KIAA Membership

[dpatz]

I'm just not sure it is worth the risk--the library issue with Kiaa raised a flag for me

[Musicman51]

Not bad $200 bucks for an American Legion hall in an economically depressed area. I think even in Portland , ME (the least depressed area in Maine) the best DJ/KJ's are lucky to see $175 at any type of club.

Are you kidding? I set up over $20,000 worth of gear and purchased karaoke disc loaded into my laptop each time i do a show for those folks. Ever take your car down and have an alternator or a brake job done? I have, midis socked me $400.00 for brakes, took them 30 minutes to do the job, and i'll betcha they didn't use $20,000 worth of gear to do the job. Figure gas, my haulmark cover cargo trailer alone was close to $3,000 with tax license and insurance. Plus i have to do all the toating, setting up, tearing down, loading, unloading. High school football, and karaoke is actually the only entertainment for this villiage. Aside from the lone bakery/resturant and video store we have up here. Let them import a kj from the nearest town from us, 45 miles away. They would never come up here for what i git. I got a $25.00 raise in almost 6 years. I should still be playing only the CDG's i did 6 years ago i guess. Right now an external writer on the mtu website is $129 add a stack of blank disc and that nights money is gone. $200 for a 5 to 6 hour gig is peanuts...i wonder if photography pays any better????

[ddouglass]

George, that mechanic olny makes $15.00 an hour, so he made $7.50 of that $400. The owner of the shop had to pay for his franchise, building, utilities, equipment (lifts can run 10 to 20 thousand alone), tools and your parts. My guess is he made about $20 on your sale and installation.
In other words he is no better off than you or I are.
I agree though that we are underpaid and over-worked. I just wish I could get $200 a night for a gig. We do all of our shows at the VFW here which is only one of two watering holes in the area. We do shows every Friday and Saturday night and get $150 for Friday and $175 for Saturday.

[muzicman144]

Originally Posted by dpatz

I'm just not sure it is worth the risk--the library issue with Kiaa raised a flag for me

There is no risk for you playing a copied disk, you are not the owner.
muzicman144

[Musicman51]

The owner of the shop had to pay for his franchise, building, utilities, equipment (lifts can run 10 to 20 thousand alone), tools and your parts.

My point exactly, i'm the "owner of the shop". I paid not for a bulding or a lift. But i paid for the things i mentioned. I don't pay a franchise fee of course, but i sure pay other fees and taxes and disc subscriptions etc. And at my meeger $400 a month, you got me beat at $175 and $150 a night if you add it all up. I do karaoke four times a month on average regularly. Thats $800 a month, you got me beat. My main hard drive, and two back up hard drives for my laptop, and new mtu writer wipes out almost two months of salary for me right there. Like i said, i'm not in it for the money. So i can't complain, no one forces me to do this maddness, i just enjoy the people i've met, and places i've been to. Thats it. One day i may not be able to carry on with a hobby i enjoy. When that time comes, i'll miss it fur shore. But fur now....

[admin]

Originally Posted by muzicman144

My understanding is Eric Godfrey from USKAROKEEALLIANCE, spearheaded the KIAA along with Kurt Slef of Sound Choice, who was selling downloading karaoke files from a Website in Australia that was illegal for use in the US because they hadn't paid the US fees to get rights to the songs. Stellar Records came on board after that, and, according to statements alledgedly made by Stellar Records, says even putting the karaoke files on a computer is illegal, in their eyes.
The reason i'm asking questions is there is no movement on the KIAA website, except to ask for money to join? Just try to get in touch with a human at their website, good luck!!!!
muzicman144

They published Internet "Announcements" only from a Dealer in AZ, not even on their own web sites.

MTU paid IP Justice to research the "legality" of their "Myths". You should read our published results on our site.

[RandyMcCharles]

I wonder if the silence is due to the recent growth in downloadable karaoke, especially out of the UK. If the US companies don't play catch-up they may soon find their sales plummeting. Plummeting sales that could put you out of business take priority over piracy monitoring. I see that Chartbuster has announced downloading (wmv with cdg coming) and that Sound Choice has shut down their Australia distribution, redirecting traffic to a local distributor instead. Possibly this is during the transfer of distribution rights to Stellar (this is the first I've heard of the Stellar deal.). I suspect that this distribution move to offering downloads is taking up all their time and energy. Once that move is complete, however, you will see them coming out with guns blazing to force you to download from them rather than their competition. I'm sure they will also have ideas on how KJs can prove they have legitimate downloads.

[Musicman51]

Admin, that was a very interesting read. I copied it for safe keeping. Also, on the lighter side. I thought it was very nice of your company MTU, to wish me a happy birthday on December 9th. It just goes to show the highest standards you adhere to, yet down to earth warmth of your wonderful organization. Kudos for allowing us to chat freely and express our views, and for making our {jobs} a lot easier. I really appreciate it. George

[bryant]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

Bryant and Sam I think as far as enforcement you guys are mixing terms up.
Piracy is counterfeiting of an item (in this case song files or discs) and is a gainst the law and would be a criminal offence.
Copyright and trademark enfringement which is using the counterfeit items is not a criminal offence and thus has to be persued by the owner in civil court. No cases have been taken to court by the KIAA directly. The Arizona cases have been filed by Stellar and Sound Choice (the owners).

ahh, gotcha, thanx.

[RandyMcCharles]

I occasionally drop by Sound Choice's custom track site (www.mykaraokecdg.com.au) to see where they are going after closing it a few weeks back. Today I saw they are reselling SBI's Abraxa tracks instead of their own. (I don't think they have the proper downloadable catalog, however, as it doesn't match what the search brings up.) They look to be charging the same prices as they used to for Sound Choice tracks, so you can get the same Abraxa tracks as well as tracks from several other manufacturers for much less at SBI's own site (www.sbikaraoke.com) or (www.selectatrack.com).

[RIKKI TIKKI]

Try Chartbuster's custom cdg program also... pricewise, newer selections, and time of delivery is why I have recently switched from SoundChoice... and yes they ( SoundChoice ) either sub-contracted their custom cdg operation out, or something else ( Licencing Rights ) maybe caused them to back off... ???

[RandyMcCharles]

I haven't orderee custom CDGs from either yet. I've just been watching the industry change, escpecially Sound Choice as they have good tracks but haven't been producing much new material for a while. I did order from Select-A-Track (a year ago) as they had tracks I wanted unavailable anywhere else. The quality was good.

[RIKKI TIKKI]

I've tried selectatrak and found the quality of some of their labels (Manufacturers) to be very iffy... but at least you can hear & see the samples and make your decision from those small clips... I also was looking for newer selections, unavailable from the better manufacturers here in the States, that seem to be a little slow, probably again from licensing issues...

[RandyMcCharles]

Mostly I was getting tracks by UK artists that may never show up in North America, like "She's Madonna" by Robbie Williams. Yes, you can listen before buying. I always do and if I don't like what I hear I don't buy the track. Many tracks are available from multiple manufacturers so you can compare and pick the one you like the best. That said the main point of my posting was that Sound Choice is doing some odd things. It will be interesting to see where the balls stops and what SC may do or say through KIAA regarding the industry (and SC's competitors) when they finish repositioning themselves.

[ddouglass]

SC licensed (sold?) the rights to there library to Stellar for sales of downloads. SC is not going to directly sell the downloads. I guess they didn't want the hassle of keeping track of all that.

[RandyMcCharles]

Which makes me think they may be planning on saying downloads are illegal (though KIAA). But we are talking custom CDGs here, not downloads. The Australia site was shipping Custom CDGs.

[Lonman]

Originally Posted by ddouglass

SC licensed (sold?) the rights to there library to Stellar for sales of downloads. SC is not going to directly sell the downloads. I guess they didn't want the hassle of keeping track of all that.

They didn't sell to Steller (PHM), they sold to Stingray.

[RandyMcCharles]

Has Stingray started offering dowloads yet?
Sound Choice shut down their custom CDG site months ago and then recently reopened it offering Abraxa tracks and no SC tracks. I have no idea what they are doing.

http://www.mykaraokecdg.com.au

On another thread it was suggested that SC may be running into cash flow problems. Stopping customers from buying their own products doesn't help.

[ddouglass]

Stingray is selling Karaoke Downloads (video versions MP4 and WMV) through their Karaoke Channel Download Store -
http://www.thekaraokechannel.com/sto...001/c-3979.htm

There downloads are $1.49 each. None of their downloads have the Sound Choice logo on them any more. In fact they don't have any logo information in the videos.

[Musicman51]

I cain't keep track of whom sold what to whom to download where to sell to what company to be a legal site to sell to which download site in what country under what name for who...but this ole hillbilly will tell ya'all one thing..i shore as st. pete ain't gonna worry about it anty more. If you pro's cain't keep this stuff straight how'd ya speck a weekend warrior like me to? yur honor...not guilty by reason of insanity. Brought on by legal pressure paranoia by mass confusion in my part time non profit profession. Here is a list of the sites i downloaded from yur honor, my harddrive, my original disc, when you git this mess straighten out judge, please tell everone else, they don't really have a clue either. Perhaps if it please the court, those fine upstanding never tiring karaoke crusaders from the RIAA can hep ya. I rest my case yur honor, and throw myself at the mercy of a poorly recorded sound choice version of "Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas" downloaded at Illegal karaoke downloads.com......