KIAA Restructures, Re-Launches at Mobile Beat Las Vegas DJ Convention

KIAA re-launched last week at the Mobile Beat DJ Conference in Las Vegas. We have been very critical of how
KIAA is operating (or actually was not). Rather than give you “he-said”, “she-said” we videotaped their presentation and posted it here for all to see. 1st, the terms and conditions which were posted on their site for about a month prior to the show have totally been scrapped. They were put up by mistake as they re-worked their web-sites and they pulled them when we pointed out many issues with them. New documents and guidelines can be found via their PDF Documents at:

http://www.kiaasafeharbor.com
Click for Venue documents
Click for KJ Host documents

Videos were taped live so please forgive us for camera noises and cross talk from other people sitting directly beside and behind us.

Here is your front row seat to the presentation. We will make TOO MANY comments below!

History, Opinions and appeal for feedback from all KJ’s on their opinions We spoke at length with the folks at Chartbuster, Sound Choice and Stellar and have some issues but are much happier with where all of us KJ’s stand. USKA is about helping and safe guarding KJ’s. We own Starz Karaoke in the Phoenix area and we have been doing Karaoke professionally since 1998. In 13 years, we have collected thousands of CDG’s, VCD’s, Laser discs, SCDG’s,etc, etc. We ran shows on discs until late 2003 and were entirely on PC’s by 2004. Along the way we were duped and spent over $10,000 on pre-loaded CAVS players. When we found out they were illegal we stopped using them.. We still have 2 of them. WHY go digital? Back when a Sound Choice Foundation Set was over $1000, one of ours ran out the door of our show. Within about 6 months, we lost a Foundation 1, a Foundation 2 and numerous other CDG’s that were in our nylon cases with them. If we are on computer and our discs are safe they can not be stolen. Discs that get fingered and dropped and passed around and even slid in and out of sleeves slowly wear out. Capture the music once and you have a copy forever and discs are safe, secure and not being worn out.. All that said… that is why many of us have gone digital, but that was the beginning of making it easy to PIRATE music and that lead to the problems we see today. The publisher-members of KIAA are fighting to survive. They have seen revenues go to pennies on the dollar of previous levels, while American Idol, Glee, Nintendo, Wii, Playstation, several TV game shows and other games and shows have made Karaoke more popular than ever. We love music and we love Karaoke or we would have gotten out of this industry over the last few years. It is in our blood. We can not leave it behind, but we have to help to make it better. We are currently looking for your feedback on the issues that we have. Many of us in Karaoke that are doing our best to do business legally have no problem with venues and KJ’s that are using illegal music being sued. The problem is that it has to be fair.. There are several issues for KJ’s This is an attempt to summarize the most prominent issues: 1. Over many years Karaoke discs have been lost or mis-placed. Now with 90% of all Karaoke disc manufacturers actually out of business, there must be some lee-way given in audits for missing discs (within reason). 2. Once again, over the years many companies have gone out of business, but also, many discs have gone out of print. As we add new sets it is very difficult to duplicate the songs that we originally had. We do our best, but there are quite a few “holes” where we can not get songs that we have several copies of, but not for every set in our venues. 3. Managing multiple sets and multiple books adds to costs of book printing, and adds tons of times to management of who has what set. Trying to keep it uniform has become a difficult task. Once gain, we want someone to have the same tracks at all shows so they know what to expect. NOW – That is a matter of choice, and anyone can choose to operate sets that are totally different, but many choose not do work that way. If a host is using Karaoke music that has been discontinued and can not be purchased any longer and they are using it as the basis for operations for business that is fine.. BUT THEY HAVE TO HAVE THE DISCS! Someone operating old tracks with no discs is circumventing the costs that those of us who paid for discs had to pay and it creates unfair competition. This is why the Karaoke manufacturers that remain are banding together. They have spent nearly 3 years trying to create awareness of our industry’s piracy problem. Now they are saying join us and be legal or get out of this business. We had a problem with this until they created the safe harbor program found above. There is NO COST to join the program, register music, get audited and protect one’s self from legal actions. However, we feel that better homework needs done up front to keep law suits from being filed against legal companies and venues. We also want to see published guidelines that are fair to KJ’s and to the Karaoke disc manufacturers. To let you know where the manufacturer’s of KIAA stand. Stellar does not support an inspection program of discs. They offer a one price fits all CAP Program that gives you rights to every song they have ever done at one cost (over $3,000 per set). Other option is to just buy all the discs that you want and nothing else. Sound Choice requires a KJ to be 98% compliant on investigation and anything you do not have must be deleted. Chartbuster is the same except they allow 95%. After talking to literally hundreds of KJ’s and all of the manufacturers, I have a proposal as to a middle ground for audits that takes both sides into account.. PLEASE send your opinions to info@uskaraokealliance.com so we can submit them to the KIAA members. THESE ARE NOT KIAA TERMS OR CONDITIONS! THEY ARE MY PROPOSALS OF WHAT I (Eric Godfrey, President of USKA) FEEL IS FAIR TO BOTH SIDES. WHY DO YOU CARE? WHEN YOU GET NAMED IN A LAW SUIT YOU NEED RULES TO FOLLOW AS HOW TO GET INTO COMPLIANCE. IF YOU WANT TO AVOID LAW-SUITS YOU NEED TO JOIN AND SUBMIT TO AN AUDIT.. THE MANUFACTURERS HAVE NOT GIVEN A KIAA AUDIT PROCEDURE AS OF THIS DATE. EACH MANUFACTURER HAS IT’S OWN IDEAS: 2 types of discs: 1. Currently existing manufacturers - which have a.) discs still in production that are available and b.) some discontinued discs that are not available. 2. Discs from manufacturers that are out of business. All of these companies discs are out of production. Many are still out in the market, however most of these are counterfeit or unauthorized discs that have been used to fill the market and have driven down pricing. 1. General rule across the board on all discs. If you do not have a single copy of a disc containing a song, then you can not have that song on any of your systems at all. It must be deleted! In other words at minimum you must have at least one copy of every song on at least 1 disc. A> Current manufacturers. - Must have 1 copy of every song and 95% of all songs across all sets! 1. If the song exists on a disc today and it can be purchased, you must have 1 for 1 copies. If you have 3 sets of Karaoke gear operating at once you need 3 copies. If you are missing the original disc for one set you must either buy it or delete the song from the set you can not validate (Once again this is on music that you can buy today!) 2. Discontinued music – You must have at least one copy of the song on disc or you must delete the song (or disc) across all sets. As long as you have one copy of every song you can be missing a song here and there, but you must have 95% of all music across all sets. Let’s put a number on this. Say you have 3,334 songs in 3 sets. You must have one of every song so set 1 is 100% compliant. Set 2 is missing 150 songs on 10 discs that are no longer available. Set 3 is missing 240 songs on 16 discs that are no longer available (remember if it is available you have to buy it or delete it). Total for all 3 sets would be 10,002 songs. If you are missing 390 songs you have 9612 songs out of 10,002 or 96.1%. By this system you would pass. If you are missing more than 5% or 500 songs you would fail. B> Discs from manufacturers that are out of business. – Must have 1 copy of every song and 90% of all songs across all sets! Let’s use the same numbers as above. All manufacturers are out of print so we remove the option of purchasing discs that you do not have! 2. Discontinued music – You must have at least one copy of the song on disc or you must delete the song (or disc) across all sets. As long as you have one copy of every song you can be missing a song here and there, but you must have 90% of all music across all sets. Let’s put a number on this. Say you have 3,334 songs in 3 sets. You must have one of every song so set 1 is 100% compliant. Set 2 is missing 300 songs on 20 discs. Set 3 is missing 480 songs on 32 discs. Total for all 3 sets would be 10,002 songs. If you are missing 780 songs you have 9222 songs out of 10,002 or 92.2%. By this system you would pass. If you are missing more than 10% or 1000 songs you would fail. This system would keep all KJ’s predominantly honest but allow for lost, misplaced, stolen, or unavailable discs here and there. It would create revenues for manufacturers for existing tracks and keep KJ’s from using discontinued sets to fill collections unless they actually own them. Allowing less of a percentage would allow the system to be abused and would allow KJ’s to make use of too much missing music instead of purchasing tracks to replace that music. Once again, we want your opinion on this (info@uskaraokealliance.com). Author’s note: I have purposely avoided the topic of  internet downloads. The only manufacturers offering downloads are Chartbuster and Stingray (Sound Choice partner). They are both adamant that downloads are for personal use only and can not be used in any commercial venture. Recent Publishing rulings make it illegal for UK Karaoke manufacturers to distribute discs in the US. KIAA has stated they will not recognize downloaded tracks as being legitimate. While I do not agree totally, I understand the underlying issues and we will work to educate everyone that downloads are for personal use only.   Other opinions are also welcome on this issue!

US Karaoke Alliance Karaoke Charts – Updated Top 500 Karaoke Songs of All Time

compiled by US Karaoke Alliance and Karaoke2Night Network

Congratulations to Kid Rock and Sheryl Crow
on keeping the number one spot for this year!

Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow performing Picture

Our survey this year had some interesting results.  Our first survey completed 18 months prior was only done with 2 companies and a total of 30 bars and 1000 shows.  We opened this one up to all companies submitting data from across the USA.  We had results provided from Pennsylvania, Michigan, California, Florida, Nebraska and Arizona.  Most of the companies outside our area do not update music weekly like we do and they do not have the selection of harder rock that we do.. This resulted in a more mainstream result in the survey and more traditional or classic music did better.

Much to the dismay of many Karaoke Jocks around the country, Picture by Kid Rock & Sheryl Crow maintains it’s hold on the top spot.  Most of us love the song, and both artists, but honestly we are getting tired of hearing it.  It was sung at over 60% of all shows polled this year!  Maybe if we are allowed to screen the singers and only allow it to be sung by singers we approve, we might handle hearing it nightly a bit better.

7 of our top 10 songs remained the same.  Behind an internet youtube parody-fest, Bohemian Rhapsody crashed back into the top 10.  The Fugees keep killing us softly with this song!  And yes, people, Baby still got BACK!
Look out top 10, the Ladies, Gaga and Antebellum are knocking hard at the door to the top and will probably be there next year!  Pink, the Black-Eyed Peas, Taylor Swift, and Toby Keith all hit the list repeatedly and Carrie Underwood keeps notching hits.  Lady GaGa, Lady Antebellum, Ke$ha,  Toby Keith, Taylor Swift and Pink had multiple hits and all moved up greatly..

Florida and the heartlands of the USA made artists like John Mellencamp, George Strait, Jimmy Buffet, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger all do much better this time around.  Harder rock groups like Metallica, Guns N Roses, Stone Temple Pilots, AC-DC and Pearl Jam, all moved down slightly to make room for more mainstream acts.

NR* – Previous survey results are shown if artist was in the top 500. 

The top 500 songs in our survey account for over 50% of all songs sung at Karaoke shows.

Top 1000 songs – over 70% of all performed songs

Top 1500 Songs – 79% of all performed songs

Top 2500 Songs – 93% of all performed songs

**These ratings are based on actual singers from actual Karaoke locations.  None of these results are base on opinion in any way.  If you would like your results included in the survey for next year, export your singer history from your karaoke program and send it to info@uskaraokealliance.com. If you do not submit your numbers, you can not complain about the results!

2010 Survey	Artist Name	Title Name	2009 Survey
1	Crow, Sheryl & Kid Rock	Picture	1
2	Diamond, Neil	Sweet Caroline	8
3	Duets-Travolta, John & Newton-John, Olivia	Summer Nights	3
4	Brooks, Garth	Friends In Low Places	6
5	Underwood, Carrie	Before He Cheats	2
6	Journey	Don’t Stop Believin’	4
7	Myles, Alannah	Black Velvet	5
8	Queen	Bohemian Rhapsody	24
9	Sir Mix-A-Lot	Baby Got Back	14
10	Fugees	Killing Me Softly	18
11	Sublime	Santeria	7
12	Wilson, Gretchen	Redneck Woman	13
13	Lady Antebellum	Need You Now	NEW
14	Joel, Billy	Piano Man	42
15	Bon Jovi	Wanted Dead Or Alive	12
16	B 52′s	Love Shack	9
17	Benatar, Pat	Hit Me With Your Best Shot	16
18	Radiohead	Creep	19
19	Buffett, Jimmy	Margaritaville	28
20	Morissette, Alanis	You Oughta Know	11
21	4 Non Blondes	What’s Up	17
22	Bon Jovi	Livin’ On A Prayer	90
23	Sublime	What I Got	82
24	Wilson, Gretchen	Here For The Party	112
25	Lady GaGa	Bad Romance	NEW
26	Seger, Bob	Turn The Page	71
27	Gray, Dobie	Drift Away	158
28	Stone Temple Pilots	Plush	20
29	Lambert, Miranda	Gunpowder & Lead	80
30	Vanilla Ice	Ice Ice Baby	95
31	Raitt, Bonnie	Something To Talk About	31
32	Tyler, Bonnie	Total Eclipse Of The Heart	23
33	Mcbride, Martina	Broken Wing	70
34	Morrison, Van	Brown Eyed Girl	110
35	Skynyrd, Lynyrd	Sweet Home Alabama	51
36	Evanescence	Bring Me To Life	25
37	Madonna	Like A Virgin	65
38	Dixie Chicks	Goodbye Earl	139
39	Guns ‘n’ Roses	Sweet Child O Mine	63
40	Joplin, Janis	Me & Bobby Mcgee	29
41	Mellencamp, John	Jack & Diane	117
42	Keith, Toby	I Love This Bar	155
43	Chapman, Tracy	Give Me One Reason	37
44	Roth, David Lee	Just A Gigolo	125
45	Turner, Ike & Tina	Proud Mary	108
46	Snoop Dogg	Gin And Juice	111
47	Alice In Chains	Man In The Box	424
48	Carter, Deana	Strawberry Wine	162
49	Warren G & Nate Dogg	Regulate	322
50	Sinatra, Frank	Fly Me To The Moon	102
51	Sinatra, Frank	New York, New York	27
52	Cline, Patsy	Crazy	35
53	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Under The Bridge	30
54	Pearl Jam	Black	41
55	Def Leppard	Pour Some Sugar On Me	109
56	Tenacious D	F@@@@ Her Gently	493
57	Benatar, Pat	Heartbreaker	45
58	James, Etta	At Last	39
59	Digital Underground	Humpty Dance	50
60	Mcentire, Reba	Fancy	103
61	Tunstall, Kt	Black Horse And Cherry Tree	107
62	Cohn, Marc	Walking In Memphis	157
63	Gaynor, Gloria	I Will Survive	15
64	Temptations	My Girl	67
65	Fleetwood Mac	Dreams	60
66	Madonna	Like A Prayer	75
67	Jett, Joan &  Blackhearts	I Love Rock ‘n Roll	10
68	No Doubt	Just A Girl	62
69	Spears, Britney	Baby One More Time	252
70	Cash, Johnny	Folsom Prison Blues	21
71	Apple, Fiona	Criminal	34
72	Divinyls	I Touch Myself	32
73	Loeb, Lisa	Stay (I Missed You)	79
74	Pink	Who Knew	56
75	Charlie Daniels Band	Devil Went Down To Georgia	151
76	Poison	Every Rose Has It’s Thorn	297
77	3 Doors Down	Kryptonite	48
78	Sonny & Cher	I Got You Babe	251
79	Dixie Chicks	Sin Wagon	53
80	Etheridge, Melissa	I’m The Only One	76
81	Brooks & Dunn	Neon Moon	69
82	Jefferson Airplane	White Rabbit	269
83	Adkins, Trace	Honky Tonk Badonkadonk	1108
84	Brooks, Garth	Dance	91
85	Jewel	You Were Meant For Me	22
86	Travolta, John & Newton-John, Olivia	You’re The One That I Want	187
87	Steve Miller Band	Joker	73
88	Kid Rock	All Summer Long	NEW
89	Green, Al	Let’s Stay Together	890
90	Green Day	Basket Case	148
91	Beatles	In My Life	NR*
92	Ke$ha	Tik Tok	NEW
93	Springfield, Dusty	Son Of A Preacher Man	57
94	Montgomery, John Michael	Sold	121
95	Righteous Brothers	You’ve Lost That Lovin’ Feelin’	54
96	Kings Of Leon	Sex On Fire	NEW
97	Black Eyed Peas	Imma Be	NEW
98	Twain, Shania	Man I Feel Like A Woman	190
99	Meatloaf	Paradise By The Dashboard Light	58
100	Aerosmith	Dream On	262
101	Ke$ha	Your Love Is My Drug	NEW

Top 101 songs are shown above – For complete listings of top 500 Karaoke songs go to the
US Karaoke Alliance Website

We hope you find this list interesting.. If you are a KJ and you have data that includes singer names, song titles and number of times sung please send it to us and we will include your shows in our next chart!

Karaoke Host (KJ) Training Framework

KJ Hosting tip from Eric Godfrey

Eric Godfrey manages:
USKaraokeAlliance.com
Karaoke2Night.com network
StarzKaraoke.com
ArizonaKaraokeContest.com

KJ Host Training Plan:
If you are a KJ or karaoke hosting company and you are training someone, we follow a process so that when that host takes over a show they are not overwhelmed.  It is not rocket science and sharing it with others seems like a good thing to do.

Before starting this program a prospective host should see an entire show from beginning to end and be sure they can handle this for a 4 to 5 hour period.  If they do not have the stamina to stay in the audience beginning to end, they will never be able to handle 3 or 4 nights a week of shows with set-ups and tear-downs.

1st night - Trainee host stays with trainer-host entire night and observes everything, learning how to adjust volumes and sound and operating the program.

Outside the clubs – This is a private training session with manager or owner to go over equipment knowledge, sound theory,  terminology and KJ program use.

2nd night – Trainee will run the gear and the program for entire night and occasionally chime in on microphones as appropriate.  Trainer should help as needed, but by end of the evening the trainee should be comfortable.
3rd night - Let trainer-host run gear, but trainee interfaces with customers and runs the microphones back and forth and makes announcements all night.  Always make sure to announce bar specials & acknowledge the service staff numerous times, in addition to changing up how you introduce and acknowledge the singers.  This is the hardest night on most trainees.

Some prospective hosts will need to repeat the gear and program running night or the microphone night to get comfortable before attempting to pass certification test.

Final Test - Run complete show effectively including set-up and proper operation of gear without your trainer-host having to take over at any time.

These are the basics.  Learning to run your KJ Program and your gear and understanding terminology are entirely other lessons.  Either way, let your actual personality come out and have fun. If you get past your worries and get going and understand all aspects then you need to be having a good time when you are hosting.  If you are not having a good time, then you might want to re-evaluate if you should host shows.   No matter what, have a good time, but remember to try to keep some level of professionalism!

KJ Hosting tip!

KJ Hosting tip from Eric Godfrey

Eric Godfrey manages:
USKaraokeAlliance.com
Karaoke2Night.com network
StarzKaraoke.com
ArizonaKaraokeContest.com

Hey guys, I was writing an email to a couple of new host trainees and thought it would make a decent short article to share with all of you.  In my opinion, this topic is the number one thing in running a quality karaoke show!  Master this first and get comfortable; then you can work on your personality as a host.

Lesson 1 on sound – You need to listen at the beginning of EVERY SONG!  They are all recorded at different levels and every vocalist has different traits and vocal ranges.  When the song starts, you need to listen intently and match up the levels.  Then, you need to listen to the vocalist for at least 10 or 15 seconds and adjust their volume and equalizer levels to get them mixed nicely… If it was a sound recording for a record or demo then you would want a nice blend of the two.  In Karaoke you boost the singer a bit over the sound, unless they are really bad, then you add some re-verb and try to bring them down slightly so it is not as noticeable.   No, this is not being snobby or offensive.  You want your singer to sound the best they can. Sometimes, the best way to do this is to raise the music to a higher level.

If you are a patron at a show, always let the host have the beginning of the song to make these adjustments.   If you see that a host is not doing this, observe how much better each singer would come across if they were doing it properly!  Pointing this out to a host is purely up to you.  Most hosts not following this procedure, will probably be defensive or even hostile and not thank you for your good intentions.

Get out there and sing!

FBI serves warrants – Karaoke Piracy has taken a big hit from the good guys!

Karaoke Piracy has taken a big hit from the good guys.  One of the most prolific pirates of Karaoke music tracks has been DanSterns@aol.com.  We now know that he is Major League Baseball’s failed prospect,  Bill Bene of California.  His home has been raided, his records from his AOL account have been turned over and he is awaiting charges to be filed by the FBI and LA prosecutors.  The sting operation has gone on for nearly 4 years.   Fines for copyright violations can be anywhere from $750 on the lowest stated amount up to $150,000 for each incident of willful infringement; Trademark Violations can range from $200,000 to $2 million per incident.

Evidence collected shows Bene has sold around 1800 hard drives for a total of $650,000 in sales with over 120,000 copyrighted karaoke tracks on each drive in addition to another 80,000 mp3 music tracks and video tracks.  If the judges threw the book at him as far as fines it would be 1800 drives X 200,000 track X a MINIMUM of $750.  It seems highly unlikely that the judge when it gets to that point will access 270 billion dollars in fines, but that is what it adds up to just for the copyright infringement.  Trademark Violations could add in as much as $4 million  per karaoke manufacturer on the drive (there are about 40 to 50 disc manufacturers on  each drive)

Information listed in a federal search warrant, provided by Special Agent Bryan Willet of the FBI,  explains that Bene sold drives to two separate C-I’s (confidential informants), which was captured on hidden camera.  He also sold drives to individuals working for the two named victims in the case, Sound Choice Karaoke and Stellar Records (Pop Hits Monthly).  The FBI has copies of every PayPal Transaction plus every email conversation with every buyer from AOL.  As far as other records, PayPal, AOL, all banks that Bene used for moving the money and the IRS, have provided copies of all records to the FBI.   Records show $600,000 in transactions since January of 2006 and $650,000 total via the PayPal accounts.  According to the warrant, Bene never reported any of the $650,000 as income therefore never payed taxes on any of the proceeds.  The FBI also has mailing packages and labels complete with forensic analysis and fingerprints linking them back to Bene, proving he used the US Postal Service in the process of his alleged illegal activities.  They also have confiscated equipment for hard drive duplication, computer systems, and have financial records showing purchase of all these items.

The warrant is posted at http://www.USKaraokeAlliance.com/KaraokePiracyWarrant.pdf for anyone wishing to enjoy some interesting reading.

Now that I have given you the straight forward listing of facts on this I would like to editorialize on it just a bit!  This is entirely based on my opinions and no one else’s.  I do speak to the key people at Sound Choice, Stellar, and Chartbuster on a regular basis, but I do not speak for them in any way.

There have been postings on sites such as ourdjtalk.com that Sound Choice is once again beating the good guys into submission.

THEY ARE NOT!

How would you feel if someone stole your life’s work and got rich (if $650,000 in unreported income is not rich – how about well off?),  selling it for a fraction of its value.  This continues to the point that your life’s work is no longer valuable since the market is flooded with nearly free copies.  Sound Choice had about 18,000 tracks on every one of those hard drives.  At about $1.25 per song retail that means that 1800 hard drives were sold (by one person) meaning 1800 X 18,000 tracks X $1.25 per song = $40.5 million dollars in LOST sales (had those people paid for all of that music).  Alarmingly, that is from only one seller and most of those buyers have duplicated the drive into oblivion.  Many of the buyers continue reselling them as their own illegitimate business.  There are probably easily 10,000 of these drives in circulation.

We also need to put this in the perspective of a KJ trying to stay legal and operate with music that has been paid for.  This means those of us who have paid in excess of $100,000 for music are being obliterated by hosts who have made no investment whatsoever.  These illegitimate hosts can afford to do shows for little or no cost.  Meanwhile, all the legitimate Karaoke disc manufacturers are going out of business so all we can get is lower quality karaoke tracks from companies that are probably not licensing the songs properly.  How dare anyone in this industry point fingers at the legitimate karaoke disc companies for trying to stop this in any way possible!

Now, for a bit of a warning to every one who bought a drive illegally (no discs for each song on the drive) and are using that drive or a copy of it to run karaoke shows.  First thing that you need to know is that Stellar is also deeply involved in this FBI case and Chartbuster is getting actively involved with legal actions.  They both have seen the legal course of action make a large dent in the piracy.  You will no longer be able to dump Sound Choice and continue running shows with other Karaoke music.

Most of the drives on the market were bought from Bene (aka DanSterns@aol.com) or someone he sold the drive to, who then duplicated them and started their own resale business.  If you are running a karaoke hosting business on one of those drives, then I personally hope you continue doing this.  The FBI will be turning over all of the names, addresses and contact info for every one of those sales.  Sound Choice, Stellar, and possibly Chartbuster (all of this is pure speculation on my part) will probably now have great information to try to find you.  As people using illegal hard drives or selling them are found, the manufacturers will file lawsuits against them.  They may bargain with the pirates and settle for less in exchange for the list and contact information of all of their sales.   This process over time will divulge most of the illegal drives out there and get all of those companies sued.  If you would like to avoid this, it might be a great time to retire your karaoke business and actually do something that you have legal rights to do.  This is just a thought for you,  if you are not doing business legally!  I think it leaves you 2 choices, get out of the business if you are not legal or start buying music so you have a disc for every track you are using.  Good Luck with whichever route you choose!

One last thought and I know I bore people with my math.  If those 1800 hard drives were duplicated numerous times and all of the business on Ebay and Craigslist with 1000’s of sales were added up I would be amazed if it did not yield over 20,000 of these drives.  Now let’s take ½ of that to be even more conservative and say that at $1 per song, 10,000 drives X 120,000 Karaoke tracks = over 1.2 billion in lost sales.  Now, we all know no one would buy all those tracks, but this is a very conservative estimate as to how many prospective sales have been lost to pure theft.  If this were how you made your living, would you be upset and be trying to stop it!  I will bet that you would.  I personally have been hounding Stellar and Sound Choice for years to get federal officials involved and I owe them an apology as they already had them involved and were waiting for this to happen and could not share that information.  Thanks to Stellar and to Sound Choice and I hope to hear of more actions as all of this unfolds.

By the way, Sound Choice also recently sued  the Karaoke Kandy Store (also doing business as Cheapkaraoke,  LightYearMusic  and many named others aliases?) who was one of the major sellers of illegally loaded CAVS hard drives.  We will do another story on that situation shortly, but, ditto the same math above and future access to buyer information.  Pirates beware!

Phoenix, AZ Takes Center Stage in Karaoke Piracy Battle:

Sound Choice, a leading manufacturer of karaoke discs has filed a federal trademark violation lawsuit against 15 karaoke venues and Karaoke Jockeys (KJ’s) in the Phoenix area.  Alleging use of illegally obtained and unauthorized copies of karaoke content on hard drives, Sound Choice is asking for a jury trial to determine damages for lost revenues, “statutory damages per trademark infringed by counterfeiting”, and all profits realized by the defendants as a result of their unfair business advantage from counterfeiting of the trademarks.  Intellectual Property lawsuits have been prominent in recent news with the RIAA winning a nearly 2 million dollar verdict for willful infringement and a Blogger being sentenced to a year’s probation after leaking a Guns N’ Roses album to the internet.

Local Phoenix establishments and companies listed as defendants in the suit include karaoke hosting companies; Dennis Gorrel d/b/a Big D Productions, Abraham Cortez  d/b/a Carousel Karaoke and DJ Company, Dan Dan the Taxi Man (actual identity unnamed),  William Ludlow II d/b/a Dirty Goat Productions, Greg Kimble d/b/a Dynamic Sound Production,  Debbie Simmons d/b/a Karaoke Fever, Trey’s BadAss Karaoke (actual identity unnamed),   Ernest McCullar d/b/a Wired for Sound, and restaurant – bar establishments; Boston’s Bar and Grill located in Tempe,  the Breakroom located in Phoenix,  the Grapevine located in Scottsdale, Hazelwoods First Place Sports Grill located in Phoenix, Hurricane Bay Nightclub located in Phoenix, Lighthouse Sports Bar located in Avondale, the Regal Beagle Sports located in Chandler.  Representatives of Sound Choice with assistance of United States Karaoke Alliance (USKA) members conducted investigations and amassed evidence in the months preceding the lawsuit being filed.

Sound Choice is a leader in the karaoke community and has invested nearly 20 million dollars in their karaoke music catalog.  In the mid 90′s Sound Choice routinely put out up to 5 new Karaoke discs per month and employed 75 people.  With the actions of those pirating their music, they now employ less than 10 people and  their last disc release sold under 800 copies, yet can be found on thousands of karaoke systems across the United States.  As stated in their suit,  “Sound Choice has been forced to undertake this litigation in order to ensure that it survives and continues to produce the high-quality karaoke music its fans demand, and to level the playing field for the legitimate KJs.”

US Karaoke Alliance President, Eric Godfrey, stated, “As legitimate KJ’s, we support Sound Choice’s endeavors.  Due to piracy we can no longer get a fair price for our services as a substantial majority of karaoke jocks are using illegal content.  Almost every disc that comes out is now being shared on the internet or sold on hard drives.  As a result of this piracy, all legitimate karaoke disc manufacturers already have or are in danger of going out of business”.

Bobby Brooks, Vice-President of the USKA added,  “While KJ’s buying music legally have spent tens of thousands of dollars, KJ’s using pirated content have no cost and therefore have offered services for much lower fees, driving down the actual fair market cost for KJ services”.

Sound Choice started these actions, but other Karaoke publishers are watching Phoenix as the test case for legal action.  Asked what the future holds, Kurt Slep, CEO of Sound Choice, responded, “We hope to set a precedent in Phoenix.  We have already finished investigations in several other markets and those actions will follow in time.”

US Karaoke Alliance Karaoke Charts – Top 300 Karaoke Artists of All Time

compiled by US Karaoke Alliance and Karaoke2Night Network

We took singer rotation histories from 1000 karaoke shows at over 30 bars and totaled up the results to come up with the top Karaoke Artists of all time. (according to our singers).  Please send us your karaoke rotation histories (digital history files showing singer names, songs and times sung for each song) if you would like your results included in the next tabulation.
**Scoring system gives more weight for the total different singers singing the song but also gives less credit for the total times sung.  This way 1 person can not sing the same song every night and get that song to the top of the chart.

This Artist table is a combination of scores
for all of the songs by that artist

Above is the top 75 Artists.
For a complete list of the top 300 artists sung at Karaoke shows see the
US Karaoke Alliance website:

US Karaoke Alliance Karaoke Charts – Top 500 Karaoke Songs of All Time

compiled by US Karaoke Alliance and Karaoke2Night Network

We took singer rotation histories from 1000 karaoke shows at over 30 bars from all of 2008 and 2009 and totaled up the results to come up with the top Karaoke Songs of all time. (according to our singers).  Please send us your karaoke rotation histories (digital history files showing singer names, songs and times sung for each song) if you would like your results included in the next tabulation.
**Scoring system gives more weight for the total different singers singing the song but also gives less credit for the total times sung.  This way 1 person can not sing the same song every night and get that song to the top of the chart.

Pos#	Artist	Title	Score
1	Duets-Crow, Sheryl & Kid Rock	Picture	220.2
2	Underwood, Carrie	Before He Cheats	187.5
3	Duets-Travolta, John & Olivia Newton-John	Summer Nights	172.2
4	Journey	Don’t Stop Believing	156.1
5	Myles, Alannah	Black Velvet	149.5
6	Brooks, Garth	Friends In Low Places	136.1
7	Sublime	Santeria	132.2
8	Diamond, Neil	Sweet Caroline	115.2
9	B-52′s	Love Shack	114.5
10	Joan Jett & The Blackhearts	I Love Rock and Roll	109.3
11	Morissette, Alanis	You Oughta Know	108.9
12	Bon Jovi	Wanted Dead Or Alive	107.7
13	Wilson, Gretchen	Redneck Woman	105.2
14	Sir Mix-A-Lot	Baby Got Back	104.9
15	Gaynor, Gloria	I Will Survive	101.3
16	Benatar, Pat	Hit Me With Your Best Shot	100.9
17	4 Non Blondes	What’s Up	98.7
18	Fugees & Lauryn Hill	Killing Me Softly (With His Song)	97.5
19	Radiohead	Creep	97.0
20	Stone Temple Pilots	Plush	90.5
21	Cash, Johnny	Folsom Prison Blues	89.9
22	Jewel	You Were Meant For Me	88.7
23	Tyler, Bonnie	Total Eclipse Of The Heart	87.4
24	Queen	Bohemian Rhapsody	86.7
25	Evanescence	Bring Me To Life	84.2
26	Brooks, Meredith	Bitch	80.7
27	Sinatra, Frank	New York, New York	80.6
28	Buffett, Jimmy	Margaritaville	78.8
29	Joplin, Janis	Me and Bobby McGee	77.5
30	Red Hot Chili Peppers	Under The Bridge	71.5
31	Raitt, Bonnie	Something To Talk About	71.0
32	Divinyls	I Touch Myself	69.0
33	Audioslave	Like A Stone	67.6
34	Apple, Fiona	Criminal	65.2
35	Cline, Patsy	Crazy	62.1
36	Weezer	Say It Ain’t So	62.0
37	Chapman, Tracy	Give Me One Reason	61.3
38	Salt N Pepa	Shoop	60.9
39	James, Etta	At Last	60.7
40	Eagles	Desperado	60.6
41	Pearl Jam	Black	60.1
42	Joel, Billy	Piano Man	59.5
43	Cranberries	Zombie	59.1
44	Darkness	I Believe In A Thing Called Love	59.0
45	Benatar, Pat	Heartbreaker	58.8
46	Cash, Johnny	Ring Of Fire	57.9
47	Tool	Aenima	57.7
48	3 Doors Down	Kryptonite	56.9
49	Eagles	Hotel California	56.3
50	Digital Underground	Humpty Dance	55.7
51	Lynyrd Skynyrd	Sweet Home Alabama	54.5
52	Twain, Shania	Any Man Of Mine	53.8
53	Dixie Chicks	Sin Wagon	53.6
54	Righteous Brothers	You’ve Lost That Loving Feeling	53.1
55	Black Eyed Peas	My Humps	52.4
56	Pink	Who Knew	51.8
57	Springfield, Dusty	Son Of A Preacher Man	51.8
58	Duets-Meatloaf	Paradise By The Dashboard Lights	51.1
59	Cheap Trick	I Want You To Want Me	51.0
60	Fleetwood Mac	Dreams	50.7
61	Green, Al	Let’s Stay Together	49.7
62	No Doubt	Just A Girl	49.2
63	Guns ‘N’ Roses	Sweet Child O’ Mine	48.4
64	Oasis	Wonderwall	48.2
65	Madonna	Like A Virgin	47.7
66	Sinatra, Nancy	These Boots Are Made For Walking	47.6
67	Temptations	My Girl	47.0
68	Armstrong, Louis	What A Wonderful World	46.9
69	Brooks & Dunn	Neon Moon	46.7
70	McBride, Martina	Broken Wing	46.6
71	Seger, Bob	Turn The Page	46.3
72	Dr. Dre & Snoop Doggy Dogg	Nuthing But A ‘G’ Thang	45.5
73	Steve Miller Band	Joker	44.9
74	Commodores	Easy	44.7
75	Madonna	Like A Prayer	44.6
76	Etheridge, Melissa	I’m The Only One	44.2
77	Lambert, Miranda	Kerosene	43.3
78	McCain, Edwin	I’ll Be	42.7
79	Lisa Loeb &  Nine Stories	Stay (I Missed You)	42.7
80	Lambert, Miranda	Gunpowder and Lead	42.4
81	Cline, Patsy	Walking After Midnight	42.2
82	Sublime	What I Got	42.2
83	Soggy Bottom Boys	I Am A Man Of Constant Sorrow	42.0
84	Idol, Billy	White Wedding	41.5
85	Morissette, Alanis	Ironic	41.3
86	Nickelback	Rockstar	41.2
87	Jones, Norah	Don’t Know Why	41.2
88	Bon Jovi	Bed Of Roses	40.9
89	Benatar, Pat	Love Is A Battlefield	40.8
90	Bon Jovi	Living On A Prayer	40.6
91	Brooks, Garth	Dance	40.5
92	Evanescence	Call Me When You’re Sober	40.4
93	Eminem	Superman	40.4
94	Duets-Nicks, Stevie & Don Henley	Leather And Lace	40.3
95	Vanilla Ice	Ice Ice Baby	40.2
96	Jewel	Foolish Games	40.2
97	Sinatra, Frank	My Way	39.4
98	Jewel	Who Will Save Your Soul	39.1
99	Evanescence	My Immortal	39.0
100	Petty, Tom & The Heartbreakers	Mary Jane’s Last Dance	38.8
101	Duets-Seether & Amy Lee	Broken	38.8

Top 101 songs are shown above – For complete listings of top 500 Karaoke songs go to the
US Karaoke Alliance Website

We hope you find this list interesting.. If you are a KJ and you have data that includes singer names, song titles and number of times sung please send it to us and we will include your shows in our next chart!

So you want to go Digital with your Karaoke show?

by Eric Godfrey,
President of US Karaoke Alliance
President, Starz Entertainment

US Karaoke Alliance (www.uskaraokealliance.com) members can get free help and advice and also have the ability to deal with manufacturers for discounts on collections.

1^st thing – let’s keep it legal!
All File Sharing sites and all Pre-Loaded Hard Drives are illegal.  Most of the sites I have seen on forums and chat boards for Karaoke downloads are also not paying copyrights and royalties.  The only 2 legal sites I am aware of are http://venuevj.com and Karaoke.com.  Several other sites are in negotiations to get legal content up, but according to sources at the major karaoke disc publishers, these two are currently the only legal sites offering downloads.  Before you hit me with a million comments ask yourself this question, “If Panorama or Top Hits Monthly went out of busines in 2008 due to copyright and trademark infringements and thus no longer exist, how could someone be paying royalties and copyrights when selling their karaoke content? How could that money be getting back to the artists?”  Let us quote Mr. Freedom Williams…”Things That Make You Go Hmmm.”

Directly from all of the disc manufacturer’s – With the exceptions of the sites above, NONE of the download sites out there are paying royalties and copyright fees.  I know… they say they are… but they are NOT!  Save yourself heartache… buy the new products coming out in MP3+G format and stay tuned for new legal sources.  More legal stuff at the bottom of this article.

Getting started: PC or  Laptop specs:

A Rack mountable PC is preferable as it can be upgraded over time and can have extra cards etc added.  However laptop prices have come down so far we have switched almost entirely over to laptops.  You do not need the newest, fastest, best laptop.  Remember your show laptop is just that… Do not add unneeded programs and do not go on and off the internet with your show PC.

Here are some PC specs..
Processor -    Minimum: 800MhZ       Recommended: 1.2 GHz+ ( Intel or AMD is fine) Celeron is fine!
Memory - Minimum: 512 MB              Recommended: 1GB
Video - Need an S-Video output jack for your CDG video screen unless you get a converter for a VGA port and PC allows you to extend screen to the monitor.. All with S-Video and or Composite (RCA out) allow this
Sound Card – Most onboard sound cards will work fine (standard) but Gemini just came out with a great USB sound card for DJ / KJ purposes.
Operating System – You can use Win XP or Vista – Recommend XP – Vista is glitchy (in my humble opinion)
Peripherals - I would recommend a minimum of 2 USB ports, but prefer you have 4  and that they be USB2 compatible (speed issue)
Hard Drive capacity - Most laptops (unless you spend a great deal) do not offer a great deal of Hard Drive space – Recommend an external USB Hard Drive minimum of 320GB, preferably 500GB or more.  TigerDirect.com or buy.com are great places to buy these.
DO NOT BUY a WESTERN DIGITAL MYBOOK DRIVE OR ANY DRIVE LISTED AS A “GREEN DRIVE”  They go into a sleep mode and lock up the Karaoke Player Program.
Writable CD (CDRW) or DVD Writer on board PC. Or buy an external.  Roxbox Rip N Zip will work with almost all CD writers but a Plextor is preferred.
ANY PC meeting these specs is fine – I personally prefer IBM, Lenovo, Toshiba, Compaq, HP or Dell PC’s

Ripping your CDG Collection to Hard Drive

Most CD Rom’s do not have capability to read CDG’s.  Plextor makes drives that read them properly.  The ripping program (KJ Rip N Zip) will literally teach most drives to read a CDG when ripping, but if you get an external Plextor drive it would rip faster and easier.
http://www.provantage.com/plextor-px-q840u~7PLEX24W.htm

KJ Rip N Zip (RoxBox) uses the naming convention for KJPro -KJPro.com so when ripping you type in the CD’s code and it will read out of it’s database and name the files for you.

You can also use MP3GToolz for ripping and renaming.. you will have to read their help files for info, but they are an awesome resources as you need to work on your file structures and names..

Hosting your show:

I have tried:
Tricerasoft – I know they have made improvements but it was way to complex for multiple operators t many shows.
PCDJ FX + Karaoke – Same as above and I have always had issues with the indexing features being extremely slow.
Siglos - Good Program – but a bit too busy for me and found some glitchiness in trying to run entire show.
Sax N Dotty – our early choice as best program… added history… but very very (yes I used very twice) poor support and a hardware failure replaced means you need a new activation code and now you have to wait for someone in Europe to get back to you.
CompuHost - Awesome program, a bit too much stuff makes it a bit more intense to operate and I REALLY worry about losing my USB thumb drive and having the program go into demo mode (also using up one USB port)
Hoster – Very good software, very simple to use.  Cost is a bit higher and it does not keep history as well as Roxbox and it also ties to the hardware with your activation code.

Roxbox - Software that is easiest and makes for best show is Roxbox  – www.kjamp.com
You also want to buy their KJ Rip N Zip Program for ripping your CDG’s to  Hard Drive. Only one of these with ability to rip Super CDG to your hard drive.  Great functionality with mixing background music in.

BACKUP
****NEWSFLASH****  Computers can fail.. Have a backup at any private or bigger show. Have something on call or on site at all bar style shows.   Always have some back up means to play some music in the event you have a PC lock up so you can play some dance music while rebooting.   An inexpensive MP3 Player or Disc Player is a great option for this.  Remember… it happens and you need to be ready.

LEGALITY
The entire DJ industry lives in the gray area of law… Music Publishers and Artists licensed CDG’s (to the few companies actually paying legal licensing fees) only to be distributed via the CDG.  The Karaoke Publishers can not give you blanket permission to put music on a hard drive or they risk being sued (…again!) by the various publishing houses.  Several Karaoke manufacturers have agreed as long as you purchase one for one copies of CDG’s and are willing to prove that via validation they will not pursue legal actions against individuals or companies using purchased content on a hard drive.  They do, however, reserve the right to be able to validate catalogs and keep a record of songs purchased that are used on a hard drive so they can keep track of who is actually displaying validated content.  An efficient validation program is being worked on currently and of course will be adapted over time to deal with issues as they occur.

Pop Hits Monthly has started releasing MP3+G disks and Sound Choice is currently working on new content being released on MP3+G, so we have come a long way on this.  Stand by as there are going to be major developments in this area in the very near future. 

Benefits of Switching to Digital Karaoke Hosting

Benefits of Switching to Digital Karaoke Hosting
by Bobby Brooks, VP of USKaraokeAlliance (www.uskaraokealliance.com)
and owner, UR Entertainment (www.urentertainment.net)

I remember when I got my first CD back in the late 1980’s?  I thought that it was the greatest new invention ever!  The CD was smaller than an album and had better sound quality than an album or cassette tape.  It was much easier to cue up a song via CD than either records or tapes combined.  The CD’s did not scratch or skip like an album or wear out like a tape (or so we were told).  Well, we all know better now.  CD’s served their purpose, however in our world of cutting edge today, antiquated tomorrow way of living we needed a different vehicle to play music and eliminate the problems mentioned above.  Plus lugging around hundreds of CD’s was a pain in the assets!  So, cue the computer, please.

When the CAVS player (MP3+G Player) was first introduced to me I was ecstatic!  Here was the answer to the problems we were facing.  It was very easy to use and portable; but loading songs was an arduous task.  Once you completed loading music into the player it was great, but adding new songs was time consuming.  When (not if ) the CAVS player broke down, no one locally could fix it.  You had to send it to California.  The customer service was a joke and you were without a machine for at least 10 days.  Then if you were out of warranty it was a minimum of $500 to repair.  Ah!  Help us oh technology gods.  We needed something new… again; to play our music!

The answer came in the nick of time.  It was in the form of your PC (personal computer).  It’s simple, affordable and easy to use.  Loading new discs is now easier than ever with the software that is available to convert CD+G’s.  For you KJ’s (Karaoke Jocks), manufactures are starting to sell discs already in MP3+G format.  Great programs like the Roxbox Karaoke Player (www.kjamp.com) provide many easy ways to play your MP3+G songs.  As for DJ’s, all the functionality of table top players or turn tables are available with computer software.  It just makes sense when everywhere you look in the music industry sales points to MP3’s.  Still not convinced?  Ok, here is a list of why to convert to digital.

1.      No more carrying multiple CD players or turn tables.

2.      Safe guard your investment by archiving your CD’s or albums.

3.      No more dead air while you search for a misplaced disc.  Just type in the artist name or title of the song or even a combination of both.

4.      NO MORE SKIPS.

5.      Faster and more efficient way of running karaoke shows.

6.      It is Easy to generate song books with a multitude of programs available.

7.      Easier to organize your singer lists and keep track of each one’s favorites.

8.      Keep a data base of singers’ history so you can track top songs.

9.      Adding new discs to your library is very simple.

10.  Repairing of a computer is more cost effective than CDG players.

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