for free downloads, however someone can still buy it]. However, if you do contact me first to discuss it, there is a very very high chance I'll be fine with it as long as I know about it and where it is and we're still credited properly and it's made clear the work is a derivative work. In this situation where I allow it, I will never ask for royalties or any sort of financial compensation.