Karaoke Forums

http://www.abcnews.go.com/Technology/st ... 170&page=1

First step in people illegally trading/file sharing music.

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Fri one of my regs called me and said you dont have it  Break it by Jewel Can u get it? Hang on I found it on Doowop CB $18 But i am not going to buy a cd for one song that I probably have the rest. She said Ill buy it!! Ok ill bring in my laptop and go online Sat and we will order it.

To make a long story short she decided she didnt want to buy it either She wont sing Break Me and nothing lost. However if there was a legal download she would have paid 2 or $3 for it Another sale lost!!! Are they ever going to wake up?

We need Apple barrels of apples

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One would think that someone that hosts karaoke in a public place might be more likely to be "caught" for file shareing than a random individual who downloads for private use at home.

Strangely this seems not to be the case. The resouces of a company like Sony or Arista to find an example and prosecute them and win a case are far beyond even the larager karaoke manus.

With the internet it is more likely that a loner in a basement can attract the attention of a big record company for file shareing than a KJ or DJ that has regular shows several nights a week in front of hundreds or even thousands of people over time.

Doc in eng terms when you copy a second time this called second generation. While this doesnt directly apply to karaoke copyrights the laws do not address technical advances it does resemble second generation and until it is tried in a district court copyright laws cannot be grounds for federal arrest.

Typically a federal bust requires months of invesigations and thousands of dollars in taxpayers expense. This is not a federal prosecution but a lawsuit suing an individual for thousands of dollars by somebody that I compare and suspect is controlled by the mafia. These lawsuits do absolutely nothing for the promotion af artists or anybody including KJ'S or DJ"S trying to make a few bucks.

PIRATES ARE NOT KILLING THE INDUSTRY!!!THE INDUSTRY IS EATING ITSELF ALIVE!!!
IN A YE OLD PIRATE FASHION!!!AND THEY CALL US PIRATES?

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Strangely this seems not to be the case. The resouces of a company like Sony or Arista to find an example and prosecute them and win a case are far beyond even the larager karaoke manus.

Dr Fred,
I agree with you...it's unlikely that the karaoke manu's will go after any individual KJ's as they don't have the resources to do that--more than likely, they will go after big multi-riggers or bars, ....but isn't it possible that companies like Sony (Famous Music) and Arista will eventually go after the KJ's?  Famous music is after the karaoke manu's like dogs right now and after they are through with them, they will be looking for new blood.  I think it's just a matter of time.

Just give it time, its coming. Over the last 3 years ASCAP/BMI have been charging higher royalty fees to bars and owners for Karaoke, Its going to be a pick and choose kind of intimidation with Karaoke. They will come after us, right now they are playing with the open market users, can't wait to see what happens in the Karaoke market.

MV

I don't expect that to be the case, because in the case of Famous Music and others going after iligit Karaoke Manus they can make a case that they are directly financially hurt by the product. In the case of sony going after the KJ with a iligit copy of a song they are indirectly hurt. They only have lost the royalties the Manu should have paid them.

The directly harmed party in karaoke piracy is the Karaoke Manu, while the indirectly harmed party is going to be the publisher, legit karaoke operators etc. The potential financial benefit to the music publisher would be minor compared to the benefit due the karaoke manu for a case involving Karaoke piracy.

As it comes down to the Karaoke DJ it is a bit safer, sure one can reasonably prosecuted for selling hard drives with 50k songs, but it is not likely that the Manu can get a judge to write a search warrant to check your home to see if you own all of the CDs you use in your karaoke show. They can get around it by the arguement that all computer karaoke is illegal as are backup disks of legit purchases. The manus know that however if they try to really enforce such a legal interpritation with a specific case, they are very likely to loose the suit if the KJ in question really did buy all of the songs that he used in his show and only format shifted. The reason the manus have not attempted to bring a case to trial emphasizing that format shifting is the violation is they are not confident enough that they have a good chance of winning such a case.

In any case despite the large penalty involved in the case, I bet it is highly likely that the legal costs to the music industry were higher then the financial settlement. It mostly only benefits the music industry as an example to scare people away from piracy.

In any case it appears that the music industry just has to appear to not be "TOO" greedy. Already the music industry is chargeing royalties to perform karaoke in a bar (via ASCAP/BMI), plus the mechanical rights fee (same as for any cover version), plus the publishing rights (for the lyrics to appear), plus the "sync" rights to combine the music and lyrics into karaoke.

With four different "incomes" coming from the sale and performance of the same song as karaoke, eventually a reasonable person (read jury) will realize that the music industry is just being unreasonably greedy. Especialy if their legal strategy attempts to prevent an obvious major technical advance in the field (computer based karaoke).

Let's look at the food chain.....

It's estimated that 80% of the KJ's are using material that is not legal in one form or another---I think that is a fair assessment.  In the past year, you see more home consumers that go to bar shows and see these slick computerized systems and say, I want that!  Most have no clue what is legal or not and seek out these "new" loaded computerized systems from retailers like Ace Karaoke or Ebay/Craigslist.   They assume it must be OK because they are buying it from the "World's Largest Retailer" or a big outfit like EBAY.   They buy one and have their friends over, and the disease spreads.  So now the Manus are also losing the home consumer market to pirated music.  The karaoke manu's are just waking up to these statistics, which is why they are finally "taking action".  

Famous music (Sony) has been hammering the larger Manus to get compliant and pay...now that they are paying, let's say Famous makes a highly publicized example of a KJ...now you have KJ's, bars and home consumers running to buy "legal" music, increasing karaoke disc sales, and licensing fees paid to Famous.....