Karaoke Forums

It boils down to this--do u want to operate your business LEGALLY or ILLEGALLY. Furthermore  do u want to put your VENUE into a situation of operating karaoke ILLEGALLY. Are u willing to impose that kind of LIABILTY on them.

Its not about extremism---its about being legal or not.  That is the choice u need to make. Do u want your buisness to be LEGAL or NOT. Simple, clear-cut and easy to understand.

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

Loaded hard drives are technically illegal as it stands today.  If you lose the originals either by own fault or theft, you are out of luck.  The guy is selling a loaded hard drive, whether or not he owned the originals or nor or is supplying all the receipts, is not an issue, it's still illegal.  If he was selling all the originals WITH it, I would be more prone to purchase.

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ok, I guess nobody is getting my point.  darn it.  or maybe I'm not reading something right.  I probably need to contact the legal department of some prestigious law school or something.  what I'm wondering is this: has anyone been prosecuted or found guilty of breaking this law, even though they still HAVE the receipts?  

my point it this, and this is the last tiime I will try to convey it, there are plenty of laws on the books that are silly, outdated or just wrong, and a jury probably wouldn't convict.  do you want an example?, let me know.  i hope this is obvious.  anyway, if I bought some karaoke CDs, lost them, saved the receipts, was tried in a court of law because i still had the digital copies on my computer and played a venue with them, would I be convicted?  don't just say yes because you are in a certain camp, is there any data to support your answer?  I'm not talking about people who copy cdgs and use them illegaly, I'm talking about a scenario that fits the spirit of the one described above.  anybody?  or has everything been conjecture?

It amazes me that some people INCLUDING ME
think you are inocent until proven guilty.

Dont quite work that way does it...

None that i'm aware of.  Have a feeling you will see more of these cases this year though.



ANY copy - be it hard drive, disc, tape, etc.) whether you have the receipt or not is technically illegal because there are no rights given to the consumer to allow for this in a commercial setting.  Technically once an original is lost/stolen, you are out of luck & cannot use a back up of any form.  Many do not agree with this - myself included - personal feelings is if you bought the discs & have the discs on the premises of the computer, then there should be no problems.
Has any been tried in a court of law in your scenerio - I don't think there has been - YET, but if you were using copies, this is what they would look at, not whether you have receipts to prove you at one time purchased originals - you could have sold all the orignals AFTER you made the copies & kept the receipts to 'prove' I owned the discs!  Once any original disc is gone, then any subsequent back up/copy should be destroyed at that point or the original replaced asap.

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I would like to point out that a CD is a digital medium.  Digital is digital.  There is no such thing as digital sound, we have analog ears.  The CD does not contain a continuous file of music ready to be converted into sound, it has to format shift at least four times before it is in that condition.  If format shifting is illegal, playing a CD is illegal.  I see nothing in the US law that dictates how long it can take between the time the information is read from the CD and the time it hits the speakers.

Yes, it is legal to buy the laptop.  No, would not be legal to use the songs.  If the disks were stolen his license to the music was stolen with them.  The same legal copy of the music can't be in two places at once.  IMNot-so-humbleO.

That statement is the biggest load of tuth I have ever heard.

ok, cool, that is what i wanted to know.  I'm thinking there is a good chance that if you have some things like receipts and maybe other types of proof, like pictures of your discs and receipts, if they were stolen and you continued to use the music you would be ok possibly.  the spirit of the law has not been broken, even though TECHNICALLY you have broken a law.  but it is a risk.  preciate people reading my ramblings.  yall are great.

i think it is unfair for the music companies to have thier cake and eat it too.  what I mean by that is, according to them, you are purchasing a lic. to use the music you buy, but you aren't allowed to use that music except on the disc it came on?  then they say that when you purchase the disc that you are really purchasing a lic. to use the music, not the actual music as property.  they really should be allowed to have it one way.  and that way would be once you purchase the disc, as long as YOU are using it, you can use it in any form or venue you wish, whether it be copied or not. I'd love to hear what the high brow lawyers say about this, but they are all analyzing anna nicloe smith BS, too busy to mess with silly karaoke  LOL .

ham, without the cdgs, the music on the hard drive is effectively "stolen", as you don't have the original media to back up the hard drive.

That person is the victim of a crime, no doubt about it. I saw someone point out about insurance... unsure about that, but the three places I checked into didn't know much about how to insure karaoke specific media... the rarity of the material, etc. It's why I eventually decided to go digital myself... because nobody could insure it that I could find.

Anyway, no matter HOW the material was purchased, you still have to have ownership of the original media. Knowing the hows and whys doesn't change the fact the original media is now gone...

hamsamich, THE LAW IS NOT FAIR.
Dont know how else to say it.

Dont think there is one person here that would not agree with you there.
They are however pointing out the guide lines by how we
are at least supposed to abide.

you know, you CAN do what you want with your stuff "at home"... they're just saying from a commercial aspect you can't.

One thing I did when I operated was go by the common sense perspective you laid out... as long as I have the original disc, I can do with it what I want. Problem is, you can't for a commercial entity. At least not in any court-tried case!!

Wouldnt it be good if people started complaining to the manu's
that carrying round their 1000 or so disks
ENDANGERS THEIR LIFE.
It has already been pointed out that one KJ was killed for his disks.

To LONMAN u listen.........yes yes????

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"You know that I sing the Blues and I do not suffer fools. When I'm on that silver mic, it's gonna cut ya, just like a knife"-The SWINGCAT

yeah, I know the laws aren't fair.  can't you tell be my posts?  maybe people haven't read them fully, or I'm not explaining myself fully, which happens more than I care to admit.  yes thanks knghts, i know that part of it, preciate it though.

my question isn't what are the guidelines, I've already seen the laws.  the letter of the law isn't what my post is about.  i thought I said that, but it's not getting thru.  I guess it's the nature of the forums, I would probably have to sit down over a cup of coffee with yall and hash this out, and that probably won't happen anytime soon.  but I can't think of any other way to rephrase it without sounding totally redundant and maybe disrespectful.  thanks for trying.  jim

A little off topic, but is it only Sound Choice and Stellar Records (Pop Hits Monthly line) having a problem with the digital karaoke files?

If so, people should stop supporting them and go with Top Hits Monthly, Sunfly, Zoom and other manufacturers of CDG's that don't tell you how to use their media.

I'm not a KJ anymore, but I do help a bar owner that uses CDG's to update his collection of discs about every 6 months or so.  If those two companies are making it harder for the more technical KJ's to do their job, I'll stop supporting them.  Thoughts?

Actually you aren't purchasing a license to play the music with an original disc.  The music purchased is technically not yours to do with as you want - they make exceptions for personal use, commercially additional licenses need to be purchased for the club (public performance) they are played in.

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It is LEGAL to format shift for PRIVATE use, but not for comercial use, that is where hipocracy lies in the current copyright laws.  

It is also legal to format shift if a medium is outdated.  Such if I had a 8-track tape, I could legally change it to computer use.  I am not sure, but I do belive this applies for compercial use.

And just wondering, I assume radio stations are using computer based music, and if so, how do they get away with it?  WOuldn't they be a REALY big target fo the manus?

Yes, it is format shifting, but only a temporay format shift, and nothing is retained after the CD is played.

IMHO....If you ripped a disc on the fly, played the computer based track, and erased it immeadtly after you played it, that would be legal.

But I am not a lawyer, and don't paly one on TV.

So, exactly where in the law does it specify how many miliseconds, seconds, miniutes, hours, days, weeks months, years it takes before the shifted format is a copy rather than a process of playing.  As to the bit about radio stations, look under the bit about ephemeral (never type when you're drunk) recordings.  
I always wanted to play a lawyer on TV.

Eric, I guess that would be me your talking about. I look at this site quite often, however I don't see the need to join in on things that don't matter to me.The one thing that does matter to me is when people give other people information about what is or isn't legal. When they themselves don't know. I gave you all the places to find the US Copyright laws, fair use laws and DMCA. Which is obvious you still haven't read. Over the years that I've been doing Karaoke shows (22years), averageing between 60 and 90 shows a week. I have spent 10's of thousands of dollars on business and IP (Intellectual Property) attorney's having these legalities researched. So I at least have a fair amount of knowledge on the subject something you should try. I personally could care less wether some of you use hard drives or not, what does upset me is that  those who do put someone else's business or livelyhood on the line and don't seem to care. As far as cases of copyright infringement  why don't you ask MM, CB, SC, and Stellar who have all been sued under those same laws that apply to you and I. MM is out of business and has a 7.2 million dollar judgement against them. CB had to remove somewhere in the neighborhood of 600 songs and settled with unknown amount of money. SC settled and also had to remove songs. Stellar has the famous lawsuit pending. I believe the court papers say famous is asking for 17 million in damages. You might also check with Matt, Knightshow and ask him if he remembers hdiver from the SC sound board who talked to sonny freeman in minn. who's house was raided and eveything confiscated for selling hard drives. He's looking at 7years in prison. This is way too long at this point. I've put way more than my nickels worth in