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The only difference is if you backed up your files, you got to keep those songs.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Or if you bought it before the rights were pulled, they couldn't take your purchase away. It was still yours, you just couldn't buy it a second time as opposed to here today, gone tomorrow.

OK. Please educate me how paying MORE for old technology is better business sense.



Sure, there will always be junk dealers. Of course it will be worth something, to somebody, just like those dusty 8-tracks in your basement. There are still collectors who want them. For .50 cents each.



OK. Over a ten year span, I lease the 6500 GEM songs (since that is where the lease argument came from) and you BUY the same 6500 songs. You pay $10,000 for hard CD's and I pay $3000 to license the MP3's. Over those ten years we both play the same songs. In ten years we both get out of the business. You sell your now obsolete CD set for $500 to a collector and I have nothing. Heck let's even talk crazy and say you get $3000! Who paid more? Who's business came out ahead? But Hey! You had the emotional satisfaction of OWNING them for 10 years. Congratulations!



. I can play this game too! My conclusion is that you work for a Karaoke CD+G player company and are desperately trying to hold on to your dieing businesses. Why else would you start threads condemning new & better technology?



Valid points? You have shown nothing but a fundamental misunderstanding of what it even is! You compared it to AMAZON and said it should be FREE for petes sake!!!!! This tell me that You Sir, do not have the slightest clue what you are talking about. You have based your entire argument on ignorance and fear.

I am ABSOLUTELY saying that Cloud technology is not invasive. This is not a "viewpoint" or opinion, this is fact. I understand how the technology works, you are simply making things up to fit your agenda. Cloud technology by definition is computing or storage that is taking place somewhere else. Off in the ether. "The Cloud". It is accessed via common methods. There is no "access" granted to "The Cloud" to your computer. There is nothing the slightest bit invasive about it. As Chris Avis said, if anything it is LESS invasive!

Please, explain to us how Cloud tech is invasive, in any way.



Even your idol C. Staley would disagree with this as you are missing the bigger picture. The refusal to adapt to new technology was a prime factor in the death of the Karaoke industry as we know it. Of course piracy & cheap KJ's were the METHODS by which it died, but had they adapted technology early instead of clinging to the old ways, the cheap KJ's and pirates wouldnt have been able to flood the market in the first place.



Your claim is based on your incorrect assumption that Cloud technology is invasive, which it is not. Your fears are totally unjustified. You are no more/less secure by using/not-using Cloud technology.

This is urban legend and remote deletion by Chartbuster has never been proven to the best of my knowledge. Lot of rumors about it though.

It was posted here somewhere that one of the KJ's noticed that some of the songs originally on the drive went missing after the first update. I don't remember who said it so if you are that person or it did happen to you speak up (if your still here).

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Here is where your comparison is faulty.... You start off by saying over a 10 year period, you are leasing the GEM series (for the cost of approximately $3k (it's more now)), as versus someone else spending $10K for those same songs on a CDG. What you neglected to add was how much you spent before you purchased the rights to use the GEM series. You have already stated that you aren't just starting out now. So, what did you have before you got the GEM series? Maybe you didn't have 6500 songs before. Maybe you only had half that. That means you would have already spent $5K (based on your estimates) on yours before you spent that additional $3K (I believe someone said it now sells/leases for $4800) on the GEM series. There must have been some duplication as well. Those figures are a lot closer when you factor in what you've already spent before this new purchase.

The same thing probably goes for your usage of the Cloud vs someone buying new music. Let's not factor in what's been spent already, and take it from today to 10 years from now. All things being equal, you (now) have access to a library of 60,000 songs (plus whatever number of songs you had before getting the Cloud service). I have a very well-rounded library of 14,000 songs. People come to your show and pick something to sing... Ditto at mine. Let's not get into 60,000 songs is more than 14,000 songs, because the bottom line is, only 60-75 songs are performed at our shows (and I still can't find what I want to sing at those pirate shows who boast 100,000 plus songs (which is more than 60,000 songs)).

OK... moving along.... Let's take your proposal as a given (for now), and say that the monthly rate for using the Cloud service is $20. As you stated, you would not need to buy new music, because the Cloud service would be providing you with that as it became available. That would be costing you $240 a year, totaling $2400 in 10 years. Now let's take me (take me baby! take me!!! )... Seriously now... Since I already have a large library with a very good selection, my need to continuously buy more music is minimal. There are some times when I don't buy anything for 2 or 3 months, and then there are some times when I will buy 1 or 2 new discs at an approximate cost of $15-20 per disc (let's just go high end and say $20). 1 month I will spend $20. One month I will spend $40. 2 months I will spend nothing. At the end of the year, I may have actually purchased 12 new discs, which comes to a total of $240. Multiply that by 10 years, and it looks like I may have invested a total of $2400 into my library for that period of time. So, after 10 years, you have spent $2400 for the Cloud service, and I have spent $2400 for new music.

How's that comparison looking now? It's looking fairly equal to me.

Now, if someone is just starting out (with no library), and they invest in the GEM series, or the Cloud Service, or both, I can see a big financial difference. They would be spending $4800 for the GEM series consisting of 6500 songs, or they would be spending $2400 (let's say they're committed to 10 years at the possible price of $20 a month). Even combined, that would total $7200, which is less than the (roughly) $10,000 I have spent for my 14,000 song library. But you and I are not those cases-in-point, and neither are most of us on this site. We've already been doing this for years, and have already made those investments. The new technology that is coming out now (in the near future) can't and won't change that fact that what's spent is spent, and that's now in the past. The only thing it can change will be how you CHOOSE to spend in the future.

You are muddying the water. When you are deciding whether to lease/buy a car, what does it mater how much you paid for your other car or your wife's car or your motorcycle? The merits of buy vs lease don't change based on what you already own.

For purposes of this lease/buy discussion all KJ's are equal. The lease opponents aren't saying "I am against it because I already have a bunch of music", they are against it because it is by definition not ownership. Now of course we are NOT all equal, some have more songs that others, etc, but to condemn the technology as a rip-off simply because you don't need it is disingenuous.



Of course, and essentially that is what I am saying. If you have a huge library and don't buy any new music, their is no reason for you to use a cloud service, lease GEM, or buy anything at all. That's why I say its all about the price. If the money I spend on new music is MORE than the cost of a cloud subscription, I'm all over it. Everyone's mileage will vary of course, but the technology is sound and nothing to be afraid of.

I have no dog in the fight, just never saw any evidence other than "I think some songs are missing". Never saw titles, etc.

If that is the case, then you muddied the waters first. Just talking about the cost (not the technology), you are trying to compare your cost vs my cost (or Alan's cost), by saying we have spent $10K for our music, and you are only spending $3K to use yours (early sale price of the GEM series). And, unless you are starting out with nothing (as I mentioned in my next comparison which you did not quote), then you are neglecting to include what you spent prior to purchasing the Gem rights, and that makes your statement a little less accurate.


In your statement above, you are comparing the purchase of a car to the lease of one. You are not making any profits by your actions of doing this either way... unless you are in the business of making money off of those transactions (such as leasing those cars out yourself, or using them in a fleet of Taxis and Limousines, or putting them up for auction, etc...). In the quote that follows, you ARE factoring in those costs now (of buy vs lease). You are saying that you leased your music, and I bought mine.

Now review my prior post with the comparisons I made.

Very nice, Cueball! I think you got Bazza a little shaken up!

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No. This was not about YOU and your library. This was in response to those who generically throw out "I would rather OWN than LEASE" without running the numbers first. I am simply showing that leasing is cheaper in the long run from a business sense. Now it is obvious that many people here are emotionally attached to their library's. they are not tools for their business, they are coveted heirlooms to give to the grandkids. I do not think that way.



Some people make large sums of money off their Karaoke business, others treat it like a hobby and make nothing. That has no bearing on what they paid for their music.


<Sigh> OK.

Who paid more for the 6500 songs in the scenario?
Who's business paid more for the 6500 songs in the scenario ten years later?"

I will tell you . The "Owner". But he sure felt good about it!



"Nice Try" - C. Staley

Not an urban legend, it is fact. Many "locked" songs were removed from the KJMP drives in the last year. Have email messages in which I discussed this with Chartbuster.

Bazza, you used $3,000 for the GEM series in your example. When I checked yesterday the price was $4,480. If it's available for the $3,000 in your example, I'll buy the GEM series today! At that price it makes financial sense to me and it can help me make money and has a reasonable pay back period.

For me, yes, I would much prefer to OWN the discs and have complete control over the media and no questions asked, but for that price I could earn enough in a fairly short period of time to be able to absorb the loss if Sound Choice decided to call in all GEM series sets they had licensed out and I lost the use of it. That's my only concern.

Since I will be buying all of the discs in my library, I will have no fear of being audited at some time in the future-I have no intention of paying for an audit and will have no fear of being audited. I've been doing my homework and IMO there is enough out there to be able to do a great show without Sound Choice. I'd rather have Sound Choice in my library, but only at a reasonable price. Otherwise all of my money goes to Stellar, Chartbusters, Zoom and others. The end.

Please share this information with us then. What sings were deleted and what reason did they give?

I don't know which songs, but SEVERAL people stated the same thing that songs they had, they no longer had after updates (on a couple different forums) & if I recall, even Chartbuster had made a statement to something like 'make sure to back up the drive', that way everything that was on it will still be available to you if songs get pulled due to licensing issues.

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Wait. So these were locked songs? How is that any different then say, tricerasoft pulling a song from there site? . If they were songs that hadn't been purchased yet I don't see what the big deal is. I thought people were claiming songs they had purchased were deleted.

i think where the comparison comes up is that a song that has not been purchased can be taken back. a song on the cloud as a subscription rental service can be taken back even after someone sings it. so nex week you may not be able to sing your favorite song that you sang this week. that is why it is different than a download. if Tricerasoft pulls a song off the site before i buy it, ok, my singer has not done it already so nothing is taken away from them, if it gets pulled after i buy it, i have it permanently and they can sing it again, if it is pulled from the subscription rental cloud after a singer does it, they can not do it again. there is the difference. but what about this idea, offer both options. buy tracks ala carte like tricerasoft for a fee per song, or if you want to subscribe for a monthly fee to have access to all of them, your choice. everybody is happy.......except Joe. (joke)

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I wonder if when the Gem set license comes up for renewal, whether there will be songs on it that will be recalled because of licensing issues and if Gem licensees will be required to delete songs they've been using prior to that time?

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Who knows??? It appears they are playing the whole "overseas" game...it does seem strange that if they are getting away with "licensing" them because of overseas "production" that it makes it legitimate for them to be licensed for US commercial use...