Karaoke Forums

I have been looking for some "obscure" songs for some friends on karaoke and after being unable to find them on any of the major manus I found a couple of them on this site:

musicalcreations.com

The problem is twofold, they are being sold for insane prices ($10 a song, $8 for mp3) and they are being sold as "Karaoke Backing Tracks". The name seems to imply to me that they are the music only with no words.

After listening to a couple of the samples (artist Velvet Underground, The Cure), they sound quite good. At the price I cant imagine how they could not be running something legit.

Sure I could buy these songs, and sync the lyrics to the words with various software programs out there, but then I would be in violation of the "sync rights" if I understand the law correctly.

The other option is to let the singer sing the song with no karaoke version on the screen (and that should be legal as I understand it). Maybe a printed sheet of the song lyrics on a stand would be legit as well, if I understand the law on the subject.  Just combining the lyrics +music into a "multimedia" presentation is what may be breaking the law (unless royalties are paid to someone who is most likely very difficult to track down).

Even at the insane $8 price per song it might be worth it more than a CD full of songs that will never get sung.

I have over 80,000 songs , let me know which ones they are and i will find them for you. I have a pretty good data base.


thanks t

Got love those illegal drives!

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

Tim, you had 5000 songs on Jul 23. How did you build your library so fast? Inquiring minds want to know

http://www.karaoke-forum.com/viewtopic. ... ht=#156500

Rest my case!

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

The question is not obtaining the tracks, it is obtaining the tracks in such a way that it was done legally.

Sure I could strip out the vocals and that would rarely work (and even then is questionably legal). Syncing words to such vocals is NOT.

I can get the backing tracks (without vocals) legally. And use them in my show (without vocals).



As for the songs I seriously doubt they are in your 80,000 song Database.

the specific songs are from the "Velvet Underground"

For example:

Sweet Jane, And Femme Fatales.

I am 95% sure they have never been made as legal full karaoke.

THe music book delux has a single song by the velvet underground listed, and that is not the song I am looking for. Their database consists of nearly 260,000 songs including current listing of all of the legal manus of karaoke (allong with some that are pretending to be legal).

If I could find some way of tracking down the publisher and paying sync rights for a few songs at my show I would do it, and sync the words myself using some software. But tracking down the owner of the sync rights is "difficult" to say the least, and very few publishers have a way to sell sync rights for individual songs easily on the internet. (I have found a couple but they have no songs I am interested in). Incidentally a couple companies sell the sync rights for a single copy at about $5 a song, something I am willing to pay that for some specific songs.

After eliminating duplicates, I figure that only about 50-60K different songs have ever been made LEGALLY for karaoke commercially, if that many. There is a lot of music out there WITHOUT karaoke versions, especially if the song never made it to the top 40.

You can find both those songs with graphics through sbikaraoke.com.   I have bought several tracks from here, some are hit or miss, but sometimes you take what you can get when it isn't out anywhere else>!~

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

This may be and probably is splitting hairs but the CDG video is not actually sychornized with the audio.  The player just starts the two at the same time and lets them go.  If you're playing from a CD it could reasonably be said that they are synced but not from a computer.  Just a little trivia.

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Okay, who took my pants?

ummm, WHAT's not sync'd, weed?  What ya smokin' there my friend? The tracks you guys are discussing? ANY tracks on a computer VS a cdg?

This link may be of some help:

http://www.vocalist.org.uk/recording_cover_songs.html

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

The question is much more complicated than it seems.

Yes it is true that anyone can make a cover version of a song, and even make CDs of that song and pay a modest fee, a fee that ends up being resonable if you are planning even a moderate release of a few hundred cds.

Any garage band can get together and do a cover of ANY song that they wish and sell their copy legally so long as they pay the 8.5 cents a copy. It sometimes is a bit difficult to figure out who that owns the rights but that is the easy part. It will never be more than a few pennies for a song, so long as you do the minimum 500 or so.


Now the problem with karaoke is not the "mechanical" rights. The problem is the SYNC rights. Sync rights are including the song in any multimedia presentation, for example a commercial, movie, TV show, or karaoke.

You cant just go out and put a cover of a beatles song for example in your movie or commercial or karaoke. WITHOUT PRIOR APPROVAL. The owners of the sync rights have the right to VETO any activity that they don't approva of. Certainly the writer has the right of preventing their song from being used in a commercial etc or for any purpose they dont approve.

Finally the rate for the approval of the sync rights is not set in stone. It is not the standardized 8.5 cents for a song. It is WHATEVER the owner of the rights wants to charge. Look for sync rights at the various publishers sites, and they have forms that decide how much you "owe" if you use the song in a Movie for example. Usually the rate is based on the production budget of the movie. But the owners can choose not to sell to a movie or ask for a higher price. For a commercial it is apparently almost allways done as a negotiated settlement.

So  the problem with karaoke legally is that it is a "cover version of a song" and that ends up costing about 8.5 cents a song for the mechanical rights. In addition they have to pay the SYNC rights, and that is what the recent Panorama case involved.

In that case the company was asking for $250 for each song starting fee and an additional 0.16 cents a copy of the song. That means a run of 500 copies of a song would cost 42.50 for the MECHANICAL rights, and that is all a band doing a cover would have to pay. BUT if it was karaoke the cost of doing the sync rights is 250+400  or $650 for the 500 copies made of the song. So by this analysis someone trying to do a small run for karaoke, working under the same contract would be paying a total fo $1.30 for the sync rights and $0.085 for the mechanical rights. That is where the real cost of karaoke comes from.

Different companies may negotiate lower prices, but since they have no set rates for the sync rights it is not reasonable to expect that they would even talk to someone wanting to do a run of 25 CDs. It is not worth the lawyer time to write up the contract.

Several companies in England appear to be able to make "Backing tracks" and they appear to be doing it legally. THe cost of a backing track tends to be around  $150-$250 or so as their standard rate. And that involves them getting their studio musicians to make the tracks and they then do the paperwork to give you the copy legally (ie pay mechanical rights).

Once it comes to the karaoke however, to put the words on the song can cost a whole lot more. As a one off contract basis there are NO companies out there that I see doing it as a standard service (although many have "Request boxes").

The company that Lonman found is actually a music publisher, and they probably owned the rights themselves to many of the songs they produced the karaoke versions of. Hence their ability to make "small runs" of karaoke of their own songs, since all of the legal negotiations were within the same company. THey might have also found a way to negotiate with other small publishers as well.

With the mechanical rights it is pretty much a matter of just figureing out where to send the check. For the sync rights you need to draw up a contract. SInce there are hundreds of publishers, finding out who to talk to is going to be hard. The lawyer time of drawing up the contract means that while you may be willing to have a track of your favorite obscure song be made legally for about $40 in royalties for a very small run (5 copies). Almost no-one will be able to justify the other fees which most likely will be much higher.