Karaoke Forums

If one business entity can impose post-sale, post-transaction fees they simply invent on another business entity, that establishes a precedent that really should work both ways, should it not?

My concern here is that professional karaoke hosts, myself included, have been naively overlooking an important and perfectly legal revenue source for our businesses.

We as a group have been providing limitless free advertising to the manufacturers and sellers of karaoke discs for over two decades. With some brands, and for every track we play to the public made by those brands, we're basically running 4-minute commercials for the manufacturer of the track. We display a manufacturer’s brand name and logo at the beginning of each song, again during the instrumental break, and a third time at the end.

For a manufacturer of higher quality tracks the implications of this are two-fold. Firstly, their brand becomes associated with this quality and their name remembered by the public enthusiasts attending these shows, which inarguably increases home market sales of the manufacturer's product (if they sell or have sold to the home market), resulting in additional revenue for the manufacturer for which the host has not been compensated. Secondly their brand becomes known to and desired by all other hosts, which inarguably increases sales of the manufacturer's product to these professionals, also resulting in additional revenue for the manufacturer for which the host has not been compensated.

We hosts have "played nice" so far, ignoring this commercial inequity, but as operating expenses for legal hosts continue to rise at the same time the market value for our services has depreciated, it now becomes painfully necessary for us to tap into all legal revenue streams that may be available to us.

To this end I propose P.L.E.H. - the Program for Legal Entrepreneurs Hosting

Under the terms of this program, each professional karaoke host will charge advertising fees to any karaoke disc manufacturer we chose, past or present, for whom we provide commercial advertising by playing “significant” quantities of their tracks at public karaoke shows. This will be an especially attractive offering to any manufacturer who wishes to either continue or resume selling new product in the future.

We shall conservatively define "significant" to mean at least 25% of the tracks played during any one show are from the same manufacturer. Not wanting to hurt a manufacturer, we’ll give them a break and leave part-time hosts out of the equation. So the formula might best be based on three shows a week, 50 songs a show. Some hosts do more, some less, but that's a reasonable average. That makes a significant manufacturer one whose tracks are played at least 2,000 times a year per host. That’s considerable commercial advertising for the manufacturer! For $2,400.00 per year, this would only cost the manufacturer $1.20 per instance, and of course much less per song if their tracks are played more often than 25% of the time. (I believe some manufactures even claim their commercials dominate 50% or more of some shows, but we'll magnanimously stick to 25% here.)

This conveniently works out to the manufacturer owing each legally working host only $200.00 per month.

HOSTS OBLIGATIONS UNDER THE PROGRAM
1. The host must of course show proof of ownership of the original manufactures' discs. There's no getting around that. Manufacturers will owe no money to hosts that do not own original discs.
2. The hosts agrees to continue displaying the manufacturer’s brand name, trademark, and trade dress wherever those occur in the tracks, regardless of whether playing them from disc or computer file, for as long as the manufacturer remains current with their P.L.E.H. fees.

MANUFACTURER OBLIGATION
1. Any manufacturer that fails to OPT-OUT of the program (more on this below) must continue to pay its P.L.E.H. fees, in perpetuity, to each currently working legal host that meets the program guidelines given above.

Now, we realize all this may catch some manufacturers by surprise. But karaoke hosts are for the most part benevolent people. Even though we've provided tons of free commercial advertising to these manufacturers in the past, historically making a huge contribution to their sales figures, we'd like everything to start fresh. Therefore the P.L.E.H. program is not mandatory! We wouldn't do that to you guys! Hence, the following:

MANUFACTURER OPT-OUT CONTRACT
Signing an opt-out contract with each host permanently releases the manufacturer from all obligations to pay advertising fees for the display of its brand name, trademark, logo and trade dress during the course of public karaoke shows performed by each such host. By signing the opt-out contract, the karaoke disc manufacturer, or its parent company, authorizes (but does not obligate) each such host to remove their brand name, trademark, logo and trade dress from all tracks for which they do not wish to pay the advertising fees. Removal of such marks will be accomplished by first media-shifting the disc tracks to computer, if this has not already been done, at the individual host's discretion.

Or, we could all be rational about this, and call the whole dang thing even, because that is what it really is.

Has any karaoke track maker ever given commercial usage rights? I'm not a KJ, so I really don't know.

As to your proposal: there is very little room for logic in the legal system. If there were, tort reform would have happened 40 years ago.

I think this NEW program is BRILLIANT!!! P.L.E.H.!!! AWESOME!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

That cagey bird may be on to something!

http://youtu.be/Rag_UHK5lT0

A word comes to mind... estoppel

The first thing that came to mind for me was SC throwing a new wrench in the works if we tried this.

I see it now. in order to use the Gem Series or any SC material, you MUST display the SC logo as supplied on each track. They will fight it tooth and nail.

_________________
You can never argue with a crazy mi-mi-mi-mi-mi-mind ----B. Joel
I have great faith in fools; My friends call it self-confidence ---- E.A. Poe
I became insane, with long intervals of horrible sanity ----E.A. Poe
I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference! ----A. Einstein
Double bubble, toil and trouble ----W. Shakespeare & Walt Disney
I hate it when I get on FaceBook ----Me
Karaoke might be Groundhog Day ----?
Of All the Martial Arts, Karaoke Inflicts the Most Pain ----?

WAY past Elementary, Penguin. Keep 'em coming....

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I know that this was all tongue-in-cheek, and I hate to be a Party Pooper, but....
There is a flaw in your "Manufacturer Opt Out" policy. Mainly it is your clause about the removal of "their brand name, trademark, logo and trade dress from all tracks for which they do not wish to pay the advertising fees" by the use of "media-shifting the disc tracks to computer." The mere act of media shifting does not remove their brand name, trademark, logo, or trade dress. It will still be there. And, if you were to ALTER the content by removing all of that, they would be able to sue you for other reasons (as it's been discussed before, there are ways to still identify the music as being produced by them).

The fundamental problem with your plan is this:

SC has never imposed any "post-sale, post-transaction fees" on anyone.

SC sold you a product, a compact disc. If you use that product as it's intended, you never owe SC another dime.

All of the various programs we offer--certification, HELP licenses, Safe Harbor, etc.--have come about because KJs want to do something different from what was originally agreed with that disc.

For many years, we said no.

Finally, when it became clear that merely saying no wasn't going to work, we offered you options. These options exist and are necessary because the KJs want to do something new. Those options carry rules. Those rules are designed to protect our brand and to give us a ready way to identify and avoid suing operators who follow the rules.

We are not going to stop suing operators who don't follow the rules.

We would be perfectly OK with KJs using their original discs exclusively. That's the original deal. If you want to go back to the original deal, where you use discs exclusively, you are welcome to it.

Some of you are OK with that, and we respect it.

Others of you recognize that the rules serve a purpose, and you're OK with getting certified and paying a tiny fee that covers a portion of our costs. After all, we don't benefit from your media-shifting. You do.

And then we have those who resent that there are rules. You're entitled to your opinion, but you're not entitled to your own facts. The simple fact is that we aren't the ones who wanted the change. We are simply imposing conditions on our agreement to the change. If you don't like those conditions, use your discs, or don't use the brand at all. Either way, we're totally OK with that.

there is only one way to answer post
blow it out your a!!

Yup, I'm getting that little tingle that tells me that when I said SC label crapped itself I may have been correct and Kurt starting a new company with a new name isn't going to hurt him any....

Watch for new Phoenix soundtracks........

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

I agree with Mike D. Blow it out your wahzoo, James. The company that you work for is full of it. NO other company in music is doing this nonsense. Only YOUR client. Don't expect a lot of new business, if you ever go back to production!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I generally agree that you have the right to protect your IP and you should be able to implement programs and rules to do exactly that so long as it truly targets those individuals that are negatively impacting sales or your reputation. People that move content from discs they own/possess to PC's do neither.

When there is a reasonable, one time fee in place, your statements make perfect sense. When there is an exorbitant monthly fee that indiscriminately targets pirates and legitimate hosts alike, not so much.

More specifically -



I don't recall agreeing to only use discs. There is no statement on the package that says anything like "By breaking this seal, you agree to the terms within" or "By using this product, you agree to these terms". The original discs do not have a license or contract associated with them. They contain only the same standard disclaimer that every other entity in the music, movie, software, and karaoke industry has provided. "No unauthorized duplication without permission" (paraphrased). A statement that every other entity on the planet has accepted to mean "So long as you don't share or distribute freely" and "Don't steal" we don't care what you do with it.



New? I bought my very first CD Player and CD in 1984 . The very same day I copied that CD ("Silk Road" by Kitaro) to cassette tape so I could also play it in my car which did not have a CD player. (31 years old and I still have it though I now [gasp!] listen to a ripped version of it since I don't own a CD player any longer)

With respect to karaoke - KJ's have been doing this "new" thing for more than 2 decades.



Are you seriously telling me that you would "perfectly OK" with halting progress in the name of protecting your IP?

Once again, there was no "deal". There was no license or agreement made with you upon purchase or acquisition of Sound Choice CD+G's.



I am one of those people. So long as your intent is to verify possession of original media and ferret out pirates and thieves, i don't think anyone should have a serious problem with paying a reasonable, one time fee.

But......



....the way the HELP program is delivered now is SPECIFICALLY designed for PEP to benefit (profit) from media-shifting. It is a monthly licensing fee paid to PEP for permission to continue doing what we have been doing without any fees for over 20 years.

I would also suggest that Sound Choice is only still relevant today as a direct result of media-shifting. If Sound Choice material were somehow protected against media-shifting and only capable of being used on disc, then only a statistical handful of original media KJ's worldwide would still be using it.

Media shifting has given Sound Choice material a life well beyond Sound Choice's ability to continue producing material.

As I stated before, if I were subject to paying $200/month just to media-shift under the HELP program, I would drop Sound Choice. I love the product. I think it is some of the best ever made. But I can operate without it.

When I first came here, there was a phrase that got tossed around now and then about "dolphins getting caught in the tuna net". At that time and with the previous certification program, the number of dolphins was tiny. With the HELP program, you are penalizing ALL legitimate hosts. If 90+ percent of all KJ's are pirates, it seems to me you have plenty of tuna to go after and you should leave the dolphins alone. If a dolphin does get caught up, they should be catch and release with no ongoing penalty.

I know you are re-vamping the certification program, but unless it becomes a permanent program and sticks to a reasonable ONE TIME fee, then we might as well dress up in tuna costumes.

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-Chris

I would venture an educated guess that maybe 10% of people can truly, honestly tell the difference between an original lossless music file ie .wav .cda and an mp3 ripped at 128 even when listening in a quiet room wearing headphones.

Unless they are blue nosed, self proclaimed "Audiphiles", they probably really don't care anyways.

Add in the noise and general calamity of a Karaoke Bar and I seriously doubt the difference between a 128 and a minimum 192 ripped mp3 is even discernible let alone an "enforceable requirement needed to maintain the "integrity" of Sound Choice products". (Can't believe I used Sound Choice and integrity in the same sentence . . . that's an oxymoron if there ever was one)


As for bad graphics . . . No reasonable person believes that Sound Choice intentionally produces original graphics with dropouts and random strange colored boxes in them.
A reasonable person with any exposure to the industry immediately recognizes that the KJ's disk is messed up. They would blame the KJ, not Sound Choice for the poor quality.

No your employer SC does benefit from media shifting because otherwise a very large portion of the market would not buy the CD products. Disk based Karaoke in venues has been dead for a long time. Only a few old time KJs are still disk based, and they bought their disks long ago.

I am willing to bet over 90% of the SC disks sold to professional KJs in the last 5 years were bought with the intention of moving the songs to a hard drive for actual use.

If a truely effective cd copy protection system existed SC would be shooting themeslves in the foot for sales. We could be buying used SC cds for under 2 dollars. But really the market would have abandoned SC because the singers and kjs would have forgotten about them because they were just too difficult to use, regardless of how good the song quality is.

Harrington,

Can you cite a case where 1:1 media shifting has actually been found to be illegal?

Any case (movies, music or karaoke).

Not a case where the digital product was put into a different format and sold, but a case where the digital product was merely moved from one format to another to facilitate actual use.

I would venture to say that you are asking for the impossible, adding the criteria that the the cases were defended by proper counsel.

I don't know if Dennis Hampton is still accociated with the Canadian DJ association, but i think i will have to see if i can get in touch with him.

I seem to recall having a conversation with him where the music publishers filed a lawsuit against a dj business for shifting the music and altho the DJ technically won, he lost absolutely everything in the process.

I'll see what i can find

I have, in the past, not defended Sound Choice's way of doing business, post-production. I thought they didn't do enough to get rid of pirates when the solution was to sell them their product and put them right back into business against the legal KJs, as if this leveled the playing field again. I also thought they didn't do enough activity widespread to make a difference, and it looks like that is the case now. I understand it takes money to do all that, even if you succeed, it's like putting water in a bucket with a hole in the bottom, it just couldn't happen fast enough.

On the other hand, as a business owner myself, I can see them doing whatever they have to do to salvage their company. They are out of options to continue to do what they were doing successfully. So I'll say in this situation, I don't know what else they can do to make their business create income again. I'm not saying I wouldn't do the same. I guess as a host you either use the discs, stop using their content totally or take them to court to challenge the media shifting legality.

I think anything else is just words to fill up the forum posts.

this is on them they over charged on there disc
other companies came out with lower priced disc in most
cases as good of songs
greed on their part
sink or swim but do try to make people pay twice