Karaoke Forums

Much has been made of using only licensed material in a show. That many of the manus produced product that wasn't licensed and therefore is illegal. Does that mean that all unlicensed materials should be pulled from a library, even though the host has paid for it? Taking this one step further some songs cannot be reproduced since the licensing has expired. Does this mean that a host should go through his books and remove all tracks where the licensing has expired? All this in order to make sure the host is using currently licensed materials in his or her show. Just wondering from a morale stance, not practical.

I have discs from the unlicensed brands in my possession but they didn't make it onto my hard drive. I try very hard to keep abreast of what is licensed or not. However, I won't pull songs off my hard drive that I have bought already. I personally believe that the songs that lose their license means that they can't be pressed or sold anymore.

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

If I have a disc for it, I use it. If I paid for a download from a reputable online service, I use it. I do not have the time or the resources to research whether or not individual tracks were properly licensed or not. When someone sets up a clearinghouse with reliable, easy to search information, I will start pulling tracks.

-Chris

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-Chris

In a way Chris hasn't the Cloud Service established that clearing house since they remove from their library and tracks they can't get licensing for? Have a blessed day.

That is only what that particular service can't get licensing for. So I will modify.....

When someone sets up a universal clearinghouse that applies to all karaoke manufacturers, with reliable, easy to search information, I will start pulling tracks.

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-Chris

Pretty much the same here. I'm sure that there are many tracks that were produced by ALL manus that were done so without proper licensing or had licensing pulled for future production.

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I echo both of your guys take on this subject.
Many song were licensed at one time or another for X amount of times that it could be produced. Am I going to go through my books and pull out songs that may not be licensed anymore or ever? H*ll no I don't have the time, resources or even a reliable way to know if they are or not. It's easy for people to say oh they never had proper licensing but do any of you really know if they did or did not? I sure don't so if I have disc's I paid for then I will use them.

Put me in the latter group. Disc and download people are the ones that worry about the licensing to sell. Granted, we know of some way below the belt download sellers that went as fast as they came due to not being legit. We all probably have many discs we bought in good faith that the licensing was secured when it probably was not. How are you supposed to know?

From my perspective, I just do not see where there is a cause for concern. The same level of unregulated activity for the users is what has provided the manufacturers with the relative level of success they have had, which is true in virtually every industry. I cannot believe anyone would want a high level of regulation to all of this. If the industry was to become highly regulated, the users would be under an excessive amount of third-party scrutiny, and the manufacturers would be forced to price things out of most users' reach.

Could you imagine if the digital age had taken place during the Reagan era??? Well, a lot of folks I run into in many of the consumer advocacy forums I frequent blame the current mentality on the culture of deregulation that began in the 80's...who knows...

From what I can see, the whole issue stems from the fact that karaoke tracks have been given this "audiovisual work" label. You do not see this issue amongst those using audio only tracks for their business; not saying it doesn't exist, but I have never seen an offering of music tracks that was classified as "home use" or "non-commercial use". I could see a long-term result of all this perhaps culminating in a revisit action of this classification. All other audiovisual-classified items I can think of do not have the interactive proponent that karaoke does, and that is why I am of the opinion that it should have its own classification.

Ultimately, overregulation will result in more cost for those who feel they are doing things the right way, and most likely, on the manufacturing end as well...be careful what you ask for...

You paid for the discs from the unlicensed brands didn't you Danny? Other ones you bought are already on your hard drive, as long as you paid for the product and you have the original disc why shouldn't you put it on the hard drive also? Is it because you feel the unlicensed brand is an inferior product in the first place? See this is what I don't understand, why is it ok to leave some unlicensed material on the hard drive and not put on the other, if the reason to put it on involves paying for the product and having an original copy to be 1:1. Then you should be able to put it on, right? Either it is all good or it's not. Have a blessed day.

With the possible exceptions of SyberSound and Pocket Songs ( I simply never heard of any suits against these companies- but that doesn't mean they might not exist), I agree. Unless I want to use only these two brands in my library, or do a license check on every track in my library ( and no judge would call it my responsibility to do so), I'm with Chris.

If the publishers/owners ever decide to go after karaoke hosts- who help keep their songs popular- THEN I might worry about it, a very tiny bit.

The fact is, if you own the discs, then the producer got paid for the product. It is the producer's responsibility to pay the licensing fee, not the the KJ's.

Now, that doesn't mean they may not have a case for a Cease & Desist, but I believe that owning the discs limits the liability. Whether or not the disc-owning but media shifted host faces more liability than an ODB host is still an open question, at least until the media shifting question has an answer graven in stone.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

I would be willing to bet if a kj is using an unlicensed track from whoever and the club were paying their PRO fees regularly, either nothing would happen or they would say - hey you need to stop using these particular tracks.

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Since nobody except the Cloud Service seems to be concerned about the status of licensed tracks v.s. unlicensed tracks I guess I shouldn't lose any sleep over it either.

Wow, talk about a blanket statement with no evidence to back it up.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

From what I've seen posted so far on this thread timerlea, hosts are not any time soon going to be purging their libraries of unlicensed material, until at least there is some acceptable source to tell them it is in fact unlicensed. It would seem that SC wants to hold the KJ to a higher standard than they are employing.

AND for a fact that it is illegal to use said tracks in a karaoke show...

Wow, talk about a blanket statement with no evidence to back it up.[/quote]

Like I said none of the hosts posting on here are in process of removing an material from their library, the have legally purchased anytime soon.