Karaoke Forums

They're also doing it to pay off settlements from the Sync lawsuits.

Not sure where you are getting that from because it has been some time since any were sued for and settled with that!

Sure, losing sales to piracy is a pain, but it doesn't hurt as much as paying off settlements. That alone killed more karaoke companies than the piracy. It certainly cause Priddis to get out. DK and Pioneer said "Sayonara" to the US market, and let's not forget music Maestro and others that had to shutter their doors to avoid losing it all. Which US company had to throw their remaining inventory into a brush shredder as a result of Sync?

If you look at the number of MM DK etc etc. still on the market then the sherdder idea sort of falls by the way side. Having an understanding of what actually and when it actually happened that cause some of the legitimate karaoke manus to get sued and settle with the publishers or artist also helps some.

I've been thinking about this one a lot lately... More or less poking my own holes into the karaoke companies sudden motivation to perform lawsuits... Sure, they lost sales, but that's not the whole story.

It wasn't a sudden moivation to start filing lawsuits this was warned of and every KJ was put on notice 8 years ago that it was going to happen if piracy keep going at the pace it was going. Yes they lost sales by the millions how long were they supposed to continue letting that before doing something to bring it to a halt. And yes that is the whole story too many people are trying way too hard to make it into something insidious and it simply isn't.

You never hear them say that though.. It's always the fault of the pirates, they had no wrongdoing in this mess they've created.

I agree they are to some extent responsible for the mess they are in they should have hunted down the first KJ that shifted their disc for computer use without permission and sued them for the maximum amount that they could get without any offer for settlement. And then hit every new computer karaoke host that came afterwards. But without the pirates there would never have been a problem to begin with.

They threw out the debate of "Public vs Commercial" Back in the late 90's. When karaoke manu's saw people running karaoke shows, they were obligated to tell that isn't allowed. It didn't happen. Sales were super duper. They could have thrown a paragraph or two why that is the case in every CD insert but they didn't. Like water building up behind a dam, the karaoke market grew. I just got into karaoke at that time in 98.

I don't know where you are coming up with that one the debate would be public versus private performance, not public versus commercial! And many disc did have a disclaimer on it, some of which stated "not for public performance" (Dangerous) some had some had "not licensed for public performance" (All Hits) "Unauthorized public performance is prohibited" (Sound Choice) and the list goes on and on.

This started the age of "Not for commercial use" being printed on your discs. The water was just tipping over the dam. Piracy was just starting to hit, but neither of these were what cause the storm.

There were only a couple that every even mention commercail use and if memory serves me I believe one of those was (Pocket Songs) and in their disclaimer also stated something to the effect "without permission from the MMO Music Group in writing" but I believe that was for use in film, TV, Radio and Recording studios and booths.

2002. American Idol. Demand for karaoke grew exponentially. Internet was no longer a phenomenon, it was here to stay. Some companies sold out, quit, went away because facing the inevitable tide of lawsuits from license holders would be too much for most companies to bear (again, why they shuttered their doors). The liability created here was huge. Karaoke was no longer in the closet so to speak, everyone wanted it. Every license holder knew what it was, and sent a torrent of lawsuits the karaoke manu's way. The piracy compounded the karaoke manu's problems because now license holders think they should be able to negotiate more, not knowing that the karaoke market they see in the streets is a façade.

So where were the torrents of Lawsuits over the licensing? And yes you are correct it did become very popular and piracy exploded and here were are today with 90% of the karaoke on the streets being illegal copies that were stolen from the manus.

I almost see an entire strategy here to pay off those lawsuits. Not so sure anymore if it's really to fight piracy. How much of CDG sales go back into non-litigation based anti piracy? We know 0% is going into producing new tracks. Have they paid off any politicians to lobby, to change laws, to fix things?

Fighting piracy is an off shoot or a side effect of the lawsuits what the lawsuits are about is recovering some small protion of what was stolen from them. Why should any of them put recover money back into non-litigation antipiracy efforts those efforts wouldn't recover one dime of the money stolen from them or into producing new tracks which as long as there are those willing to pirate tracks they would be simply throwing their money away.

The cost of settlement is nothing for them but a postage stamp. The criteria for investigators would mark me as a target. I have no problem showing my discs (in fact, last few weeks I've shown several visiting KJ's that were sent from various karaoke companies my originals) I don't have to flip discs, or tweak sound. I have plenty of time to do that.

The cost of a settlement includes attorney's fee and time but I would say more power to them if all it did cost them was a postage stamp.

If you are running copied disc on your computer and using them in a public venue without the expressed permission of the manu then you are a "target" regardless of having the disc or not without the express permission you are still a violator. Why not simply request and go through an audit with the manus?

If you have KJs visiting saying they are from whatever karaoke company requesting to see your disc then you are being scamed.

It still is unsettling. It's unsettling because I know these people walk into my club with dagger eyes. Part of being an investigator is, you don't ask to see their originals. If you don't talk to the KJ and give them a chance to show you you're clean before you submit your report to the KIAA, they're a target.

That's balogna pure and simple.

There's other things to consider here too. Example, every other sync based property has moved to digital downloads. Movies, Music Videos, you can get them on Itunes anytime. I've approached karaoke companies so many times with offers of tech help, but every time they claim they can't because of sync restrictions..

Wait a second! Didn't I just watch Jurrasic Park on Netflix? Didn't I download a Mariah Carrey video from Itunes? Those have music moving to video.... and downloaded... what the hell?

How am I supposed to just sit here and ignore this? Let's lay down one more fact.

The karaoke companies have sync rights to their own materials. If all the licensee's are in agreement, they can dictate what medium they distribute from. More than that, they can use their own sync rights against us (which is part of what I'm seeing with the entire trademark infringement)

So you're not producing new tracks. You're protecting yourself from your past licensee's by saying, "We only distributed on CDG, we don't know why there's 30m karaoke shows in the US" Crying to the KJ's "It's all your pirating friends fault, especially the ones using PC's!" They fed this entire argument to the scene, and now I watch on these boards as there's a small, holy war going on between computer KJ's and disc based ones. Every disc based, non PC KJ instantly suspects a PC user of piracy.

In essence, they turned all the disc users into their own personal data gathering service. They don't have to waste a lot of resources to get the names and addresses of every karaoke company in the US.

Well played US companies. For a time I was falling for it, but I think I'm done with US karaoke companies. I hate to use terms like "Outsourcing" since I trained my replacement that took my job back to India with him, but it's the only way I can get content for my software (Thanks Tricerasoft/Mr Marcos)

I'll probably get a few disagreements here, but whatever. I've done my due diligence over the years. I was there for the KIAA formation meeting. I've gotten in touch with our local government and law enforcement. I've set up email meetings between various US karaoke manu's using my nepotism based connections into my local government to officials like Our police Chief, Our local Congress (Zoe Lofgren and Mike Honda) (Karaoke manu's dropped the ball each time) I've spoken publicly before our city council on the matter, I've talked ears off every cop and DA that walks into my club, I've argued ad nauseum about it on forums, written 100's of articles on my own websites. I drove around my city trying to recruit IP lawyers, who had no interest at all in working on contingency in an area rich with other IP cases.

They don't want it to change. There's a reason in that somewhere.

??? They are doing these suits in order to recoup the monies that were stolen from them when a pirate gets a hard drive loaded with their music on it in which the manus didn't see a dime of. What's hard to see about that?
Shutting down the karaoke industry? Thank the pirates for that as well, since they are the direct reason these suits are being brought up, and why manufacturers are not making as much music as they once had in the past. Why put out new music when it's going to be on every pirated drive or download site the same day?

That is a completely inaccurate quote.
I never said any of that!
The words have been twisted to apply a new meaning to what I have said for the purpose of mounting an argument against a statement I never made.

Oh as far as being "Scammed by investigators"

The folks that have visited me, I know were sent my way by one karaoke manu for a fact, they had discussed it at mobilebeat. I had it on word of the karaoke manu that they would be visiting me at some point in the future. Like I said, dagger eyes on walking in. They were blown away by my setup and felt compelled to introduce themselves as KJ's to me.

After a bit of discussion (and showing off my CDG's) they asked me if I would become an auditor for this area, starting by auditing them. I declined. I just can't get behind what I feel in my heart is going to be losing strategy. It's not *just* that it's a losing strategy to me, but it's also the fact that these companies are driving ahead with blinders, while the rest of the software folks (like me) are left by the roadside by them. They're stifling innovation, and losing jobs for themselves and other Americans. We'll do just fine using import karaoke.

During the discussion I showed them what I've been showing karaoke companies all along. A model for fixing things, that is working now. A model backed by over a decade of success and 2 years of solid financial data. After discussions, this disc based couple was asking me to help convert them. They're more interested in working with me, than the karaoke manu that sent them.

But I do have a question is Tricersoft going to allow you to download the songs on a per use scale or are you going to purchase the songs outright for each system?

They're going to be purchased on a per song, per system basis. The entire download will be invisible to the user, as far as they know, we HAVE the entire tricerasoft catalog.

I'm not here to argue about audits by the way...

I'm merely pointing out a huge hole in the US producers argument of Sync being too restrictive for them to offer US based downloads.

They have to renegotiate their contracts, plain and simple. The licensee's are allowing for it (as I pointed out with earlier examples of netflix/itunes,etc) It's their cost of doing business. In interest of this threads primary discussion of downloading songs on the fly... Do you agree or disagree?

I made a bit of money last year from a tune licensed for an indie short film for that very reason.

So as a licensee moonrider, do you have an issue with US companies offering sync karaoke downloads?
I'm guessing you would have no problems with it.