Karaoke Forums

I went out singing Thursday and Friday nights at two different locations. It amazes me how many crappy KJ's are out there, and supposedly getting paid.

Thursday, the guy had two speakers, one on the floor under his gear, and one to his left at chest level at best. Needless to say the mics feed back like crazy, and often. His one wireless mic kept cutting out. He claims he put new bateries in, but the bat low indicator was on. It was a cheap mic anyway. He had a RJ Tech player, and the smallest laptop I ever saw, where his music library existed, but more about the laptop later. This is a mexican restaurant, so his 2,000 spanish songs was good. His English collection was about 1,500 songs, all bad versions. The KJ was fast and nice, but I won't be back.

Friday night I went to a El Torito, in the same parking lot as the other place. The bar had its own sound system with it's own player that sounded great. His song book appears to be the exact same one at the guy from Thursday night. I counted pages and songs. Exactly the same spanish and english as the other guy. Before I go on let me say that the vocals sounded great on this system, great mics, and the music was great. This KJ thought he was a club DJ. This KJ would sing 3 or 4 times in a rotation, using the excuse that this or that one was a request. Singing solo more than once a rotation is never acceptable for a KJ. He would play entire dance songs in between singers. There is no dance floor, so nobody is dancing, just waiting to sing. I gave him my disc to sing, and when I was done, I stood there waiting for him to take my disc out of the player that I knew it was in. He blew me off like he had to run to a customer for something. Since he basically ran away, I went back to my seat to wait for him to find the time.

As I am sitting there, I watch him take my disc out of the player, insert it in his laptop, and rip it. By the way. the same model laptop as the guy from the night before who has the exact same music. My brother gave him a disc to sing, and the guy does the same thing, take disc out of player and inserts in his laptop.

Needless to say, this really pissed me off, and we let the KJ know we knew he copied our disc. He just laughed then ignored me. I am tempted to make a disc that if inserted in a laptop, will infest the piece of crap with the worst virus I can find.

I will go back to his show to verify that he now has my music in his song book. My brother is a cop in this city, so we will scare the crap out of him when we confront him again.

When you only have 1,500 songs, you don't have much of anything. Go out and buy the music though don't resort to stealing. Where is the integrity?

Just Venting
Felix the KJ

WOW....your experience amazes me! I think I'd be calling one of the licensing agency's on these guys. They give us all a bad name! I know if he has Sound Choice in his library and no original disc to back it up...they will put him out of commission pretty fast!
I'm still amazed...the gall of this guy!

Have your cop friend speak to the BAROWNER also and have him point out the LIABILITY this DJ is creating in COPYRIGHT VIOLATIONS for the barowner's business for allowing and tolerating the KJ doing this and that there are more than one witness.

Point out some of the ongoing karaoke copyright violation investigations that have involved the FBI not to mention ASCAP/BMI and whoever else.

Maybe a good stern talking to will cause the barowner to put a stop to it.

If that yields no result, take it to EL TORITO CORPORATE OFFICES. GUARANTEED it will get THIER ATTENTION pronto! Corparates will not TOLERATE any kind of negative public stuff from thier FRANCHISEES. Creates liabilty for CORPORATE as it is the EL TORITO name that is now associated with this behavior and activity.

Also go observe the other guy too. Sounds like thier from the same outfit. Do the same ripping observation, etc. Perhaps the local police department would be interested in investigating.

Make a call to your local newpaper--bet they could go for a nice investigative journlism piece/series etc.

This KJ guy is just a little too cocky and self-secure thinking he's invincible from any kind of heat or possible prosecution/investigation.

_________________
"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

Oh my lord! He ripped your disk, and then blew it off like it was nothing?

You are a calmer person than me, that is all I can say.

I agree. I'd have MADE him delete the rip, on the spot, and then told ever singer in the place what he was doing. Everyone should have got up and walked out of there!

Sounds like an illegal multi rigger to me. I had sung an original song at a bar one night, and the kj downloaded it and ruined my disk. Thank goodnes I had more bubt that didn't make me feel any better. I don't like multi riggers and I know who's a multi rigger of who. Unfortunately, ther is alot of theft out there and it really makes me angry to know that these pirates are getting away with it. WHAT NERVE! WHAT GAL! WHAT A *******!

I'll admit to copy someones disc without permission is a little....TACKY and I would never think about doing something like that. But there is really to HARM done ?
It's just that this guys has a lot of nerve to do on the sneak.

He's just a sleazball and at least you should mention to the owner or better yet
GO back and when you get the mic to sing the song --make an announcement that he is illegally copying customers discs

Just make sure you don't start a ruckus. Step up to the mic and just do it. Go 4 it !

I would just stand there, after singing my song, waiting for the guy to put MY disc back into MY hand. I'd offer to sell him the disc for $30 if he really wanted it.

Thsi is the exact scenario that keeps me from going to computer run karaoke shows as much as possible. The ones that can't even play a customer's disc without ripping it to their hard drive are the worst ones out there when it comes to stealing from their singing customers. They know that they have a few regulars that always buy the latest hits so it's just a matter of time before they show up with their new songs and the KJ rips the tracks for free. I've seen it done and I don't approve.

it's why I don't even have a cd-rom on my show computer!

I have a 2nd player for playing customer discs

The ones that can't even play a customer's disc without ripping it to their hard drive are the worst ones out there when it comes to stealing from their singing customers.

Woah, Nellie. MTU Hoster users rip a temp file to their computer when they play someone's private material but it is GONE as soon as the song is over. No illegal ripping. In fact, because of sleazeballs that DO that sort of thing, for six months after I went computerized, I had an info sheet on the front of my binder explaining that even though we are computerized, we DO NOT maintain a copy of anyone's music once their song is done...and that they'll have to bring their CDG with them to our show any time they want their song played. Coincidentally, at times we DO have the same manu/same song but as they are asking me to use their disc, I do it anyway.

Even if someone asks me to rip their music to my computer so they don't have to bring their private stock to my show, I tell them no anyway, sorry, it's not my music. So, though I do use a comptuer at my show, please understand that MTU Hoster users are the exception to your statement up there. (It takes about 20 minutes to rip a new disc to the system and if you're not connected to the net, you have to manually type in the song title and performer - not an easy, incidental thing to do.)

I will say this - when I used to not have a CDG player, and only be laptop - I would let the 1 person who broght a disk know - I'd rip the track to my desktop, and play it from there.

Why? I just trust that more.

They were cool with it so hey

If I was a regular at a show and brought my discs in for the KJ to play.
If they ASKED me if they could copy it -- I would have no problem with it at all
At least I know I wouldn't have to carry it there anymore ..

With or without permission, copying is illegal. I've had customers ask me to make copies to put in my library so they don't have to bring their disc...the answer is no. ASCAP comes to my area and checks on these things. It's not worth the risk of going to jail and/or paying a fine for life! Besides being put out of business and a career!

What area are you from ? They actual come to your show and check you hardrive ?
If you're using a digital library derived from cdgs you may already be breaking the law

Just because someone has MTU Hoster on their PC doesn't mean that they don't also have audiograbber on that PC. I'm sure that there are many honest Hoster users but........not everyone is so honest. I'm sure that there are some HOSTER USERS THAT HAVE PURCHASED PRE LOADED HARD DRIVES WITH THOUSANDS OF SONGS AS WELL. There are many ways of being dishonest in the KJ business.

I understand that you have to rip it to your desktop to play with hoster, but as I stated, he played it on a player, then took it out and ripped it to his pc.

The reason I didn't confront him more agressively is that I am a prior special forces marine, who has spent many years learning to control the anger and violence in me. It was smarter to walk away when he blew me off, then to beat the crap out of him, as was my first thought.

The other thing that really made me mad was, the disc he ripped was the Chartbuster 5123-02 Pop 2008 vol.2, which was just released last week, and I had just bought that day. I spend alot of money to stay current, and some piece of crap building his wimpy (@$%&#!) library on my dime makes me really mad.

I will go back to verify he has my music, and I will say something on the mic, and I am going to say something to the manager of El Torito. This guy is a slimeball.

Felix the KJ

By now, the slimeball probably has your songs on multiple systems so even if you had him delete it, he'd have it back again the next day.

You should make him PAY YOU for the disc that he stole from you....or get the manager to PAY YOU out of the KJ's pay for that night.

If I play only original cdg's, but have books, plus what I have on a laptop, am I breaking the law?

I wish ASCAP would come out to my area. I could give them a whole list of places to go PLUS places outside of my area.