Karaoke Forums

CB doesn't exist anymore, the copyrights CB had may very well have been transferred to PR for ownership along with the trademarks. Which means if that happened, then PR would be the owners of all said copyrights & trademarks.

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

Two corporations can get together and buy a copyright if it is for sale or they make an offer, even if they had nothing to do with production. It's called business.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

I think some here are combining/confusing the two main issues facing KJ's now

1. Piracy
and
2. Crap-i-oke

Sometimes they occur in the same show but often they do not. Both are problems for both existing and new hosts.

I have no problem shinning above a crap-i-oke show, my track record speaks for itself, However crap-i-oke shows still impact my business. If a venue has tried a number of crap-i-oke shows and found them to be a pain, chase customers out, not work ect they may decided to just add more pool tables and swear to never have karaoke again...that is very hard to overcome.

Piracy effects my business in another way altogether. As venues are being sued in my area some are confused as to how to insure the hosts they hire are 1-1. More than a few hosts have rolled in with cases of discs and tried to get venue owners to think they are legit only to find later the cases were full of burns ,blank cdr's or even empty cases. This also leaves a bad taste in Venue owners mouths (Thank goodness that the venue owners now know what to look for and are now checking every discs or hiring off a certified list) Also Venues have been trained to think larger libraries are better over a period of years...combating that is not easy even with our large legal libraries.

Just some things for people to think about

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

So, the copyright belongs to PR/WWD now...ok, then how is DT able to use the copyrighted material in another whole company?

With a legally negotiated contract that allows for USE of the copyright/trademark ? they also offer Sunfly, SBI and other companies tracks as well.

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

Provided that DTE isn't already a part of PR (which I believe they are anyway), all they would have to do is license the material to DTE to use whith their own logos, PR could if they wanted license their stuff out to any other company while still retaining the copyrights. Just like bands recording other bands works. The band covering pays the original band a fee to use their works.

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

Whether that is actually occurred or not may be still to be determined...

I think the assumption of a legal contract is sound considering the fact that the publishers are re-licencing the tracks from a number of companies to DTE. Does anyone here really think the publishers would not ask for proof of contract from those who hold the trademark/copyrights as part of that process ?

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

You left out
3. Undercutters

Some pirates are under cutters, and some are not.
Some Crap-i-oke hosts are under cutters, and some are not
All combinations of the above sometimes occur within the same show (I couldn't give you a ratio of how often). All three are "problems for both existing and new hosts."

I agree I did leave out more......,. so Cueball has come up with #3

#3 undercutters
Some pirates are under cutters, and some are not.
Some Crap-i-oke hosts are under cutters, and some are not
All combinations of the above sometimes occur within the same show (I couldn't give you a ratio of how often). All three are "problems for both existing and new hosts."

Who can come up with #4, 5, 6 and so on can we come up with 10 ?

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

I think you are all full of it, at least those that are having problems with pirates. I think the economy has hurt us all, I know it has in my area. I think if you have a good show, and make sure you have what your patrons want to sing, and a loyal owner who likes you, you will have no problems. I think you people have used pirates as a reason why your own shows aren't doing as well as you would like them to, or why you lost shows in the past. The people I know in this area have been running the same shows for YEARS!! There are no big karaoke host turnovers around here.

I just don't buy all this crap some of you are spewing. I also don't buy that 95% of all hosts are pirates. I think you have been duped by a few karaoke companies that just couldn't cut it, and lost their profitability because they refused to modernize, and would rather sue those who used to be their customers to force them to buy their current products, whether they be GEMS or Clouds, meanwhile telling stories of why they can't offer modern services like other companies.


OK, rant off......................................for now.

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I am the ONLY SANE 1 HERE

Then don't buy and stay in your little world. You said yourself, your area is pretty small time and not a huge influx. Get to a big city where there is karaoke on every corner & you may change your tune. I've been doing this since 89 and watched the piracy - starting with disc copying, once computer piracy took over that's when ALL crap hit the fan as far as getting a fair price. I've been at my show for 21 years now. When a bar is looking to save, they could care less if a 'legit' company is working or a crap company with all pirated music - they are going to go with the cheaper which 9 out of 10 times is the latter. Doesn't matter how good you are.

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

It doesn't matter if an owner likes you or not, to them the bottom line is how cheap they can do things and use any excuse to do it. Owners love to cry poor.

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You can be strange but not a stranger

Well I don't come from a small area, So Cal is rather large and spread out lending itself more to a mobile KJ/DJ arrangement, not a host in a fixed position. I get to travel and meet new people all over and as long as someone is willing to pay extra I will go just about anywhere, desert, mountains and beaches we have it all here. I have worked thousands of gigs over 19 years of hosting and pirates have been the least of my worries. Most of my business has been word of mouth and I have never had to set up a website, I still get calls for work I can no longer handle due to health issues. So I guess it is all on where you live and what kind of a karaoke service you specialize in. Really there are as many types of shows as there are hosts that do them, they all have their own style, that is why loyal patrons flock to some and run from others.

It is my experience tim that venue owners are like any other consumers they want value for their money. It your service increases their bottom line enough to justify the expense, they will not have a problem paying it. This has been my personal experience over the years. If however the expensive host does not draw better than the cheaper alternative why pay the extra? That is why I work on a salary commission arrangement. The salary covers my basic expenses for the service and a small profit. If I produce and dramatically increase revenue I get paid more on a set formula, it has worked well for me. Of course for weddings, parties and other functions that are one time in nature I do have a set amount I charge.

Well in almost 20 years in business we have seen it all...we do have Venues that have used us to build a regular good paying crowd...then switched to a undercutting (mostly pirate) show at less than 1/2 the price...have said undercutting host kill the crowd...call us back (at an increased rate) have us build the crowd again...went with another pirate host...switch 2 or 3 times...call us back at a even higher rate...lather.... rinse..... and repeat. Our rate keeps going up IF we are available when he wants us to come back his rate is now double the new venue rate and almost 4 times his original rate....the last 3 times he called we were booked solid.

We also have venues that are loyal, trustworthy and good business people we have been with for over 15 years.....those venues and our company work together to build the business and weather the storms. One of our most loyal venues has not had a rate increase in over 8 years. We consider them almost family.

Integrity is important to us...both from within and from those we work with.

Some venue owners are just smarter than others.

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"Integrity is choosing your thoughts, words and actions based on your principles and values rather than for your personal gain."
Unknown
"if a man has integrity, nothing else matters, If a man has no integrity, nothing else matters."
Lee McGuffey

I had a 2nd (and access to a 3rd) system from 94-03. I traveled all over as well. But in the later years, my 2nd system only had 6500 songs - yes they were songs people wanted since that is how I built it, however that didn't impress the bar owners at the time as they were getting people advertising 100K songs even back then. At that point it was a chore just to get them to pay $150 per night because these 100K hosts were charging $100 or less. Even lost a show that was doing very well - the bartender told me they were taking in easily $3000 for the 2 nights I was there. The owner asked me to drop my price, I said no. So he went with a $100 host and an all burnt disc library, crap system (yes I went in and witnessed and heard) - blown subs. Didn't hook into any of the bar tv's, set up on stage blocking the area where the singer would normally go. Needless to say the bartender (who is still a close friend) told me their nightly take went from around $1500 to $300 IF they were lucky. THe night I went in it was me, the bartender, the host, 1 person singing & 2 people in the back playing a video game not singing!
The price was stuck in most bars heads at that point, anything over $100 was too much. I could get all the work I wanted but not at the price that was fair.

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

Don't NEED to. I do well enough that ALL of the above have no effect on me, and if I DID run into a problem, I would assume it was mine- wouldn't try to blame the above. If the show ( Karaoke Host) is good enough, and know their business, they will be successful- the above won't matter. If the host hasn't bothered to learn the business or the skills then they might- and should- fail. It won't be anyone's fault but their own.

How about we start a "quit whining, quit blaming others for failing" campaign?

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

" Disc based and loving it..."

Joe.... I appreciate everything you are saying. But anyone that denies that karaoke has an impact on the industry as a whole has their head in the sand. Like any bell curve, there will be those opposite ends of the spectrum. You may have come through unfazed but there are many others that have been severely impacted. It isn't as simple as "just being awesome" to negate the impact of piracy.

-Chris

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-Chris

Also Chris I think it is easier to avoid some pitfalls when you keep the operation down to one operator and one rig. From what I have read you have a larger operation and hire operators to work for you. Naturally the bigger the operation the more money you make, the more money you have invested, and of course with a bigger slice of the market comes more chances to run into pirates and be effected by their activities. Not to mention you also get the attention of the manus who want to make sure your multiple shows are being run legally. In some cases smaller is better, I'm not sure about Joe but I think he is like me one operator one rig.