Karaoke Forums

the same way you know if they have 1 to one on their copied cdgs or compilations... you don't.

Just as much if you know if they have it on their burned disc?!?! I don't worry about what other people have.
Hell someone could steal an original disc - how would you know if they didn;t 5 finger it from WalMart?

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

So no worries from SC if you are playing pirated music on your system as long as it is not your music or you "don't know" that it is wrong?

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

Maybe I am a little too cautious. I still haven’t made up my mind about accepting songs from flash drives. I have disabled autoplay. The reason I have the virus protection turned off is so that it doesn’t interfere with the hosting software. My laptop never goes online and is used only for hosting shows. Do any of you run virus protection during shows?
I’m not an expert on how computers work, so I appreciate the feedback from this forum. I hope I’m not being too paranoid, but I have to think that there are some people who might want to intentionally try to bring down another’s computer-based show.
I think for now, if confronted with this situation again, I’ll just tell the singer that I’ll be glad to take the drive home and scan it first. I’ll still have the moral dilemma of loading pirated songs onto my drive. I don’t mind playing the songs, but don’t really want to have to save them. Currently I use my disks for backup. I guess I should think about a second laptop that I can bring as a backup and also to run virus protection to scan the drives.
Thanks everyone for helping me think this through. I am in the fortunate position of having long-running shows with great regulars. They are fun, supportive, and there to have a good time. If I lose a new singer every now and then because I like to keep things legal and safe, I can deal with that. By the way, the two singers who wanted to use their flash drives have become semi-regulars. I think they are glad they didn’t run out after I explained to them my reasons.

If a KJ is going to refuse a singer's flash drive; I would hope that the KJ would have a disc player to play a customer's disc. Otherwise, you are basically telling your singers that they cannot sing a song unless you have it on your hard drive. I personally don't like the idea of giving my songs to a KJ on a falsh drive. It makes it too easy and too tempting to copy the songs onto their hard drive. If you happen to be at a "pirate" show in the first place, what makes you think that the "pirate" will treat you any better than he treats the karaoke manufacturers. If he'll steal from Sound Choice directly; what makes you think that he won't steal from one of his customers who has a song that he doesn't have. There is no honor among thieves.

Just a reminder for others, and for new members who may not be familiar with MTU Hoster - one of the reasons I opted for Hoster is because I can play others' CDGs when they bring them in - Hoster temporarily loads the song to play it through one time and as soon as the song is finished, it is GONE.... I always check to see if their version is in my library and will opt to play it from my library rather than uploading. I also always painstakingly explain to people who come in for the first time with their own discs that MTU Hoster does NOT allow the operator to permanently upload others' music. I even put a disclaimer in my book stating that if you bring your own music in with you, you must bring it in every time you come to sing, that when I upload it for them to sing it is a temporary file only and I won't be able to play it for them again without the disc.

I opted for this because I did not want to carry a player around with me - we have a very relatively light system with powered speakers as well so no amp ... just speakers, small DJ rack, and the computer - a PC shuttle, fairly large flat screen, and cordless keyboard and mouse. Our foot print is small. Setup time is perhaps longer because of all the cabling that is required with powered speakers and the computer system, but it beats carting around what we did before this conversion.

I haven't had anyone bring in a flash drive and I'm not sure how they even work ... may have to learn all about those in the event someone does bring one in.

I do always have a cdg player with me. I'd much rather play a customer's disk this way. I could also see some people getting angry that you wanted them to bring the flash drive every time. You can't make everyone happy. Karen- I'd guess with Hoster, you would have to save the file to your hard drive. Then it would be up to you to keep it or delete it. Not positive though as it's not the program I use.

I run no anti virus at all. First off if someone gave me a flash drive that gave me a virus, i'd know who did it & have them 86'd, not only from singing but have the bar 86 them as well. Although it would be an inconvenience to have to redo a virus ridden computer, it wouldn't phase my show in any way. I would just flip a switch & run off discs for the rest of the night without any worries.


Hopefully you aren't loading the file onto your computer drive, but rather playing the file FROM the flashdrive only.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Hoster temporarily imports the song for play only & deletes it automatically after done.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

It is too bad all this illegality going on makes it so inconvenient to be legal. I'm not a computer genius and had never even touched a flash drive until I went to a continuing education seminar for my day job and instead of giving you a phone book's worth of syllabus they gave it to you on a flash drive. There was a lot of memory left on it so I put our song book on it as a back-up. Then I tried transferring songs on it from my Amazon library and really love how it plugs into the car radio and doesn't skip on bumpy roads like CDs. So I'm an old lady but I'm sold on these. How nice it would be to load your songs for the evening on to one and go to a show and not have to worry about loss, theft or scratches. But I can see how they would pose a problem in today's atmosphere.