SXSW Interactive 2013

Miku: The Open-Source Girl Who Conquered the World

Five years. A dozen social media platforms. Hundreds of producers and artists. Thousands of songs and videos. Millions of fans and billions of views. This is the ecosystem that gave rise to Hatsune Miku, the global singing idol that started as a voice synthesizing software in Japan and evolved into a peer-production phenomenon. This panel will critically examine Miku’s open-source culture to see how social media, networked creativity, and massive collaboration produced one of the most complex music franchises in the world.

We will investigate Miku’s networked social media community; how Crypton Future Media reacted to massive peer production; interviews with musical and media producers; bypassing copyright to architect a free media ecosystem while fostering support for artists; successes and challenges from collaborating with a handful of companies alongside thousands of individuals; and the plans behind producing numerous international sold-out concerts with a holographic singer.