Karaoke Forums

I don't advocate piracy. I advocate media shifting without being harassed by the wolf with no teeth. I have shown people how to beat you at your own game, James. How does it feel? You want to file law suits based on technicalities and I've found someone who can play the bull$hit game better than you do. The Beatles Track was made strictly for demonstration purposes; educational purposes even. No one is offering to sell copies of it. The KJ is just letting people know that it is possible to "EDIT" their karaoke tracks in numerous different ways to avoid being confused with being a Sound Choice representative. Isn't that what you want? No Confusion?

My point being that its a waste of my time do do it, for one track or for a thousand. You need to buy the software, re-write and sync the song lyrics, etc. I'd rather spend the $3 over at KV or SBI for a new track.

But there is also enough older product out there that makes any sort of conversion just silly. You can by good quality Zoom products for next to nothing, with parts of the Platinum CD series in the $5-$10 range. Box sets at $20, the Mega 500 pack for $80

Even currents are not immune: The Zoom 2016 box set goes for $19.17 shipped or $0.16/song! No they aren't all winners... but even if you only cherry use 20 songs it's a $1 each. All bought legally, able to be converted legally, and no dealing with PEP in any way.

I also don't mind paying one bit for manufacturers old stock who are making new product. It's keeping their doors open.

I have no problem with PEP suing people who pirated Sound Choice product, but I also see no reason to edit tracks to use them when there is so much alternate product available out in the market, it's just cheaper buy from a different manufacturer, then risk any sort of issues from them or others.

Because whatever disc you might have bought did not include with it the right to put it on YouTube.

By posting that to YouTube, you've become an actual pirate. I would be shocked that the moderators kept the link except, well, anything in service of the anti-SC line, even if it means breaking the express rules of the forum.

(By the way, if you think we're out to hassle people who own discs, then you haven't been paying attention.)

Well Golly counselor! You haven't said a single word about this person creating the track and NOT posting it on YouTube BUT USING IT in his own business.... where performance royalties have been paid. Did you think we wouldn't notice?

How about we just call it "a demonstration of a derivative work" instead? Works for me.

But even if he/she were to convert all of their tracks and use them within his own karaoke business,
1) there's no Trademark of yours being displayed here and nothing's being sold and
2) there's no Service Mark here either so it can't be confused with any of your operation(s).

It looks like a magic lawsuit eraser doesn't it?

To boot, there doesn't seem to be much fear that a publisher will sue anyone over it... you've said that yourself when your own "licensees" infringe on the copyrights of publishers by making a secondary (illegal) copy of the GEM series on their computers... You reassure them that the chances a publisher will sue any individual KJ is practically nonexistent.

So unlikely as a matter of fact, that you've encouraged your "controlled licensees" to commit this copyright infringement but carefully indemnified yourselves in the contracts they signed then ... and even today.
Even I can take your word for it that even though a music publisher "technically can sue" a KJ for making a copy, the chances of that happening really are minuscule for exactly the reasons you've listed. And now that your own trademark stance has been defeated in few federal districts (and tossed out completely in Texas) there's not too much to worry about there.

Perhaps you should get back to making music that you sell exclusively to your tiny pool of licensees....

In the meantime, I might just decide to "sell advertising space and time" in the instrumental bridge of the most popular songs.... A long instrumental bridge could display a "discount code" for gasoline, or "10% off everything" at a local store or even an Uber or Lyft driver. I would sell it priced by popularity of the song and length of time the ad runs (in 30 day increments) before it expired and I sell that spot to someone else... Think of the price I could sell "Don't Stop Believing" and anything Elvis or Sinatra, or Patsy Cline, or Lonestar or even headbangers!

Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy. Have you been on YOUTUBE at all lately? Have you gone there and typed in the word KARAOKE? Here's an example of what will pop up; {link removed}
That's a pretty new song and it's already on youtube.

I guess I should have told my buddy to misspell a few words or just replace some words with other words like the PROs used to do, back in the day, to try and get around some law or other.

My original question was; would anyone confuse the Rainbow Karaoke track for a Sound Choice track? Would you be confused by it, Jim?

There must be thousands of karaoke videos on youtube, with more being added every day. If SONY even owned the rights to HELP!... I think they would just tell the person who posted it to take it down. Maybe they would just get in touch with the nice people at Youtube and ask them to remove it if it was bothering them so much.

According to my friend; it takes less than 10 minutes to "EDIT" a pre-existing karaoke track. The software is great for making song parodies or just correcting incorrect lyrics in any karaoke track. Some people complain about some karaoke tracks being censored for bad language. This software can replace the *%$*# with the original explicit lyrics if need be. It can also replace an explicit lyric with *%$*# if the KJ works in a place that prefers not to have adult language displayed on their screens.

Technology has gotten to the point where you don't need to sing from karaoke discs that have wrong lyrics or terrible swipes or colors that are hard to discern when they change colors. It is possible to edit these bad files to make them more user friendly. It's just a way to build a better mouse trap. If some karaoke company makes a song like R.E.M.s version of "It's The End Of The World As We Know It" and the lyric swipes can't keep up with the pace of the song; this software can "edit" the graphics in a way that makes it much easier for the singer to sing the song. That is not piracy. It is improvement. That is no different than buying a car than runs poorly and giving it a tune-up. If you buy something that is broken; you should be allowed to fix it. The Sound Choice version of that R.E.M. song is nearly impossible to sing unless you have the lyrics completely memorized. A little bit of tweaking and the song can be sung much easier. I've sung the song at my buddy's show many times and the edited version is perfectly synced. Sound Choice should go back and "EDIT" some of their tracks to fix these types of short-comings but we all know that they won't. They're too busy in court trying to scare people into paying a fee to use what they already paid for. I just checked youtube. The HELP video is still up. No request from SONY yet to remove it, I guess.

Forgetting the legal stuff, yes I knew IMMEDIATELY because of the TITLE screen. The colors and font are EXACTLY the same. I believe that's what Jim called 'Trade Dress"


-James

When you uploaded a track to YouTube without permission, you committed an act of piracy. Yes, lots of people do it. That's not an excuse.

It's not commercial, so I think someone could argue fair use pretty easily. Educational purposes and all that


-James

I'm shaking in my boots!

Here is another example of how editing a song improves the ability to use it at a karaoke show. I had my buddy use only a short clip of the song to demonstrate what I'm talking about. Hopefully, it won't be considered piracy because a 40 second clip wouldn't be used at a commercial karaoke show.

The first clip shows the original Pop hits Monthly version of a song and as you can see; the lyrics are swiped so poorly that the singer can get distracted by only the top half of the words being swiped. {link removed}


The second clip shows the same part of the song after it has been edited for the benefit of the singer. {link removed}


I don't believe that the average karaoke singer would be confused by the edited version of the song. I think the singer would benefit from the graphics being swiped clearly. If the KJ has purchased the original PHM disc; he should be able to tweak it in any way he sees fit to make the track more user friendly.

Is anyone confused by the edited track? Jim? SONY?

I guess I'll have to try to explain the situation since the links to the clips have been removed. The song in question is "ABSOLUTELY" from the Pop Hits Monthly Karaoke disc. About 33 seconds in, the graphics are swiped so poorly that only the top half of the word is swiped. It's very distracting for the singer. The second clip had an edited version of the same 40 seconds of the song with much better swipes. I was only trying to demonstrate that there is a very legitimate use for the editing software. The software is nothing but a tool to make karaoke a much more user friendly experience. I've been to karaoke shows where the KJ qwould play a Music Maestro or DK track where the lyrics change from a light yellow to white and it was damn near impossible to detect the changing colors for some people. It sure would be nice if they KJ changed the colors to more contrasting hues, like white changing to red with a black background and a bigger font.

YouTube is a commercial website, supported by advertising that is directly related to the number of views of a particular item. Moreover, it's not "educational." It's a demonstration of a commercial activity that's specifically engineered to avoid the detection of piracy.

I would think if you did so, that Stingray could possibly get involved since they own the actual copyrights to the underlying music nowdays.

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The track has been improved. The KJ owns the original disc. He doesn't have to prove anything to you in advance. He'd counter sue your company and win. IMHO

Then perhaps you should get on the stick and immediately file a suit against YouTube for vicarious infringement ... just like you do with venues... After all, they benefit off the "display" and it's counterfeit right? Trade dress right? Just think of the settlement!
Demonstrating how to pick a lock is there too... should they be arrested for "demonstrating" something that can be used for illegal purposes?

I have really overestimated your ability to understand the real world...

And YouTube has license agreements with many artists and publishers to allow their works to be there.

A quick check of their Music Policies Directory shows their policy for the Beatles song:





Yeah, that's how it works, and that's how the Copyright owners get their share. It's kind of like the HELP license scheme, in that the copyright owners have to ask for their share or they don't get it.

Much like a HELP licensee who can copy their library from any source without question

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KNOW THYSELF

I guess my neighborhood KJ is in the clear as far as youtube is concerned....and his "edited" karaoke files seem to make him safe from any harassing law suits, since there are no "marks" left on his tracks to confuse anyone about their origin. Nice try, Jim. Imagine an entire Gem series being shared on all of the torrent sites with all of the "marks" and trade dress removed. Rainbow karaoke Tracks. Free for everyone and no one could be sued for using them.....unless they put them on YOUTUBE.

You must be wearing Sound Choice colored glasses where everything looks like a Sound Choice track. I don't believe Sound Choice uses a Comic sans font ever!

Nope. just in case it wasn't clear, I was talking about the title screen. The word HELP is in purple and looks exactly like the title screen of the sound choice track.

The other tip off, tho not as obvious, was the music staff.

The music staff is one of the default options in the program, "Power Karaoke" You would have gotten the same screen even if he had used a Nutech Track. and Sound Choice doesn't own any particular colors. Sound Choice also uses ALL CAPS for lyrics. I guess some people will see what they want to see. It must have been good enough to piss off Jim because he had Lonnie remove the links... which proves that a Sound Choice investigator, or anyone but YOU would ever confuse these files with Sound Choice copies. Gemini can constantly plug Karaoke Versions web site and their Hamilton tracks but my links get deleted because they show people how to beat the law suit scams of the man behind the curtain. By the way; the word HELP is in GREEN on the Sound Choice Title screen. Not purple. The font is also not the same. One of us must be color blind. Maybe it's me. Who Knows?

We are getting way off our antipiracy stance on this thread. Some are suggesting ways to pirate material and skirting the need to purchase it by altering the graphic file. Our argument has always been "if we own the cd/music we should be able to use it any way we want without having to pay again or fear legal prosecution".

Freely distributing karaoke tracks is not what the members here at KS are about.