Chartbuster Makes Life Easier For Karaoke Hosts

Serious karaoke hosts know that it is important to buy original music to run your karaoke shows. Until recently, the manufacturers have been hesitant to agree to format shifting their songs onto computer. With all the illegal downloading going on, it's hard to tell who is doing it the right way and who is not. You can't tell the difference once the music is on the computer. Some manufacturers have taken it upon themselves to police the industry and take karaoke pirates to court to force them to buy legal libraries of their music once they are caught. Until recently, some, like Chartbuster Karaoke, have simply said that if you don't use the original media, then you're not legal.

Chartbuster Karaoke has finally changed it's strategy. As one of the leading manufacturers of karaoke tracks, Chartbuster has realized that the digital age is upon us. And even legal karaoke hosts have found that the use of a computer is a no-brainer when it comes to running a show. Those that have accumulated 1000's of discs over the years know what I'm talking about. They are heavy, easily scratched or broken, and even get stolen on the job. By ripping all those tracks, there is only the weight of the computer to now contend with. And the benefits available in today's computer hosting programs make running a karaoke show easier so you can mingle with the crowd and still get the next singer up in a flash.

While other manufacturers have created discs in the MP3 format to make it easier to shift the tracks to computer, they have not relieved the burden of having to store all those cumbersome discs. Chartbuster looked at the problem and used a much newer, much simpler method to get the tracks to the host - SD Cards. You know - the cards they use in your digital camera. Measuring in at about 1" X 3/4", these small digital cards hold a wealth of information.

The use of the SD card (or the MP3 discs for that matter) has made the transformation to computer karaoke some much simpler. I buy a lot of discs in the old CDG format. I just received 50 of them. When they arrived, I spent two days ripping them down from CDG to MP3+G files (many use a zip file). When I got my first SD cards, I plugged one into the card reader on my computer and hit copy and it was done 30 seconds later. The cards don't cost more to purchase than the discs. The manufacturer is saving on the production cost of one card vs. 3 discs and a large case. And everybody is happy (except maybe those that worry about how to store the media for safekeeping).

Each of the 50 pack song selections from Chartbusters is now available on SD for $39.95 retail at your favorite karaoke store or on-line retailer. They even have the 450 song Essentials available on SD. About 16 SD cards will fit in the same sleeve as a CDG. As of yet, I haven't seen a SD holder for karaoke, but you can purchase SD wallets that hold up to 24 cards to store and protect these tiny digital wonders.

I might mention here that the jury is still out on whether format shifting is violating any laws as far as the songwriter or producers are concerned. Chartbuster and the other karaoke manufacturers are quick to inform you that they are only sanctioning format shifting of the karaoke track from their point of view. There may still be issues with doing it. But for now, another top producer of great karaoke music has seen the needs of the professional karaoke host and are addressing their concerns. Thumbs up to you Chartbuster!

Creative X-Mod Makes Sound Come Alive

If you're like me, the sound coming from your laptop is hardly worth all the sales hype. Hooking up to a sound system will certainly make your music tracks sound better, but with MP3's, there always seems to be something missing. Even the WAV files seem a little weak. And it's primarily due to the fact that the sound card in your laptop is so small that it sacrifices sound quality. So how does the karaoke host use a laptop for his show and not make the music sound like it's being played through a toy piano?

An external sound card is required to compensate for the vibrance that was lost during the MP3 compression. And for those tracks that are not compressed such as WAV, the external sound card will make up for what's lost in the downsizing of internal components on the computer and what is lost when it's compressed onto the original recording. In my search for a quality card, I came across the Creative Labs Xmod USB Sound Card for PC & Mac. And, for the price, I think it was a wise choice.

The X-Mod is a X-Fi module (short for Xtreme Fidelity) that can be used on both PC and MAC. It plugs directly into the USB port on the computer with a supplied cable, thus bypassing the internal sound module all together. Another cable splits the stereo output into two channel RCA plugs. Plug the other end into your sound system, turn on your computer, and it's ready to go. No software is required. The package does not say the RCA cable comes with it, but I think it was included. If not, they are not expensive.

If you don't want to connect to an external sound system, the unit comes with a set of ear buds for personal listening. Adjusting of the volume is done through the dial on the X-Mod's face. Set your computer to maximum and use the dial for easy sound changes.

The X-Mod has Two enhanced sound controls which are turned on and off by slider switches on each side.  The X-Fi Crystalizer remasters the sound that is lost during compression, a necessary evil in making your music portable and downloadable. The crystalizer makes the music sound more like the original CD. The X-FI CMSS-3D control expands the sound of your MP3's and digital movies and adds a "virtual" surround sound. This helps make the recordings sound more like what you would hear in a live performance. Isn't that what you look for in your sound recordings anyway?

When it comes to karaoke, the Creative Labs Xmod USB Sound Card for PC & Mac makes the whole experience sound - well Whole! The music tracks sound much more vibrant and will make it a pleasure to sing to your favorite songs. I would go to karaoke shows and be disappointed to hear a song and the background vocals were almost non-existent. With the help of the X-Mod, I have been able to put the background vocals (and eveything else in that frequency range) back into the equation. The music sounds full, the bass and highs come through even without a sub. Of course equalizers will also help, but I've found I've been able to limit their use since adding this little box to my system. If you're looking for a way to augment the sound of your laptop, the Creative Labs Xmod USB Sound Card for PC & Mac is one you will want to check out.

Gem Series Answers the Call For Computer Versions Of Karaoke Songs

Karaoke hosts all over the country have been up in arms for quite some time. It is a long painstaking task to "format shift" all those CDG's to MP3+G. But by doing so, they can be more easily used on computer to make the karaoke experience much better for the customers. They have also had to deal with the fact that the karaoke producers have been on the warpath with karaoke pirates who download all their songs for free on-line and  have been targeting legal hosts in the process. At a show, there is very little way for a karaoke host to prove (short of carrying the discs that they seek to leave home) that he/she is actually paying for the songs on their computer or downloading them illegally.  This has become a sore issue on some of the front running karaoke forums of late.

While karaoke manufacturer Sleptone Entertainment dba Sound Choice has been actively seeking to rid the industry of illegal hard drives with 100,000+ song titles, they have apparently also been listening to the people that have been keeping them in business for the last 20+ years. As such, they have made an attempt to smooth the feathers they've been ruffling. This has not been an easy task.  It remains to be seen whether their latest attempt to again make karaoke a viable industry for the manufacturers as well as their paying customer (the legal KJ's) will work.

The GEM Series from Sound Choice is a collection of all of the currently available songs from the Sound Choice Library. It includes approx. 6000 songs and is available in set quantities from 300 on up.  The series has been converted to 320 KPS MP3+G files which is the best, but largest, of the the mp3 compression formats. The series is being made available only to professional karaoke hosts. The program provides all the songs on disc, but requires the KJ to agree that he/she will not allow anyone to copy the files, will not run more than one show per collection purchased (1:1 ratio), and will make their library available for audit by Sound Choice at any time.

This last requirement has the karaoke forums buzzing. The hosts who advocate legal libraries are relating this effort to illegal search and seizure, invasion of privacy, and to the IRS' authority to inspect your bank accounts for no reason at all. Are they correct? Do they have a point? Is there anything that Sound Choice can do to deal with the issue and appease the masses at the same time? The thought of allowing anyone access to personal information on a computer is disturbing. After all, we go to great lengths to shield this information from the internet hijackers. On the other hand, when it comes to intellectual property, do we really purchase anything but the disk, the cassette tape, or the paper in the book?

The copyright laws for intellectual property are very clear. When  you purchase an album of music, you are purchasing the right to use that music for your own personal enjoyment. You can move it to your mp3 player so you can take it with you, but you cannot give it to your friend to copy. The same is true when you download that title from the internet. If the copyright holder has not been compensated for the purchase of that track, then it cannot be legally sold to you. You may remember the famous case against Napster. The legal answer would be the same for any site that allows you to freely download any and all songs - it's not legal! The law is also clear in regard to using those same tracks for a commercial purpose. You can't do it! The jury has ruled in the past on format shifting for personal use. It's still out on format shifting for use in a commercial venture. But Sound Choice is at least saying they have no problem with format shifting as long as you buy the discs and only format shift them for one show for each set purchased. You must keep the discs and you cannot use them after you format shift for anything other than an archival copy.  If you run more than one show, you have to purchase one copy of the disc series for each show. For the new series, you have to keep the series discs together, so two rigs means two different copies of the entire series purchased.

Sound Choice claims that for every song that they paid rights for and produced, from 10 to 100 illegal copies have been made. Because they are one of the best at producing karaoke tracks (as defined by the number of illegal tracks in existence and as evidenced by the proclamations of the karaoke hosts themselves) Sound Choice claims they have lost many millions of dollars, have had to cut their staff to bare bones, and are unable to create new tracks for the near future. In order to remain viable, they have taken the reigns and are suing KJ hosts, and venues for running karaoke shows with illegally obtained tracks.  They do this by sending investigators into shows to observe the host running the show from computer instead of from disc. (I have found no evidence that they are suing Karaoke hosts that run their shows with illegally obtained disc copies). Those that do and display the Sound Choice Logo are sued and must prove that they actually own the original discs that the music came from. If they don't have them, they are given a choice of purchasing the whole collection or going out of business. Anything else means they will be prosecuted for trademark infringement. If they are successful, then you can be sure other manufacturers and copyright holders will be standing in line.

If it works, this new program has a great benefit to Sound Choice. The legal KJ's that agree to buy the new series will be registered users who will sign a contract and will display a sticker that proves that their library was legally obtained from the manufacturer. Those same KJ's are the ones that have already purchased their libraries on CDG. It's still up in the air on whether they will do any kind of buy back of those discs. Otherwise, legal KJ's will be making a double purchase of at least a portion of their libraries. Good deal for Sound Choice, but bad for Hosts. It may also keep many older businesses that have accumulated a large collection from getting involved in the program.

Now comes the other side of this scenario. Sound Choice is hoping to get KJ's who have been pirating their music to come over to the other side. They would like them all to purchase the GEM series (which is a great deal compared to purchasing the CDG's) and become legal. They also hope that it will deter those who are not willing to pay to give up the business. But you and I both know that isn't going to happen.

Even with the new program becoming popular with the Professionals in the field, Sound Choice will still be dealing with the same issues they have been to date. Those that choose not to purchase and register will still do what they have until they are hauled into court and forced to prove that they are legal. Those that are legal will just get mad and stop using Sound Choice music at their shows. Those that aren't legal will agree to quit in order to avoid costly prosecution. Some of those will turn around, change their name, and do it all over again.

Sound Choice has made a valiant effort in their attempt to survive. To go out of business would mean that the industry would be losing another great manufacturer. We have lost many over the years. Some because of issues like this, others because they chose to ignore the law themselves and got caught.  If they continue to try to clean up the industry in order to survive, then only time will tell if they will be successful. The Gem Series is an attempt to control the use of their products. I hope that the legal KJ's begin to realize that the only difference between the contract they must sign to purchase this series and what they have been doing all along is that they are now not the only ones policing themselves. Those that don't follow the rules will be weeded down, but probably not out!

Lake PC to TV Converter Is An Economical Way To Link Your Computer To Your KaraokeTVs

When I started getting my system ready to run karaoke from my computer, one issue was how to hook my TV monitor and the TV for the audience into my laptop at the same time. My laptop has a VGA output and is already able to run a second, external monitor, but I didn't want to have to use a computer monitor as a lyrics monitor. Besides, I needed a way to run to the TV that the venue had available and that usually is a big screen or one of the new flat screen LCD's. Most TV's have video inputs with yellow RCA (composite) connectors and some (but not all) have S-video connectors. But very few of the bigger ones have a VGA connector. The monitor I use has both, but I needed consistency for the venue TV. So I decided that  I needed something with at least the composite output. The Lake PC to TV Converter turned out to be the answer without having to spend a fortune on some of the alternatives I found in my search. 

The Lake PC to TV Converter connects directly to the VGA out connector on the laptop with a supplied cable. (If you are running a desktop PC, you will need a video card that allows you to run a second monitor and extend the desktop.) You then can connect the composite RCA connector, an S-video cable, or an additional VGA cable to the box's supplied outputs. The signal is converted to the proper output without the need for special software. (If your monitor does not have the proper connections, you may have to purchase an RF modulator like the Belkin F8V3063 and run your TV on channel 3 or 4 just like your old VCR.). Once connected, there are a series of buttons on the converter box to adjust the picture on your screen up, down, sideways, or to fill the screen.  Once that's done, you're set.


If you are not able to see anything on your TV or monitor, you may have to go into your display setting (rt-click on your desktop and select properties) and tell your computer that you are running a second monitor as an extension of your desktop. After that, you may have to reboot once everything is connected.

The Lake PC to TV Converter is easy to set up and once it's done, you don't have to mess with it again. The picture is great and there is no flicker on either of the TV's.

IS YOUR KARAOKE HOST SUBJECTING YOU TO TRADEMARK INFRINGEMENT LITIGATION?

   If your club runs a karaoke show, you owe it to yourself to do more than just hire the next guy/gal through the door that claims to have a quality karaoke show. You could be subjecting yourself and your club to needless litigation by being proactive in your entertainment hiring.

This is the age of digital information. Computers have certainly made a lot of things easier in our lives. Look at what they have done for your business. As a bar, restaurant, tavern owner/operator, computers have allowed you to enter menu orders into a terminal that send the order to the kitchen to be prepared, allows you to keep track of what the customer has ordered, allows you to add desserts to the order even though the check was already printed. I'm sure there are many other ways the computer has made your life easier.

It's the same way for the karaoke host who runs your show every week. Carrying CDG's to every show was laborious job. Now he carries all his songs on a laptop computer that weighs in at 8 lbs. He can find any song by typing in a portion of the title or artist name. He can print out books, keep his rotation in order, add music in between singers, and even keep a history of songs for each singer for the next week's gig.

But is that same karaoke host (we'll call him KJ) putting you at risk for a law suit? WHAT????? you say? Yes, that KJ could be sued for violations from copyright law to trademark infringement if he has not purchased discs from the manufacturer of those karaoke songs. With computers comes the ability to download files off the internet. Some have found that they can convert those discs to files and then make the money back they paid for the discs by selling the digital files to others on the internet. Others have found that they can make easy money putting all those files on a hard drive and then selling it on Craigslist or Ebay for a couple hundred dollars. For each disc that the manufacturer sells with the expectation of making a profit, there are anywhere from 10 to 100 illegal copies of that song in circulation, being used by KJ's and individuals, some without any idea they are doing anything wrong. Remember NAPSTER? They paid millions in fines for allowing people to illegally download from their site.

So how does this affect you? The law states that if you know or are in a position to know that your KJ is illegally obtaining his(her) music, you could also be sued. And the fines can reach $150,000 per song to $2,000,000 per infringement. That's not saying anything about the possibility of losing a liquor license for willfully engaging in illegal activity. Scary, huh? Well, yes. But there are things you can do about it.

The first thing you can do is resolve to only hire KJ's that have a manufacturer's disc to back-up every song they have on their hard drive. How can you be sure? At least ask the question. I have and can show you that I have a disc for every song on the drive. And that includes the regular CD music that we play as a DJ. But what about the KJ that has more than one show going on at different locations? Well the law says you must have one disc to back up one copy on hard drive. That means two shows = two sets of discs.

But my KJ doesn't use a computer. He has all his songs on a player that doesn't use discs! A company by the name of CAVSUSA came up with a way to put karaoke songs on a player that didn't use discs. The CAVS players hold several thousand to 100,000 songs. They were sold with the songs but not the discs that kept them legal. None of the manufacturers sanction a CAVS player which is essentially a hard drive system without having a copy of the original discs included in the sale.

HOW DO THE LAWSUITS WORK?

The major force in protecting the interests of karaoke manufacturers is Sleptone Entertainment. Sleptone is the creator of one of the best and most renowned karaoke disc series in existence today - Sound Choice. Because of the digital age and the fact that they are a preferred manufacturer, Sound Choice contends that they have lost millions of dollars to karaoke piracy and are not sitting still. They are taking a proactive approach to stopping the illegal use of their music and the Sound Choice Logo.

Sound Choice has paid up front (as all legal karaoke manufacturers do) to the copyright holders (songwriters and producers) for the right to record the songs used in karaoke. Because they don't use the soundtrack from the original recording, they have paid musicians to re-create the songs that are as close to the original as possible. And they have been very successful at it as to be the most sought after. With all that upfront cost and the fact that 90% of the recordings in use have been downloaded for free, you can see why they are doing something about it.

Investigators have been scouring the country, going to karaoke shows. (They could be at yours any night of the week.) They will not let you know they are there. They may even sing at the show or just choose to sit and watch or start friendly conversations with the regulars. They will watch and see if the Sound Choice Logo is displayed on the monitor. Since many venues (that's your place) like to show the lyrics for the crowd, this makes the investigators job that much easier. He will make a list of Sound Choice songs that are being played. He won't have any problem knowing that discs are not being used because most karaoke pirates will be glad to explain how they got their music for free. (Remember I said Ask!)

  

Without a word, the investigator will leave and then the fun starts. The KJ, you and several others that got a visit in your area will receive a notice that you are being sued. While this doesn't necessarily mean that you will be taken to trial, it will mean that you need to respond, either yourself or through your lawyer. The KJ will have to produce the discs that were played that night and most likely even have to submit to a full blown audit of his systems. If it is found that you own the discs and the KJ is just working for you - then you are the one that needs to respond.

WHAT CAN YOU DO TO PROTECT YOURSELF?

Well, one thing you could do is stop running karaoke. But that's not the answer because you have a crowd of people that come just for that reason. If you stop, they will only go someplace else. But there are a couple other things you could do to keep you in compliance:

1. As mentioned before - ASK for compliance from your KJ. If he/she cannot comply by showing you their libraries on disc, then find another KJ. 
2. Register with the Sound Choice Safe Harbor Program. It is designed to help you by requiring the KJ to fill out a form and register with Sound Choice also before you hire him. He/she can't or won't - find someone else.
3.  Join The K.I.A.A. or other Association to combat Karaoke Piracy - They will also want you to require your KJ to register.
4. If you are the owner of the karaoke library - make sure you are in compliance and don't hire a KJ that will circumvent the system. Make sure you have the original discs if you're called for an audit.

All of these will help you protect yourself from lawsuit. If you do any one of them, you will probably keep your venue from being included in the actual lawsuit. But there is another side to any story and this one has another side too.

By sending investigators into these venues, Sound Choice has subjected their best customers to the inconvenience of the proving that they are in compliance. They don't know who to sue, so they sue everyone. That makes some guilty until proven innocent. While it serves their purpose, it tends to make KJ's think twice about using Sound Choice music at their shows even when they are legal.

By registering with the Sound Choice Safe Harbor Program, they say they will guarantee that they will not sue you if you follow their rules. But many legal KJ's consider the tactics used as an invasion of privacy. Using this method could mean you can't find a legal KJ to do your show.

Registering could also be like putting a target on your back and then providing Sound Choice a map with an arrow to your location on it. You are almost assured of a visit.

Karaoke is Big Business! At last report about $10 billion per year. Those of you that have held shows for a while know that it is popular with customers of all ages.

Many legal KJ's consider conforming audits to be an invasion of privacy. They think the Sound Choice is overstepping it's authority with the people that have faithfully paid them top dollar for their music. Now, subjecting those same people to audits and lawsuits to eliminate them is a violation of their privacy. They see the Safe Harbor Program and mandatory audits to join the K.I.A.A. a slap in the face and an attempt to "grab up the backfield and throw them out until you find the one with the ball". I personally don't know how this dilemma will play out, but somewhere along the line, I guess we all will have to prove our innocence to solve the issue of Karaoke Piracy.

 

Ridding the industry of illegal activity is important in order for manufacturers to continue to provide the best selection of music and keep it updated with the newest selections. Undoubtedly, it will cost all of us a little bit more to keep the karaoke pirates out of our establishment, but isn't it worth it to know that you are doing everything you can to run the quality establishment that you put all your hard work and money into? I know I sleep better at night knowing I'm doing it the right way. And I guess the only way to truly prove you're legal is to "prove you're legal"!

By the way, your disc jockey operates under slightly different rules. There is not intermediate for the cd's a DJ should be using. The BMI/ASCAP fees you pay each year protects both for the playing of the music and they do police the industry themselves. But Karaoke has to conform to the trademark laws because of the fact that the lyrics are displayed on a monitor or TV. Synchronization rights are not a problem for a DJ unless he is playing videos during his show.

Getting Your Music Ready For Computer Karaoke Hosting

 If you are planning to run your karaoke show from computer, you will have to do what is commonly called a "Format Shift" (commonly called ripping) of the files on your discs. The files on a karaoke "CDG" disc are a little different than the files on your standard music CD. And while you can certainly rip the songs off the CDG with a program like Windows Media Player, you will not be able to see the lyrics on the screen because the program can't find the lyrics files on the disc. That's because they have been put on a portion of the disc that standard programs cannot see. There are also a great many computer CD Rom players and burners that will not see the lyric files even if you have the proper program to format shift (rip) the files. If you have one of these drives, the only thing you can do is buy a new one that will read the files. The good news is that most newer CD ROMs will read the files and they are no longer very expensive. Out of the last six computers I have purchased, all of the drives were able to read the lyric files and thus were able to rip the CDG's to the proper format for the computer to use. If you need to buy a new one, make sure that it will read CDG's before you purchase.


I'm sure you are familiar with the term MP3. If not, that is the common format that the computer uses to save and play music files. It is a compressed format and does not use as much disc space for each file. The compression is done in areas that most people would not be able to notice that there is a difference between the original file on the CD and the compressed file on the computer. The karaoke industry has been able to use this format along with a file that contains the lyrics to transform the karaoke industry into a "state of the art" experience for hosts who run professional shows and the home karaoke enthusiast. By using the computer, the KJ can now find any program with a simple search by title, artist, or file name. He (she) can create a singers list and control the rotation automatically. He can change pitch or speed of the song for the convenience of the singer. He can keep a history on every singer to easily find songs they usually sing at subsequent shows. There are even programs to allow singers to enter their selections on a touch screen that automatically puts those songs in their rotation for the evening. But that's a story for another time.


So now you have all those manufacturer's CDG's that you've acquired over the years. You need to get them into the format the computer can read. You will need a program to rip both the music file and the lyric file to the computer. When complete, each song will have two files. The MP3 file for the music and the CDG file for the lyrics. Hence the format is called "MP3+G", the "G" standing for graphics. There are several programs that will do this for you. The best will also automatically "Zip" the files together. Most of the best host programs can "unzip" the files and play them so you don't have to worry about the two files getting separated.


One program that I use and find most professional KJ's use is Power Karaoke's CD+G burner. The program will not only allow you to rip your CDG's to the computer in MP3+G and Zip format (a couple others too) it will also take your computer files and burn them to a blank CD so you can create your own custom disc to take to a show where you want you sing. You can even copy a CDG disc to make a backup of your library if you choose. However, when you rip all your discs to computer, that becomes your user copy and the original becomes your archive copy.


It is relatively easy to set up the program and start ripping. There are parameters you can set as you learn to speed up the program and deal with issues on drives that may not complete the process on their own. One thing you want to know up front though is that the title - artist information is not on the disc itself. If you have an Internet connection, it will attempt to download the information from "freedb.org" or one of several other databases you can choose. If it finds the information, it will use it. If not, you will have to enter the information manually before you rip the disc. You can specify the speed of the rip. If you get some errors in the music or on the lyrics screen, you can slow it down and hopefully clear it up.

You also specify where on your computer you want to store the files. I save mine to a music download folder and then move them to a folder that is named the same as the disc (SC8523 or CB60032). Those files are sub folders for the manufacturer (Sound Choice, Chartbusters, etc.) All host programs will read sub directories so how you catalog is not so important. However, there are advantages to keeping all karaoke files in the same directory and "unzipping" them.


Once you have all your discs ripped to the computer, they are ready to be used to run a karaoke show with a host program or to create song books for your singers. Remember that copyright law requires that you to have the original disc in your possession. While you don't have to carry it with you, in this age of internet piracy, you may have to produce it to prove you own the disc. So store all your manufacturer discs in a safe place.


Be aware that this program is only for the CDG format discs. There are other formats out there that CD+G Burner will not handle. While it is the best at what it does, if you have SCDG's or DVD's or one of the other formats, this program will not work for them.

If you purchase SCDG's or CAVs discs, you will want to use Roxbox File Converter. It does a great job of separating songs from a disc with up to 1200+ files and will even eliminate vocals on a multiplex disc, but you cannot choose to save the files at 320KPS which is the optimum for MP3. I notice a big volume difference with the l92KPS MP3 files which you will have to adjust for in your show. They also don't seem to have the high and low end that the higher format seems to maintain.


Some of the manufacturers are starting to provide discs in the MP3+G format to save time in shifting files to your computer. If you download from the Internet, the files will most likely be in the Zipped format. But the jury is still out on whether these sites have the legal right to sell these downloaded files and whether or not you can use them in a commercial setting.

The Legalities of Karaoke Hosting

Much has been written concerning the recent lawsuits that are being filed concerning trademark and copyright infringement in the karaoke industry. As with any intellectual property these days (that’s what you call the right one has when they create music, art, a written work, etc.) there is not a discernible line to determine whether a particular act is within the law or is a violation. To make things even harder to understand, there has not been a lot of case law that is specific to the karaoke industry.

Karaoke not only deals with the actual creation and the performance of the musical piece. It deals with the display of the lyrics on a monitor or television screen. This expands the issues to include cinematography and synchronization rights. Add to that the rights of the karaoke manufacturer who pays (supposed to anyway) a huge upfront fee for the right to record the song, pays the musicians to play the music as close to the originals as possible, presses the discs, and then markets and sells the product to the general public. With all this, it is easy to see two things:

1) Karaoke is big business – upwards of $10 billion dollars annually. That’s bigger than baseball.

2) There is a cost to produce each and every karaoke song.

So why have karaoke manufacturers (one in particular) decided to go around the country filing lawsuits against karaoke shows (we’ll call them KJ’s) and the venues that hire them? Let’s examine the business as it has transpired since it was introduced to America back in the late 1980’s.

The Beginnings of Karaoke in America

When it first started, karaoke was the music tracks on cassette tape. The lyrics were printed on paper for the singer to use to perform the song. Backtracking is nothing new – really! Tracks have been produced for years in America for people to sing to their favorite songs. Churches have used back tracks for many years for their services. And musicians have used books of lyrics as “cheat sheets” during their live performances. When I was in a band in 1990, the lead singer always had the lyrics handy. In 1969, I wish the lead singer of my band had a cheat sheet for the lyrics to Inna-godda-davida. He couldn’t remember the second verse (it’s the same as the first). Anyway, as the music industry and technology advanced (very quickly), karaoke music producers like Pioneer created Laser Disc Players and music that had the lyrics on a TV screen superimposed on a moving video background. These discs were about the size of the old 33 rpm LP’s. (For the young at heart, LP’s are the medium we dinosaurs have in our music collections.)

The music industry didn’t like this too much and lawsuits were filed. Because of the synchronization aspects of putting the lyrics on screen with video, it was determined illegal. So disc manufacturers started putting just the lyrics on the screen. An occasional clipart picture in between the lyric’s verses was ok. And then they found a way to use a compact disc (CD) that supplied the music and the lyrics. More songs on a smaller format were just what the industry needed. Manufacturers started cropping up all over the place making karaoke a very popular pastime. But guess what? No one was paying the songwriters for the music rights. On top of that, the bars were hiring bands, playing jukeboxes, and adding more and more televisions as a way to attract customers. The music industry went on a campaign to get their just rewards and began charging the venues a fee to help reimburse the songwriters and musicians for their creative work. Now, the right to perform karaoke at your local bar is deemed to be covered by the fee that the bar pays to BMI on your behalf. (That’s assuming they have paid the fee). But there are still a few differences between you (the KJ) and the local band coming in and playing at that same bar. (We will assume here that the bar has paid its fees.)

The local band performs the music live. You are playing a sound track that has been created by someone else. The performance rights for both would be covered by the performance fee paid by the bar. For a regular DJ, the band on the disc gets paid through this fee and the original sale of the disc to the DJ. For karaoke, the band is paid by the manufacturer, but no rights are attached to pay the musicians after that. Consider it like a work for hire (a piece of software created by an employee of Microsoft probably doesn’t own the copyright to his creation since he was a paid employee).

There is also a question of the synchronization of the lyrics on the screen with the music. This is a legal issue that has a long way to go since the advent of technology created the problem. Sure, it’s easier to sing when the screen is there changing the color of the lyrics in synch with the music (easier than lyrics sheets or memorizing the song). While it is hard to understand the difference, let’s just say for now that it’s an issue to be dealt with. Technology has created a bigger problem that is the crux of the karaoke lawsuits.

Karaoke and the Computer Revolution

Computer technology has advanced so much that the local KJ now has much more capability to make it easier (and more entertaining) to run a karaoke show, find songs, create song lists, remember singers and what they’ve sung before, and even keep their history from one venue to another. KJ’s have the ability to transfer their large inventories of CDG’s to the computer so they don’t have to haul them to their show, make room for them, search through them to find every song requested, and then haul them back to the car. The KJ with 20 years in the business has accumulated several thousand discs making this an increasing larger task. So the advent of computer karaoke has made their lives easier and their shows better. So why would the karaoke manufacturers condemn the thought of using a computer in a karaoke show? The answer is simple – PIRACY!

Why All The Hooplah?

Since the advent of the digitization of information and the internet, downloading music has become a phenomenon. People have found it very convenient to look on a search engine, find a site (like Napster of the past) and download all the music they can muster. Think of it like this on a smaller scale. You buy a CD at the local music store. By purchasing that disc, the songwriter, the producer, the artists playing the music all get paid from your $10 investment. Now you take it home and rip it to your computer to save the disc and make it more convenient to get onto your IPOD. Your friend comes over and likes the music and wants a copy. You don’t think about it and hook your friend’s IPOD up to your computer and now your friend can enjoy the music too. Guess what? The songwriter, the producer, and the artists on the CD did not get paid for the copy your friend now has. And you are guilty of copy write infringement.

Let’s take it one more step. Your friend (we’ll call him Malcom) goes home and uploads the MP3 version from the IPOD to the computer. He knows five friends who would also like the new music. So Malcom emails an attachment to all his friends with the new CD in MP3 format. That’s five more people who have the CD and have not paid the copyrights and performance rights on the CD. Now those five email 5 others, etc. Get the picture?

If you haven’t figured it out yet, pretend you are the person who wrote the song. How do you feel? The point is that, regardless of where the music comes from, it’s illegal when it’s free. There are very few places you can actually download music legally. And just because they say it’s legal, it may not be.

Karaoke is not much different. Because of Piracy in the karaoke industry, there are fewer legal manufacturers left. Sound Choice is one of the better known producers as you will see a large number of songs with their logo being sung at karaoke shows all over the world. And thus brings to issue the other side of the conversation – Trademark Infringement.

Where's The Beef?

Each song that Sound Choice produces has their logo attached to the lyrics screen. When that song is played, the logo shows up and is a pretty good indicator that the music was created by Sound Choice. If the KJ is doing his (or her) show all from discs, it’s pretty easy to determine whether the disc is an original or a copy. With a computer, you cannot tell whether the song was ripped from a disc that was purchased from the manufacturer, copied from someone else’s disc, or downloaded from the internet.

Enter the Internet entrepreneur. Malcom likes karaoke too. He goes to shows and figures out that he can use a computer to run his own karaoke show. He already knows where to get his music on the internet and it doesn’t cost him much. Besides, he found a shareware sight that told him it was totally legal to download all the music he wants after paying the $67 membership fee.

So Malcom spends time at home (he doesn’t have a real job) and downloads 20-30,000 songs. He knows everyone likes Sound Choice songs so he makes sure he has them all. He hasn’t paid for his music, so he has some money that he can use to buy a decent sound system to hook his computer to for his karaoke show. He goes to as internet site that will print your first 250 business cards for free and he’s ready to market his show.

Malcom doesn’t have the investment that the local KJ has in music, so he can go to the bar owner and tell him he can do the show cheaper. The bar owner doesn’t know the difference and money is tight, so he switches and hires Malcom. The legal KJ must now find another venue and cut his fee because he knows that Malcom is ready to set up a friend with a computer loaded with songs to expand his little operation.

How Does This Affect The Karaoke Industry?

So now every KJ in the area is forced to work for less and expand their libraries to compete. Even though the legal KJ has the investment and the experience, the dollars are the determining factor. But let’s take it another step to get the real picture of the situation that the karaoke manufacturer has been faced with.

Malcom is pretty internet savvy. He has found a great place to get music and now has 100,000 songs. He decides that internet auctions and classified ads are great places earn an extra income. So he starts advertising his music already on a hard drive for a great price. Because others throughout the country are thinking about getting into the karaoke business, they buy from Malcom and the piracy expands exponentially.

So manufacturers have made a large investment to create the music that we all love to sing. But if they create 10,000 discs and 100,000 end up in circulation that have not been paid for, they cannot continue to operate. They cannot afford to make contracts on new songs; they cannot afford to hire musicians. In short, they follow so many of the other manufacturers before them – they go out of business. But one has chosen not to go down without a fight.

Slep-Tone Entertainment Systems aka Sound Choice is scouring the country, going to shows and seeing who is running shows from computers. They know that there are a lot of legal KJ’s using computers, but they can’t tell the difference up front. So, they file a claim and name the venues and the KJ’s they have questions about in the lawsuit. It’s now up to those KJ’s to prove they have purchased and maintain the legally purchased copies of the music on their hard drives and up to the venue owners to prove they didn’t know the KJ was using illegal music. And to make it really interesting, copyright law (since the early days of computer software) requires that you purchase one copy for every show that you run. There are so many Malcoms that run 5 shows and still have not bought one copy of the songs on their computer that countless legal karaoke shows are being forced to hire lawyers to defend themselves just to prove their innocence.

Sound Choice has paid their dues. They have been on the defending end of copyright law before. So they know what it’s all about and what it costs, both as the manufacturer and as the defense in a lawsuit. But they are more interested in cleaning up the industry. So they have offered to drop suits against KJ’s who are willing to purchase the entire legal Sound Choice library of songs. Those that refuse are then prosecuted and face the court’s interpretation of the law as it relates to the karaoke industry.

The sad truth here is that the vast majority of people that go to karaoke shows don’t care whether the music is legal or not. Because of  the availability of music downloads on the internet, most people think it's OK and perfectly legal to download music. The venue owners often don’t even know there is an issue. For the KJ, it doesn’t always matter that you run a great show. If you don’t have 100,000 songs, you lose. So legal KJ’s start looking at playing Russian Roulette. But there are a lot of us that are doing what we can to help clean up the industry. That will take a while. Until then, we are constantly faced with the dilemma of how to earn an honest living in spite of the Karaoke Pirates.

If you would like more information on how Sound Choice is working to combat Karaoke Piracy and how you can get involved, stay legal, and help save the karaoke industry check out http://scsafeharbor.com/programdetails.php.

Running Your Karaoke Show From A Computer

Over the years, computers seem to be able to do more and more. There is no exception when it comes to Karaoke. Karaoke songs first came to us on tape. Then came video laser discs. The CDG that most of us have for our shows made it easy to put several songs on a small disc making it relatively easy to tote around (compared to the oversized laser discs of the past). A company called CAVS has even found a way to put over 1200 songs on one disc the size of a CD, but requires their special player or a computer to make them work. But today, the computer has given us a way to store thousands of discs worth of songs so that we don't have to carry all those discs with us to every show.

Today's computer programs allow us to convert all those discs to files the computer can read, rename the files so that your songbooks look good, run a Karaoke show that requires little intervention on the part of the KJ (Karaoke Jocky), and make it easy to find a song and select a version of the song for the singers.

Programs that help us to run a Karaoke show are called Hoster Programs. There are many different programs to choose from - some free - some not. It's literally a "You get what you pay for world" and Karaoke is no exception. We will be examining many of these programs in the coming months.

WinAmp, one of the more popular music library programs for Windows, has add-ons that will show the lyrics when playing MP3+G files. These are the files that the computer uses to play the song and show the lyrics at the sames time. Other programs like Tricerasoft and KaraFun have free karaoke programs that will play the song with lyrics on a second screen, allow you to change pitch and even have photos playing in the background. Not without their own limitations, they are great for the karaoke enthusiast that has a home set-up. But to play songs on the computer, you either need to download the files off the internet or buy a program to rip them from the CDG discs.

But for the professional KJ, programs need to have a few more bells and whistles. The programs that are designed with the professional in mind have software included in the price or as add-ons to rip files from the CDG, to burn them back to a CD for archival purposes, to create a song book for your singers, and to run your shows (even automatically playing music between singers while they get ready to sing). We will be examining all of these programs in other posts on this blog as we go forward.

Other questions that I had when I got started in the age of computer karaoke was what type or size of computer do I need? Do I use a laptop or desktop? How much hard drive space will I need to handle my collection of songs? How do I hook my computer up to the sound system? How do I run a second monitor for the singers (another for the audience is also desirable)?

One other neat add-on you can purchase now allows you to set up a remote computer at your show where singers can enter their name and song and it will automatically update their song cue in the main computer program. This runs as a network and can be wired or wireless. You can even get touchscreen capability and eliminate the need for a keyboard or computer mouse. This would be great for a karaoke bar that has a huge clientele. I'll reserve judgment until I've had an opportunity to check it out and review it right here.

While laptops have portability to their advantage, they usually require external add-ons to allow them to provide quality audio output for your show and extra hard drives for your songs. Desktops are bigger and can handle additional drives, internal sound cards and video cards that allow for dual display adapters. However they are bulkier, heavier and not as aesthetically pleasing to look at unless they are stored in an equipment rack of some kind. But, to their advantage, their processors are bigger and can handle the multitasking a little better than a laptop.

It really doesn't matter which you choose, but keep in mind that there are a lot of things that can (and will) go wrong when you move computers, hard drives, and monitors. And don't forget the amps, speakers, mixers, mikes, lights, etc. Thank goodness you don't have to lug around two ton of discs anymore.