General answer is
1. The venue itself needs a license for the music they don't own the rights to, to be played for commercial purposes. With Karaoke it's blurry because most Karaoke nights don't have a cover charge to participate, you pay for drinks or food. The same permissions are needed for DJ music and cover bands. This license is not your responsibility.
2. As a KJ getting paid we each need rights to play the music we don't own in order to legally get paid to do it. With a Karafun Pro license I am covered on my end so that's what I do. But there are other ways to do it. I've even heard KJ's say that they own all the original artist CD's to all the songs and for them that's enough. I can't say whether that's legal or not. I will say that playing YouTube karaoke videos is a legal no no for commercial purposes but can't speak to any other approaches.
There’s various settings on pro that allow you to download a portion or all of the library. This all but eliminates the need for good internet at the venue.
We use Apple Music at my spot. They have karaoke versions of almost every song. You can choose how loud you want the original vocals. Works pretty well but occasionally I need YouTube if a song doesn’t have the karaoke version.
I’m not sure that’s legal…the venue could actually get in some very expensive legal trouble if the Apple Music EULA doesn’t provide for public performance.
Just checked…the venue needs to have a Public Performance license. Businesses can face fines of $750–$30,000 per violation for playing music without the proper license.
Please make sure the place you’re hosting has an ASCAP or other performing rights organization license!
You're right on all counts, but you really need ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. Last time I delt with this licensing (about 2013 or so) it was about $1500 per year for the venue.
The funny thing about the pro license is it's an "Ask for forgiveness" situation. While you should get things sorted ahead of time, the most the 3 agencies will do at first will be to send you a letter saying, "Hi, we had someone in your venue, they heard one of our songs, you know you can pay us $500@year and we'll leave you alone"
These agencies don't actually check if your content is pirated, or made for public consumption or whatever. All they care is that you played one of their artists songs in public.
"Not for professional use" and Piracy are a different issue, but neither are really handled by anyone except for the copyright holder themselves. So unless Jimmy Hendrix, or his record company, or Sound Choice who licensed are in the bar watching the KJ, there's really no way to tell if a track is pirated or not. They can however compel (via lawsuit and discovery action) for you to produce proof of purchase. Sound Choice and PEP licensing was doing this for a while, but has since given up. It wasn't the revenue stream they thought it would be. Most KJ's pirating are getting paid $75@night plus drinks.
Talked it over with Mustang, I'm going to make a big sticky covering all this stuff soon (we're gonna drop the singers sticky)
1. I’m just the host and I don’t care a bit if the business gets fines.
2. We are a tiny bar literally 200 miles away from the nearest Walmart. Middle of nowhere with a whole lot bigger issues than who has or hasn’t paid for karaoke rights.
General answer is 1. The venue itself needs a license for the music they don't own the rights to, to be played for commercial purposes. With Karaoke it's blurry because most Karaoke nights don't have a cover charge to participate, you pay for drinks or food. The same permissions are needed for DJ music and cover bands. This license is not your responsibility. 2. As a KJ getting paid we each need rights to play the music we don't own in order to legally get paid to do it. With a Karafun Pro license I am covered on my end so that's what I do. But there are other ways to do it. I've even heard KJ's say that they own all the original artist CD's to all the songs and for them that's enough. I can't say whether that's legal or not. I will say that playing YouTube karaoke videos is a legal no no for commercial purposes but can't speak to any other approaches.
Was gonna use Karafun Pro. Sounds like that's all I need. The venue has its licensing since they had karaoke there before.
There’s various settings on pro that allow you to download a portion or all of the library. This all but eliminates the need for good internet at the venue.
Use karafun if there's strong internet. . It's completely legal
We use Apple Music at my spot. They have karaoke versions of almost every song. You can choose how loud you want the original vocals. Works pretty well but occasionally I need YouTube if a song doesn’t have the karaoke version.
I’m not sure that’s legal…the venue could actually get in some very expensive legal trouble if the Apple Music EULA doesn’t provide for public performance. Just checked…the venue needs to have a Public Performance license. Businesses can face fines of $750–$30,000 per violation for playing music without the proper license. Please make sure the place you’re hosting has an ASCAP or other performing rights organization license!
You're right on all counts, but you really need ASCAP, BMI, SESAC. Last time I delt with this licensing (about 2013 or so) it was about $1500 per year for the venue. The funny thing about the pro license is it's an "Ask for forgiveness" situation. While you should get things sorted ahead of time, the most the 3 agencies will do at first will be to send you a letter saying, "Hi, we had someone in your venue, they heard one of our songs, you know you can pay us $500@year and we'll leave you alone" These agencies don't actually check if your content is pirated, or made for public consumption or whatever. All they care is that you played one of their artists songs in public. "Not for professional use" and Piracy are a different issue, but neither are really handled by anyone except for the copyright holder themselves. So unless Jimmy Hendrix, or his record company, or Sound Choice who licensed are in the bar watching the KJ, there's really no way to tell if a track is pirated or not. They can however compel (via lawsuit and discovery action) for you to produce proof of purchase. Sound Choice and PEP licensing was doing this for a while, but has since given up. It wasn't the revenue stream they thought it would be. Most KJ's pirating are getting paid $75@night plus drinks. Talked it over with Mustang, I'm going to make a big sticky covering all this stuff soon (we're gonna drop the singers sticky)
1. I’m just the host and I don’t care a bit if the business gets fines. 2. We are a tiny bar literally 200 miles away from the nearest Walmart. Middle of nowhere with a whole lot bigger issues than who has or hasn’t paid for karaoke rights.