Karaoke Forums

In all of my reseach, it appears to me putting your LEGAL cdgs on a laptop, then using the laptop for performances is ILLEGAL.

I know people are doing it, but I don't want to risk a bar owner liquor license on it (yes, where I live the bar owner can lose their license for illegal activities in their bar).

So, bottom line - LEGAL or ILLEGAL?

Bottom line - while TECHNICALLY it is illegal with the way current copyright laws are writtern, the majority of the kj's feel if they own all their music & can prove they own it, then there shouldn't be a problem as they aren't using both the original disc & the hard drive at the same time for different shows.  Chances are, if it came down to an actual lawsuit (or whatever), those that have original discs on premises would less likely to be nailed over someone that didn't.  They aren't going to be going after someone who pays for all their discs then just transfers them to another medium for playback, they want the ones that don't pay for their music (or buy a loaded hard drive off of e-bay - just as illegal) &/or run multiple rigs with them.

In my case, I am almost ready to move the computer to the club, however my discs will be with me AT the club for just that point.  IF anyone ever came in of official status, they can crossmatch each & every song from my computer to the discs on the spot.

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LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

I agree with Lonman.  When I first started in karaoke I used a Sony 400 disc player.  I didn't use my originals then .  I used copies of my originals that I kept at home.  Four years ago I made the switch to laptop.  Do I carry all my originals with me?  No.  

First, before they come in "touching" my equipment, they better have a warrant.  If they want me to come to court I will be more than happy to bring in all my original CDG's and they can go through each and everyone one of them.  I will also give them a Paypal print out of each transaction where they were paid for.  As Lonman said, though it may be "technically" wrong, I doubt a court or karaoke company wants to take the time and money to go after someone who has legally purchased all their music and is not mass producing it for anyone else.  I know there are many on here who disagree.  And they are in their own right.  I just personally do not have a guilty conscious.  Common sense has always played a big part in any descison I've made.

The karaoke companies also realize that they have to make changes in the way music is delivered by the professional KJ.  It does not make good sense to be carrying around a $15 to $30 thousand dollar investment of music in your vehicle to each and every gig.  There are numerous karaoke software programs out there that allow one to utilize a laptop.  I personal use the Hoster by MTU which I believe is much more legal than the way the CAVS units have been working.  IMO.

This very question has just given me a thought of carrying  a printed copy of all my transactions for discs, IN CASE someone were to ask at a gig.  

Kelly

Let me put it this way.

IF SC were going to come after me, they would have a long time ago. I've NEVER hidden what I do with my originals.

What I've told them is I'll stop converting to computer (before I ran off copies while my master library was at home) if I'm ordered to by the courts.

They (SC and other manufacturers) don't LIKE it, but so far, over three years now, nobody's ever sent me so much as a condemning E-MAIL about it! By the same token, there's an unspoken agreement that I don't spam their boards with "I'M ON COMPUTER" or "I used COPIES" so they leave me alone because of it!

I don't even use a cd drive at my shows so I wouldn't even be accused of ripping off a customer's disc (by converting it at the show).

From MTU, suppliers of Hoster
http://www.mtu.com/support/copyright-notes.htm

Fair Use of Karaoke CDGs  (from ipjustice)

http://www.ipjustice.org/karaokefairuse.shtml

The Right to Back Up Digital Media

In 1980, Congress passed the Computer Software Copyright Act, which included an express provision allowing the purchasers of software to copy that software for backup purposes:

[I]t is not an infringement for the owner of a copy of a computer program to make or authorize the making of another copy or adaptation of that computer program provided ... that such new copy or adaptation is for archival purposes only and that all archival copies are destroyed in the event that continued possession of the computer program should cease to be rightful.

Any exact copies prepared in accordance with the provisions of this section may be leased, sold, or otherwise transferred, along with the copy from which such copies were prepared, only as part of the lease, sale, or other transfer of all rights in the program. ... [4]

This has been restated in two separate cases since 1980, and the right of the owner of a purchased copy of software to make backup copies of digital media was affirmed by both courts. Implicit in this law are two ideas that are similar to the ideas implied by the AHRA. First, what the consumer buys with a copy of a software program is the right to use and copy that program, particularly if the copying is for archival purposes. Second, the market for replacement copies of a copy of a computer program to replace an existing copy that a consumer already owns is a substantially less important market than the market for the first copy purchased by the consumer. Again, it is clearly analogous to the need for Karaoke-dependent business owners to be able to copy the Karaoke CDG for backup purposes.


Conclusion: Fair Use Protects CDG Owners

The owners of Karaoke CDGs, facilities, mobile hosting services and consumers, have invested substantially in the purchase of large libraries of Karaoke CDGs. Allowing them to copy the contents of their CDGs for backup or format-shifting to hard drives would also be a fair use, and is entirely consistent both with the legislation on copying digital media passed to date, and with traditional fair use analysis ruled on by the US courts.

Yeah but considering that MTU funded the research (or at least that's forum scuttlebutt...& not just this one) for the IPJustice findings, is of no surprise that it would find favor in MTU's favor.

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

That all depends on which judge you happen to be standing in front of.  The American legal system is a complete joke.

Thanks for the info Allstar - it was very informative.

From what I gather reading it, as long as you have licenses for all songs, you probably have good legal ground to stand on for a case.

Being the lucky type though, At a minimum I'll be taking some proof of ownership with me to shows, as I'd hate to pay legal fees to be the first "example".

Might even take disks to shows as lonman stated, but that kind of defeats some of the purpose of the laptop, though provides a great backup incase the computer decides to puke.

Gee - Pros and cons to everything!!!

Good point there t-towntenor, but it not only favors MTU (even though they did get some good advertising there), but every CDG owner.

That's  exactly what Lonman, Kellyoke and Knightshow were saying.

Just understand, that the stuff that Allstar quoted has NO legal standing for KJs. We're a commercial entity.

As private people, yes, we can back them up. That's the Fair Use Act, and nobody is disputing that.

While I still operate the way I do, I no longer pretend to have legal backing for what I do... it's unchallenged so far. Like Allstar said, though, there are a couple cases that have been taken to court, but nobody was challenging the law as it's written. I don't know which ones Tony is referring to... I only know of what BC said in an offhand manner on the Sound Choice Board.

What he was talking of... were private cases (and I wish I had actual documentation on those lawsuits and the subsequent judgements) that either were dismissed, or due to conflicting information from civil, county, state courts, that the judge ruled in favor of the company that was doing the copying... and due to the fact that they were ONLY copying their purchased discs, the judge favored the customer, not Sleptone (The owners of Sound Choice) as there was no evidence of STEALING, just copyright violation, and as mentioned earlier, the conflicting codes from the various courts were near impossible to determine who was the judgemental authority over such matters.

As I said before, I just look at the computer as a means to play the material that's been converted and stored on the computer. Nothing more, and nothing less.

But there's no legal standing for that so far! Just a common sense stance that I'm taking.

That is true Matt.
In the case of mobile Karaoke hosts, storing the contents of the CDGs on a hard drive allows them to safeguard the original CDGs in the security of their home base, and it makes their selection much easier to carry to and set up at their engagements.

Unfortunately, under copyright law as the music and film corporations would have it, neither of these quite reasonable uses of the CDGs would be allowed.
http://www.ipjustice.org/karaokefairuse.shtml

Finally, I am with Matt (Knightshow) and Lonman on this. I use a PC for hosting, and have the original disks. So as far as I am concerned, I am legal.

I can't help but to wonder under what precedence Ebay has decided to stop suspending sellers and buyers for the purchase of ( pirated ) karaoke music in the form of SCDG's and hard drive's with thousand's of song's. I know that a year ago they where everywhere on Ebay and then they stopped allowing them only to recently start allowing them again. I find it odd and only wonder if it has something to do with the fact that most karaoke music is a loophole copywrite infringement against the original artist in a lot of cases.

Well, in Canada, ANY media could be copied once for your own use. Meaning you can have in your posetion, 1 COPIED version of ANY media. BUT, that doesnt pertain to the broadcast of said media. They are 2 different licenses. Here, we pay a surcharge on all blank media. That makes the old law void for the ONLY 1 copy. BUT, those blank media are not licensed to be used for public performances. THey are only usable as a safty backup of the original, and can not be the actual media played to the public. That PUBLIC PERFORMANCE requires you to pay to the license owner, ( performer, record comp. etc ) an extra charge. That charge, is payed by the venue for LIVE performances and by the KJ, DJ for non live performances. BUT, ONLY if you are using a copy, as you pay the license fee on the original for the originla.
This is what I was told by a lawyer. And unfortunately, that's all he knew about it. As for having those copies on the hard drive, he was not sure as he thinks there is no surcharge on the hard drive costs here yet. He did state that the whole broadfcast performance rights are under review here, so anything could change at any time. By the way, here, broadcast means any public performance of ANY media, not live.
So there's my 1 and a half cents woth..

If these were computer files and software you would be making regular backups daily, weekly, monthly, etc, to allow quick disaster recovery.

If your collection was destroyed what would you do about discontinued discs?
Are you expected to keep track of the current availability of discs?

What you are doing is no worse than what a lot of owners of computers do with regular CD's. They rip them into their computers to play them on other devices.

The problem only comes when people start to distribute these illegally and this is where the problem lies and its a massive one.

It is such a huge can of worms that any law enforcement agency is not going to bother about those copying discs to computers as practically everyone with a computer on the planet does this.

It's those who move their files or copied CD's on Mass where companies stand to lose revenues as a result. Your activities would not cause any loses and so any legal groundings would seem decidedly grey (although I'm not a lawyer).

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Dan Bayley

Dan, you make a very good point.  I have many Sound Choice discs that are no longer produced.  You can't replace them.  Many of my singers ask how I got that version because they can't find it in Sound Choice.  Exactly.  Last thing I want to do is wear out a disc that I won't be able to replace.

Kelly

Hello all,here is my 2cents
karaoke/dj owner
love my laptop !! i have 89,000 tracks (44,000  karaoke tracks)
it give the singer "more freedom" i can Q-up any track in 3sec. so that last min. song chang does not hurt!!
when three or four people are trying to hand me 2 or 3 slips each not looking up Cdg's give me time to make the rest of the show run smooth, lights,sound,rotation ect. ecad.<a href="http://img157.imageshack.us/my.php?image=emotlol1dy6.gif" target="_blank"><img src="http://img157.imageshack.us/img157/7471/emotlol1dy6.gif" border="0" alt="Free Image Hosting at ImageShack.us"/></a>

Hello all,here is my 2cents
karaoke/dj owner
love my laptop !! i have 89,000 tracks (44,000  karaoke tracks)
it give the singer "more freedom" i can Q-up any track in 3sec. so that last min. song chang does not hurt!!
when three or four people are trying to hand me 2 or 3 slips each not looking up Cdg's give me time to make the rest of the show run smooth, lights,sound,rotation ect. ect.
it's a load off the mind
JIM..............................

Just out of curiosity, do you actually own every disc that corresponds to the actual titles on your hard drive or are those downloads?  Basically if someone brought in a warrant to your show (I know highly unlikely at this point in time) & demanded to see proof of original discs......44K is alot of discs, aprox 2-3,000 discs.  Not trying to start anything, just curious.

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

Hey to put things in perspective, I've got paper and a colour copier.  So to save my money, I'm just going to make a copy of it.  It looks and feels just like the real thing and no one will get hurt because no one can tell the difference.  Counterfieting is counterfieting anyway you slice it.  

The act allows a copy for personal use but not professional use.  If  they wanted professional use in there, they would have put it in there.

Rationalize it anyway you like.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

That is right no one is getting hurt as long as the music was legitamitly bought and paid for.  As long as there is a copy of the disc for every system that contains the disc, The manufacturers are getting their money, The artists hired to record are getting paid for their work and if the Karaoke manufacturer is in complience with their liscensing fees, the owner of the rights of the songs in question are getting their money as well so tell me who is getting hurt?

I am getting sick and tired of you disc based "Professionals" trying to stop evolution from happening. You can't stop it so why not join it.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.