Karaoke Forums

the the marine...

I totally respect your position, but you CAN confront someone without using violence.

And the guy laughing in your face... dude, he DESERVED to get thrashed!

Semper Fi!

You just earned a boatload of respect from me, because I went through a phase of not being able to control my aggression, and I understand what it takes to reel it back in.

I currently don't have a player in my stack: I inherited a warehouse of music from my partner and we simply went through them and ripped them (4,000+ disks). It was lighter/faster to run laptop only and the player takes up 2 spaces on my rack.

That being said, I do inform the singer I can rip it and hang onto it and I have a specific directory for it. Most times they're looking to sing a song I already have 5 versions of but they want to use their <fill-in-the-blank> version because that's what they have practiced.

Those versions never get placed in a songbook, it's not one of the scanned directories but it does stay resident on the PC with a dic number of "HOMEGROWN". I never really thought about deleting them as the "right" approach as I always thought it a simple way to make sure they know they don't need to bring a disk. I guess a little inconvenience and keeping things right would be better in the long run... or simply replacing that player with a 1 space for the rack.

I've had customers ask to rip my tracks to my computer so they wouldn't have to bring in the discs. While I COMPLETELY understand their request, the only thing I can do is shake my head no. As a computer user, I'm already crossing a line, but I can justify it because I have all the discs (or just recently, I bought a series of downloads, and have the records on those).

But for the customer, I don't own the discs...

In one case, I just flat out went and bought their disc. In another, I couldn't find it. Totally discontinued disc that nobody has redone it to justice. Once I told her of my concerns, she just shrugged and said she'd bring them in.

That's the thing, we have to stay legal...our business and livelihood depend on it. Those that rip and 'steal' music draw unfavorable attention to the rest of us. They are the reason there is the big push to stop copying altogether...even when we own the original, and want to protect the original disc by using a copy (physical disc copy or copied to hard drive).

The Fair Use Doctrine currently covers copying (and in our case, format shifting) of legally purchased/copyrighted material at this point, based on much credible published material. It is HIGHLY unlikely that even RIAA at this time has the millions of dollars that would be required to make an absolute and final determination of the actual legality, and thus set a precedent. The music industry is concomitantly undergoing the same economic issues as the rest of this country, and perhaps even more so....not due to format shifting or copying, but rather because for under $1000 a struggling artist can create very high quality music ... and then market it on the internet ... so the days of 'signing' artists (and sucking the life blood out of them) are pretty well over. The fat cats in that industry have had it so good for so long, living off the efforts of artists everywhere in the world.

I guess my point is that no one should be overly concerned about format shifting their own property (rip your CDGs to a harddrive) if the following conditions are met: You own the hard copies as long as you own the computer; you do not distribute copies of your ripped files (even for free), and you don't use your hard copies and your backup copy (computer harddrive music) at the same time.

At the point in time when format shifting of privately owned music becomes a legal issue, as it strictly applies to karaoke, those of us using computers can simply destroy the hard drive and revert to using discs; however, it is highly, highly unlikely that we will ever have to take such a huge backward step. It is just going to take the legislators, the artists/production companies, and the computer industry a while to formulate more current and applicable laws that are fair and equitable to consumers as well as the artists. In other words, I'm not worried.

I just dont get it. If he is sleazy enough to copy a disk from a new singer he obviously has no morals. If that is true then why not just copy for free from the internet, it is the same sort of stealing. If he cant find the files to download for free from less than reputable sites, then he is not very competent as a thief, or to dumb to be a decent one.

Therefore in my opinion he is both stupid, and sleazy.

Not only that but he is doing it in plain sight in front of all those in the bar....

Thow him in jail, with other dumb criminals.

Good post, Kathy!! That pretty much says it all...though Sound Choice would like to prevent us from putting their stuff on hard drive...so far I don't think it's illegal as long as you own the hard copy AND don't use both at the same time.

Thank you for explaining it so well!

I'm with Gryf here.

I only use my Laptop, don't have a separate CD+G Player to play discs. So if someone comes in with a disc, I have to rip it to the computer in order to play his version. Those rips go to a temp folder on my desktop and that folder is being emptied after my show.

BUT... if one of my regulars comes in and sings the same songs from the same discs over and over again, I ask them if they would mind, if I permanently rip their discs to my computer (Just for convenience reasons, for them and for me).

I have to add this: IF I rip a customer disc permanently they go into a different folder than my own Karaoke library and are NOT included when I redo my song books! Even though I have those discs on my hard drive, they will only be used by their owners and no one else. (I actually use their name as disc id plus a number 01, 02, etc to ensure that only they sing their own songs)

And if it is a disc I really like, I go out and buy it for my library, if it is still available. If not, well too bad.

I will get a song if requested by a regular to get it. I do not play outside discs as I don't have an outside player set up due to rack space limitations and my program won't play discs either. I won't rip another's disc into my computer as I believe it is wrong to do so. Either you own a copy of it or you don't have it.

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The Line Array Experiment is over. Nothing to see here. Move along.

And then be prepared for an overwhelming feeling of "who cares?" to sweep across the room. This is not something that the average customer is going to care about in the slightest.

It's up to us to MAKE it known!

"THIS MAN IS STEALING MY TRACKS ON MY CDG I PURCHASED!!"

At the very least you talk with the manager or owner of the venue, and let them know their contractor is committing a CRIME, and that you're going to report the BAR as the place where the crime is happening. Hope they don't shutter your doors over this during the investigation.

Or you can just fire the kj company!

The other thing this does is devalue the service we give. Patrons think that the music is cheap or easy to get for free and don't appreciate that it takes a big investment to provide thousands of legal songs.

We have had a former KJ pair come to our show and tell our patrons that we don't have enough songs (4,000 plus after only 3 months in the business isn't too bad) or that we don't have the types of songs they like to sing (we fill requests within a week if possible). Then they offered to make them their own disc off their hard drive for $1.00/song. Luckily no one took the deal but no one expressed any outrage either.

We were offered access to their hard drive for a fee and when we said that we would legally buy any songs that we needed they mumbled and left.

Live and learn... that's what participating on this forum is all about.

With the new year and my new (gig) I vowed to make my life simpler and my rig smaller/lighter and easier to set up - I no longer take by CDG/MP3/VCD player to the gig (along with all my discs).

The two anticipated "downsides" of leaving all that stuff behind is that I have no immediate backup if my computer crashes and I had to remove my VCR discs (about 100 tracks) from my catalog because they are not on the computer.

Now, I learn, that customers will suspect me of pirating their discs when I put them into the computer. Perhaps, I would be better off not playing customer's discs? My partner wants no part of that and he's been quite successful at KJ'ing!

Just bring a cdg player with u. HOW TERRIBLY HARD AND INCONVIENT can it possibly be to hook up a red, white and yellow 3 wire cable for the few custie cdg's that get brought up.??

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"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

I think sometimes karaoke companies that do that FORGET just WHO their customers are.

Do it my way or leave.

Sheesh!