Karaoke Forums

The point I am trying to make is that sometimes the song is the main focus of a video on youtoube for example a music video. Sometimes the music is just incidental background to the primary point of the video.

Royalties are warented for the first but not really the second. Although a lawyer may have a different opinion.

In any case the whole legal royalty mechanism does very little to help the "starving" band/musicians. It strongly favors the big fish.

ASCAP and BMI take a huge sum of money and aportion it not to all creators of new music songs, but instead it gives a bigger portion to the creators of the most popular songs. The writer of a "hit" song gets a lot more royalties per play on the same radio station than a non "hit" song.

http://www.bmi.com/career/print/C1516



As for youtoube. Before it sold it claimed ad revenue of about 15 million dollars a month and expenses may have actually been nearly as high as that. Bandwidth alone may have been costing them 5-6 million a month, not to mention the servers and salaries of the workers. Youtoube gets 100,000,000 views a day. That is a lot of expensive infrastructure.

Should they have charged more for their ads to pay for royalties? Maybe yes, but that is a different question entirely. The company was not making much money before being sold. In fact I would not be surprised if it lost money on a monthly basis.

The way the owners of youtube really make their money is by selling the company (1.65 billion). It is another one of those internet companies that while popular is not really earning mountains of money except by selling stock in the company to a bigger sucker.

The musicians on the other hand that are getting the cuts from the BMI/Ascap are makeing mountains of money, the little fish in the music industry get very little from the royalties, not even their fair share based on how much their music is heard.

A cover band has a play list.  Karaoke does not.  The songwriter is entitled to the difference between the new amount of money the bar made because his song was played and the money it would have made without it.  Which is 0 because the music is abitrary.  They come to play with the toys not to sing.  If they really wanted to sing, they would sing.  You don't need karaoke for that.

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Okay, who took my pants?

For years I have supported and paid ASCP fees. In fact I have pasted many ASCAP stickers in jukeboxes. However they have turned into a greedy suing machine.

A jukebox plays the original recording Karaoke does not use the artists vocal nor does it use the original music It is a second supposedly legal reproduction. The original copyrights fees should have been satisfied and have no bearing upon karaoke. How is a karaoke singer in small venues going to detract from the profit of cd sales? If anything it adds to sales.

Having personal emotional attitudes and not logically assessing the situation does nothing for our cause. We have a problem and it is growing and getting out of control.

In the Tuscon lawsuit if my little bar had to pay $1200/yr for fees I would be taking $25/night out of $150. If that is any way equitable or fair then I quit In fact I would quit.

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No offense but speak for yourself!  While it may be true that not everyone is listening I assure you people DO listen while they're at karaoke shows.  If they weren't the bar wouldn't turn a profit and as a result the owners would nix karaoke.

Makes sense, n'est çe pas?

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[shadow=white][scroll]Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.....It's about learning to dance in the rain[/scroll][/shadow]

Copyright fees (the right to rerecord a piece with intent to profit) yes, publishing fees (the right to play a piece in public), they are different.



If the bar took the money out of your pay, then i'd quit too to pay for their responsibility.  THe karaoke part of the BMI/ASCAP is not very much at all, it's just an add on to the regular fees that the bar may or may not be already paying.  If they are it generally doesn't add up to any more than a few bucks a night.  If they aren't then yes, it could be quite a bit, but then they have been in violation for any kind of reproduction they may have been doing.

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But then once that song was sung, it was played publicly & the artist deserves the cut because if that song wasn't there, the customer wouldn't have sung it.

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BMI/ASCAP has their fat greedy fingers dipped in too many pies.  When you sue a private practice, single provider physician's office for playing hold music on the telephone it's beyond ridiculous IMO.

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[shadow=white][scroll]Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass.....It's about learning to dance in the rain[/scroll][/shadow]

No offence taken.  

People hear but they don't listen.  People at karaoke shows (in my experience) are there in spite of karaoke as in those who came because the beer is cheap or they're looking to mate, "singers" who are there for the ego stroke, friends of singers who are there to stroke egos.  The KJ and the wait-staff/owner.  That's it.  No one is there to glory at the sound of a complete strangers voice.  None of the above has to do with music and therefore it has nothing to do with ASCAP.

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Okay, who took my pants?

I think it all boils down to to run karaoke, one needs to pay

1. Performing royalties (via BMI)
2. Performing royalties (via Ascap)
3. Syncronization fees (via the karaoke manu to the writer) to sync the lyrics (paid when buying the song/cd)
4. The fees for the lyrics (separate from the sync fees)(paid when buying the song/cd)
5. Mechanical rights (the fee for the cover band to sell the copy of the recording)(paid when buying the song/cd)

Strange thing is in general all of these "fees" are going into the pocket of the songwriter, but different people take their "cuts" of each part.

It just takes one of the 5 revenue mechanisms to get "greedy" to ruin the karaoke. Each of them are huge and rich and have the ability to get the laws written in their favor.

As mentioned already in this thread, the bar/establishment is responsible for the licence fees.  Any bar that only makes $150 per night sure ain't gonna be a bar for long!



Just reinforces in my mind how limited your experience is and how little you know about karaoke!

I agree with Murryln

Any bar that takes in $150 per day is gonna be out of business in the near future.

I'm not saying your information is incorrect but, many of us are businessmen and businesswomen and understand profit and loss.

Many times bar owners will tell you this crap to keep you from raising your prices or in your case...charging them at all. They will cry the blues to get you to believe the poverty story. They are not in business for their health, so they are not gonna stick around if the money is so minimal.

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FlipSide Karaoke
Scott

Right then,  and the other types of folks at the bar would be???  Please explain how you came to know my history or what I know about karaoke?

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Okay, who took my pants?

In response to the last 2 posts Poor choice of words I make $150. My bar averages about $1800 when we are there and it is due to my talent not some artist dead or not. However if ASCAQP enters the scene my chances off future pay raises decrease. I am very familiar with the bar businness I have managed VFW clubs for years. That is a comparison If I am getting $150 why in hell should ASCAP get $25? Chances are there are many bars in town that wont consider karaoke because of added fees. They are a threat to small karaoke businesses and bars period.

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$150 a night profit may not sound like much but it is enough to get by on in a low cost part of this country. It is enough to live very well, and be considered rich in most of the world.

If the bartender and owner are the same person then after expenses that can be an annual income of about $40k.

Many people in this country get by on far less. Where I live it is easy to get a bartender who would work for minimum wage, and only expect about $10 an hour including wage and tips.

Fact is ASCAP/BMI are going to charge the same for an upscale bar that sells $20 specialty drinks and a dive bar with $1 beers. The rate structure is based on the number of seats.

The fees may be trivial to the expensive bar, but could be a big deal of the low cost bar especially if they have an excess of floor space that is rarely filled (but counts to the ocupancy limit which is used for the fee rates). In smaller towns it is often common for a bar to have space that is mostly empty except on special occasions because land and space is cheap. An eclusive and expensive bar that fills to capacity regularly has different economics.

No explanation required!  You have stated what your experience is and I know from my experiences of many different karaoke venues in different parts of the world that there are more reasons than those you have stated why people attend karaoke.

Let's say the bar has a 50 seat capacity bar.  They have TV/radio (right off should be paying publishing fees), have a dance floor.  They do karaoke 1 night a week (which is an additional .25 to their licensing tab that they should already be paying in the first place...1 quarter more for that karaoke night), no other live music or anything like that.  Their yearly fee would be $309...broken down to a nightly figure is roughly $.84 cents per night that they would need to cover.  Same bar with 100 person cap would be paying approx $540 per year or $1.50 per night to cover their fees.
Say the 100 seater do karaoke 2 nights a week & have live music 4 nights, now their fees go up to approx $970 per year or $2.65 per night.  Yeah I can see where these staggering nightly fees would break a bar, even a smaller one.  :shock:

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

None of the above have nothing to do with the music?  When I go to sing in a bar, I am going for the music.  I enjoy listening to other people ie "strangers".  I buy my seat with a couple drinks or maybe food as well.  I have a group of 15-20 that often comes in with me, some sing, some don't but they are there because of the singers/karaoke as well.  If the bar didn't have karaoke, we wouldn't be there.  We enjoy singing, it's fun, not about ego stroking, we could care less if people like us or not, we don't go to be liked, we go to enjoy something which is karaoke, we enjoy listening to other singers...much to your dismay, it's true.  I do many Frank Sinatra tunes, probably would be 86'd from another place since it's not young, upbeat tunes.

I go to a casino several times a month & in their lounge they have live music, I don't go for the music, it just happens to be there, guess they shouldn't have to pay either.  I go into a bar that has a tv or jukebox playing, I don't go there for that, so they shouldn't have to pay for that either.

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]

I could live with those feews but they are becoming a thing of the past I provided a link in the RIAA thread whwere ASCAP is suing a bar in Tuscon for $210,000 The figure was $1200/yr they wanted (i think in that case) Thats $100/mo or roughly $25/night. Im making $150 and they want $25?  BS...Like I said before  I will shutdown and put my system back in retirement. I did not invest all my time and money  to make ASCAP or starving artists or whoever gravy for their spuds. They can put on a tin beak and peck in the SH&t with the rest of the chickens..

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We may not have much of a case since the karaoke is performance of known songs but ASCAP is overly agressive and they have the law on their side.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.c ... CH5H26.DTL

According to this article they sued a bar and forced it to close for not paying the fees, but the bar only hired music that was origional and not "covers". Sure it boils down to who do you believe, but ASCAP's attidute seems to be they own ALL music and you have to pay for music regardless of the fact if it is one of their artists.

Sure it may be too difficult to sort it all out, and of course paying by the song is impractical as accurate count is not going to be easily obtained.

It only takes a few big lawsuits to win to scare everyone into paying the fees, and of course the laws show the fees are their "right". The problem is that of course there is not much happening on the other side to determine if the fees are "fair and reasonable". Just like a parking ticket, the price of the ticket (fine) can be many many times the actual fee that was not paid.

ASCAP can only really base their fee on how "big" the bar is not on how much they actually make, and how many people are in the bar on an average night. Therefore the fees are not always an equal burden to the economics of all bars.

How are you getting $100 per month to $25 per night?  $1200 per year is reasonable for a bar which breaks down to approx $3.30 per night.  Sounds like at $25 per night, they are trying to get you to pay their entire fee & skirting the responsibility themselves.

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[shadow=deepskyblue]I'm impressed, I've never met such a small mind inside such a big head before.[/shadow]