Legal or illegal

[RandyMcCharles]

Ah. Since they listed Audio Stream with the labels, that may be their only non-label member.
As for Sound Choice, I just went to their web site and see they are still listed as NY. I was told by our local karaoke store that they moved to pay lower national-mandated license fees, their their packaged disks now come from the UK and their custom disks from Australia. The web site does link to Australia for custom CDGs, but I'll have to ask them if they are sure about the UK part.

[ddouglass]

If you check the membership page it tells you that you would have a specific time to get completely legit. They don't specifically say there but it appears that after that time period they are going to audit you to make sure and probably will do so on an periodic basis (annual, bi-annual?).
Check there news page and you will see that there were lawsuits filed against 15 KJs and venues in Pheonix, AZ in July.
You guys are all looking at the negative instead of giving them a chance to get going and see whether it will work or not.

[RandyMcCharles]

I am curious if the AZ suits resulted from KIAA's work or if they are just reporting it. I am also curious if these abusers were blatent or 'mostly legit'.

I think most of this thread is people asking questions (especially me) about KIAA rather than bashing them. Information is a good thing. Living in Canada I have ignored them, but when the topic came up I found I wanted to know more. I respect everything they are doing that is good for the industry, but like others have said, I am concerned if they are delivering a different form of abuse.

[muzicman144]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

If you check the membership page it tells you that you would have a specific time to get completely legit. They don't specifically say there but it appears that after that time period they are going to audit you to make sure and probably will do so on an periodic basis (annual, bi-annual?).
Check there news page and you will see that there were lawsuits filed against 15 KJs and venues in Pheonix, AZ in July.
You guys are all looking at the negative instead of giving them a chance to get going and see whether it will work or not.

Dale, if you check further in those Arizona cases, you'll see that a organization called The Karaoke Alliance was started recently in Phoenix, which has now emerged as KIAA. This Alliance, as i will call it, started to do just what KIAA intends to do. Now look at the cases they have brought to front just in the Arizona area where they started. Seems it's a little out of hand for just one city in the usa. Just imagine if this is to be the scenario nationwide, It'll make big brother look bad. This looks like a shakedown. It'll be something to see how it works itself out in Phoenix.
As for periodic checks on the legality of its members, they will have to employ a hell of a lot of checkers to do the whole country. And as i said, to have "clean" CPU for one to audit is no problem for most if one chooses that route.
I don't intend to Bash the KIAA, it just appears they are on a mission they'll never accomplish, backed by self interest companies that really have only their concerns in mind.
muzicman144

[muzicman144]

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[billyo]

don't they have to have some kind of a court order to inspect what's in your comp. and have a branch of the law with them ?, just imagine going to court and asking for a court order just to check out a karaoke player if he's legit or not.. , i can see the judge's face what if you have some personal documents in your pc, isn't that invasion of privacy?, i'm not worried about if a kj is legit or not, what i don't like is kj under cutting other kj's..but that's another story....

[bryant]

Originally Posted by billyo

don't they have to have some kind of a court order to inspect what's in your comp. and have a branch of the law with them ?, just imagine going to court and asking for a court order just to check out a karaoke player if he's legit or not.. , i can see the judge's face what if you have some personal documents in your pc, isn't that invasion of privacy?, i'm not worried about if a kj is legit or not, what i don't like is kj under cutting other kj's..but that's another story....

Yup, any time any branch of the law needs to talk to you about anything or inspect anything, they have to have obvious cause that you really and most likely did something unlawful.

Look at the case of "murder" even. You can't even be tried for it unless there is enough evidence shown to a Grand jury, and often times the grand jury won't allow the trial. Not because you didn't do it, but because of NOT having enough evidence that it was obvious to the most casual of observers that you did (do it).