Karaoke Forums

If there is any truth to the allegations in one or two of the lawsuits against Chartbuster, DigiTrax cannot "relicense" tracks that were not licensed to begin with. Also, the pulling of tracks from the Universal family of publishers might be perceived as a fairly devastating blow to any assessment of "thriving"...

Semantics. Get a life dude.

Any Company that is selling Karaoke tracks with graphics, can do so legally if they have the permission of the company that made the reproduction song (Be it, DK, SBI, Sound Choice, Pridus, Or any other) and a proper license from the Publishing company that owns the rights to the main underlying work (Be it universal, Warner, EMI or the original Writer).

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

I guess if you pay some good money for your certifications; you want them to be worth something and you will defend those companies until they are out of business....and sometimes even after they are out of the business. No matter how many times they get caught breaking the rules; the cheer leaders keep rationalizing their behaviors. Go Figure.

Is that so different than how you rationalize stealing the content in the first place? I don't think so. Except that we, the cheerleaders, have bought something in good faith with the assumption the selling entity has done the right things, while you, the pirates, have just plain stolen it with no regard for anyone but yourself.

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-Chris

Chris don't lump everyone that doesn't support the KIAA's misguided efforts as "pirates" Some of us were raised on a healthy serving of slashdot (uuid in the 10,000) and your rights online during the entire music industry vs mp3 debacle in the late 90's.

I see history repeating itself, and instead of learning from the MI's mistakes, the KIAA seems keen on repeating them.

and if a large corporation were to buy one Windows 8, XP or whatever and used that one copy on one of their computers, do you honestly think Microsoft would allow it? is that commercial use?

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

I am not labeling everyone, just Bruce and the handful of others here that justify stealing the content without any regard for the rights holders.

I didn't think the KIAA was even a viable organization any longer. I never see it mentioned and the home page just links out to the Stellar CAP and SC GEM pages respectively.

I don't see any solidarity on the part of the manufacturers at all. Not even the Karaoke Summits have given me any indication that the karaoke producers are really working together to fix anything. Each of them seems to have their own agenda.

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-Chris

It is actually common practice these days for software companies that license to large organization to provide a single disc or download and a license that specifies how many instances they can install. Operating system licensing is not a good point of reference for this because the nature of computing is not 1-1 any longer with the implementation of virtualization.

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-Chris

Cool Chris, we're cool.

You know what bugs the hell out of me, but nobody seems to point this out? Harrington said (paraphrasing) "Nobody has offered us a viable solution" but when I pointed out they need to be lobbying congress, he shot that down as not a solution.

Why? Question has to be asked...

IMHO, doing anything other than what they're doing now would affect Harringtons profits. So ya, he will continue to give slep and the others the bad advice of, "Only I know what to do, don't even *think* about other avenues"

Thing is it has been done in the UK. Instead of trying to fight the deluge of karaoke piracy with lawsuits, they took an overall licensing approach (similar to ascap/bmi/etc) It took an act of Parliament for it to happen.

First of all, "semantics" have cost many a company millions of dollars for not having proper verbage. Ask any lawyer, on the forum or otherwise: how something is worded is more important than what was intended.

Also, I am not convinced that a company can use a recording that was not done with permission for a re-worked product...just can't see that being proper...

Point being Chris whether a disc, a download, or whatever, they pay for each time they copy it. If you have two computers you pay twice, if you have a hundred you pay for the hundred or whatever the policy is on copying. They certainly don't get multiple use and pay once.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

The purposes have been stated here many times: the people who own these discs want to put a copy on their computer and put away the original. That would not constitute a "multiple use". I believe from what I have read so far that this has yet to be clearly defined legally for this particular usage...

[quote="HarringtonLaw"

It's not as clear-cut as you might have expected. I assure you that for the last two decades, this is the way in which karaoke licensing has been done. The parties agree on essential terms, then when they get around to it--which may not be until the agreement term is nearly up--they write a formal license[/quote]


This particular pile of steaming manure is exactly why certain mfrs. have gotten sued. "We always do it this way" does not now nor has ever cut it legally. Until DOCUMENTED LICENSING IS IN HAND, THERE IS NO LICENSING. Those who choose to hope for the best and produce before receiving documented licensing are those who not only get sued, but deserve it. A perfect example: This is what happened to SC - per Jim's own statement - in regard to the Eagles disc 8125, and SC had to pay for it. Though still never licensed, they had to shell out just to limit future liability.

Also, to my knowledge, unlicensed CB masters were never to be included anyway.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

[quote="The Lone Ranger"


Not quite right Chartbuster made it's last product in 2011 we are now in 2014 that is more like three years, SC has not made any new product since 2009 so 5 years is correct. .[/quote]

Actually, there was a very limited run of one SC disc in 2009. Except for those few discs, SC has been effectively out of the production of new songs for karaoke since 2007. 7 years since they have actually been a player in the karaoke production industry.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

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

It really doesn't matter what YOU'RE convinced of. the point is that when a karaoke company makes a RE-Production recording of a song, That Re-Recording (Sound Recording) belongs to them and is usually done under a compulsory license. the Re-Recording is their copyrighted work. That being said, at that point, they can license the use of that recording to anyone they want (Eg: Ameritz makes a Re-Recording). it is their work. Whether they own the Original Or not. The underlying work (The Original Song) is NOT theirs. but those rights do not come into play until That Re-Recording is being sold to consumers on the open market. at that point whoever is selling the Re-Recording (Eg: Digitrax) is responsible for obtaining the rights to sell to consumers. Not the company that Made the Re-Recording.

Compulsory License:
A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an individual or company seeking to use another's intellectual property can do so without seeking the rights holder's consent, and pays the rights holder a set fee for the license.

Situation Example:

Company A makes a Re-Recording of blue by leann rimes. and pays the compulsory license. (Even if they don't pay the Compulsory License they still have a legal claim of ownership of that re-recording)

Company B gets permission to use that re-recording and acquires a proper license from the original artist/publisher.

Company B is not responsible for company A's Lack of proper licensing on the re-recording. if a publisher/artist wishes to pursue damages in court for an improper license when the re-recording was made, they must sue Company A. Even if this happens, The Agreement to use the re-recording between company A and Company B is still valid and is a separate issue.

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Sal "Kjmann" Esquivel
Karaoke With Sal - Website

Which I agree should be a big no no. If however you have bought your original library which represents a large investment for a host, in some cases ten's of thousands of dollars, I think it would be prudent to have the material somehow backed up. You would not want to take your originals to your gig for fear of having them stolen. You would want to keep them home hopefully in a secured area, or some secure storage facility. As far as commercial use is concerned if you are a single host, running a single rig, then I think it should be ok to backup your material, especially since some of it is no longer available. If however it is illegal to use the material at all in a commercial setting then we are all guilty of breaking the law. It is just a matter if the particular manu wants to exercise their right and try to extract some money from the host. Whether that itself is legal or not is open to debate, if it is true that all it is, is legal racketeering, selling protection and having the host pay to continue operating their business, then that is something I would not support.

You can but a Buffalo burger because there are still Buffalo. They still reproduce unlike CB.
But to date both CB and SC's products are still very much sought after by many singers and hosts.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

I am not the one to ask ans i dont think anyone that post on this forum would possibly know that answer. I do know that DT was not able to relicense the entire CB library because some of the publishers withdrew some songs for future licencing at the time. If universal or even another publisher ever pulled a song it could be for one of any number of reasons and most likey not because of the manus actions. The song writers have sone say

The DT VS Universal suit probably has nothing to do with any hint of CB "unlicensed" tracks. Besides, none of us could even know that unless we were the manu or the publisher of discussion. And, if someone did actually know I am pretty sure they would not be discussing information from an ongoing suit here. If universal or even another publisher ever pulled a song it could be for one of any number of reasons and most likey not because of the manus actions. The song writers and publishers have contracts that are often reviewed and revised therefore causing the publisher to require the manu to pull a active song from the lineup.

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No venue to big or too small. From your den to the local club or event, we have the music most requested. Great sounding system!

I shot that down as a solution because I know that my client doesn't have the resources necessary to lobby Congress to change the law, and because I cannot imagine a scenario in which this Congress would make a change to the law that would be favorable to my client. The stakeholders who would lose out with that kind of change pay millions of dollars to lobbyists to ensure that kind of change doesn't happen.



That's not your opinion. It's an assertion of fact, and it's a false one.

You must think Kurt's an idiot, because only an idiot would listen to someone who tells them not to consider other options. I only became involved as a last resort. If Kurt called me today and said, "Hey, you've done all we need you to do," I'd be a happy man. I do not live to do this work. It's not especially profitable; it's often tedious; it requires a lot of travel.



You have a very naive view of how new laws are made in the U.S. What happened to create MCPS in the UK was several orders of magnitude easier to do than it would be to do it in the U.S.