Karaoke Forums

Heard rumor that Stellar Records is in trouble.Anyone heard anything?
That would be one of the last major companies making new music?

Sued out of existence.

http://www.pdf-archive.com/2014/06/28/80-main/

http://www.pdf-archive.com/2014/06/29/stellar-answer/

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-- Mark

As a retailer, I am simply disgusted by the karaoke industry being the hardest one to ever figure out. Have always tried taking the honorable route and don't know what is what anymore. Thankfully, we only had one client getting PHM updates per month and PHM said they were just running slow on updates. Of course we have not been online looking at forums to know they went out of business and are now screwed out of the money we paid for yearly subscription.

If only one of these major publishers would spend the time to tell people what is what. Spend all our time trying to do right by this industry and it seems impossible!!

Not only do we have less options to help consumers with. The pirates have clearly won the battle in my opinion. Every time we turn around it seems that no matter how much class, integrity, knowledge, fairness we display when designing systems. If we cannot give away countless songs like so many other sellers all over the internet, then we are doomed. Sorry, just venting!

The shame of it is that even customers have said to me that there is no room in this world for a company that tries to be the honest guppy in a world of sharks. That if I can't beat them, join them. Although I personally understand why they are saying that. I would rather go down with the ship with my core values in tact than to cheat just to survive this horrible industry.

I honestly feel for the kj's out there that have taken the same path trying to run a legit show. I want you to know that we were at least one of the retailers that fought tooth and nail trying help consumers understand how it effects everyone & doing everything we could to help level the playing field for kj's that take their craft seriously and refused to cheat as well.

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MADPROAUDIO ~ DISABLED VETERAN ~ FAMILY OWNED COMPANY

We too used to sell karaoke music (chartbusters) but it was available to steal off the internet sometimes before we got our monthly music. I think the DJ/KJ will sooner or later realize that they will all starve with wannabe DJ/KJs on every corner with the stolen 400 dollar hardrive music. It is a shame that it will turn out to be starving DJ/KJs because no one has to invest any money to give it a try. No one likes regulation but look what happens without. The D.J. side is in even worse shape than the KJ side.

I agree that it is almost impossible to compete with the pirates. 90% of KJ's are operating illegally, using stolen or pirated music to run their shows. That means that there are only 10% of us that are legit. It seems that most bar owners only care about cheap entertainment and aren't concerned with how a KJ acquired their library.

It seems that the karaoke manufacturers (SC, Chartbuster, etc.) don't care either. I have used both the hot line number as well as email to report pirates and the venues they're playing at... over a year ago. Why are they still working at these venues?

If pirates are reported, someone should be out there for their next show. So, if someone claims to have 100,000 songs and he plays at a venue every Friday for example... someone should be there the following Friday shutting him down. But this doesn't happen. Leads aren't followed.

It's getting harder and harder to stay legal and try to compete when the manufacturers are not acting in a swift manor to clean it up. Again, if a lead is reported about a suspected pirate, time is of the essence and must be acted upon immediately. If they can't do that, I ask the manufacturers to please remove the hot line number and email address for reporting piracy because it's a joke.

MadProAudio: As far as your statement about being a guppy in a world of sharks. I admire your honesty and integrity, however the reality is sooner or later you will be eaten by the sharks. Plain and simple, you cannot survive in such an environment.

I think that it's only going to get worse. We lost just about every major U.S. player. We have no support.

As for the statement: If you can't beat 'em, join 'em.... well, it's coming to the point that you just may have to if you want to compete in this business. Let's face it, there is NO level playing field in this business. And there never will be, and it's only going to get worse.

So, personally... I have always operated legally from the start and I'm going to try to hold on and continue, but...

The way I see it is you have two choices: get out of the business, or move over to the dark side.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Yes, Alan you correct about the last statement, and luckily for me I run and oldies show so competing with the pirates is not a problem since I have nearly every oldie made (6000++ discs for 1 rig). As the "Boomers" become more plentiful in Florida, because of retirement, I am very hopeful in having an extremely long run of no to very little new music.

Unfortunately you guys are right. I think most everyone here has reported pirates to them more than once and so far I believe most have agreed that nothing was ever followed up on and those pirates are still in business.
the bar owners don't care because the singers don't care. outside of other karaoke hosts, very free singers would care about why you may not have a song or be able to get it, and many of them may offer to get you a copy of the one they downloaded from the internet or got a copy of from their friends who has every song ever made on karaoke.
as for Mad Pro, I'm sure if you look through records of customers, you will find you list the regular singers long before the hosts. they were downloading the music before we had the opportunity to buy it and the hosts were calling to find this song that their singers came in with a copy of to sing.

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

Then, why should we care if they don't?

If the manufacturers really cared they would join together and create a nation-wide network of representatives that would be able to follow up on leads about a KJ operating illegally, within days of receiving the call or email.

But I doubt this is ever going to happen.

Most of us have spent thousands of dollars on our song library. Most of us continue to operate legally. Most of us have integrity. Most of us are honest. But, if we're getting no support from the manufacturers, those $400 hard drives are looking better and better.

A note to manufacturers:

If there is a road where the speed limit is 45 MPH and everyone drives down it at 55 MPH, and there is never any cops to enforce the speed limit, what's going to happen? People will continue to drive this road at speeds higher than the posted speed limit. After all, there's never any cops in this area to enforce it.

But... if there was, and they set up a speed trap, and started giving out tickets... what's going to happen? That's right, people will start going the speed limit because they know that there are cops on that road and they could get caught speeding.

Now, think about this:

If there were no cops, and you are one of the very few who are actually going the speed limit, what's going to happen? That's right, everyone else is going to pass you by and you're gonna be left behind. Just food for thought as it relates to the karaoke situation.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

That is what the problem has been from the start Alan. Most of the manus elected not to use the legal process method of solving their pirate problems. Only one SC has even given the illusion that it was serious. I don't really count the CB/PR attempt since it never really got off the ground and whatever was originally attempted by CB died with the company. It still remains to be seen whether PR can pick up the CB flag and run with it. If we can believe what has been posted. SC did not even have the financial means to start the legal process rolling, four years ago. I doubt if they have the resources today. Leaving the manus to police their own product is a waste of time. They don't have the resources since their cash flow has been cut due to piracy, and many are now out of business, and in no position to do anything. Even some supporters have started to admit the not only CB, but SC are now either out of business or defunct companies. So legal hosts can not expect relieve from that quarter, in any meaningful way.

But what if the revenue off those tickets was not enough to pay the police officers? Your view is wayyyyyy too simplistic. Some major factors you seem to be ignoring in your analogy:

1) It's not Stellar or SoundChoice or any manufacturer's job to enforce the law. Do you think if the speed limit was 45 and everyone was going 55 that the vehicle manufacturers should be responsible for taking care of it? If 100,000,000 people speed every day, do you expect the police to give each and every one of them a ticket? If the other 200,000,000 drivers call the car manufacturers to tell them they just saw someone speeding, what do you realistically expect them to do about it? Investigate and prosecute each and every one?

2) Piracy is far too widespread throughout the film, music, publishing, software, and karaoke industries for them to do any more than they do today, which is make an example out of a few violators here and there. There are literally tens of millions of violators. If you are a police agency or the FBI, think for a second about where exactly on your priority list karaoke piracy is. Think about how eager they are to put massive resources into prosecuting pirates so that the manufacturers and artists to protect the manufacturers' and artists' profit. How many more officers/agents would it take at $XX,XXX in payroll to go after tens of millions of IP pirates. It's pointless. There is no loss of liberty or life here, just loss of $$$$, and the last thing any rational person/agency is going to do is destroy their own budget looking after yours.

Sorry, but piracy is here to stay. It always has been, and always will be. I wouldn't be holding your breath for any meaningful change, and complaining about the manufacturers not following up on leads is pretty naive.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

Sooooo. Everybody is looting in Ferguson, MO. Police cant keep up. We should all go loot too!

Why not. Everybody is doing it.

I don't see why the local police can't handle it they seem to be better armed than the state troopers or even the national guard. Since when did the police look more like the Army than the Army? This is the problems of the 60's all over again Bazza. Those that don't learn their history are doomed to repeat it. Instead of trying to lift people out of poverty through education, we seem to spend far more on arming the police to a point that they look more like Imperial Storm Troopers from Star Wars. I'm just waiting for the police chief to come out in his Darth Vader suit.

I wasn't making a value judgement on right and wrong. I understand the ethics of the situation, and don't (intentionally) pirate myself because I value my character.

BUT, to say that the manufacturers/police/FBI should just go out and fix the problem is very ignorant. I'm sure they'd be happy to if it was economically realistic to do so. If someone were to pay me my current salary and give me the authority to go hunt down IP pirates, I would. Unfortunately, no one is paying anyone to go do so. It's just not worth it when you add it all up!

You can logistically equate the war on drugs to what you are proposing. Hundreds of millions of people in this country use drugs. Hundreds of millions of people in this country knowingly or unknowingly pirate intellectual property. A few websites I found quote that we spent $72,000,000,000.00 enforcing drug laws in 2013. That's 1,054,593 arrests, (858,408 for cannabis) and 6,857 incarcerations.

Raise your hand if you are naive enough to think that this kind of enforcement has eliminated or even curtailed drugs.

I would argue any sort of strict enforcement of IP law would yield similar results. A laughable financial expense, millions of prosecutions/fines, a handful of significant arrests/incarcerations, and no less piracy as an end result.

And where do we draw the line? I think the vast majority of you guys that rail against piracy have at least a couple violations yourself. An MP3 here, a bootleg CD there, some unlicensed software. I know I used napster in the late 90s, long before I had any idea that I was stealing anything. And I didn't destroy all of those shared downloads. Should I be prosecuted? At what level does it become worthwhile to prosecute? Why are you with 13 unlicensed downloads on your MP3 player any better than the guy who shares 100,000 karaoke downloads on a torrent site? Ethics doesn't count quantity, it counts intent.

Did you know 50/50 raffles are considered illegal gambling in most states? Did you know your church probably had one last month? Poker in bars with ANY prize, monetary or otherwise, is illegal in the state of Florida, yet I can find you 15 poker nights at bars to go to tomorrow night just in my immediate area. Why don't the cops enforce these laws? The prevalence to impact ratio makes it so it's just not worth the resources. There are bigger fish to fry with their available resources.

I would say the realistic answer is EDUCATION. You know as well as I do that the vast vast majority of newbies that jump on KS trying to figure out how to transfer their 500,000 karaoke tracks onto their laptop has NO IDEA that they've done anything wrong. In many cases, they purchase their pirated tracks from what looks like a perfectly legitimate retail source. Just like Napster looked perfectly legit to me (and hundreds of millions of others) in the 1990s.

Most of the people who violate IP law aren't unethical, they're ignorant. They wouldn't do it if they knew it was illegal and/or understood why. Educate the average Joe and the market for the true intentional pirate starts drying up.

Yikes, this is officially a rant. I quit.

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C Mc
KJ, FL

As usual, you missed the point entirely.

I think you are the one who's missed the point. Even if the manus could afford to make the effort to confront the problem, there is no desire to do so on the part of all but two now out of business manus. You can't solve the problem without resources, an effective plan, and the authority to impose the plan. It just can't be done Bazza.

I am assuming your comment is from the karaoke hosting side of this. My brother did the karaoke hosting through the years. I actually run a pro audio retail company and as a retailer, I am sickened and hurt just as much as you guys are and my heart goes out to the kj's that cared enough to try and do it right.

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MADPROAUDIO ~ DISABLED VETERAN ~ FAMILY OWNED COMPANY

So, if KJ's can't compete on level ground and the manufacturers won't support us, please tell me what incentive is there for anyone to continue to operate legally.

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Electro-Voice Evolve 50... Taking Sound To The Next Level.

Topher, you are right, it is not SC's job to do this. but they are the only ones doing it. the reason I brought it up is that THEY are the ones who came to us for help with it. THEY put up the flag to report pirates, THEY asked us hosts to call in with information to help them do what they said they were going to do, THEY have the link online to report piracy, and THEY are the ones ignoring every single report while anyone not on the SC bandwagon gets lambasted for not doing enough to help.
none of us went to SC asking for help to curb piracy, SC asked us for help getting money with the side effect of putting pirates out of business...the pirates are not out of business, they are not losing business, and the reported pirates have not ever been contacted.

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

I reported multiple pirate hosts in Raleigh, NC. Several were named in legal action. Sound Choice sold many of them GEM sets. Two had nothing happen from those crack investigations and continue to host multiple nights per week. Two others were named in legal papers and still to this day have several nights a week. So who benefited from that whole process?

I gave up and exited the karaoke business for DJ Trivia and DJ Bingo. I now have 18 DJs and run 54 shows per week in two states so I guess I should thank SC for their ineptness as it was the best thing that could have happened to me. The other legal hosts that are still there slugging it out with the pirates, not so much. BTW, after 3 sweeps by SC through that area there are more pirate shows than there were before.

For some people, ethics/personal character is enough incentive to not lie, cheat, steal, etc.. I guess if that doesn't motivate you, then realistically there is only a very small chance of getting caught if you choose to pirate software and/or karaoke tracks, so there is not much incentive to operate legally.

It still isn't the manufacturer's job to police the legal use of their product, any more than a gun manufacturer is responsible for what you do with their gun. Also, if you think SC does it because they care about KJs, you are again very naive. They are just looking for number one to defend their own bottom line, very much like the KJs they prosecute. All of the players in this debate, you and I included, are motivated by the $$$, it just depends on where the line is you will cross to get it. I do just fine, so I don't need to lie, cheat, steal to earn $$$. Some people think they do, but doesn't change my mind. If there comes a time where I can't make a living without being unethical, then I guess I won't be a KJ anymore, but there are tons of pirate KJs in my market right now as we speak, including the two venues closest to mine, and I am not really affected by them. I compete on quality and the bottom line of how many butts I put in the seats, not number of tracks or budget pricing.

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C Mc
KJ, FL