Karaoke Forums

Ok I just spent a couple of hours going through two threads and there seems to be some common misconceptions running through both of them that I thought I could attempt to clairify.

Before I start, I should point out that I am NOT a lawyer or an expert on copyright law but my opionions are based on people who have been dealing with copyright law for nearly 25 years.

ok first of all the most basic misconception.

1. If you are a user of commercial music *like being a karaoke host* you have NO RIGHTS AT ALL unless they are specifically granted by the copyright holder IN WRITING.

It may be unpopular, unfair or stupid but that's the way it is.

Take the simple act of buying a karaoke disc. Congratulations, you now own a piece of plastic. The only RIGHTS you now have is to play that disc at home in a karaoke machine and to make a backup TO USE AT HOME. All other rights are kept by the producer of the disc and the record companies.

The legal RIGHT to play it in a public setting comes from ASCAP/BMI etc or if you you are based in Canada, a SOCAN license.

The legal RIGHT to copy that disc in ANY format does not currently exist for end users *ie the karaoke host* because the RECORD COMPANIES who hold the original copyrights won't allow it. It doesn't matter how much you dislike a particular karaoke producer it simply isn't in their power to do what we want.

2. Any Manufacturer of Karaoke that has been in business for more than 10 years has been sued for Copyright Infringent because the LAWS were changed on them. The ones that are still around settled, because it was cheaper than fighting it. The ones that aren't around got sued into oblivion or simply stopped selling in North America.


In the begginning just as CD+G was starting to come out there were no sync requirements for karaoke. The closest thing that applied was the current laws for audio recordings. Under these laws anyone who wants to produce a song may do so WITHOUT THE PERMISSION of the copyright holder, AS LONG AS THEY PAY the complusary fees to the proper entity *ie the persons representing the copyright holder or the actual owner of the copyright*

This is exactly what Soundchoice did. To the best of my knowledge no one has been able to prove a case of WILLFUL infringement.

Then cd+g discs like those from DKK came out and they contained pictures. All of a sudden people like Disney were crying foul, and they sued a whole bunch of people and and set the precident for Karaoke requiring a Sync license. THAT is when the artists and their representatives started to get involved and sue the karaoke companies. Because a sync liscense DOES require the permission of the artist.

Soundchoice, Chartbusters and a whole host of others were forced to stop selling a whole host of songs that the Artists had withdrawn permission for BUT part of the settlement terms was that KJs could continue to use the discs that they had paid for in good faith.

This is why no one will come after you for using Soundchoice's infamous Eagles disc.

3. A Sync licence for karaoke has two completely separate sets of rights - the audio portion and the composition portion *ie the lyrics you see on the screen*

When a karaoke company in north america produces a karaoke track they have master rights over the AUDIO RECORDING only! The full composition rights stay with the record producer. A karaoke company CAN grant the right the right to copy the AUDIO portion of their karaoke track but not the graphic or lyric portion. This is why transfering your cd+g discs to a computer is technically illegal.


4. Soundchoice has taken the position they will not sue anyone over THEIR RIGHTS for tranfering to hardrive AS LONG AS YOU ARE WILLING TO PROVE IT!

This is what the letter of intent is for, to give the KJ the opportunity to prove complience to their conditions to the format shift or transfer.


If someone thinks that this is unfair, yes they have every right to remove that content and not use it anymore but the fact remains THEY STILL BROKE THE LAW AND SOUNDCHOICE HAS EVERY RIGHT TO PERSUE THAT IF THEY SO CHOOSE REGARDLESS OF WHETHER YOU ARE USING THEIR CONTENT ANYMORE OR NOT!

And they can still go after a bar for contriubutory infringement. So removing your content solves nothing.

Ok i have to go for now, let the picking apart and arguements commence!

Thanks for the continuing effort at making this the "All piracy, all the time!" station.

And you are immediately caught out in what you are saying, I.e. you don't understand at all. Record companies don't have diddly to do with anything. You aren't making a copy of the record. The fact that you would even bring that up pretty much disqualifies you as an authority.

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[color=#ffff55]Mickey J.[/color]
Alas for those who never sing, but die with all their music in them.
-- Oliver Wendell Holmes, Sr.

I was unable to find any misconceptions in your post. But if you want a discussion...

lets start with number 4."4. Soundchoice has taken the position they will not sue anyone over THEIR RIGHTS for tranfering to hardrive AS LONG AS YOU ARE WILLING TO PROVE IT! "


Yes SC has taken that position, but actions speak louder than words.

SC has INTENDED TO SUE customers that were willing and able to prove compliance to the format shift conditions.

In other words, THEY WILL INTEND TO SUE YOU in order to obtain said proof if they see you run a PC based show. THEY NAME YOU IN A LAWSUIT FIRST and then if you are willing to submit they remove you from that suit.

THAT IS A FACT, not an opinion. Just ask KJathena. They do not contact you first to see if you would be willing to "PROVE IT'...

IMO SC does not care if you are 1:1 complaint and named in a suit, they are within their rights to sue and getting the word on the streets that THEY INTEND TO SUE 50 KJs in the area were sued will grab the attention of the rest.

Thanks for the attempt, JC. I know that you have spent hours researching and talking to the karaoke companies on the phone about this. I'm sorry you got such a rude welcome to this board. You can't have known about discussions that went on before you got here.

Well thatès the thing. It comes down to semantics. Legally speaking, an INTENT TO FILE is NOT a lawsuit. ANY competant lawyer can verify that fact.

Yes I can see how someone would think that they are being sued but to the best of my iunderstanding no public record exists during the letter stage.

If there are any lawyers who know differently, feel free to correct me and I will recantéapologize.

respêctfully

-James

The post points to a clear problem with the legality of karaoke and technology.

Clearly the laws were not initially clear with regards to Karaoke and Sync rights which resulted in ending the sale of many disks (and several karaoke companies).
Of couse long before the laws were clearly defined for sync rights the technology existed, and many disks and songs were made.

When the laws were written format shifting was not a serious concern. REGARDLESS of claims by many from sound choice and others the illegality of format shifting has not been proven in case law for karaoke. At some point the legality of format shifting will be settled by a court case but until then it should not be considered illegal. Multi billion dollar industries have existed for a long time involving format shifting (mp3 players, cassete tapes).
The laws, and legal precedent on format shifting are not clear with regards to karaoke, the lack of clarity is not evidence for LEGALITY or ILLEGALITY, despite what many may want you to believe.

Music companies may threaten to sue on format shifting but such a case would clarify too much in commerce for them to actually cary out their threats.

THe fact is that a format shifting case is unlikely to be brought to trial anymore, as most music companies realize most of the few remaining CD sold are only used once to transfer the contents into MP3 players. The result is that the music industry does not want to have a clear law that shows format shifting is illegal. If it a case was ever brought to trial based solely on the concept of format shifting the power has passed onto manufactures of mp3 players, and companies like APPLE (ipods) would be supporting the right to format shifting. Conceptually (and legally) the format shifting of a music video or movie into a media player is no different than format shifting for karaoke. The personal media players are now a multi billion dollar industry which depends on the legality of format shifting. Don't expect any court cases that show format shifting is illegal to happen any time soon. Of course format shifting is not the same as pirateing which is a different issue completely (and is clearly illegal).

I t was my understanding that both IPOD type use and VCR use already did, indeed, have court cases concerning their legality. One was in 1999 which was the RIAA against the Diamond Co. regarding a personal MP3 player. It was found that using the player merely gave the user "portability" with the "space shift" so PERSONAL use was allowed. The other was Universal vs. Sony and obviously Sony won or we would not be allowed VCR use. There has just not been a case yet that has established the right for us to do the same with commericial karaoke shows.

It is not the duty of a Karaoke host to obtain rights from the copyright holders of music (unless they make the karaoke themselves). There are extensive laws that exist that grant "Fair use" rights to various entities with regards to karaoke. If that was not the case there would be completely different sets of rules for each artist/song. It is not up to the copyright holder to determine if I can use a specific song or not in karaoke. Copyright holders CAN prevent a song from being made IN THE US, but they can not prevent such songs from being made in some other coutries like UK (depending on local laws). Copyright holders can NOT prevent such foreign made karaoke songs from being imported into the US and being used here, if that foreign country has a trade treaty with the US that allows it (as is the case with UK).

There is no ability for the different karaoke companies to select different rights for their products. The Karaoke manu companies do not decide what is legal or not legal. Of course they have influence on the laws, but then so do the consumers and songwriters.

That is a duty of congress, to write the laws and the courts to interpret the laws. We are not entities with "NO RIGHTS AT ALL". The legal system strikes a balance between the rights of producers and consumers. Of course if one side or the other of producers and consumers of music had NO RIGHTS AT ALL then there would be no industry as both consumers and producers are needed. The legal system strikes a balance between the rights of consumers and producers. If one side has all the rights then the industry dies.

Yes it is Semantics... Intent to file is a step in the lawsuit process and you know that(I assume). Most cases never see a court room, but I guess most were never sued.



I thought you wanted a serious discussion.

No they dont write laws, but they do decide what action or non-action to take.

So even if a company does not give one the legal right to say use a download commercially, they can choose to never take action against paying customers that do.

and yet another of this never ending argument-leading thread.....come on guys move on.

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

I know all about fair use clauses. But fair use has only been proven in cases against NON COMMERCIAL USERS, of which we are not.

Fair use as far as we are concerned has never been proven in a court of law. And until it goes all the way to the supreme court either in the US or Canada, neither my opinion or anyone else's is FACT.

The question then becomes, are you the one who's willing to be sued over it to prove it one way or the other.

There ARE, in my opinion, ACCEPTABLE risks for copying a cdg to a computer and maintaining a 1:1 ration. The likelyhood of getting sued by the music companies is slim to none *again in my opinion*.

The people I was more worried about were the Karoake Producers and now that they are starting to reverse their stance on cdg tranfer, I am a happier camper.

I am willing to break the law with the full understanding it may come back to bite me on the arse, but that is my choice.

I'm sorry if I fueled the fire for arguements but there were all sorts of "Why can't the manufactuers just say it's ok" and "Why can't I do XXX" posts. My goal was to try and clear that up.

I was also trying to assuauge all the fears of the people who were complaining about Soundchoice's lawsuits. The difference in my eyes is WILLFUL infringent.

Man:I'm sorry if I made you assume I was looking for a debate, I was actually trying to stop some of the more repetative ones. In that regard, I will agree to disagree with you and drop the whole thing.. Fair enough?

respectfully

-James

No prob JAMES, I have edited my ORIGINAL reply in order to be in line with your semantics.

James, please don't feel too bad.
I enjoyed your post.
This forum not as bad as others
is still a hard one to get on with.

Jeez, even I don't want to get caught up in this thread...

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

jclaydon, i can tell who you've been talking to... welcome to the forum. Unfortunately, you're way off base on this one however. Listen to Dr Fred, and manobeer. They are both 100% spot on. I will even take it one step farther. The element of intent must be in every legal argument, or there wouldn't be one. Also the manu's still would try to make you believe "Format Shifting" is illegal,..ask any one of them. When you legally format shift, you take all control of a product away from it's manufacturer. This they hate you for. They go balistic. Ask yourself this very simple question. If the karaoke disc manufacturers could completly control every aspect and means,of how their karaoke disc were played, displayed or presented, would they? If you honestly answer that question yes, there in lies the problem.

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Sweet Little Me In Karaokeland........

Without arguing the format shift issue: The flip side to this is that when you shift, you also put all licensing responsibility on your own shoulders, as it is no longer the mfrs. product. You can no longer use the phrase "bought in good faith"- it becomes YOUR problem... which is why people like SC DON'T care if you shift- it absolves them of licensed use responsibilities.

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

" Disc based and loving it..."