Karaoke Forums

Hey,

I've been your often hated, misunderstood punk rock anarchist open source karaoke hippie for over a decade here. We've all been here a long time.

I don't think I've ever been inconsistent in my opinions. In recent years, I've gradually reduced the frequencies of my postings.. For a lot of reasons, but mainly I just sit back and watch everyone's general attitudes towards the industry. Seems you all are changing again. Are you...

Tired of piracy?
Tired of Manu's being inept at fixing anything?
Tired of having innovation squashed?
Tired of the little empires and monopolies?
Tired of arguing with people here and elsewhere?

I've never seen such a hotly debated topic over the years as karaoke. I think instead of debates, it's time that we (as KJ's) just spell out what we want (within reason) I want to see what folks come up with.

My submission.

A karaoke industry that puts content delivery first by completely abandoning physical media, without walled gardens, without DRM, and access for any programmer to create software to grab said content securely.

Content, content, content. For me that is what it is all about. The more of it that is available the better life is. I agree with toqer. To HELL with physical media!! It is TIME to stand up to the big Karaoke God, and DEMAND music production,m instead of them competing with their past customers!!

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

something new is already growing, karaoke.net is running it the right way. content we want, when they are needed, high quality recordings, at a reasonable price. we have been asking someone to do this for years and PY listened.

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

Thanks for that... We are now up to over 9,000 songs cleared for use. In the next 2 weeks if all goes according to plan, we will be uploading about 4,000 of these songs to our site. This has been an arduous process both in clearing the songs for use and converting the CDG branding to Party Tyme, but we are nearly there.

We are also in the later stages of integrating our site into Kjams and are now doing the preliminary work to also integrate into MTU Hoster as well. We are well aware of the legitimate frustration on behalf of the KJ's and will continue to strive to meet your needs. We appreciate your support and hope you will look to us first when purchasing content.

Michael

There are some logics to this that don't add up: Site A offers songs/subscriptions for X dollars, but says they are only for private use; Site B offers songs/subscriptions for X times 3 dollars or more and is specifically for commercial use; Site C has songs/subscriptions for X times 3 dollars or more, but does not offer a lower price for non-commercial use. Site D offers to "license" material that they claim is "illegal", allegedly with the publishers' blessing, that was not created by either entity, a case in point that is the basis for litigation against end-users. All of this in a world where most businesses get product for commercial use at an overall LOWER price than the average consumer, in order to be profitable. It is not difficult to see how those of us looking from the outside-in cannot help but view this as one of the most convoluted industries around...

Any plans to integrate with Compuhost? I don't want to change softwares just to get download capability.

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

no need to change anything, you can download any of those songs directly from the website.

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

Yes...there are quite a few dance remixes and acoustic is definitely of interest. I am interested in hearing of requests for acoustic versions of popular tracks. Perhaps Lonnie can hook us up with a separate thread in Requests section for these type of songs.

Michael

I would also like to see if you could work with compuhost!

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It's all good!

We have reached out to them regarding this and appreciate the cooperation thus far with iCroons. We want to make the site as easy for KJ's to access as possible and will continue to strive in that direction-

Michael

Too bad iCroons won't add the Karaoke Cloud and All Star downloads as well. A friend of mine asked about this on their FB page and the comment was deleted & he got banned from being able to make any comments anymore.

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

It's Bob's page, so what do you expect?

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

First amendment rights don't apply to "Bob's" stuff.

In an ideal world, wouldn't it be phenomanal if the original artists/record labels just released the original tracks in karaoke as a standard business practice, like Taylor Swift does with all of her albums? Skip the karaoke manufacturers/producers altogether.

The only reason they don't is because they can't figure out a way to keep the pirates' hands off them, so they'd rather just make a little $$ of licencing and publishing and let someone else worry about it.

The KEY to this whole mess we find ourselves in is PLAINLY AND SIMPLY that SOMEONE has to figure out how to take the pirates out of the loop when it comes to digital copies. Figure out that riddle, and you'll be a millionaire. It's simply too easy to pirate digital tracks, and it hurts the artists, hurts the karaoke producers, and hurts the legit KJs. It's the root of everything else that follows.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

The reason why the original record labels don't issue karaoke versions isn't because they're concerned with piracy. It's because they would have to get the same permissions any other karaoke producer would have to get, because they don't own the musical compositions.

Taylor Swift does it because she has a huge built-in market for the karaoke version and, as the writer of her own hits and the owner of her label, she doesn't have to negotiate for licensing. But she is unusual.

Never Happen..

Cheap knock-offs is sort of a thing in China. They call it the shanzhai — imitation and piracy of name brands, be it Gears of War for PlayStation or the latest Adobe Photoshop.



In China, said Tom Doctoroff, author of the book “What Chinese Want” and a China marketing guru at J. Walter Thompson, managing a fake Apple store, or any kind of fake this or that, is heralded as good ole fashion entrepreneurship.

“When it comes to innovation, the Chinese won’t deliver,” he told me in a phone interview back in mid-May. “China is the total flip-side of the U.S. Piracy goes back to the China world view that individual rights don’t matter. The courts have never evolved to protect innovative individuals. There is still very much the ethos that economic growth has to be managed, so individual and intellectual property, where the spoils go to one entity or one person, is not a cultural value,” he said.

IP protection will always be an uphill struggle in China and for companies doing business there. And that’s mainly because of the fact that individual rights remain a theoretical notion at best. Chinese civilization exists courtesy of a top down structure. Even the education system mitigates against broad-based embrace of IP protection. Until IP infringement is seen as an immediate threat to economic success, or advanced as a vital state interest, few will really care whether Windows 8 is a knock-off, or if the X Box 360 sold in Shanghai is being hacked to allow for a pirated version of 2K Sports NBA Basketball.

Microsoft ran its anti-piracy ad in China when it launched Windows 7 to counter the bad habit. In the ad, two young Chinese techies are seated at a desk. The guy who paid full price is being heralded by his thumbs-up boss as a good worker. His bamboo plant is growing tall and green in a pot on his desk. His trash can is clean, save for maybe one piece of paper. Behind him is the guy using the pirated version of the software. And man does he look down. A big X on his screen, head in his hands. Boss pointing a finger at him, trash can full of paper, power cords tangled up all over the place, and wilted flowers on his desk to add to his miserable work life.

Yet, many Chinese think illegal software is the smart choice because it’s cheaper. Computer sales people have incentive to reinforce this perception because they can increase sales margins by replacing genuine with copies instead.

And for this reason, it's almost pointless to discuss "fixing" all of the downstream effects. If you can't fix the disease, then all you are talking about is "alleviating" all of the symptoms. They are chronic, and won't go away without addressing the disease. It's just the new reality.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

My fantasy situation would be if every manufacturer offered their product ala Digitracks KJ media Pro product.

You would be able to buy anytime anywhere without internet access.

There would be two tiers of product.

A $2 download that would be set up to allow one backup copy.

A $10 download that would allow unlimited copies.

The copies would be locked, but could be unlocked using a unique code assigned to the owner.

Any product turning up in the wild would be traceable to it's unique owner via the unlocking code.

Locked product would allow a small sample so quality could be ascertained before purchase even if offline.

An email would be sent to the purchaser automatically and to the manufacturer to maintain a database of purchased music.

It's just unfortunate Digitracks new releases absolutely SUCK. They have a great business model worthy of emulation.

If PEP, Stingray and Digitracks could get together to deliver product it would be an absolute home run.

Wishful thinking, at best. PEP isn't in the business of making music. They are in the business of lawsuits, and now, trying to take over the Karaoke hosting end of the industry. If they employed security measures on their music, it would hurt their lawsuit business. They can't have that.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

What do I want?

I want karaoke music to have it's own set of laws and rules. None of this cover song/audio video licensing/media shifting bullshit.

Karaoke is a multi billion dollar industry globally. It needs to be treated as such.

I want karaoke music that treat the recording industry, the karaoke manufacturing industry, and that end karaoke song purchaser *equivalently and fairly*.

I dream of an industry where if a karaoke song is available for commercial purchase, it should be able to be purchased globally and used by the end user in a fair manner. Less focus on "Library Registry" and more focus going out there and investigating suspicious digital libraries/suspicious hard drive sales. There will always be criminals in any walk of life. Focus on those guys and not the ones trying to do the right thing.

I don't want to pay a monthly subscription for an instant library. It's too costly, and the bars I work at don't have good enough internet for that. I don't want to be a slave to what one company dictates my selection can have.

Karaoke isn't going away, but if it continues down this path then eventually everyone will be a pirate, and no one will make money.

If it wasn't for karaoke, I doubt there would be American Idol. I wonder if the the recording industry has ever considered that .

/end rant