Crypton Addresses Name Collision After Kaito Takahashi Debuts As KAITO
Crypton's response treats the collision as a search and tagging problem rather than a legal one, which leaves the Vocaloid KAITO's creator-driven archive dependent on user etiquette to stay findable.
Reporting from 1 source: KAI-YOU.
Crypton Future Media issued a statement on October 5 about King & Prince member Kaito Takahashi launching solo activities under the name "KAITO," the same name as its voice-synthesis software. The company said overlapping names and hashtags cannot be fully prevented, and asked supporters of both to respect each other. Takahashi released his first digital single, "swim?", on October 5, and the music video passed 1 million views.
Crypton Future Media's statement did not ask for a name change and made no reference to rights infringement. The company said that because of how the system works, hashtags and search results will keep mixing information about both parties, and it asked people to keep the community one where users recognize each other.
The overlap surfaced after STARTO ENTERTAINMENT announced Takahashi's solo activities on October 3, and official King & Prince accounts used the hashtag "#KAITO." Crypton's KAITO shipped on February 17, 2006 and is developed as one of the Piapro Characters with Hatsune Miku and Kagamine Rin and Len. Takahashi wrote, composed, and handled the artwork and video for "swim?" himself.
Synthesized by Yomimono from the 1 cited source below, including Japanese-language reporting where cited, then editorially reviewed before publishing.