Karaoke Forums

Something is illegal if there is a clear law that states it is illegal or there is historical record of the courts interpreting other less than clear laws that it is illegal. Addmittedly many of the cases and laws specifically apply to instances of "non-commercial use" but that is not the same as saying that they do NOT apply to commercial use as well. So until a specific law is written or court case decided it is not ILLEGAL to format shift 1:1 for commercial use.

Despite much arguement on this subject, NO-one has ever cited a case where format shifting of karaoke was found to be illegal, commercial or private.

Being legal or illegal is not the same as being safe from lawsuits. A manu or artist can still sue someone that format shifts and that lawsuit can decide the legality of the matter (until clarified by a higher court or passage of a law). Even if something appears to be legal, a lawyer can bring a lawsuit based on technicalities and conflicts between varous laws and interpretations.

Being unsettled, any manu can claim a right to sue, and would almost certainly get a day in court. But they are likely to lose, so they do not persue the cases. On the other hand most KJs are unlikely to find it worthwhile to pay the cost of a good enough lawyer needed to argue the case, especially if the manu is eager to settle for a few thousand dollars. Having the option of sueing is not the same as being able to win a lawsuit.

When it comes to lawsuits, even the most weakly supported claims can get a day in court, but are then almost immediately thrown out if evidence or past decisions by courts do not support the claim.

As for downloads, It is apparent that Chartbuster has downloads from their own site, so that is presumably allowed by the company. Priddis has announced on their site that they are listing their songs on tricerasoft. Several major UK manus including Sunfly, SBI and ZOOM are being sold on several apparently approved download sites. Only SC has made the distinction commercial/non commercial use on the download site that they have presumably licensed.

While I agree there appears to be a lot of great legal minds here on this site, would not simply going through the audit or settling if you don't have the disc be a much easier and cheaper method of handling all of this?

Of course that would depend on having the disc to begin with or not running a huge number of illegal systems! I can see where a KJ who was running 10 or 12 illegal systems might not want to take a settlement agreement and would opt to maybe take his chances in court, but for a KJ who alreadys owns the disc and it is just a matter of going through the audit to get permission from the Karaoke makers to have a legitimate 1:1 computer system it simply doesn't make sense. Perhaps if someone could explain the downside to this a little better I would have a better understanding!

Me thinks we are making this way too complicated! If you are digital, and you shifted all your original manu cdgs to digital and those are the only digital karaoke songs you have and play, you are ok. If you bought the hard drive but also bought the original manu cdgs to go with it, you better go thru every digital song to ensure you are safe. Trust but verify.

If you have all digital songs and no original cdgs,,, you will probably get caught, sooner or later.

Personally, I'm tired of a local pirate lowering his price to the bars making it hard for us complying hosts to work for a decent wage that allows us to continue to buy music and have at least a decent set up. This guy has well over 100,000 songs (according to him in person or online) and has probably the crappiest set up in town. I just paid nearly $44 for 27 songs on PHM January update. Pirate has someone that gives him monthly updates, probably pays about $10 or less. Not sure on the cost but he did tell me over two years ago that this is how he keeps his library updated.

So here I sit without a weekly regular bar gig as he and his company (multi rigger) has lowered the bar for price and the locals expect this now. I refuse to work for $75 to $100 for a 4 hour gig. I worked too hard to put my top notch system together and try to get a decent size library to stoop that low. So I will continue to do private parties, the occasional bar gig and DJ until my move to Canada where my market will be 3 million people instead of 42,000. He can continue to make it crappyoke for my city, I won't be around much longer.

In the meantime he continues to advertise "Over 100,000 Songs" on localsearch.com for his tzeer business. I know he's been turned out so sooner or later, he will take a hit.

I love this business too much to leave it or hurt it. I make a good living as an engineer and will continue to buy cdgs and gain experience for my move to Toronto.

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

Better reread the media shift and format shift as detailed in the Sound Choice and Chartbuster agreements. 1:1 does not allow for even backup copies of your hard drive muchless a backup laptop incase yours goes down.

These media shifts and format shifts are already a grey-area in the intellectual property laws! They have not been tested even by the song publishers such as Sony. The publishers know that should they go to court and loose, the server use concept will be pounced on and their incomes greatly reduced. Personally I don't care since I just write software and either way works for me. But if you sign a use agreement with a company you are locked into that agreement and no grey-area exists.

Developing software has many of the same copyright problems that Sound Choice and Chartbuster has but to threaten buyers and pirates alike with misuse due to media and format shifting is over the top. Everybody knows the clubs no longer have any room for the massive cd cases required to carry a well stocked karaoke show. The use of cds slows the show and puts heavy strain on the KJ. Forcing a purchase of a new media type has no intellectual property since many sources are capable of producing the end product with the same result. Even though the licensing may be for a specific cd it does not give the licensing entiity the right to enforce copyright on the song pulishers behalf. A yearly low cost use license and purchase of atleast 1 of the OEMs sold media types is more than fair!

If I had to get permission to do this and get locked into their over the top requirements I would just stop using Sound Choice and Chartbuster and use the many other OEMs media. I personally know several people using their cds legally and a few dealers selling them legally. If they get the rug pulled out from under them by these OEMs and are forced to pay twice for the media because of type. Not to mention have to setup to sell more than 1 media type because their customers become liable for media shift I think both will stop using these OEMs.

These OEMs did not pay for the media shift so why should you? Media and format shifts are not intellectual property and that is what the licensing was from the start!!!

My two cents using my limited knowledge of the law. There are two types of law in the US, criminal and civil. Criminal laws pertain to use law to maintain civil order. It's things like murder and robbery. The laws in this are are very clear on what the infractions are. There are degrees of law that applies as well, for example murder there are several degrees of murder and manslaughter.

For civil law, it's about monetary damage that is caused by the action of the accuser. I believe all the issues involved with with Karaoke is in the civil arena. The laws in civil laws are not alway very clear on the infraction and it's often changing. Usually it's about he said/she said type with documents to prove one's right. One example, faxed documents. When the fax machines came out, the faxed documents were not originally considered to be a legal document, even though it was an exact copy of the original. So, until the law was changed to specifically include fax as a legal document, you could even be charged with fraud by using faxed document to bind a contract (extreme interpretation of the law but could have).

Now, for Karaoke, it's similar. There isn't a clear law regarding digital shifting. It's easy to enforce copyright law to the bulk song sellers on HD without a license. You can even charge criminal law to prosecute them for theft, but most likely it will be civil law. During the 1980s when the CDs were just starting to take off, music industry tried to use civil law to prevent people from copying digital music to another CD. At the time, the civil did not include the new digital format so they lost the case and the industry of providing music copying took off. Just take a look at iTunes from Apple. That is the reason why the Digital Millennium Copyright Act was introduced to protect the rights. However, the cat was out the bag and the music industry was not able to enforce much of the law, it was considered fair use in spirit of the law. However, the new digital video industry took full advantage and able to go after the Torrent users since they did not release digital format of video until much later, ie DVD.

In my opinion, the civil laws are usually applied in spirit of the law, not strict interpretation of the law. What that means is that although when you buy the karaoke music it says for private use, because of prevalent use of the digital shifting and no new law specifically preventing digital shifting, it's OK to use as long as you can provide proof that you own the original purchased music. It may be that the BMI, etc. will eventually lobby to pass the law to specifically prevent digital shifting. However, precedence was set with CDs and music in the past. I believe that as long as you are able to take your CD and rip it in to your iTunes legally, karaoke industry will follow the same.

How about professional use? Many DJs use iTunes for their gigs and I have not heard of anyone saying that it's illegal to shift music from their owned and paid for discs to do it. I believe karaoke is no different. From my limited knowledge, that's why SC and CB are going after the copyright civil area, ie their own branding, rather than going after illegal format shifting.

I am not a lawyer and don't claim to be an expert, so this is my opinion but I think it's fairly valid.

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Seize the day and SING!!!

All copyright law is civil! Sound Choice are not just enforcing copyright of intellectual properties, they are saying that if accused you prove it to them or else.

http://www.apsandassociates.com/soundchoice/

Better read that because there a strict limitations on use!

I don't know where you dug that up but SC changed the rules.
That document looks like stuff from the very first lawsuits filed in AZ and is out of date with what SC is doing now.
I know your a Newbie but you need to read as much of the archives you can to see what has been going on lately as the stuff you posted is OLD NEWS.

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I like everyone when I first meet them. If you don't like me that's not my problem it's YOURS!
A stranger is a friend you haven't met yet

I believe that since they are the owners of the logo, they have the right to enforce the correct use of their intellectual property. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED means just that. If they haven't spelled it out then you aren't allowed to do what you want that exceeds what is spelled out unless they modify in writing what you can do. I have papers saying I can use a hard drive filled with discs I bought from them and from other sources because I complied with their requirement of an audit. Will I get audited in the future, possibly, but I won't get sued if I maintain the 1:1 ratio of music and discs.

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

Where did I find it, Humm on Sound Choice front page http://www.soundchoicestore.com/

under Report Piracy Here!

Have you been contacted by
APS & Associates?

Don't know Lone Wolf it looks current to me! lol

Ya am a newbie since 2007 but you are correct someone needs to read more! You almost sound like you work for them.

Workmen, wrong, wrong, wrong. Before giving your opinion on law, try a basic research. The remedies for copyright violations can be civil and/or criminal. You cannot go to jail for a civil law violation. The Copyright Acts of both the US and Canada have sections where incarceraation (prison) is a penalty.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Well I am still trying to figure out what the problem is with the APS statement this is exactly what Sound Choice was trying to do but the pirates for the most part were simply ignoring the letters, the truly 1:1 KJs were getting their audits done, but sadly there are so few trure 1:1 KJs out here, with 9 out of 10 being pirates at one level or another.

The way I see it now is if there is a KJ who is computerized then they have all been on the internet and already know what is going on, those that use disc may or may not be and it doesn't really make any difference with them anyway. So with this the solution that I would like to see is for Sound Choice or any other manufacturer to issue a statement on every site that is available to them such as this.

If you are a KJ using our products in any fashion you have 3 months to request an audit from us. After the expiration of that time any who have not requested an audit who are investigated and found to be running copies of our product be it 1:1 or fully pirated will be filed against in federal court. Only those 1:1 KJs that can show purchase dates for the disc in thier posession from before the three month notice will be exempted ALL OTHERS WILL PROCEED THROUGH THE JUDICIAL PROCESS!

To me this would be the perfect solution and the only ones who shouldn't be happy with it are those running pirated music.

They have been prosecuting priates in the US and CA for SAT piracy in civil courts and both have put people in jail. That used to be true but so did many other things. I stand corrected but just barely as time and law is changing.

"Copyright law is mostly civil law where the special rights of criminal defendants you hear so much about don't apply. Watch out, however, as new laws are moving copyright violation into the criminal realm."

http://www.templetons.com/brad/copymyths.html

It was a perfect solution except they:

1. Placed a time limit on audit of 3 months.

a. There are many KJs out there that have SC CDs that were not told this when they purchased the CDs before 3 mo period. Then they exempted the KJs that could when really they have the burden of proof not the KJ. SC needs to prove the KJ did not purchase it before and since there are many places the cds can be bought from this seems unlikely. Now if they put out a new series and offered it for controlled sale then it could be proved.

b. Then they threaten, "After the expiration of that time any who have not requested an audit who are investigated and found to be running copies of our product be it 1:1 or fully pirated will be filed against in federal court."

Only way to prove they are not 1:1 compliant is an audit. Since without a warrant served by federal marshals is the only way they can force you to submit to an audit this requirement is kind of foolish and very bad business. Don't count on other karaoke OEMs doing this. Really this is the expensive way to do this! Only ones making $ on this will be the lawyers but bet they didn't say that.

Now a volutary audit to certify that you have original cds for all songs on your PC is reasonable. Giving out these certs to show owners with possibility to be revoked for abuse is necessary. But I somehow don't think these 2 OEMs want to go that route. That 1:1 stipulation was not put there for no reason. Also notice that only KJs were mentioned not singers who bring their own cds. Singing to music intended for "private use only" in public bars and such just sounds actionable. lol, sounds like a grey-area. I think most legal KJs would help the OEMs if they keep things reasonable and in return expect KJs to turn-in pirates. But then turning them in is only good if they are going to take action against them.

It looks to me like these 2 OEMs intend to eliminate as many grey-areas as they can which means there will not be a effort as expressed above. But if sales are down and you recently aquired a karaoke OEM then why not get what you can! Did I say that outloud? My bad, was just a thought no truth to it! lol

See once I worked for a corp. that was worth $53 million and was bought out by a $12 million corp. Humm, I wonder if they can pay for it? Sure take all the employees company contributed 401k $ and issue them private stock then sell off divisions to pay for the next 3 installments. I'm kinda leary about new owners!

JMHO