Karaoke Forums

I will say I can definitely see both sides of the issue from a karaoke standpoint, and I think some of the laws are either absolutely ridiculous or unclear. I can also see why the laws were created in the first place...but maybe they just need to be refined instead of tying up the courts with all these copyright lawsuits and arrests (some of them have been pretty stupid IMO). Hopefully, someday a happy-medium can be reached and we can all be happy with the copyright laws....ahhhhh...to dream

candi, first off Ive gotta say hi to my nearest neighbor on the board! I agree that many have accepted the fact that to the letter of the law , hard drives are illegal. But like Karaokyer says it is the most logical way to run a show.
does it make me nervous? yes some times it does. it seems to me that the people who are enforcing these things so far have had there hands full trying to get the bars to pay there fees. as I see it it is less work for them to chase a bar that never moves than a karaoke show that is there one night and someplace else the next. HOWEVER, have you ever heard about the people who have gotten fined a years pay for there kid downloading 2 movies? as said before the laws for these things are really clear, bars HAVE to pay ascap riia and bmi. it IS against the law to download movies. we all know that some people do have pirate hard drives. MOST do seem to be ripped by the user from origional disks. it would be a huge effort to go out and try to verify all of the karaoke shows out there. they may make a small effort to do so, just as a scare tactic but it is more effective to go after the people selling the illegal drives.

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas

I use my computer, and appreciate the convenience. I don't have multiple rigs out there. I've got one KJ from a neighboring county that boasts a 75,000 song book (at 15 different shows) trying to come into my town and take over - like that'll ever happen. I have 15,000 unique songs - 1 show. I know my population and give 'em raging parties. I'm not hurting anyone. If anything I'm promoting the artists, not stealing from them. Jimeny Crickets this topic makes me laugh. There isn't one documented prosecution (that I'm aware of) where a KJ was busted for using a computer. How many karaoke shows are there in the US alone? 50,000+? I have to imagine I'd hear of something by now if it was a problem. When it becomes a problem, then it becomes illegal in my book. Til then, I'm just going to keep throwing the best karaoke and dance parties in my tri-county region. Cha!!!!!!!

Hey, what about me!! Muskego is closer to you than Green lake.

This may sound like a ridiculous question, but do the copyright laws also apply to karaoke versions of songs which are considered public domain? Or, what about recording a background on your own of a song considered to be public domain and adding karaoke graphics on your own?

shoot, yer right!! my bad..for some reason I had forgotten and was thinking it was babs or Joy. (im not sure witch of them is closer)

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas