A “karaoke venue” is a physical location where karaoke is played for commercial purposes. Typical karaoke venues include bars, restaurants, service clubs and halls (like American Legion or VFW posts, Chamber of Commerce halls, Shrine temples, or Knights of Columbus, to a name a few), wedding chapels, dance halls, nightclubs, and the like. Street fairs, community events, and block parties can also be karaoke venues, if there is a commercial purpose. A “commercial purpose” means that the karaoke host is being paid, or the purpose of the karaoke show is to attract paying customers for another enterprise, or the karaoke show is being used as (or as part of) a fundraiser.

Karaoke hosts that use pirated material are committing infringement of the producer’s intellectual property rights. The producers have spent millions of dollars creating the accompaniment tracks that karaoke operators use. When a host uses material without paying for it, that host may be violating the law. If you own or run a venue and you hire a host who infringes their rights, you may also be held liable for the host’s activities. It’s called “vicarious liability,” and it applies if you had the right to control the activity (such as by allowing or refusing the host access to your venue), and you benefited from it regardless of whether you knew about the infringement since knowledge is not a requirement for vicarious liability.

For copyright infringement, a court can impose damages of not less than $750 per infringing song, and if the person was aware they were infringing it becomes “willful” and the penalty can be increased up to $150,000 per infringing song. For more details, see Title 17, United States Code, Sections 502-506. For trademark infringement, the court can impose damages of up to $200,000 per federally registered trademark. If the defendant did know that they were infringing, then the infringement becomes “willful” and the damages can be awarded up to $2 million per mark. See Title 15 USC, Section 1117. There are no set damages for unfair competition – the court will decide how much damage the producers have suffered and make an appropriate award. Of course, the actual awards depend on a number of factors.

As far as the law is concerned, that usually doesn’t matter. As long as you had the right to control the activity, and you benefited from it, it does not matter if the host was an independent contractor or even if you were not aware that they were using stolen music.

For a Karaoke Host to have legally acquired Karaoke songs, they would have had to purchase a Compact Disc plus Graphics, MP3G format on CD, SD card or other original manufacturer supplied media for each and every song on each and every system they might have in operation. Even legal download sites selling karaoke video files (there are many illegal ones as you might imagine) are for home consumer use only as stated in the site’s Terms and Conditions or End User License Agreements. The average price per song on a legally manufactured disc is about $1.00, so if a host claims that they have over 20,000 or 30,000 songs they would have had to invest that much money in their music libraries. Some hosts who have been in business a long time might have made such an investment, but the majority of karaoke hosts in business less than a few years have possibly acquired their libraries illegally.

Chartbuster, Pop Hits Monthly and Sound Choice do not receive any portion of your ASCAP, BMI, or SESAC fees. But keep paying those fees, because they go to compensate the songwriters and music publishers who supply the material the karaoke producers use to record accompaniment tracks. All the producers pay royalties to the music publishers, too.

It is about making money. The producers spent a lot of money creating those accompaniment tracks and paying for the right to do so. The producer members make money by selling CDs to karaoke hosts and enthusiasts. If karaoke hosts steal music instead of buying CDs, the producer members can’t make a return on their investment, and they can’t make more music for your patrons to enjoy. So it is about money. But it’s also about fairness and honesty. (Besides, if it was only about making money, why would we bother to create a free safe harbor program, in which the producer members voluntarily agree not to sue you?)

We will use the information you provide about your venue to verify who you are, so that when the producer members bring an enforcement action in your area, they will keep you out of the lawsuits. We will use the information you provide about your karaoke host to verify that the host is in compliance–or, if not, to help that host become compliant and square with the producer members policies. We may also use all of that information to notify you about developments in the karaoke industry that you might be interested in.

There should be a form titled “VENUE REGISTRATION QUESTIONNAIRE” enclosed with this brochure. If not, you can download a PDF copy here. Just answer a series of questions about your venue, read a few disclosures, then fax, email, or mail it back to us.

You should separately sign up each venue you own/run, if karaoke is being (or will be) provided there using accompaniment tracks provided by someone else, such as a karaoke host.

For your current karaoke host, and/or every time you hire a new karaoke host who will be bringing songs into your venue to run a karaoke show from a computer or hard disc based system, we ask you to do several things: (1) have the karaoke host fill out the two-page form called “Host Karaoke System Questionnaire”, which collects information about the host and their karaoke system(s).  This form is enclosed in this brochure and copies are also available for download here. (2) verify the host’s name and address against their current driver’s license, (3) fax or email that form to us or insure that your host sends it, and (4) do a quick inspection of the host’s system to verify they have discs or other producer’s original media to indicate to you they are running a non-infringing show.  As a general point of reference, for every 15,000 songs the host claims to have on their system they should show you approximately 1,000 CDGs or the equivalent in other producer’s original media.  Note that some hosts operate using illegally copied discs, which can generally be spotted by their paper, hand written or laser etched disc (Lightscribe) labels or blue or green colored undersides, which indicate a burned and not a pressed disc.

Yes and no. If you follow our instructions, we guarantee that Chartbuster, Pop Hits Monthly and Sound Choice will not sue you for copyright or trademark infringement based upon the actions of any registered host. If we determine that the host you’ve hired is an infringer and the producer members are unable to resolve their dispute with the host, we will notify you. If you continue to use the services of that host after 30 days following our notification, the producer members may sue you for infringement occurring after that date.

The program is 100% free to venues and karaoke hosts at this time.

Venues that own their own systems are not eligible for the VCSH program, but should get compliant through the producer’s regular channels.  If your venue owns its own karaoke system you should determine whether the system is operating in compliance. For more information refer to other sections of this website.

1) Give your host the red “For Hosts” brochure and ask them to complete the  questionnaire which is enclosed with the brochure. (2) Have them fax the completed and signed form to (888) 824-6112, or scan it and email it to info@thekiaa.org, or mail it to KIAA Safe Harbor, 2207 Concord Pike, #439, Wilmington, DE  19803-2908.

One of the best things you can do as a venue owner is to join the Karaoke Industry Alliance of America (KIAA). More information is available on the KIAA Website (www.thekiaa.org) You should also give the enclosed brochure “For Hosts” to your KJs and encourage them to read it thoroughly and provide the necessary proof of ownership for their music discs.