Karaoke Forums

When asking about single downloads, they told me they won't be having them yet, but may in the future. I mentioned that I try hard to stay legal, and with companies like Zoom, SBI, Sunfly, Karaoke Version offering downloads, I use them, as no US company worth using is offering this. Here is the response I got:

I understand that you want to be legal, but some of the companies you mention below are reportedly selling unlicensed karaoke. The major publishers have said that no one can buy or license karaoke tracks from some of them. I wouldn’t want our tracks to be combined with the illegal tracks in any sort of device. We will soon make new incredible systems available, but they will only contain our tracks.

We greatly appreciate your efforts to keep everything legal. However, please note that songs by Adele, Katy Perry, Sam Smith (such as “Stay With Me”), Iggy Azalea (such as "Fancy” and “Boom Clap”), to name a few - are flat-out DENIED for karaoke - and these songs appear to be included in the catalogs that you mentioned! Sybersound has paid publishers enormous advances for use of many songs that are otherwise denied for karaoke. These songs appear on our discs, and will be included in our new systems, but they are apparently NOT approved by publishers for sale by those other companies.

As to your question about use of our tracks:

1. You could buy our discs - although we’re not allowed to grant anyone the right to burn digital copies. We certainly wouldn’t take any adverse action against anyone striving to keep things legal and make an honest living! However - the publishers could. A while back, I asked a major publisher if DJs/KJs could burn one copy of each disc, and he said NO - because Copyright Law only allows a consumer to burn one copy for personal use, not professional use.

2. We are not currently making individual tracks available via download, but hope to at some point in the near future. We will keep you posted.


3. We’re about to launch 2 amazing systems - the Party Tyme Karaoke Streaming Player and the Party Tyme Karaoke Kiosk. Each will offer about 16,000 songs, with lots of new hits each month. The technology is brilliant, and the radio-quality recordings, plus crystal-clear HD graphics, will make these devices the hottest on the market. Our intention is to offer the biggest and best-sounding system in the World, which is 100% fully-licensed. We want club owners and KJs to rest assured that they can use our systems without worrying about getting in legal trouble with publishers.

I knew K-V was working in the shady areas, but I thought the others were within the rules. I was sent screen shots from each company, taken today by Sybersound, that clearly showed no fly list artists tracks still being sold.

And finally, there was this from Sybersound, also:

It’s only a matter of time until the managers and publishers or writers like Adele take action - in which case these companies will have to hand over lists of anyone to whom they’ve sold these tracks! This happened in the CDG business when certain distributors were selling unlicensed discs, and had to hand over the lists of all the stores they sold them to. Most of the stores went out of business. Please be careful!

Kinda scary to think the publishers might actually come after the KJ's, but not a big surprise.

I applaud Sybersound in being meticulous in their licensing.

My response to that would be, even if the publishers did go after a kj, let them try to prove damages. I don't think they can.

-james

Please keep all legal talk in the appropriate forum, thank you.

But again, what manu is going to claim - oh no, we aren't licensing anything, just making them in our garage & selling them. Of COURSE each and every manu is going to claim they are legal, even if they may not be. And then to say other are definitely in fact illegal just because they are producing songs that we can't or have to pay exuberant amounts for, THEY MUST be illegal. I don't buy it. Doesn't matter I don't care for the Sybersound quality & they are always several months behind other companies in releases. If they become the last stand of karaoke product, then I'd get them. But until then, i'll stick with the 'illegals' ie SBI, Zoom, Sunfly, Karaoke Version, Mr Entertainer, Abraxa, etc.
Publishers MIGHT go after kj's, but most kj's make so little money from this to begin with it won't be worth the legal hassles, they'd get a judgement that would most likely put any kj into bankruptcy and they wouldn't get anything anyway. They may go after the clubs that the kj's play in, especially if they aren't paying the ASCAP/BMI/SESAC orgs.

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All of this is really becoming ridiculous. If a manufacturer didn't have the rights to sell the material, then they are in the wrong. A KJ would be a victim, and would have rights to sue the manufacturer for selling the KJ something that legally can't be used, No? Why would a publisher sue the KJ when that person paid money in good faith for a product that was mis-represented?

What is bizarre to me is that, why are the record companies overlooking such a huge revenue stream, that being KARAOKE. The record company signs the deal with the artists, the tracks are in the can already, so if they just included karaoke in their artist contracts all they would need to do is set up an in-house graphic department to kick out labels and word sync and produce the karaoke track at the same time the single comes out WITH THE ORIGINAL MUSIC to the track. No music production costs to reproduce the track. If they sold each track at even $1.50 they would make huge profits without the additional music reproduction and re-licensing for the purpose of karaoke that third parties have to go through (such as Sound Choice, SBI Zoom etc). What artist is going to turn away a record deal because it includes karaoke rights especially when the artist would get the same percentages that are agreed upon. I am sure I am oversimplifying from a legal standpoint but really, don't the record companies call the shots. I would think they could get this done if they wanted to.

all the artists on the no fly list.....
http://www.sunflykaraoke.com/uploads/filebrowser/Karaoke%20No%20Fly%20List.docx
an interesting tidbit... this is the only copy i can find of it. the karaokecloud one is gone and they were the only entity showing it.

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

I am sure they would drop off that list in a heart beat if they were making money directly from Karaoke!! You have no idea how much that list pisses me off. Who do they think they are?? Too good to allow people to sing their songs?? Ridiculous!!! OK, Rant Off!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

I think most of them are against it because they know that somewhere out there someone is going to make them look like an amateur by taking their songs to a whole new level.

I don't think there are more than a handful of songs where the original singer simply can't be overshadowed by someone when you take into account just how many someones there are out there who can sing.

It really boils down to just 2 things - Ego and Insecurity. 2 things there is definitely no shortage of in the artist community.

SBI has also provided a copy of their no fly list.

http://sbikaraoke.com/site/node/2878

ah, missed that one Karen.
odd that Karaokecloud took theirs down as they were the ones that brought it to light for the rest of the industry.

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

Seriously? Ego and insecurity? Perhaps you should consider the obvious - MONEY. Karaoke has had such a bad reputation over the past 15 years that the majority of those who oppose it simply do so because they feel it's a rip off. Sure some may have other personal reasons.



Show the artist the MONEY and they will gladly allow their songs for karaoke.

All of the UK sites posted the no fly list. But they do not adhere to it. Adele is denied for karaoke and her name is on the list. But I just searched for "Skyfall"

http://sbikaraoke.com/site/search/resul ... l&t=T27095

Search for Bon Jovi, Led Zeppelin, Abba etc on SBI, Sunfly etc and you will find the songs there...

but here is the thing...
in the U.K. especially, these songs are coming through PRS for Music and the artists are getting paid.
not only that, but they are getting paid for no additional effort on their part, so besides ego and insecurity, what other reason is there to not let it be made? my belief, ego is a much bigger problem than insecurity. i can't remember which artist is was that said it was "demeaning to our artistry and craft for these songs to be howled out by some drunk" or something along those lines. i want to say it was Prince, but i cant remember for sure.

think of it like this...
you are Adelle, you are signed up with PRSforMusic. every time Sunfly, Zoom, SBI, etc sell a karaoke track with your song you get paid because PRSforMusic collected it. you have done nothing else.
now.... in order to stop getting paid you have to go and formally on paper request to have them stopp collecting money for you through PRSforMusic and deny the use of your song for this particular purpose...thereby you receive less money.

perhaps in the U.S. where there are 500 licenses to get for one karaoke song, but in the U.K. where there is one central place for everything and unless you opt out of something you automatically get paid for it... that only leaves ego.

and as for Sybersound....
"nobody can make these songs on karaoke anywhere in the world legally....i mean except for us....of course WE can make them....but nobody else."
give me an f'n break.

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

That, to ME sounds like a Don Henley comment.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Also the no fly list was from what I understood was mostly for 'no downloads'. The link you provided for Skyfall states clearly for custom cdg only, no downloads.

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I think it is about money. And I also think it comes down to "pay to play".

Artists and Publishers bitched about how digital versions allowed for piracy that crushed album sales.
iTunes swooped in and helped revive the industry.

Now streaming services allow people to play any song they like. On a loop even. The artists and publishers want to get paid every time that song gets played. Even if no one is actually listening.

That doesn't stop at karaoke. Streaming would allow the artists and publishers to be compensated for every drunk singer that performs their track.

At some point, new karaoke may end up exactly like this given current trends in content delivery.

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-Chris

What would suck is if the powers that be deemed all karaoke discs and downloads illegal, and only streaming was legal. That way they could charge for each song played each night by keeping a running total of what you play.

I'd say that is absolutely what is coming. With mp3 piracy, the only way for artists to make more money is to tour and sell concert tickets. Streaming is the ticket because it can be metered, and documented. Now that the publishers and artists have seen the karaoke piracy take off, they have to find a way to get a piece of that action too. If an someone gets paid every time a song is played commercially on the radio or streamed, why shouldn't they get paid every time someone sings their song too? I understand that KJs and DJs have never had to deal with that, but it's a new digital world and piracy has led to the need for accountability. Watch those advertised libraries shrink now.

Also, there will be plenty of folks who either do karaoke or will want to jump in and do what's necessary to meet those requirements, and instead of investing in dead media to use, will instead buy new equipment, upgrade internet speed, etc. and the ones not willing to make that commitment and continue to do things the old way will be pushed out of the picture. You can put a whole lot more rigs on the street if you don't have to have 1 to 1 media to deal with. I think this could allow multi-rig players to either restart or grow. So get ready.

The only reason the "Talent" need to tour is because the Studios rip off the $$$.

They are the original "Pirates".

if they think that way, i would think that the jukeboxes would be the beginning, or the DJ's, not us, we are insignificant to them.
ASCAP, SESAC, BMI were made to get the artists paid for songs being played live, over jukebox, etc.
even if the songs get pirated, they are still getting paid by the PRO's.
if it does go to streaming, we are still in trouble. artists like Taylor Swift, Garth Brooks, AC/DC, Led Zeppelin, Bob Seger, Tool all refuse to do streaming. and it isn't about money...
"According to the streaming service, they offer a $0.006 to $0.0084 per stream, resulting in $500 million for 2013.
Before Swift pulled her tunes, her new single "Shake It Off" was streamed 46.3 million times resulting in a $280,000-$390,000 payout for October alone, Time calculated."

$300,000+ for one month paid to Taylor and she still pulled it.
i would leave my music on there for 10% of that.

i don;t see streaming being the next big thing. people seem to want, guys like Garth who was completely against itunes has a service called ghosttunes and sells songs for a reasonable price and full albums for a discount.

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

Besides if it went solely to streaming as a legal source, I'd quit. The internet - even my hotspot - isn't reliable enough on a nightly basis. I've had nights I could barely access the internet - let alone stream it!

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