Karaoke Forums

For those of you who publish karaoke, how do you handle the licensing issues? I have my soundtracks licensed, but I'm talking about the mechanical and synchronization rights. I will be dealing with EMI for my first release. Do you have to pay for a certain number of licenses up front, or can you pay for them as you sell them?

Fear not for helping the competition...the reason that I am publishing the works that I am doing is because no one else wants to, and I don't expect enormous sales, which is why I'm concerned about buying too many licenses. I already have another business, and I just want to help the people I have found who are searching for good international music and have had such a frustrating time trying to find the best of it...people like me!

Someone help me out here, so I can sound halfway intelligent when I contact EMI. Thanks.

-denise

Hmmm.
You are already producing your first Album using Midi.
Good on you.
It seems that you want to make a business out of something you know very little about.

I hope you get a lot of enjoyment out of completing your album.
But please...
Tell yourself that you are doing it for the fun of it and to prove you can do it.
It will be something you have achived and will keep for ever.
If anything comes of it, it is a big bonus.
Maybe see what people think of it before you start spending on the legal side of it.
I wish you every sucsess.

96% of us are just kj's and singers. The couple major manus that sometimes get on here probably will not be of much help, the other 2 that have tried going commercial, we really haven't heard from in a while and haven't seen any sign of their product yet after a year or two.

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Why not send Kurt Slep at Sound Choice an email directly. He would probably love to give you the lowdown on "the biz".

kurts at soundchoice dot com

Yeah, that's why I was asking about it. This is the information age...anyone can become an expert on anything, with a little research. We already have two businesses that we do know something about. One makes money, and I hate doing it. The other loses money, and I love doing it, but that's life sometimes. One day perhaps I will find a way to do something that I love doing and make good money doing it. Sometimes you just have to try things, and tweak your plan along the way.

For this, my first album, my goal is to make the best works of Les Rita Mitsouko available to others who may want to sing them at karaoke. I will be shocked if I break even on the project, much less turn a profit, but it is something that I want to do, and, by golly, I'm a gonna do it. I'm just looking for a way to do it without spending more than I legally have to for license fees, and that is what my questions are about.

-denise

OK, thanks. I'll let y'all know what he says.

-denise

Maybe.
Possibly a little more research than you are doing?

Don't let that put you off though.
If you never try...

why not take a poll to see how many people here would be interested in buying your first album? That might make you realize that you might be wasting your time. Personally, I don't think you'd sell even a dozen of them.....but I could be wrong.

Bruce...
Just when I think you are ok.

Shatter someone's dream why don't you.

If you want to produce a karaoke disc/tracks. More power to you, just make sure you are prepared to face the difficulties.

To legally do it in North America first you need to pay for the recording rights. *I assume you`ve done this or you wouldn`t have an album* then you need to negotiate for the composition rights. Then you have to pay a `fixing` fee *to attach your work to a specific media format. the problem with the fixing fee, is it is usually for a set number of copies, regarless of how many copies you sell. After you have paid the fixing costs, you have to pay for a sync liscense. this is the graphics or lyric swipe that you have with all karaoke tracks.

Also keep in mind that the copyright(s) holder can say no at any part of this process, which means you would be SOL.

good luck with your endevour

-James

For the mechanical and sync rights you need a signed contract with the owner of the songs rights.

Yes many times it can be very hard to figure out exactly who owns the rights as bands may have broken up or writers have died. Certainly some musicians may find anything less than thousands of dollars a nucance not worth thier time (or thier lawyers time to check it is ok).

The best bet is to leave the US and move to the UK that has much more reasonable rules, and a set fee for each karaoke track made/sold with sycned lyrics. In the US the laws say the songwriter (or their successor) can charge WHATEVER they want.

A simple cover version is easy to make and does not require specific approvial of origional songwriter to make (and set fees of about 7cents are paid fore each copy sold/made). But for sync of the lyrics you need approval to make them legit in the US.

My gut feeling is that in the US market expect to pay at least 40cents a track to the artists with a minimum of guarantee of 5000 tracks sold.

Hence little specialty karaoke is made in the US legally.

Set up a company in the UK with minimal paid up capital.
Do your business from there the way SBI and others are doing:
less legal complexities

Sell download (high quality mp3g @ 320kbps) rather than traditional album. less overhead and people can choose and pick the tracks that they want.

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

Actually that is the easier option, I just don`t know what the rules on importing karaoke are specifically altho they must exist cause they sell zoom etc here in canada and the US.

-James

Avoid the licensing issues altogether by doing songs that no one has heard. There are a zillion and four song writers out there who would be happy to forgo their rightfull fees for the first thousand copies or so just to get their work heard. You've probably sung enough karaoke to know that with a cover of a well know song people will be comparing you to the original. That is a bad thing. You will always finish second even if you do a better job than the original. When you have the album finished... promote, promote, PROMOTE! Play a lot of free gigs, house concerts, record stores, coffee houses anywhere that will have you and shake a lot of hands. I put out an independent album in '95 and I lost my donkey on it, but one of the biggest thrills I ever had with my clothes on was walking down the street and having a car pass by with one of my songs playing on the stereo.

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Okay, who took my pants?

This is from the reply that I received from Kurt :

The situation regarding the required synchronization licensing for karaoke products licensed in the US can really affect the speed to market for releasing new songs and which songs can be produced.  The costs of licensing can be substantial when you consider that karaoke is a niche market and unit sales volumes are relatively low.  US publishers typically require a “fixing fee” of $125 - $150 per song PLUS per song use royalties of $0.12 - $0.15 per copy per song with a minimum advance payment for 1500 songs.

That's not good news, not terribly bad either. The good news, perhaps not terribly good for his company and other large vendors, but for me, is the enormous cost of artwork, replication, recording, etc., most of which I will be doing myself, because I am planning such a small business model. The licensing costs are really all I have to pay for, and I can produce this disk for less than $2 per copy. If it really costs the big companies $8-14 a disk to produce them, they might just as well buy 50 or 100 copies of it wholesale from me. I can sell them for considerably less. Of course all of this may be Fantasy Island, or it may be doable, but it doesn't seem to me as if paying the licensing costs to do the first trial album is going to flush my bank account. There is, also, the option of doing just one song at a time, the licensing costs of which would be trivial to me.



There are a few problems with that plan. It would cost us a fortune to ship all of our stuff, like our aircraft, my car collection, our boat, machine tools, etc., and they would have no sense of humour whatsoever when they saw our gun collection. I also doubt that we could relocate our logistics business to the UK and make any money, and the Obama demagoguery has passed some new laws that will probably prevent us from being able to sell our house. This karaoke project is something for me to do. I have to be busy all of the time, doing something productive, or I go nuts. The best case scenario would be that the business would keep me busy enough, and make enough money, so that I would not have to be involved with logistics, but that's probably a pipe dream.

I'm going to purchase the rights for one song that I have finished, I think, my best work so far, and test market it as a single. We're also planning to go purchase some MIDI equipment, controller and synth. Actually, it's my birthday Sunday and my family wants to buy it for me, so no financial risk there. I do have a background in violin, guitar, drums, music mixing, and systems software engineering, so I doubt that it will take me too long to learn how to make some good music tracks. Once I have the track, I can finish the entire karaoke version in a couple of hours, just depending on how artsy I want to make it.

I get the impression that some of you guys think that I'm making a mistake and taking a bad risk in getting into this business, and it's really sweet of you all to be concerned, but, although I'm serious about doing it, it's not a serious thing. It's all in fun, just making some music, and, just to show my age, it's something that I will leave behind when I'm gone.

-denise

If you made a Springsteen disc with the right songs, I'd probably buy it.

Denise:i could be wrong, but I don't think anyone was talking about physically moving to the UK, altho I personally have considered it considering my dad was born there and would probably get in quite easily. But that is another story entirely.

Anyway, i think what they were talking about was setting up a dummy company with an address based in the UK so that you could make karaoke under UK law which is MUCH more reasonable. There you don't need the artists permission and ALL the mechanical rights are handled by one oganization the MCPS. All you have to do is pay them the required fee, and you're all set to go.

I wasn't trying to discourage you, just make your aware of the difficulties. In the US you need the copyright holder's permission, so if they say no it doesn't matter how much you are willing to pay for your karaoke tracks, you won't be able to make them unless you are willing to release them without the lyrics/graphics. then just standard music compularies are required..

-James

I would have no problem with that. Do you know where I could get more information on setting up a company in the UK? It would seem to me that I would have to know someone over there, or at least have a way to receive mail.

-denise

I personally have no clue what would be required. My guess is that a physical mail address is required so that you could recieve and send proper mail/parcels, etc. Other than that your best bet would be to consult a lawyer who is familiar with international and/or UK law

maybe someone on here would be more familiar with it.. who knows

This is exactly how Priddis does it. They are based in Pleasant Grove, Utah. Mr. Priddis himself has a small building behind his house that he uses to record everything. Has his own studio, musicians, etc. But he markets and produces everything out of someplace in England. Back in the early part of this decade, he was paying so much in fees that it nearly made it impossible for him to be profitable. This was the best solution to the issues of what you might be facing.

My suggestion is to contact Mr. Priddis himself, and find out anything he is willing to share. Although, he would be your competition, and may not divulge anything either.