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http://www.ca6.uscourts.gov/opinions.pd ... 42p-06.pdf


Panorama had to pay $800,000 in a copyright lawsuit.

I wonder if that is why Cavs download site has been put on hold. Most of their stuff was Panorama. Interesting.

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THM for years was my new music source I havnt bought much for a year and oddly enough my old regs are not asking for new stuff either. One request was for Strait and Ring Around My Fingers I couldnt find it. I am done spending money each month for cd's with songs that will never be used. They can either join the digital age or watch their profits dwindle. Artists are tired of the lawsuit  crap and not giving copyright to karaoke anymore. That is a huge mistake on their part and RIAA isnt helping either. Greed is killing the very thing that most here love.

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"The Sixth Circuit held that, in particular, a court assessing fair use should consider whether the use is transformative. A work is transformative and more likely to be protected by the fair use defense if it adds something new or alters the work with new expression or different character. In this case, Panorama’s hired musicians did not change the music or the words of the songs."

Maybe the above paragraph can be used to explain why some versions of songs display absolutely ridiculous lyrics - for example, in Amy Winehouse's song "You Know I'm No Good," the Sunfly version states, "lickle carpet burns." Mmmhhh...Wondered what "lickle" carpet burns might be.

Either way, it would seem that many companies have figured out that transformative use will exempt them from lawsuits. Of course we all prefer pristine reproductions, but if the outcome of that is lawsuits, I'll go along with a less than perfect rendition.

One interesting note from this case is the amount of money they were asked to pay in royalties but did not.

The price comes to 0.16 per song for the first 2.5 years and 0.19 for the second half of the 5 year term. This is addition to the initial $250 per song charge.

I figure that the major manus can expect to sell at least several thousand copies of each disk, so the price per song should be about 0.17-0.20 per song.


I would assume that the rates asked for in this case are representative, so it is not realistic to assume that any disks should be selling for less than about $2-$3 legally for the royalties alone. Sure some discs may be sold as a discount from overstocks, but any song package that routinely sells for much less than this is most likely illegal.

Sweet Georgia Brown, and Dangerous Karaoke are some sets that come to mind that almost always seem to be selling for much less than the legal cost to make. There are many many others.

I am a bit surprised to see Panorama in this hot water, they seemed to not be one of the "high discount" companies (except for their CAVS activities).

Another thing that can be learned from the fine is how many Karaoke CDS they made. The fine was $31,000 per song. (Zomba apparently is a minority of the songs made by the company. This seems to imply that they are making less than about 150,000-200,000 CDs at most (because the suit would award at a minimum the royalty price). That sounds like a reasonable number, or a bit higher than I expected, one sale for about every 4,000-6,000 first world English Speakers. I suspect some better known manus might do a bit better.

Clearly either Panorama has to pay another big wad of money as well to other song owners (or they just didn't pay Zomba). If that is the case, and this was only for 26 SONGS!, I seriously wonder if the company has the reserves to pay for all of the thousands of songs they sell/have sold in recent times.

Someone told me quite awhile ago that that is the reason why some onscreen lyrics are so...off.  My favourite is still the Suddenly Seymour version that says "prone here beside you," and "he don't give me nylons."

The other thing that has always puzzled me is the tracks that don't have CDG lyrics because the publisher's didn't give permission...but they have permission for the music?  The reasoning behind that completely baffles me...

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Missed footnote 10.

Wow I was way off in the estimates of sales.

They only claimed to have sold 75,000 copies of the 26 songs combined.

That is about 2800 copies of each song sold. That brings the price per song of the royalty up to about 0.25 a song. (and one sale for every 200,000 English language speakers in the first world).

But then again, after the lawsuit each copy of the song they are alleged to have sold is going to cost panorama about $11.00. Somebody is regretting the fact they did not pay royalties. The THM CDs did not sell for $110 each for the 10 songs EVER.

What a way to loose money in a business (for Panorama). I certainly am not paying more than $11.00 for ANY song.

Aint that the karaoke monthly offered by Goodtime Karaoke in a post below here? says from Panorama on the website

Yep it is. Buy it now before the company goes under.....

(with regards to previous statement)

It is easier to get the music reproduction rights all day long, & most of the publishers have nothing to say about it.  It the sync right - ability to display the lyrics - which is what the publishers deny.

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All this talk about Karaoke dying...

If worse came to worse...couldn't you guys get around the law by just playing MP3's .  People would just bring their own lyrics on paper if they needed them.

The monitor could just have a bouncy ball  LOL

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Looks like Panorama got what they deserved.... after all, they were given fair warning with a cease/desist letter AND given the opportunity to obtain licenses before they were served with the copyright infringement suit!  And then they continued to sell the CDGs after receiving a court order not to!  Sheesh!

Karaoke isnt dying but public karaoke is suffering due to the regulation and social engineering that has taken all the profit out of small bars and even once prosperous clubs.. Google bars closing. There are more families with home karaoke than ever before and they dont go out anymore. Its safer to drink at home.

Karaoke technology has families singing together again and is one of the best things that brought them together again. They are bonding again.

We need to get out to all the karaoke singers whats going on Talk about polls Most would go nuts if they knew what was really going on..`  Lrts start putting the blame where it belongs

There were very few pirates in this area but the few that tried we put them out of business You know how? Our regs had no respect for them........And the bar owners around here finally decided they needed to pay for a good show...

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