Karaoke Forums

Anybody have info on playing Karaoke on PC?

Personal use is okay, professional use is illegal.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

1st off timbrelea, if you can't give more than an outdated legal opinion when there are cases supporting legal use professionally of PC karaoke hosting, please don't answer these questions. You and cd based dinosuars are only spouting doom and gloom because you are loosing to the next evolution of karaoke.
Secondly, what programs you use will depend on what your computer specs are.
If you're running a win 98SE, there is only a couple of choices for you - Sacks-onuts and RoxBox. Both are frontends for winamp. you can get sack-onuts at www.freewebs.com/sacksonuts
and roxbox at www.kjamp.com
Personally I use RoxBox but others are going to try and sell you on more expensive programs when these two do the job.
The other programs you need WInXP sp2 and a processor fater than 1.5 ghz just to barely run it. I've run RoxBox on a 366 mhz laptop without any trouble.

If professional use is illegal how can these companies get away with selling the software for PCs? MTU, PowerKaraoke, etc.  MTU even sells desktops and laptops on their website.

There are a lot of products out there that are legally manufactured, yet depending on how they are used, they are illegal.

Unless a manufacturer puts out a product for computer use, then the copying and/or format shifting is illegal for professional use.  THM provide their product for computer, therefore their's are legal, SC on the other hand is quite adamant that their product cannot be copied or format shifted.

Show me cases where a court has said it was legal and not struck down on appeal.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

You are such a sour puss.


Yes, I used to host on the computer. Still have the setup at home for fun use. What do you want to know?

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Money is better than poverty, if only for financial reasons.

Sound choice BC has admitted to getting beaten in the courts where the person wasn't multitasking and had one to one imports. And sound choice is entering the computer age if you ever went to their site.
So even they are coming of age. There actually might even be a loophole in that for people with disabilities.

GOD...not this again

I know of no court case showing it to be legal.

Show me a court case where someone,whot was not multirigging, got busted for format shifting in a professional setting.

In addition to what Danny posted, check out KARAOKEPLAYGROUND.CO.UK for a lot of info on pc based karaoke.

If you have any specific questions just ask.

Wow!! Didn't realize I was sparking such controversy. I run my DJ show off the computer and have access to a huge Karaoke collection, (27,000 songs) all on PC. I'm not really interested in the legalities of it all. If they sell me software to rip, play and put together KJ books, I'm going to make good use of it. Anything's gotta be better than lugging all those discs around. Thanx to all those that answered my quwstion.

I only get in port with net access a few days of the month. The first threads I always see is legalities of this or that. The trolls (I guess they are employed by certain types) attack every thread with their propaganda. If I wanted a forum which sea lawyers could voice their opinion I would google that, I am sitting here drinking cokes with Liily so I could care less about your enemic opinions. Do you go into a auto garage and question the mechanic about the legality of his tools without getting a torque wrench up your anus?
It seems to me if the real Kj,s on this forum started getting rid of the trolls and working to to establish a real effort to determine the options and bombarding your congessman with an effort to establish some sanity to the vague laws and quit coming up with a bar stool attitude and forum type bs eveybody would benefit. Are you a real Kj or a wanna be? Or is your ego more important?

I knew there was something I forgot to do this week  (slapping self on brow)

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Northeast United States runner up for the "Singing Hall of Shame".

I run roxbox which comes with all the tools from ripping to songlists.
I am in the process of eliminating paper songlists from my show as continually updating my list eats into my gas money. The less money I have to spend each week on unneeeded stuff like slips and updates to my books means more I can spend on needed stuff like songs and the gas to get there and back.  When I used discs I tried to get a disc that contained a song my customers asked for every week. Doesn't mean I got a new disc every week as I ran by the rule if I can't find the song my customer is looking for, then i don't buy.

Actually there is nothing vague in the Copyright Act.  Canada just updated theirs and copying and format shifting is still illegal for professional use.  

So would you still go to your mechanic if he was conducting business illegally.  Of course you would if it was cheap.  Because that's all what some people care about, then complain about the $50 undercutters.

We have over 22,000 songs on probably over 1,500 discs and we haul them in and out on a dolly, no lifting and no problem.  Check out the pics in my gallery.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

1500 discs!
Wow!  :O  :O  :O
http://www.karaoke-forum.com/album_pic. ... d=1316.jpg

couldn't carry that many- bad shoulder and all. the less stuff I carry the less stress on my shoulder.  I can use the American's with disability act to justify making the change to the next evolution of Karaoke, PC based.  I am certain that even the old "record based DJ's" were spouting how illegal it should be for disc based systems should be when they took their jobs away due to the advance of technology.
I'll speak in america, Legal authorities are more worried about the person who sets up six or seven PC systems with the same discs and runs another with those original discs or is burning or loading hard drives to sell to the masses. Cases in america for copying have been thrown out of court when a one to one disc ratio has been proven to be fact as those cases aren't worth pursuing since no discs have left the hands of the person who bought them. If anyone asks me to do a show in canada, I'll refer them to Timberlea.  Just goes to show which country has more common sense. one to one copying and or format shifting doesn't hurt anyone.  Giving away or selling those copies does. there is a big difference.  For the record, I haven't bought a cd based karaoke disc in almost a year. Most of my latest song purchases has been through tricerasoft's downloads which is Top Hits Monthly. Reasons are simple, it's already in the format I am running and I can purchase only the songs I need and not worry about duplicating what I already have.

Besides saving money on chriopractor bills, how is it cheaper for me to run a PC based show than it is a disc based show?

That's what I've been wondering as well.  The computer is more expensive than a player.  You still have to buy the music.  Plus how much of your time is spent ripping the CD's to the computer  (if you're charging say $50/hr for a show then you have to factor $50/hr for the ripping, afterall time is money).  If your hard drive crashes then you're screwed afterall you can only make one copy, ie the 1:1 ratio (or do you keep several hard drives around), not to mention any other glitches.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Provided they buy the music, there are several here that I know of that don't - just download from P2P sites.  1 guy had a dealer status & would open the disc, load it into his drive & reseal the disc & sell as new - talk about scum.  Luckily he doesn't have a store anymore that I know of, whether or not he still gets his dealer discounts I don't know.

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

I dont recommend computers for those who have limited knowlege on what to do if problems arise. They do not happen all that much if you have quality components but never the less do happen.

I'm on my third year with computers and have had 1 mouse, 1 keyboard, and 1 software crash. Not bad for running between 3 and 5 shows per week with 2 systems. One of the key reasons for this is I purchased top line computers, maintained them well, and only use them for karaoke. They are never on the internet or filled with programs that do not relate to DJ or Karaoke work. The software I do use is extremely stable.

I have never started a show that I cannot finish as a result of computers. However I did have to close a show early when my Yorkville powered mixer went down. I had no back up due to my second system was in use that evening. It was on a week night and the bar was very understanding and so were the customers.

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FlipSide Karaoke
Scott