Karaoke Forums

Simply put - You are not a pirate.

The definition of "piracy" as it pertain to IP is "the use of works protected by copyright law without permission, infringing certain exclusive rights granted to the copyright holder, such as the right to reproduce, distribute, display or perform the protected work, or to make derivative works."

You aren't doing any of those things.

The copyright holders are placing restrictions on the manufacturers that limit what geographies they can or cannot sell to. They do not place restrictions on what geographies it can be played in.

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-Chris

I even think that is open to interpretation. Clicking the "Karaoke Disks" Link on the Zoom website brings you up to an Amazon search. I don't know if it is direct sales or not, but they do ship to the US.

My situation is a good study in many aspects of karaoke piracy:

A few years ago, people were always telling me at my show, "XXX at ZZZ bar has that song, why don't you." I explained that XXX did not buy his music, he stole it, and being that I bought mine, I could not always compete. The next obvious questions was, "If he's doing all of this illegally, why hasn't he been caught?" To which I explain that it really isn't particularly policed, and I didn't think it affected my business very much.

Finally, however, I started getting sick of hearing this over and over, so I did report XXX to Soundchoice, twice. They never came. I also reported several hard drive sellers in my area to both soundchoise and the old KIAA or whatever it was called. No follow up.

So, this guy had 300,000 songs, always the latest stuff. I have a little under 14,000 unduplicated. I spend about $200 a year on new music, so I don't have everything, but I try to be a good curator of new music and pick those with a bit of staying power. I never have the latest songs right when they come out.

XXX down the street has GREAT equipment. Debatably a bit better than mine, but it's close.

ZZZ bar has cheaper drinks than my bar, across the board. They have 2 pool tables, mine has 3. They have 1 dart board, mine has 4. Their bar is a live country/southern rock theme, mine is a sportsbar. Neither are particularly nice, but are decent, fun local neighborhood bars. They are similar in size, with both seating about 150-180 people, about 6,000 SF.

I am an INFINITELY better host than this guy. He is a button pusher. He has a base setting for all EQ and gain that never move. He only rarely adjusts mic volume, and that's about the extent of his mixing. He runs the reverb on about 90% wet. When I personally sing there, I ask him to turn off the reverb for my songs. He always says OK, does the fake touching stuff move, and doesn't do anything. The reverb sounds AWFUL. The first few years he was there, he didn't play any filler music at all. One singer finishes, there is dead air until the next singer, whether that be 30 seconds or 5 minutes. About 6 months ago, he put a CD on repeat and brings that in between singers. It is not uncommon for the same song from the last fill to still be playing as the next fill as a result.

This guy puts about 20-30 people in the seats on average at any given show. Of those, most will be karaoke singers. Non-karaoke singers that aren't there with one of the singers typically don't stay long. They hate it. The singers are all mostly regulars. It's not uncommon for him to routinely have a 20 person rotation. His busiest nights (they do Thursday, Sunday, Monday karaoke), might have 60-70 people in the bar. His slowest might have literally 10.

I put about 100 people in the seats on average at any given show. Of those, most WILL NOT be karaoke singers. Hardcore karaoke singers that want a show that focuses on purely karaoke typically don't stay long. They hate my show. I have tons of regulars, both singers and non-singers, but my shows are typically about 50/50 regular singers and new singers. I typically run at about a 15 person rotation (I do Wednesday and Saturday). My business nights have 200+, my slowest nights are about 50-60.

So has piracy made a difference to me? I don't think so. I worry about myself and my show, and there really isn't competition for the particular kind of show I offer. Those same people from the start of the story that tell me how great XXX at ZZZ bar is with his 300,000 songs, they usually stay and sing anyway, and many of them keep coming back. My show does not cater to the typical karaoke snob who cares about how many songs I have and if they can sing Adele "Hello" or not. I think if you cater to those types of singers, piracy affects you alot more, because you are more directly competing with those pirates on the size of your book and having the latest songs. I don't really care about either, and neither are vital to the success to my show, as I offer so much more than that.

My show really caters to people who want to have fun with karaoke and those who would never even consider singing karaoke at most traditional shows. On any given night, 3/4 of my audience are not karaoke people, and I keep them entertained too. I run HD video filler dance music that's carefully curated. I do live mixes and mashups. Oh, and I do karaoke, and the singers love the energy.

So, the pirate down the street doesn't even compete with me. I worry about my product, he can worry about his.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Considering what I've spent in the last Two months............ And the absurd amount of SGB and DK stuff spread out over different brands when I was trying to find decent alternates.... The manufacturer is not my problem. I buy a product from a known vendor and expect said product to be legit. I am the end user, it is the manufacturers responsibility to handle legalities BEFORE he/she/it sells the product.
If that were not the case then you would be responsible for recalls and defects in your new car...NOT the manufacturer.
You would be responsible for all the testing and certifications required for said vehicle to operate on the road and you would be responsible for any accidents or defect failures....The manufacturer would not be liable for anything and could legally sell you a non road worthy vehicle. If we have to deal with copyright and publishing issues directly as the end user, then there is a really big problem here.

So does my purchase require me to make some phone calls first?............
Hi I'm interested in buying xxx by xxx on a karaoke disk from brand xxx.
Does the brand have a license to duplicate the music?
Does the brand have a license to print the lyrics?
Does the brand have a license to sync the lyrics to the music?
Can I have the artist's phone number to see if he/she has any objections to using their song today at a karaoke show?
Oh, Yes, I understand.. I wont play the song on Sundays as it violates the artist's religious beliefs. O.K.
Does the artist approve of the color for the lyrics?
Has the band been paid?
Has the distributor been paid?
Has the artist paid their ascap, bmi fees?
Has the studio and your secretary been paid?
Has the person who typed the CDG file been paid?
Is there a copyright on the album art?
Has the print artist been paid?
Has the stock footage house that supplied the artwork elements been paid?
Is the artist's name trademarked? (Requiring written permission to display it at all)
Here is my lawyers number for the licensing documents.
How much do I need to pay your lawyer to use this one song?
Now shall we move on to the second track on the cd I intend to purchase?
Repeat 8-16 times for cdg, 1120 times for scdg.
This is absolutely stupid.

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Purple Frog Karaoke Cuz we all feel odd and love to "croak"

Just do what I do. Buy what you are going to buy, and do not worry about it. Not our problem. The day the publishers come after us is the day Karaoke dies, and we won't have an industry anymore.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Piracy is like 'the war on drugs'. If the authorities don't actively and passionately fo after and cut off the source, their actions would indicate they're not really that concerned about it, or there's not much they can do about it. Going after the user is all but a waste of time. You'll never, ever stamp out the end user. Go after the source: torrents, known distributors etc. I know the biggest issues is most of the illegal torrents are not based in the US. That makes it difficult to enforce, but that doesn't mean you give up on it. If the authorities really (REALLY) want to stop it, they will. But I don't think it's that important to them. Their seeming lack of action would indicate that.

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DJ Don

Yes! The jails aren't overcrowded enough as it is. Let's fill them up with all of the illegal Karaoke hosts. They are a real danger to society.

Thanks for missing the point.

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DJ Don

Seems this poll somewhat mirrors the 90% Pirate / 10% legit claim we have heard many times.

24 poll responses vs the 16,000+ users on this site.
120 Unique active users in the last 24 hours alone.

Piracy doesn't seem to matter to anyone but a small number of KJ's.

or.....

Answering polls doesn't seem to matter.

Decide for yourself....

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-Chris

The 24 responses vs 120 active users last 24 hrs is most telling. How many active users since the poll started would be even more telling. Most people simply don't care about the poll, or they don't care about piracy either way, either *because* they're pirates or *because* they're not.

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DJ Don

I deleted 96 spammers in the last 24 hours, so it's a push..

I have seen a number of polls here over the past 5 years. Made a few myself. In every case the number of respondents is disappointing.

There are only a small number of vocal KJs and singers who post here in spite of the traffic the site receives.

The sites that cater to pirates have more active forums than any of the legitimate sites.

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-Chris

If your definition of "authorities" are the feds -- they have better things to do than bother with this business at all but, if your definition of "authorities" is PEP then it's a whole different ballgame:

The issue is not only "not that important to them," they need piracy to insure their own existence. They use technicalities now to sue KJ's and venues. No piracy means no money. It's the lifeblood of their business. They characterize "technical infringers" who have purchased their music as "counterfeiters" in their complaints and venues (who really don't know any better) as "vicarious infringers!" They need to villanize even the honest KJ's to extract payments to keep operating. And with every contract, they are slowly converting each "licensee" to a "franchisee." Their latest ploy is to scare the honest KJ's into paying them just to know who they are and extract yet another legally-binding agreement.

So, the "authorities" in this business aren't interested in curbing piracy at all, they need it to survive --- they have no other product and haven't for years.

The way I look at is: if honest KJ's hadn't legally purchased the music, then pirates wouldn't have anything to steal. We're actually the problem.... so my solution is to stop buying then the pirates would have to purchase if they wanted new music.

I'm referring more to the RIAA as the authority, which are supposed to enforce copyright infringement. We all know the parties who are concerned with trademark infringement. If they were REALLY concerned about copyright infringement, they'd work harder to stop it.

https://www.riaa.com/resources-learning/copyright-notices/

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DJ Don

To be fair, the RIAA has zero to do with karaoke-related infringement. They represent the record labels; their suits during the 2000s over file-sharing involved their affiliated artists' and labels' original recordings.

The people who would have to get involved with enforcement of copyrights related to karaoke would be the music publishers.

Despite Mr. Staley's assertion to the contrary, we would ecstatic if piracy ended tomorrow. We would much prefer to make money selling music, and if there were no piracy, we wouldn't have to compete against "free" for customers. That would make investment in new production a much more reasonable proposition.

The people who bought the music are the ones that made it available to the pirates to have access in the first place. What makes someone purchase something and then offer it to everybody else for free? I'll admit that is confusing to me. Why would you spend your money and then give it away to others, and in the case of a KJ, enable anybody with a computer to then be able to go into business competing with you?

Because those idiots don't see it as a business.

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DJ Don

The federal government is too busy trying to screw the President, and get some loud mouthed moron elected, to worry about Piracy.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

If it ended tomorrow, you'd be out of business. You don't have a product (except what you're recycled out of someone else's dumpster) and you've been holding out a tin cup to finance new production.

If you were truly interested in "recovering what was stolen" then you wouldn't have;
(1) dropped and walked away from the suit against APS.... that was over $100,000.00 you were claiming he kept from you...
(2) I never even saw a suit against Boris for another $100,000 you were crying she owed you,

But you had enough money to;
(3) the $18,000.00 you paid the bar in California for not doing what you promised,
(4) but you managed to be able to scrape up $350,000 to pay CAVS in a settlement and
(5) God knows how much you ended up paying EMI....

(notice I skipped the judgment(s) against you from Oregon?)

But now, you hold out a tin cup and you need the KJ's and their money to help you "get the band back together" while you characterize the same KJ's as "90% pirates" or "counterfeiters" to the courts?

Really?

Helluva sales plan you've got going on....