Karaoke Forums

I can see an economical crisis for the CDG Manufacturers.
Here it is 2007 and Karaoke has been popular for the last 15-20 years as a commercial entity and now the last few years as a consumer based home market.  If you’ve been in the KJ business for a few years you have built yourself a core library of all the 50’s, 60’s 70’s 80’s and 90’s music.
You have all the country, rock, party music, standards etc. you need to run a successful KJ business.  The monthly discs being produced with the current TOP HITS are not being purchased by KJ’s in the volume needed to maintain profitability for the manufacturers and the home market although strong buy their  discs from the Wal-marts and the like.  So what we have been seeing from some of the big name manufacturers is a “repackaging” of the same songs on different discs and “packs” …Who needs these?

The digital format has only strengthened the fears of these big manufacturers.
No one just makes ONE library of digital files you HAVE to make at least 2
What happens if you have a HARDRIVE FAILURE? You’re not going to spend hours and hours re ripping your original cdgs!! – So I’m sure most digital KJ’s have at LEAST one back up of all their files.  

What these guys like SC have to do is offer their LEGALLY AQUIRED songs in a digital, fully downloadable format on a pay per song basis.  ( like Itunes and the like).  I can see in the future that the original record companies will begin to offer KARAOKE VERISIONS of cd’s.   All they have to do is remove the lead vocal track and add a graphics file. ?  Then they would be guaranteed the royalties as they are with the regular versions.  I would GLADLY pay $5 for a original karaoke version than $5 for a SC version?  

Wouldn’t you ?

I'm told that there are a few CDs that have been released that have done that (including karaoke versions on the CD), but it doesn't seem to be catching on.  I imagine part of the problem is technical, since they'd have to engineer the entire disc to work in CD+G or DVD format.  There are also licensing issues since for a sound recording all you need is a mechanical license but for karaoke (if you have graphics, anyway) you need a synchronization license too.  They could get around both problems by excluding the graphics completely, and just having a sound recording without vocals, but I imagine that's not going to satisfy many people.

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Reward: nine yen in drawer.

Most of my karaoke CDs are ORIGINAL music. Don't know why the west are not following us. We don't argue about which brand is better, because nothing is better than the ORIGINAL.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

I would think the hardest and biggest cost in creating a CDG would be the recording and mixing of the music. - scheduling and paying musicians  etc.
The cost of creating a graphic file I would THINK would be minimal.

If they can sell a regular MP3 track for $1.99 and make money - I'm sure at $5 they would make even MORE profit.

As long as we are rambling and dreaming lets expand your idea a wee bit..Years ago if there had been an honest corp.with visions there would be an assosation of legal certified hosts worldwide.. The methods of certifying would have been established and fine tuned by now to give legal KJ'S the advantage.. Legal KJ'S would get new releases on a download basis 30 days before the general public.. Legals would get access to wav and choose the compression if any.. One rerason they never considered downloads they would have "lame ducks" that wildnt be profitable (that we have bought for years on cd's).  Solution pay the original holders  on a download number basis Give legal KJ'S and bars that use them a tremendous advantage over scabbers.. How??? Im not sure but if this concept had been in practice years ago instead of sending out letters to bars it wouldhave evloved into a system that reduces piracy to a bare minimum and eveybody getting a piece of a legal pie....

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Join The Karaokle Singers Social Network. Upload Your Music!!

No matter what industry, no matter what product, no matter what time - You always had and always WILL have theft, pirates, bootleggers, scabs , etc.
It's just human nature.