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How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

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The Lone Ranger
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by The Lone Ranger »

Don't get me wrong Bigdog I share your disgust with this whole process, and the evolution of the current ownership legal swamp everyone seems to be in. It all boils down to money, and because the manus can no longer count on home users buying their product, they want to throw everything on to the backs of the commercial users of their product. Mainly because hosts and DJ's are still making money, and of course PEP and DTE want to cut themselves in. They want to be the organ grinders and the rest of us their monkeys, collecting a penny for Tony. That is one reason I retired if I'm going to do any collecting it is going to be for me, and not some unwanted partners, that want me to work for them.


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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by The Lone Ranger »

I also have discs since I was at the KJ hosting business before the rise of the laptop. I did for the last nine years of my hosting career use a hard drive player but I never crossed into the full computer mode. As far as your original assumption goes it was correct at the time it was made. No one could have for seen the rapid pace of technology in the business over the last few years. It used to take the total information accumulated by mankind to double every 10 years back in the 60's. By the 1990's it doubled every 5 years. Today that same information is doubling every year in a 10 year model. The book future shock was standard reading when I was in college back in the 1970's.

It is no wonder that we have gone from VHS tapes, to Discs, to Digital in such a short space of time. Even the discs manufacturer's were caught off guard and suffered financially a severe case of future shock. Unfortunately they have elected to recoup their loses on the back's of hard working KJ hosts whose profit margins have already been cut, to the point of many quitting the business. You can't get blood out of a rock and by pressing their rights in court, the manus will force every host out of business eventually. Bigdog you won't rent because if you have to take on partners that would make your particular business unprofitable to the point of having to quit altogether.

I have read some of the responses from PEP and they say they don't want to run big operations out of business, naturally since they hope to share in their profits. They do want to winnow out the small independents, however, since they would not generate enough business to share.
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wiseguy
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

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When SC first started their BS I was concerned that a bunch of the defunct manus would crawl out of the woodwork and follow suit... but this simply didn't happen and it doesn't look like it will. So now I look at what PEP is doing as practically a non-issue. You can easily circumvent their law suits by getting rid of their music or by playing it only from the original disc.

This brings up the subject of "who is policing the defunct brands?". The discs are nowhere to be found so you couldn't buy them if you wanted. The song tracks can still be found easily on loaded hard drives or even downloaded in bulk. KJs all around the country are using these songs with impunity as long as they avoid the SC tracks. The song writers are still collecting their royalties because these songs are being treated like any other audio recording by the sanctioning organizations. So using these songs professionally could almost be considered a victimless crime. The only victims are the ethical KJs who won't use them as a matter of principle.
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by Bigdog »

It's the same reason you don't see speed traps and DUI check points set up in the ghettos at 3 in the morning.... Take all you can from the working man...then you don't have to work as hard...
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

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[quote="wiseguy"]When SC first started their BS I was concerned that a bunch of the defunct manus would crawl out of the woodwork and follow suit... but this simply didn't happen and it doesn't look like it will. So now I look at what PEP is doing as practically a non-issue. You can easily circumvent their law suits by getting rid of their music or by playing it only from the original disc.

This brings up the subject of "who is policing the defunct brands?". The discs are nowhere to be found so you couldn't buy them if you wanted. The song tracks can still be found easily on loaded hard drives or even downloaded in bulk. KJs all around the country are using these songs with impunity as long as they avoid the SC tracks. The song writers are still collecting their royalties because these songs are being treated like any other audio recording by the sanctioning organizations. So using these songs professionally could almost be considered a victimless crime. The only victims are the ethical KJs who won't use them as a matter of principle.[/quote]

8) Yes wiseguy, defunct manus have not pressed their rights in court. Mainly because with the exception of DK full proper permission was not obtained from the underlying rights holders of the original material. The recent settlement between SC aka PEP and EMI, even though the details were not made public indicate that SC itself was guilty of copyright infringement . Both the CEO's of Music Maestro and Monster Hits did jail time for making karaoke tracks and not paying the proper fees to do so. This is one giant case of the pot calling the kettle black.

The bulk of the so called orphan brand have fallen into the free ware status zone, many of them were made illegally and most companies cannot sue for theft since they stole themselves. The only reason PEP gets away with it is because they have reached an agreement with the copyright holders to give them a cut from whatever PEP recovers. This is why the pressure to act is on PEP and why they have stepped up their collections activity. So now they have a partner they were forced to take on, and now they want every hosting service to take them on as a partner. This is using the court system to legally extort money from small business's under the guise of fighting piracy.
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by The Lone Ranger »

[quote="Bigdog"]It's the same reason you don't see speed traps and DUI check points set up in the ghettos at 3 in the morning.... Take all you can from the working man...then you don't have to work as hard...[/quote]

8) Exactly Bigdog in the ghetto who has $10,000 to pay for fines and increased insurance? It doesn't matter if you take away the license since the driver was probably driving without one in the first place. That is why we have the largest jail and prison system in the world. Much of it has become private business, and the companies that run them make huge profits. It is one the the few growth industries in the U.S. The majority of the inmates are in for minor drug offenses. They need addiction treatment not prison,
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by wiseguy »

The Lone Ranger wrote:
Bigdog wrote:It's the same reason you don't see speed traps and DUI check points set up in the ghettos at 3 in the morning.... Take all you can from the working man...then you don't have to work as hard...

8) Exactly Bigdog in the ghetto who has $10,000 to pay for fines and increased insurance? It doesn't matter if you take away the license since the driver was probably driving without one in the first place. That is why we have the largest jail and prison system in the world. Much of it has become private business, and the companies that run them make huge profits. It is one the the few growth industries in the U.S. The majority of the inmates are in for minor drug offenses. They need addiction treatment not prison,
You're absolutely right about the for profit prisons. Even though only 8% of U.S. prisons are privately owned they generated 3.3 billion in revenue last year. They actually have lobbyist who lobby politicians to pass laws that keep people in jail longer. They are the chief force behind keeping the war on drugs alive. It's nothing short of obscene.
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The Lone Ranger
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by The Lone Ranger »

[quote="wiseguy"][quote="The Lone Ranger"][quote="Bigdog"]It's the same reason you don't see speed traps and DUI check points set up in the ghettos at 3 in the morning.... Take all you can from the working man...then you don't have to work as hard...[/quote]


8) Exactly Bigdog in the ghetto who has $10,000 to pay for fines and increased insurance? It doesn't matter if you take away the license since the driver was probably driving without one in the first place. That is why we have the largest jail and prison system in the world. Much of it has become private business, and the companies that run them make huge profits. It is one the the few growth industries in the U.S. The majority of the inmates are in for minor drug offenses. They need addiction treatment not prison,[/quote]
You're absolutely right about the for profit prisons. Even though only 8% of U.S. prisons are privately owned they generated 3.3 billion in revenue last year. They actually have lobbyist who lobby politicians to pass laws that keep people in jail longer. They are the chief force behind keeping the war on drugs alive. It's nothing short of obscene.[/quote]

8) I think they have their hooks in a little deeper than that wiseguy. It is true only 8% of the prisons are totally privately owned, but many of the state paid for functions of the prison system are now sub contracted out to private companies, under the pretense it will save money. Large private contracts for food service, laundry, inside and outside maintenance, and even security, are awarded to private companies. Very little of the actual day to day running of the prison is still done by the state, at least in California. Just a few Senior officials that oversee the entire process for the state.
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The Lone Ranger
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Re: How would you obtain your initial karaoke song library?

Post by The Lone Ranger »

[quote="The Lone Ranger"][quote="wiseguy"][quote="The Lone Ranger"][quote="Bigdog"]It's the same reason you don't see speed traps and DUI check points set up in the ghettos at 3 in the morning.... Take all you can from the working man...then you don't have to work as hard...[/quote]


8) Exactly Bigdog in the ghetto who has $10,000 to pay for fines and increased insurance? It doesn't matter if you take away the license since the driver was probably driving without one in the first place. That is why we have the largest jail and prison system in the world. Much of it has become private business, and the companies that run them make huge profits. It is one the the few growth industries in the U.S. The majority of the inmates are in for minor drug offenses. They need addiction treatment not prison,[/quote]
You're absolutely right about the for profit prisons. Even though only 8% of U.S. prisons are privately owned they generated 3.3 billion in revenue last year. They actually have lobbyist who lobby politicians to pass laws that keep people in jail longer. They are the chief force behind keeping the war on drugs alive. It's nothing short of obscene.[/quote]

8) I think they have their hooks in a little deeper than that wiseguy. It is true only 8% of the prisons are totally privately owned, but many of the state paid for functions of the prison system are now sub contracted out to private companies, under the pretense it will save money. Large private contracts for food service, laundry, inside and outside maintenance, and even security, are awarded to private companies. Very little of the actual day to day running of the prison is still done by the state, at least in California. Just a few Senior officials that oversee the entire process for the state. The county jails are still run by the various sheriffs departments through out the state, I'm not sure if they still have the little city jails, expect maybe in remote areas, they merely hold lawbreakers, until they can transfer the prisoner to a larger facility.[/quote]
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