Karaoke Forums

I'd be SOOOO willing to take a percentage for reporting all the pirates in our area. How in the heck do we stop this? Wow...new karaoke host with 65,000 songs. Must be one rich SOB to have spent at least $100,000 on music to get started in this business that now pays so little, we can hardly afford to buy music anymore.

Maybe it's time to start a bonded company that contracts with the powers that be to round up the pirates. Just like bail bondsmen. Heck if they can put up cameras at intersections to catch red light runners, without a human enforcement officer in sight, why can't someone organize a company with the rights to snag these low-life slugs and turn them in and have them fine the crap out of them? (END OF FRIDAY RANT)

....my Mom was driving in Atlanta once and got a ticket where they take a picture of the back of your car driving through the red light...but the car was registered to Dad...he sent a picture of the check in the amount they were requesting ...!

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OMG Paula, that's friggen' hillarious!

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Was she driving a Chrysler that seats about 20 (as big as a whale)?

Karen computers and big hard drives hit this area about a year ago and multiriggers are doing low rate karaoke. I hear on the grapevine some bar owners are totally unsatisfied and want the heavies again. I am too old and need young hosts and help but I might approach some of these owners but they balk at $150-175/night. With my rep they know they get more than karaoke and bring in crowds. I would not worry about pirates but keep your regular singers informed about your integrity Your customers and word of mouth and their satisfaction will eliminate amatuers and cheapies. DO NOT WORRY ABOUT THEM They are short lived I guarantee you...

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The word on the street is, hard drives full of tracks are pretty much free..

Now that poor woman is fined $1,920,000.00 (million) for sharing 24 files on kaza, what's the world coming to?

Did the cops send him a back a picture of Handcuffs? Old joke...

I just read about that yesterday (on YAHOO). She would have gotten off with a 3-5K fine if she had settled out of court. There also was another article about students at a college being targeted.

She is gonna appeal again because of the amount of the judgement.


randy

I just noticed.. there's already another topic discussion about this entitled "Illegal Downloads - OUCH" .

Karen, I can understand your frustration with pirates, but $100,000 for 65,000 songs?

There are tons of ways to getp your hands on karaoke music without pirating and without paying full price. I very rarely do. Look at karaoke.com right now... They've got the sound choice foundation series for $369, and the bricks for $99 ea. Thats about .28 a song!!

Year old pop hits monthly disks end up in bargin bins, or cheap online, plus there's craigslist and ebay... and KJ's getting out of the business selling their disks. I've got about 18,000 songs (not counting dupes), and I've got a little over $5k invested in music!

Furthermore, reporting pirates won't help you one bit, other than cause you frustration and wasing your time. One goes away, two more pop up in their place.

Run a great show, have a good time, love what you do, and things like that slide right off your back.

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Oh, I'm not worried about my own shows - it's just so utterly frustrating. We've got a HUGE jump on them, I know - we love what we do, it shows, our singers love us, and I don't see these pirates as competition - again, just frustrating that they're like fungus after the rain.

My cost estimate on music is based on having purchased 16,000 songs over the last 15 years - years ago music was a LOT more expensive than it is now. I don't know exactly what I have invested in music but I'd say it's at least $28,000. (I bought S/C discs years ago for $27 and even SGB were $18-20 ... even the sale bin at the local karaoke store sold overruns and old stock for $6-8 each -- now they're a dime a dozen.) I do know what it music goes for now and I've taken advantage of sets of stuff, 20 discs for $35, etc, on E-Bay often to fill in holes. Even if a person got every deal known to man, 65,000 songs is going to cost at least $20,000. MMhhhh...and they pay $500 or less?

I guess sometimes it just doesn't pay to have a conscience.

I bought a collection of about 3000 songs last year for $900. it came with a complete karaoke rig that i promptly separated and sold what I did not want or need for $500. still have a 19" tv, NICE tv stand, decent pair of speaker stands, 2 sm58 mics with cords, Karaoke player,2 Really heavy 50' speaker cords A bunch of power cords, power strip ect,and a dozen nice books for this library. as i see it ive got about $100 in these 3000 songs. Ive passed on other deals on just music, but couldnt pass up this deal with good mics, cords, stands, tv ect. The guy also set me up in one of my better steady gigs, and frequently tells other places about me and gives them my cards.

You can buy music on the cheap, But in reality most don't. how many of those 65000 will ever get played??

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the voices arent real, but they have some good ideas

I don't think pirates can take away a good show--at least not for long--but when you don't have a track record to point to because you are just starting out, they CAN keep you from getting those first jobs--more songs for less money--some venue owners do look at at that. Owners also see a cheap hardrive as the opportunity to not pay a host and just have the bartender run things. And while they may fade, how do you survive without income while you wait for that to happen? Plus, when they run a bad show, you encounter a venue owner or crowd that has been soured on karaoke.

I agree, not much to be done but hang in there and keep trying to do a good job. The concept of pirating is pretty much a "So what, who checks," issue to most of the customers and owners. Turning them in just looks like sour grapes and would give a person a bad rep. But I sympathize with Karen's frustration.

99% of the songs sung, number in the hundreds. If you have a good show.....fear no Pirate.....rrrrrrrrrrrrrrr

There's a show I haven't been to for awhile where the KJ told me "We have like every Sound Choice song but one." That kind of cracked me up. How many songs actually get sung in a given year? Maybe 5-10,000? It's not having 100,000 songs that matter, but knowing what songs your customers like to sing. I knew a KJ that ran a pretty successful show for a couple years on what appeared to be just a few thousand songs. Of course your mileage may vary...

If you get the same crowd every week and they sing the same songs every week, you could do a great show with the right 300 songs. I went to a show last night that couldn't play a customer's CD. I couldn't find any new songs in the book but they did seem to have nothing but Sound Choice songs in their book and quite a few of them. Looked like a hard drive bought right off of Craig's list. Nothing but Sound Choice songs????? What legit KJ has ONLY one brand of music?

I had a guy come in trying to sell me an illegal hard drive. He says I see you are digital. I'd like to talk to you about the music I'm selling. I said, NOT interested. He seemed taken back that I wouldn't even consider it. He's says, Do you have a business card? I could save you a lot of money. I said, no you can't have my card and it's cheaper because it's illegal. His high and mighty attitude quickly changed. I didn't really know how to handle it. I've never had that happen before. Him and his friends sang some songs and left.

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We get that, too. It is unbelievable how many former KJs there are in one tiny area--I think at least 7 or 8 different sets have come to our show. Some are in the market to make a bit of extra cash. We were offered a copy of a hard drive for cash and said, "That's ok, we'll just buy what we need," and we got a smile and a mumble. Rarely one pair comes and sings at our show and when I admire that they have a rare song they wink and say, "You could have it, too." (I found it on SBI.)

It certainly wasn't my intent to flog this dead equine again but the fact is, if these low-lifes undercut and pick up shows based on their wildly huge number of songs, it ultimately HURTS the business in the area. They come in, make big promises, work for crap, and move on when it doesn't work. It just makes it MORE difficult than ever to prove that GREAT karaoke WORKS ANYWHERE. And it perpetuates the myth that karaoke is dying and it is horrible. One final big ARGGGGGG.....