Impressions Of The Summit

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 9:56 am

There were several interesting things brought up at the summit concerning the prevention of piracy and eventually it's utter destruction. One thing I noticed was the answering of several questions I had.

1. Total number of estimated hosts and venues offering karaoke 45,000.

2. 90 to 95% of the operations are illegal.

3. In four years SC has filed 100 mass suits involving 1,000 hosts and venues.

4. Worldwide Digital and Piracy Recovery share in the protection of the CB label.

a. Worldwide Digital takes care of the copyright issues.

b. PR takes care of the trademark issues.

5. It would also appear that if CB or SC can't take you to court because
you do not use their products. They will make a list of hosts they invest-
gate and get the publishers to go after material formerly referred to as
orphans or abandon ware. This means hosts will no longer have the
option of boycotting these two manus, by using defunct labels.

6. Also their was some mention of a list of materials called no-fly, tracks
a host may have in their libraries but the licensing has run out and you
can no longer use it in your show, even if you have paid for it.

Kurt was at the the show and pretty much said SC has abandoned most of the old style marketing they used to employ. The new mantra both SC and DTE seem to be using is "suits drive sales". Kurt went on to say this about the legal process "I don't like doing it but nothing else works".

My impression of all of this is I'm glad I will be retiring from the industry at the end of October. In the interest of fighting piracy it would seem that two manus plan on cornering the supply of karaoke materials available to the average host. If you disagree and don't want to lease GEM or subscribe to Cloud, you won't be in business, since all other options one way or another will be taken off the table. Funny how in one day you go from only two manus on the planet are suing hosts. To those two manus laying out a plan to require all hosts to have to buy their products or services or face going out of business, for good.

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 12:22 pm

I have and update of the no fly list of artists that don't want their songs sung.

www.Karaokecloud.info

mr.dj · Post by **mr.dj** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 5:46 pm

The Lone Ranger wrote: I have and update of the no fly list of artists that don't want their songs sung.

www.Karaokecloud.info

So how come most of those listed are available from other manufacturers ?

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 6:04 pm

You are lucky you are in England and all of this nonsense is not going to effect you. Here in the land of the free it would seem the only thing that won't be free are hosts. They will have to choose between SC or CB period.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:22 pm

Don't these artists realize when people sing their songs at karaoke...it either means they have the song or they will buy the song to learn how to sing it. And it's not like they aren't making money from karaoke songs.

They get paid from ASCAP/BMI and the rest.....

I refuse to rebuy the music I already paid for.

So if they drive all the KJs out of business and the business is already on a banana peel and going down fast....

they will be cutting their own throats...

Yes the answer is to KILL the Messenger....because you didn't like the message..

Do they think people with their smart phones are buying karaoke songs?

If I lose any more jobs because of the crappy economy I won't be buying any more karaoke songs either...

Most KJs that have been in business for the last 10 or more years are legit because we couldn't pirate music back then..

I spent over $50,000 building my karaoke library.

Most of the pups are illegal... not the old dogs..

I'm getting more grief from $50 a night DJs....the bar owner looks at me and wonders why I charge so much more....

My karaoke song versions cost more....He doesn't have $1800 dollars worth of microphones...and my system sounds better..and you don't have to pay me a 5th of Jack a night...

So I see and end to the lawsuits because they will succeed in KILLING karaoke...no karaoke nights means no need for karaoke music...

Are they going after KJs that do private parties or just bars...

Might be time to switch back to parties and keep out of the limelight....more people are drinking at home anymore anyway...especially when the National drinking DUI limit goes down to .5...

If we all do private parties no artists get paid from ASCAP/BMI either...So they willl be cutting their throat too....

Every one of those thousands of KJs should stop buying any music for a year and see what happens..

They will be begging for business....if they survive...

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Fri Jun 21, 2013 11:26 pm

It's time to call for a NATIONAL BOYCOTT of ALL KARAOKE MUSIC FOR 1 YEAR...to start with and maybe more.....

See how the other karaoke music companies like SC & Chartbusters then...

I'm done I refuse to buy another karaoke song.....

I'll ride the wave with what I have now until it is no more...screw them...

Thanks for your 20 years of loyalty...

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 6:41 am

I have boycotted SC for the last five years Bigdog, if you look in my book there is no SC. I have been in business now almost nineteen years. Until recently I was working six days a week. Due to old age I will be sixty-eight in July and failing health I have cut my work week down to three days a week. After Oct 31st that will be the end of the karaoke hosting at least for me. You really don't need to boycott all karaoke manufacturer's, only the one's that rely on law suits to sell the products or services. I run a golden oldies show geared at the baby boomers. They are still the largest single segment of the consumer pool and have the most disposable income. The bad economy has really hit the young people hard. I'm just glad all of my children are grown and have college educations. They seem to be doing alright. Like my dad use to tell me I can miss a meal now and then you kids can't, he had eight children and we were never hungry.

Post by **wiseguy** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 9:47 am

It's time that a KJ organization be formed to combat this attempt at a karaoke music monopoly. Dues could be collected to hire legal representation. Venues can take steps to prevent the manufacturer's representatives from entering their establishments without a warrant. It may not be possible to stop them but it is certainly possible to make it difficult and extremely costly for them.

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 10:12 am

[quote="wiseguy"]It's time that a KJ organization be formed to combat this attempt at a karaoke music monopoly. Dues could be collected to hire legal representation. Venues can take steps to prevent the manufacturer's representatives from entering their establishments without a warrant. It may not be possible to stop them but it is certainly possible to make it difficult and extremely costly for them.[/quote]

As hard as it has been for the manus to form a united front, only two labels SC and CB/PR/WWD/DTE, are currently using the legal process. It would be more difficult to get all of the karaoke hosts organized. I think there were a couple of attempts already to form such an organization and it went no where. The trouble is most hosts are rugged individual types unless of course they are working for some big multi-rigger operation. The majority of karaoke services are the small mom and pop single operator business model. I personally know of only one host ever approached by SC, and when they found out they couldn't get blood out of a rock they just went on their way. He is still operating his rig and using their product, go figure. The recent suits filed by SC in Oregon and the new mass suit filed by PR/WWD in Tennessee, are focused on big fish not small fry. It is not cost effective to go after small time operators, that is why the manus have shifted to the venues that hire the hosts and large entertainment services, that hire their own hosts. They are going after the deep pockets, or else there is no reason to employ this expensive and unsure legal process. If they manage to get the publishers interested in filing suits, you can bet they are going after the big fish first. Publishers would consider single rig operators bottom feeding. In fact the first in line as far as the publishers would be concerned would be SC and CB/DTE. SC is currently being sued by publishers for unlicensed material in their library. DTE took over the old CB library and has had to eliminate many tracks that are no longer licensed.

The Lone Ranger · Post by **The Lone Ranger** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 11:10 am

If you want to see some of the information concerning the summit the link is:

http://karaokecloud.wordpress.com/tag/karaoke-cloud/

You might ask yourself why SC and CB/DTE are so anxious for every host and venue to come on board with their products or services? They have two goals in my opinion. First they want to totally control the supply of karaoke music materials. Second they want to leave the host with no options but to either lease the GEM series, or subscribe to Cloud. The one thing that stands in their way is the hosts that own their own discs and don't want to be dominated by these two manus. They are going to use every trick in the book to try and herd the crowd to one of the two options or both. The only licensed material will be theirs and it is hope they can scare hosts into abandoning the orphan/abandon ware product. When you look at their potential rewards the sums are staggering. If every estimated host and venues 45,000 leased the Gem Series at 3500 a piece SC stands to make $157,500,00.00. This is peanuts when you think about what Cloud could rake in in ten years. 45,000 times 99.00 a month comes to about 4,5 million every month, in a year it is 54 million, in ten years 540,000,000.00. That is if the rate stays steady, if they raise the rate they will make even more.

Post by **wiseguy** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 12:25 pm

They will eventually go after EVERYBODY running a computer based system. They're not really after a cash settlement. They are using the suits to force people who can't afford to fight them into conforming to THEIR music delivery system... to buy their products... to submit to their audits.

If there were a KJ organization just large enough to collect enough funds for a legal defense that would force the law suits to go on for years with appeals it could possibly make this monopoly venture not so lucrative.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 12:45 pm

The Lone Ranger wrote: I have boycotted SC for the last five years Bigdog, if you look in my book there is no SC. I have been in business now almost nineteen years. Until recently I was working six days a week. Due to old age I will be sixty-eight in July and failing health I have cut my work week down to three days a week. After Oct 31st that will be the end of the karaoke hosting at least for me. You really don't need to boycott all karaoke manufacturer's, only the one's that rely on law suits to sell the products or services. I run a golden oldies show geared at the baby boomers. They are still the largest single segment of the consumer pool and have the most disposable income. The bad economy has really hit the young people hard. I'm just glad all of my children are grown and have college educations. They seem to be doing alright. Like my dad use to tell me I can miss a meal now and then you kids can't, he had eight children and we were never hungry.

If I had my chioce I would only do oldies shows.

That said the problem with that is most of them drink water...The bars can't make any money on that crowd.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 12:54 pm

With an estimated 45,000 KJs and almost 90 or so percent being illegal...who will pay to join a group to fight karaoke piracy?

Second, if all the KJs boycotted all the companies....the other companies might want to gang up on SC and the others to tell them to knock it off because it's hurting their business.

Third, the economy is going to kill karaoke so there is really not a whole lot to worry about anymore...even for/from Sound Choice.

Bullying me into using their product doesn't exactly sound like a solid business plan...

Post by **wiseguy** » Sat Jun 22, 2013 2:30 pm

Bigdog wrote:With an estimated 45,000 KJs and almost 90 or so percent being illegal...who will pay to join a group to fight karaoke piracy?

Second, if all the KJs boycotted all the companies....the other companies might want to gang up on SC and the others to tell them to knock it off because it's hurting their business.

Third, the economy is going to kill karaoke so there is really not a whole lot to worry about anymore...even for/from Sound Choice.

Bullying me into using their product doesn't exactly sound like a solid business plan...

That's 90% illegal is by THEIR definition of illegal which would include you and me.

What other U.S. companies are you going to boycott? The only other one producing music is Pop Hits Monthly and they have been in cahoots with SC.

Bigdog · Post by **Bigdog** » Sun Jun 23, 2013 3:29 am

All the more reason to stop buying karaoke music from everyone...

They want to kill karaoke and my business...

I say we kill them first...