Karaoke Forums

Agree. I would personally like to change some words on some of the songs I currently am not allowed to list due to language.

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

I believe that is when SC would go after the KJ for copyright infringement on the music alone if someone tried to eliminate logos & change 'trade dress' (or create a new graphic entirely). They do own the copyrights for their own recordings - can go to the copyright office and see that for yourself. And I do believe the fines would be alot heftier than just a simple audit.

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

I don't think it would be copyright infringement because the actual music wouldn't be altered. If you didn't put your name on it, you haven't stolen a copyright.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

If you are making it not recognizable as a SC track, I would have to disagree - it would be like Nu-Tech taking the music from another manu & putting their own graphics on them - oh wait, they did do that early on and got nailed to the wall. I know I know, you wouldn't be selling it.
Doesn't matter if the music is altered or not, you are using the music for your own gain and by changing out the graphics - you are now acting as a 'manu' and it's possible they could sue for unfair competition possibly as well since you are using their music for your business - whether it's being sold/distributed or not, you are making money from it if using it in a show.
I even think Harrington said something to that point in one of these threads recently about this very thing.

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

The only advice I have to give is, if anyone is contemplating pulling any of these stunts, please consult with your IP attorney and listen to EVERYTHING he or she says very carefully.

Remember it's not what YOU think should be legal or not it is what the legislations and policies says.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

It would be a ridiculous fishing expedition.

Are they going to file a suit against someone and try to convince a court that simply because someone has a song with no brand that it must be theirs?

Good luck with that.

Actually Sound Choice does not own the copyright to all of those old tracks. They sold the copyrights and works to Stingray in Canada back around 2008 or 2009. They only own the trademark.

Stingray has used those tracks to start the Karaoke Channel and they are carrying the torch moving forward. They are also offering them for sale via Select-A-Track and VenueVJ.com which is owned by PCDJ who provides products for professional DJ's and KJ's.

VenueVJ in the past had clearly sated that all tracks were not only for commercial use, but only available to actual KJ's or DJ's and you had to prove you were a professional before you were allowed to buy. They no longer make that statement. Select-A-Track still says that all tracks are fine with commercial use - from their site: "All the tracks we supply are fully-endorsed by the manufacturer and are sold with their permission to use at home or commercially in any public venue worldwide (assuming that venue has the appropriate public performance license)."

All of the Sound Choice cases are based on display of Trademark without permission to shift media.

I am interested as well to see the case where they state, "Defendant "did not" display trademark without permission of trademark holder."

If you read the case that recently ruled on the independent KJ was released from the suit as there was no proof he displayed the trademark. I think it would be awful hard to prove it was displayed if it was not.

Stingray can not really sue you because you removed someone else's trademark? Prove the harm in that to them?

And for some of us the audit would run nearly $2000 and if you sign their documents and you have put up opinions that go against them, their documents could allow certain people to truly show their vindictive colors.

Just sayin'. Thought I would point out the peak of the iceberg of inconsistencies that exist here.

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Eric Godfrey
http://USKaraokeAlliance.com
http://StarzKaraoke.com
http://Karaoke2Night.com network

did you know they can watermark mp3 music files.

basically hide data withing the music that software can decode the info and identify
who owns the music.

so who know if they are already using this or not, if you don't have the key to decode it you'll never know.

http://www.musictrace.de/products/contentmark.en.htm

ContentMarkMP3

ContentMarkMP3 is a product for embedding watermarks in existing MP3 audio files. The format is not changed by the watermark, consequently the MP3 audio file still conforms with standards. After watermarking, the file can be played on any MP3 player and is accepted by any MP3 player software that also accepts the original MP3 file.

Distributors that operate on the Internet can use ContentMarkMP3 to embed transaction data in the music titles or audio books sold on this platform. This can either be a sequential transaction number or a customer number assigned to the purchaser. Using this information, it is possible to determine at a later time which customer placed a purchased copy of a title on music-swap sites, thereby violating certain usage rights.
ContentMarkMP3 is available either as an executable command line program or as a C++ software library and can be integrated into existing production sequences in a correspondingly rapid and simple manner. ContentMarkMP3 is available for Windows (Windows 98 and later versions) and Linux operating systems; a Mac OS-X version can be obtained on request.

just another way they could or already can identify their music being used.

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It's all good!

A fishing expedition is exactly what it would be, but a fishing expedition is what it is now so why not?
They would have basically the same grounds for suit as they do now.

If you were to play your tracks without any graphics you would face no problems from manufacturers.
But, you would likely lose most of your singers because they won’t know the words.
If you were to play your tracks with altered graphics with for the purpose of avoiding the display of a trademark, you would be sending up a red flag.

Altering the CDG file to remove any trademark displays could definitely lead to big trouble.
The reason for this is that you will have made a derivative copy without authorization. This could not possibly be considered an innocent infringement, because the intent would be quite clear. This is a far greater infringement than a simple "media-shift" and comes with far greater penalties.

If this is done in an effort to avoid a lawsuit, it will inevitably be in vain.
All that is required of a manufacturer to file suit against a KJ is reasonable suspicion of wrongdoing. A missing trademark display in this environment would definitely be reason to suspect wrongdoing. All they need to do is claim they recognize their sound track and a piece of their graphic and they will have reason enough to file a suit and you would eventually be required to demonstrate the source of your tracks.

Currently if you are sued for displaying their trademark, you show your discs and walk away.
In this scenario there would still be something left to sue over after you show your discs.
However, it would be funny for them to take the position that their trademark must be displayed anytime their track is played.
And in the end, the suit will not have been avoided.

So, that’s the bad news for the KJ who owns every single one of his discs.
What’s the bad news for the KJ who thinks he will legitimatize his pirate library?
It’s the same as above only worse, much worse.
The case against that KJ will be for copyright violations for the musical work, and possibly trademark violations for altering the CDG instead of replacing it.
A KJ that operates openly with a pirate library will get off much easier than a KJ who operates openly with a pirate library and attempts to hide his actions through fraud additionally.

CDG editing software can be very useful in correcting errors, changing a word, or even eliminating a graphic that would impede a show.
There are better reasons to avoid displaying a graphic than trying to avoid a lawsuit and better ways to do it.
This new software from CAVS certainly looks better than CDGedit, but it still looks tedious.
The best way to remove the graphics would be to do it during playback.
All that would be needed is a command that would change the color of all graphics to the background color -- except those graphics that change color (the lyrics).
If this were done during playback, there would be no need to tamper with the files themselves, and could work with direct disc play as well.
This would allow for adding a layer of visuals on the audience screen that would not be hampered by the display of other graphics (a better reason to want the trademarks gone).

I have never advocated for pirating material and do not intend to start. My participation in these discussions and the comments I post are always from the point of view that one should always legally purchase the music they use. I felt this disclaimer necessary in case someone should misinterpret my statements.

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KNOW THYSELF

Yes, but "media-shifted" files don't come from mp3 files.

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KNOW THYSELF

Their copyrights are still current as far as I saw.

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

The lack of a logo on any track would not constitute an automatic lawsuit nor would automatically constitute willful infringement. There have been tracks for years that do not contain logos of any kind going back to some of the older brands such as All Hits or Music Maestro. And even some of the newer brands such as AllStar.

Although they could still sue anyone for anything, I believe they would have a tougher time making anything like this stick. Especially if the track were to be "corrected" because of either incorrect lyrics, malapropisms, damaged graphic data, slow starts or artifacts on the screen.

I have always considered replacing all of the graphic data on the most currently popular songs, so that it contains advertising for my company, as opposed to advertising for some CD+G manufacturer especially since they are played so often. Songs such as love shack, summer nights, don't stop believing, crazy, can't help falling in love, Mack the knife, New York, New York, and so forth. Why not take advantage of that advertising time/opportunity?

In the karaoke business, the colors you choose to use on-screen are inconsequential to the singers as long as there is a visually contrasting difference between the original typeface color and the color used for a sweep. Karaoke manufacturers did not – and do not – own the synchronization of those sweeps with the original song. And these manufacturers don't always get it right either; there are plenty of songs where the sweeps are either too fast, too slow or so way off that it is almost a joke. An example of this would be the Music Maestro's track of Frank Sinatra's song "the Way you look tonight." the audio for the song is actually very nice, the sweeps on the other hand, are almost a verse or at least a couple of lines ahead of where they should be. I believe the engineer truly was not familiar with this song, or was probably very drunk at the time. If you sing this song and maintain timing as it is shown on the screen, you will sound retarded. Because of this, the entire song needed to be redone.

And that would constitute a "willful correction" in order to make it usable.

Sometimes it is simply the color combination; if you have a skinny typeface that is blue and it is swept to yellow, it is very difficult to visually see the change when it happens. In this case, you could either change the current color table used on the CDG file, or simply redo the entire file.

There has been CDG authoring software in the past that would allow you to play back the original video portion at a slower pace, while encoding the new version to match the timing.

The CDG format itself is antiquated. I imagine that the manu's would resist any change because the CDG format, as cumbersome as it is from a variety of standpoints, protects them better than any other format.

I've read about the MIDI format, and so far, I believe that it is a far superior method than CDG. If my understanding is correct, you simply add the lyrics to the IDv3 tag with the timing (as such:)

(0:21:00)Maybe next time he'll think(0:23:30)
(0:24:00)Before he cheats(0:25:00)

Although this method would be ridiculous to implement for an entire library, it should have been put out this way from the beginning.

If you wanted to change the lyrics, timing, etc - all you would have to do is go into the tag and make the necessary changes.

Everything else (background color, font color, type and size) is all handled by the MIDI controller - and can be changed at with just a couple clicks.

This is why I am working on a CDG to MIDI convertor.

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

I wonder. If I bought a bunch of Coca-Cola and re-bottled it, then made a cool new logo and gave it away at all my gigs as "Bazza-Cola" what would happen........

Bazza, nothing because according to some, companies shouldn't enforce their trademarks or copyrights or make people pay to use them or copy them. As for the Coke itself, they bought it and can use it anyway they want.

Oh, you wanted a response based in reality. In that case, Coca Cola would have their @$$.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Nothing.

You might find that you would have a problem with the health department labeling the contents since it is a food item, but I don't think that Coca-Cola would really do anything about it since you purchased the Coke. If you stole the Coca-Cola that would be a different story.

Watchmakers for years have taken petroleum jelly, repackaged it in smaller containers and re-labeled it and sold it as "Watch Grease."

JUDGE: Is it true that you file law suits against people who display your logo when they play a karaoke track from a computer?
ATTORNEY: Yes, your honor. That is true.
JUDGE: And since the logo is the only thing that you actually own; and you obviously don't want it shown, why in the world are you in my court room filing a law suit against someone who is doing exactly what you want?
ATTORNEY: Because we don't want them to remove the logo unless they pay us for the permission to do so.
JUDGE: You can't have your cake and eat it too. Stop wasting the courts valuable time. Case dismissed!!! Have a nice day. Plaintiff to pay counsel fees for the defendant.

A separate edit from my post above:

Not converting to MIDI, rather to LRC format, as defined here: http://wiki.xbmc.org/index.php?title=HO ... rics_files

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I'm not a cheerleader, but I paid for my pom poms with my own money!

Bruce, you have to stop watching Judge Judy.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Why? Did we miss the episode starring you?