We encourage you to read all the information on this website to become better informed about your legal liabilities.

If you are short on time, here are the important points on this page:

• It is your responsibility to know and understand all the laws that might affect your business and to remain within the law.
• A huge percentage of KJs run their shows using stolen or pirated songs which infringes the Copyright and Trademark rights of the Karaoke Producers and music publishers .
• You hiring them and them playing this stolen music could end up costing you tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and damages through vicarious liability.
• For absolutely no charge – for free – you can avoid this by downloading this application and joining the KIAA Safe Harbor program.

Help us keep you out of court

If you own or run a venue, we want you to keep karaoke entertainment going. We just want you to do it legally. As the owner or manager of a business, it is your responsibility to know and understand all the laws that might affect your business and to remain within the law. In the area of playing any form of music, you must abide by the federal laws regarding intellectual property rights (copyright and trademark) or you could be held liable for direct or vicarious liability. There is a reason why the pirates can offer to host a show for you with 50,000+ songs for less than $100 a night—they have no investment in music, because it’s all pirated. But you hiring them and their playing this music could end up costing you tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and damages. So we’re providing you with this free program that helps you stay out of court with minimal effort on your part, while helping target the pirates.

This program is a “safe harbor.” If you take the few steps we ask of you, we will guarantee you that Chartbuster Karaoke, Pop Hits Monthly and Sound Choice will not sue you for vicarious infringement of their intellectual property rights.

Karaoke piracy is a big problem, and it’s killing the karaoke industry. Even though karaoke is more popular than ever, karaoke producers like KIAA members Chartbuster®, Pop Hits Monthly® and Sound Choice® see fewer and fewer legitimate sales as karaoke hosts use illegal pirated music to put on their shows. When a karaoke host plays tracks from a hard drive without buying Compact Disc plus Graphics, MP3G format on CD, SD cards or other original manufacturer supplied media, that host is stealing from the KIAA member producers. If you hire a host who is using stolen songs and allow them to operate under your roof and you have any sort of financial benefit, you can be sued for vicarious or contributory infringement according to U.S. copyright and trademark laws. These laws spell out significant financial penalties for persons found liable for infringement–and in the case of copyright infringement, there can be criminal penalties as well.

No business can survive if 90% of its potential customers steal the product instead of buying it. To fight back, the karaoke producers have begun suing karaoke hosts and venues for infringement of their intellectual property rights. The producer members don’t want to sue, but they are out of other options.

Download the application for the KIAA Safe Harbor to protect your business.