I have karaoke producing legal questions.

[egxdomain]

If I decide to recreate any song for a karaoke performance, do I have to pay royalties to BMI or ASCAP?

[jaddams]

Egxdomain,

What do you mean by recreate?

Jon

[egxdomain]

...reproduce all the percussions, base, melody, in escence redo any song out there to create a karaoke track in audio format using my own instrumentation and such.

[jaddams]

In that case, I believe you will have to pay royalties to the copyright owner of the song.

Jon

[pcgumshoe]

ASCAP and BMI should generally NOT be paid by a host, or a roaming show UNLESS you are running a show where YOU are responsible for the attendance.

For example, if you want to have a party and invite 300 people where karaoke, or any other music licensed by ASCAP or BMI, or the other ones, you SHOULD have a license.

ASCAP and BMI are for the performance rights which are based on the capacity of the building.

JADDAMS is correct, to create your own version of a song, you need to pay royalties to the copyright owner. You can't, generally, buy one license. They sell them in lots of I believe 1500... don't quote me, but the license is something like 7 cents a piece or something (it has been a while since I checked on this).

The problem with karaoke is that there is no CLEAR category CDG falls into. This is the fallout from Pioneer and the other companies that had moving pictures with the lyrics.

Now, to take it from SHEET music and CONVERT it, is a whole other license all together, then you are talking the arrangement, artists, copyright holder....

I am not a lawyer, but if you can afford it, I would check with a lawyer on the subject.

This is similar to the whole COPYING debate. A big can of worms.

[John Baumgartne]

This is a grey area, with Karaoke, unless the artist that originally performed the song was also the the writer of the music score or the Lyrics He/She is not entitled to any royalties. However if the artist was one of the Writers then they get paid royalties for all recreations, and performances. This means even if you use the music score but not the lyrics both the writers of the music and the lyrics gets paid because it is considered a composition one with the other.

If recreate the Karaoke Songs from sheet music that you purchased on your own instruments but don't have plans of mass producing them then I believe that your only responsibility would be to the performance royalties if used in Public Performances. If these recreations are for your own personal usage (personal and not performed publically) then no laws have been broken because you paid for the use of the music when you purchased the sheet music. This is the way I understand it however if you do plan to mass produce the cd's or play them in public then I would consult a lawyer that is well versed in Music Law.