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The laws you refer to are with respect to format shifting by the person who purchased the product NOT the person selling the product. A MP3 purchased from someone who has the RIGHT to sell it (either the company that made it or their approved re-seller) in any format they choose. A company once they get approval from the artist to sell a song they can sell their copy in any format they want MP3+G, CDG, Laser Disc, DVD etc. Now the company can CHOOSE not to sell it as a MP3+G but that is a business decison that is based on a fear of people re-distributing the product for free, not a legal issue by the company.

Of course Chartbuster can't say that their MP3+g downloads are completely legal for commercial use. But to be truethfull they would say the same thing about their CDGs. Because of the complexities of copyrights and difficulty of getting all of the correct paperwork done, they can't say with 100% confidence all of their products are "Legal". I cite as an example the SC8125 disk.

The paranoia by SC about selling a download is silly because the cat is out of the bag and ALL of the SC songs can already downloaded from many sources on the internet. All they are punishing is the people who want a specific song and are not willing to buy a complete CD with 14 other songs they own or do not want. PLUS many of the songs people want may be on out of print disks that can be very hard to find.

I am speaking specific to SC and CB, US manus

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[quote=]All they are punishing is the people who want a specific song and are not willing to buy a complete CD with 14 other songs they own or do not want. PLUS many of the songs people want may be on out of print disks that can be very hard to find.[/quote]

this part has bugged me for a while. when i de-duped my system, i was upset to find 4-5 or even more copies of the same song by the same manu, and most of them were SC or CB. does one song really need to be put on 6 different disks by the same manu if you are trying to cater to the pro market?

now, if i own the disk, i have a lisence to use that song on one system. if i own 4 copies of that song on 4 different disks, thereby 4 lisences to use that song, can i use it on 4 systems? not being a douche, it is a legitimate question i have.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Yeah... 1 disc with System A, 1 disc with System B, 1 disc with Ssystem C, and 1 disc with System D. Don't forget, there are other songs on those 4 different discs that you are using in your example. The rule about 1:1 ratio applies here.... 1 disc to 1 downloaded on your system (or for a disc operated KJ, 1 disc to 1 setup/system).

i guess i did not phrase it quite as i heard it in my head. does one disk of 15 songs give me 15 licenses, one for each song on that disk? eg. i love this bar. on disk 2444 & 8976
i own both. can i have the disks in the library of system one and put 1 copy of the song on system one and a copy on system two? they would each have a license from a legal disk and only one license would be in use on either system. basically, i legally purchased two copies of this song, you see where i'm going? instead of looking at them as buying a disk, can we look at it like we are buying 15 individual songs each with their own license?

that made my head hurt, i need a beer

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

this part has bugged me for a while. when i de-duped my system, i was upset to find 4-5 or even more copies of the same song by the same manu, and most of them were SC or CB. does one song really need to be put on 6 different disks by the same manu if you are trying to cater to the pro market?[/quote]
Think about it from a business aspect. Most of their dups are the original Spotlight (let's say) that contains 15 different songs. Then they create a full artist disc that may contain some of the same songs - if you are shrewd buyer you will know this is not a disc you will need. Then they might put out a 'best of' the year disc - which if you bought all the Spots you would most likely bypass this disc. As a host you do not have to purchase everything that comes available. The target was originally for the KJ however MANY singer have migrated to buying their own discs and some of the others like the Artist & best of discs are better for them - but then I know hosts that wait for the years ends to purchase discs as well. I do not believe i've seen a manu to date that did not duplicate songs within a series - some even worse that SC. It's marketing, whether you buy it or not is all on your own decision.

Legitimate question, but no you are wrong - unless you divide those discs into separate systems, you need to have an individual set of original music PER system even if they might be on 4 separate discs you own - 1 disc = 1 system regardless of the dups they may contain. Doing anything other is considered multirigging - 1 disc for 4 shows. Even if it is only 1 song.

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sure if you split those discs up you can use them on 2 systems as long as the 2444 disc stays with one & 8976 stays with the other & they do not intermix with the other system. Meaning you can use 2444 in one system only while the 8976 can only be used in the other. But just because you own both discs doesn't mean you can use both discs in both shows - AT the same time.

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I don't know why you say that. There is nothing about "per disc" anywhere that I can see in any license. It may be the way you interpret it, to be sure, but unless I can see that written down somewhere in black and white I have no reason to believe it.

I could easily see a "song repository" type of setup, whereby you have a collection of music that has been ripped from disks. You would then check out a set of songs to a piece of media, with each song only allowed to be checked out once.

I have pretty much exactly that setup, via a program I wrote. I have lots of dupes, and I feel fully justified in building two working sets that use each song only once. As long as I can document the process whereby this is done, and show that each song is only used once, there should be no reason it isn't as legit as any other format-shifting setup.

Now as it turns out, I don't use this in practice any more, as I gave up doing shows for hire. But if I were ever to start again, I would put it back into use.

Maybe some day we'll have the type of clarity about law that will allow someone to authoritatively state "this is the way it is". But that situation doesn't exist right now. Any arrangement you have that obviously keeps with the spirit of a one-song, one use practice should be good enough to forestall a lawsuit. Which is all that you can really hope to achieve.

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Think about it from a business aspect. Most of their dups are the original Spotlight (let's say) that contains 15 different songs. Then they create a full artist disc that may contain some of the same songs - if you are shrewd buyer you will know this is not a disc you will need. Then they might put out a 'best of' the year disc - which if you bought all the Spots you would most likely bypass this disc. As a host you do not have to purchase everything that comes available. The target was originally for the KJ however MANY singer have migrated to buying their own discs and some of the others like the Artist & best of discs are better for them - but then I know hosts that wait for the years ends to purchase discs as well. I do not believe i've seen a manu to date that did not duplicate songs within a series - some even worse that SC. It's marketing, whether you buy it or not is all on your own decision.

i understand that, and you're right about marketing. i bought the spots lets say, then they put out the artist series disk.but that disk has the songs i got on the spotlight series......and that ONE extra song that EVERYONE just HAS to sing that is on no other disk. so buy it and all the dupes, or go without. i know i can look to another manu for it, but just gets my panties in a bunch when i gotta have that one song. wait.......werent panties supposed to go in a different thread?

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

I've done the same. Because I have numerous discs with the same songs (from the same manu - due to buying groups of discs from ebay/craigslist/kjs going out of business, etc), I feel I can divide those songs if I wish. I've yet to do it, but if I have the same song, from the same manu, on two different discs, I could have two separate libraries in MP3+G form. I see nothing wrong with that.

That is a major reason for some of my hostility to SC. They are exploiting the honest KJs that want to have those songs and are forceing them to buy many duplicates. Also they created the myth that ALL downloads are illegal for commercial karaoke. Yes many are but not all. This is just to force KJs to buy whole disks for a single song.

YEAH other manus wouldn't ever DREAM of putting the same song out more than once - even within a series! How dare they try to market there songs on different product to try to appeal to several.
How are they forcing anyone into buying anything? I have never had my arm twisted while making a decision to purchase a disc or not! a little dramatic don't cha think?

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If they ever get their customs back it will solve alot of that problem.

I had a guy want Hootie and the Blowfish so I bought the CB disc. Later he asked about one more song by them. The only place to find it was on a Pocket Songs Hootie disc that had everything I already had plus that one song. Had to tell him sorry. I had already bought an entire Pocket Songs disc just to get the "Pooh" song for him. A few months later Pocket Songs turned up on Selectatrack and I could buy just that one song for him. I don't care if it costs more per song as long as we aren't carrying around extra discs with unwanted songs on them.

There are alot of songs I am waiting to buy until SC brings back their customs. I either tried another brand and it didn't work (duet parts not different colors, etc) or I don't need to buy a whole disc just for one song. Once their customs are back people won't be able to accuse them of trying to force extra songs on them.

Yes I hate when labels put "the Best of" (insert artist name here) albums and I have all the other songs on it but the one I really really want. It's a conspiracy I tell ya, a conspiracy.

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i know it aint really big a deal, and with over 9000 unique titles now, custom disks seem to be the most effective way to get just what my singers are requesting. i just had noticed that i had way more SC & CB dupes than any other manu.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

Pocket Songs is one that does that quite a bit as well. Zoom and Sunfly has many dupes within, again, it's just marketing.

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Duplicates are not much of an issue if a company has a reasonably priced outlet to either make custom disks or reasonably priced downloads.

As far as I can tell SC is the only large active karaoke manu which is not allowing either.

Yes Sunfly, Zoom, CB have a lot of duplicates from disk to disk, but with reasonably priced downloads/customs the songs needed can be selected and bought one at a time.

Actually the sunfly site requires three songs for download purchased.

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Think you mean three attempts to download the track.
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