Karaoke Forums

With the bizarre developments with Sound Choice and other American based karaoke makers, AND the availability of well done tracks on-line through British manufacturers is this the end of American produced karaoke.

It seems that US copyright restrictions are killing the business here. Meanwhile, SBI and sunfly have come together and their vast library are now available online through SBI's website.

How can the American companies compete?

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Apparently you missed the post earlier or it got removed with one of the threads but to answer your question about manufacturing in the US whatch: http://www.opensourcecinema.org

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CHECK YOUR ATTITUDE AT THE DOOR, STICK AROUND YOU JUST MIGHT HAVE SOME FUN

By obtainong licensing. SBI and Sunfly are only licensed for use in the UK. Use them here at your own risk.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

And be sued by exactly whom Joe?? My bar's ASCAP and BMI fees are fully paid up to play their artist's music... in whatever format. So that leaves the manufacturer themselves... who will sue me based on what premise???

Complete silliness on your part Joe, sorry.

Could we please stay on topic??

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Exactly it doesn't matter if a song was made in the UK & imported here, as long as the club are paying their ASCAP & the likes, there are no issues.

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

Now I'm confused. Wasn't it imported discs are OK but imported downloads might be iffy? Wish I could use the Search better and find where I thought someone other than Joe said that.

The US has its own laws for how to pay songwriters for their rights, the same as the UK.

Once the karaoke is made, then it is a matter of trade. Different countries have different laws for manufacture for every product, but once they are made it is totally ok buy anohter countries product SO LONG AS THEY ARE FOLLOWING TRADE LAWS.

To make any manufactured product different laws have to be followed in each country, but so long as it is legally made in a country that is in good standing with the WTO and the product is not following "unfair" trade practices (of course those are sometimes open to dispute as well) then we can purchase the product and use it however we wish in the USA.

The US laws are much less friendly to Karaoke manufacture, more so in terms of the hassle to obtain rights than the actual cost involved. This means US made karaoke is either going to be illegal or only survive when a very large sales volume can be expected.

This means US karaoke companies all make the same most popular songs and the variety of second tier songs are largely overlooked.

The UK laws let karaoke companies pay a set rate to make a song to a single entity without the hassle of negotiating and tracking down whoever owns the songs. That makes UK karaoke a whole lot easier to make.

I expect most US karaoke companies will move overseas except a few that are for the mass market selling in Wall Mart or Target, unless the laws change.

The US congress seems to have bigger worries at the moment that appear to be unlikely to be solved in the forseeable future so I seriously doubt they can fix the Karaoke laws any time soon.

I am staying on topic. Whenever these sorts of threads pop up, the legal disclaimer must be added.

BMI/ASCAP fees cover their artist's U.S. LICENSED music, for which they get their piece of the action ( which, sadly, rarely gets to the artists, which is why THEY get sued so much by them...but that's another story, but one that leaves me no fan of these types of orgs.).

They do NOT cover music for which no royalties are paid. There is no international compensation, because there is no international organization to regulate it.

In their eyes, unlicensed music, even if paid for in good faith, is pirate, because of the lack of royalties. why do you think U.S. karaoke mfrs. have been going out of business or working from overseas sites in the first place?

Granted, the chances of any specific host being caught are small, but those chances are growing. More venue checks have been made in the last 2 years ( of course, I'm only talking about my area, don't know about others) than have been made in the last 10 combined.

All I'm saying is that if you run a show using downloads from overseas, you must be aware that all responsibility for licensing now rests on YOUR shoulders. The mfrs. are operating legally within those jurisdictions, but if, on the off chance, a U.S. host gets caught, he/she WILL be legally liable.

I am only putting the info out there- not judging, or caring if or how it's used.

EDIT: I take that back. If I didn't care about it, I wouldn't talk about it. I guess I just don't want to see people get in trouble through mis-information.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

The licenses apply to manufacturing, not playing. ASCAP?BMI fees paid by the club, the music is fine to play.

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

For karaoke we have to pay fees for BMI/ASCAP and that is regarless of how the music was purchased. That is performance cost.

For a specific song, you have to buy a legit copy.

For that it comes to someone making a copy and paying royalties to the songwriter. The US and UK have different laws on this, but we recognize each others legitimacy. US law covers UK musicians on products made in the US and UK laws cover songs on US music on products made in the UK, this is a mutual agreement.

Based on the mutual agreement for trade, people in both countries can buy products made legally in the other country.

That is how world trade works.

So anyone in the US who buys a legally made copy from UK it is no different from a legally purchased copy made in the US.

If this was not the case then a US DJ could not play songs, movies etc made in different countries.

Same with every other imported product in the US, most of which were made in an environment where the laws are different from US laws. Coordinating all of the laws that impact manufacture around the world would be impossible for every traded item, and it would be impossible anyway, as laws people in one country accept as reasonable may be unacceptable to different cultures.

Sometimes countries disagree on practices by different countries, and that is when the world trade organization comes in to settle disputes. Overall this organization looks at the overall laws of a country and atempts to asses if they are giving a country an unfair advantage. If countries disagree they start a trade war. There is no trade war with the UK at the moment certainly not one involving karaoke.

As an example of a trade war, it looks like at the moment the US thinks that China is dumping tires on the US under rules that the US thinks are unfair. The US is talking about preventing their import. As a response China is talking about banning US chicken imports into China.

All of this fighting is beyond my pay grade, on who exactly is in the right, but there is no such dispute on UK made karaoke.

Practically as a KJ you might have problems using a product made in a country with a history of violation of copyright laws, but for major first world countries a consensus has been reached and we recognize products legally made each other's countries by recoprocal arrangement.

As regards to ASCAP/BMI any major artist from overseas gets into the US money trough for performance compensation.

Therefore Amy Winehouse (a UK artist) gets money for US use of her music. Of couse minor UK artists dont have those arrangments worked out, but neither do most minor US artists. So long as an artist from outside the US sees that the US market is likely to provide some money they just have to sign on to the US compensation system.

Same with US artists who get some money for use of their products in UK under UK rules. Fortunately for us this includes karaoke.

A lot of the songs we use in karaoke are not by US artists, even though the karaoke product may have been made in the US.

The fact that Karaoke song production is moving overseas is no different from the movement of car manufacture or tv manufacture. So long as we buy a legally imported product made legally in another country, as the user we are within the law.

I would prefer that US laws let us make karaoke cheaply and legally in the US. Until that time, I will purchase a foreign made product if cheaper and better if it is legal. Just like the made in Computer I am using.

Joe, you got it ALL Wrong.

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I can neither confirm nor deny ever having or knowing anything about nothing.... mrscott

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KingBing Entertainment C'mon Up! I have a song for you!!! [font=MS Sans Serif][/font]

In theory, You are correct. There are some copywrite "agreements" between countries.

However, there are two things to consider:

1) In real life royalties are rarely, if ever, collected between countries, because there is simply no way to police usage.

2) Even if there were enforceable reciprocation for music, it doesn't apply to U.S. Karaoke. Why? The same reason that downloaded karaoke tracks aren't licensed here at all- different requirements, such as- but not limited to- synch licenses.

To repeat an earlier question- which no one has answered- why do you think that download sites have been moved overseas in the first place?

From the above"

"Coordinating all of the laws that impact manufacture around the world would be impossible for every traded item, and it would be impossible anyway, as laws people in one country accept as reasonable may be unacceptable to different cultures. " - completely true


Also in regard to the above, and the answer to my question:

"
If this was not the case then a US DJ could not play songs, movies etc made in different countries."

The answer is that this would be correct, accept that each country is it's own empirical jurisdiction.

If the UK wishes to allow it's subjects to use U.S. tracks THERE, there is nothing we can do about it. Each country makes it's own rules, and enforces as they see fit.

However, the U.S. does NOT wish to allow the commercial use of music that is not licensed in the U.S., we are WITHIN U.S. jurisdiction, even if the download sites aren't. Therefore, a U.S. KJ running a show on overseas downloads IS as liable as the one who gets caught with limewire or other pure pirate tracks, whether they paid for them or not.

Sorry, Lonman, but this is one of the very few times that I must disagree with you.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."

If you watched RIP: A remix Manifesto 2.0 all karaoke/music discs are produced/manufactured over seas.

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[img]<img%20src="http://i83.photobucket.com/albums/j288/miller2348/myspace/images/Funny_Pics/images/21.gif"[/img]

CHECK YOUR ATTITUDE AT THE DOOR, STICK AROUND YOU JUST MIGHT HAVE SOME FUN

Joe, I think I'll just "risk" it.

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Good music, good friends, howling good times!

Think I'll risk even more since I purchase downloads first and then discs if I can't find it on download. Why waste money on songs that don't get sung. At least with downloads I can get just the songs my clients want.

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

I think you miss the point.

UK karaoke is legal in the US. You can go into US stores and buy Sunfly or Zoom disks. I have seen them in regular music stores (admittedly rarely).

Downloaded karaoke music is also LEGAL in the us.

The only thing that is not legal is that some companies have decided not to sell their music as downloads, most notably soundchoice.

Different companies have made different business decisions on how they will sell their product, but there is nothing inherently illegal about downloaded karaoke. Just downloaded karaoke that is not sold with the approval of the manufacturer.

Sound choice is trying to make it easier to police (for them) by not approving any company to provide downloads.

That's cool, i'll have to disagree as well!

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

And probably worth the risk, Koyote. The chances of getting caught are certainly minimal. I just believe that we should be aware of the facts- that's all.

Anyone who downloads that takes what I'm saying as a knock- please don't. No one elected me judge. Just please be aware, and be careful.

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"No Contests, No Divas, Just A Good Time!"

" Disc based and loving it..."