Karaoke Forums

Hey there,

Does anybody know the fees involved in producing karaoke songs? From what I understand, the manu has to pay some one-time fees to various people then a variable rate depending on how many times they will sell that song. Is this correct?

Are these set prices or do they depend on the record company?

There are several fees for making a track, if you can even get the permission of the copyright holder because some will not allow karaoke.

First you have to pay for making a derivative of the music copyright/
then you have to pay for the lyric
then you have to pay the sync right
and after all that you have to pay a fixing fee and after that i'm not sure entirely how it works but i think it is a percentage of the number of songs you think you will sell UP FRONT.

sufficive to say, it means that the average person can't afford to make their own tracks on a whim.

-James

And in the USA, the rights holders seem to get to set those fees at anything they want to ask for them (and what they've asked the last few years makes manufacturing cost-prohibitive).

Just thinking about this earlier and wondering if the whole thing couldn't be gone at from the other direction. Instead of asking rights holders for what they'll charge, offer instead they'll get a fixed amount for every track (sold by download) on the order of maybe $2. After all, original recordings sell that way for 99 cents on iTunes and Amazon these days, and I'm sure the whole 99 cents doesn't go to the rights holders -- someone in the middle has to make something.

Pitch it to them they'll make a whole buck or two for every song sold, all they have to do is grant all the rights needed for free (for some term that's agreed to). Sure the Don Henley's will still say no thanks, but the majority of rights holders aren't against karaoke per se, they're just against not making money. Money trumps.

Then it becomes a question of whether the manufacturer can make the product so efficiently they can sell it low enough to get volume sales, give up a buck or two to the rights holders, and still make a profit for themselves on every sale. It might be a tight fit, but it may not be impossible.

What would we, as the buying public, pay per track for quality, USA made karaoke tracks? Keeping in mind Recisio (KV based in France) gets $3 per track. Would we be willing to pay $4 or $5 per track for (hypothetically speaking) legal Sound Choice downloads?

One test of that might be how well SC custom discs used to sell, as those worked out to $5 per song. I've no idea how well those sold overall, but those were without the convenience of an immediate download with no minimum purchase. People will pay a premium if it makes the whole thing easier.

i will pay $3.00 a track if needed from KV, but that is the most a single track is worth to me.

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Paradigm Karaoke, The New Standard.......Shift Happens

i used the clark/custom soundchoice site a great deal. I didn't mind paying $5 for the really rare tracks that you couldn't get anywhere else, or if i just thought it was the best version available.

I had 6 other custom discs that i had saved, ready to pay for them as i was able, but then they closed.. Was really bummed.. ah well, that's life sometimes

-James

I bought several of the SC Customs at $5 per track - 15 song discs. It was a lot better than buying all those songs on 15 individual discs that I didn't need/want the other songs on.
That is the max I would pay for a single song, but it would probably be a last resort buy if no one else had the song.

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

I have 9 custom cd’s made by Clark sc/au for $5 per track. I remember the time when clark for a limited time (I think only 2 wks) offered the complete eagles’ 8125, 15 tracks for $75 + $7 ship.

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To be fortunate enough to derive an income from a source as fulfilling as karaoke music has got to be as close to heaven as we can get here on earth!

I thought the consensus might be $5/track is generally too high. I myself bought 9 SC custom discs at that rate, but spread out over many years.

Even today I shy away from spending $3/track at KV if I can get the same song by Zoom or SBI, or even Sunfly over at Tricera/Select for $1.50. But I don't mind too much when I pay the $3 for something that isn't available any other way, or it's definitely a better version.

As it stands now a US manufacturer couldn't compete with KV unless they could sell at or near $3. A buck for them, a buck for the rights holders, and a buck on overhead and production is probably too tight a fit to make it work. The hardest part of that would probably be getting the rights holders to agree to $1, or even 50 cents as their take per track. More power to any manufacturer that could market it to them and make that work.

In the U.S., publishers' rights are not anywhere close to $1 a track. The standard royalty for downloads is 15% of retail, with a minimum. For hard media, it runs about $0.12 to $0.15, with some premium compositions commanding larger royalties.

Licensing through non-U.S. rights societies is generally less than that, but downloads are not available.

Overhead, at least for decent production, probably runs more than $1 per track for the kind of volume available.

When we return to production, we expect the price point to be about $3/track retail, but that's not set in stone, and it may be less if we can get more products out of the production (like a home-use product). Depending on what we're able to get rights for, it may be a download, or we may have to do hard media. If we have to do hard media, we will probably do smaller numbers of tracks per disc--maybe 6-10 tracks instead of 15--to keep the price point down, but that also gives us the ability to be more selective about what we put on a disc.

So when "WE" got back into production, what instrument will YOU be playing Jim??

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

That's funny--I do play piano and bass, and I sing, but I don't do any of it as well as the talented professionals we'll hire to make the recordings.

Well just to throw it out there. I would be more than happy to pay extra money to have a limited edition disc of songs that you and Kurt have personally played/sung on, it doesn't matter how bad/good it is, i think it would be halarious/fun. If you do a funding project to raise money for karaoke productiion, maybe you could throw it in as a prize for those people who pledge a certain amount of money.

-James

edit:i don't know why, but i suddenly got this mental picture of Jim playing the bass guitar for "uptown funk" and it gave me a SERIOUS case of the giggles.

Thanks, that info is actually rather encouraging. I understand overhead per track cannot actually be measured until after there's a sales volume to plug into the equation, but figured there'd be a ballpark estimate from prior history.

My vague speculation has been, might it be easier to get the cooperation of rights holders (those synch rights we keep hearing about and all else that's entailed in getting the go-ahead to make and sell tracks as downloads) if they were offered a bigger piece of the pie (more than a 15% royalty per track) instead of paying expensive licensing fees up front? All as a means to get the ball rolling faster.

Then again for all I know there's no way to do that even if all parties wanted to, depending on the licensing and royalty laws as they stand -- not my area at all and I have no idea.

Thanks for everyone's input!