Big rumor in digital karaoke

So I just got off the phone with one of my karaoke industry contacts...

He just told me there's a company out there on the east coast that has secured permission from the labels to start distributing karaoke digitally. So now he's getting the karaoke manu's on board to provide content. They're looking to do either mp3+g zipped, or MP4.

The hot sex part about it though is this company is going to provide an open API to thier store so 3rd party dev's like us can interface the store within our software. (This was a big deal, since the karaoke manu's wanted thier current dealers to be able to sell stuff as well on thier websites)

He wouldn't tell me who exactly is behind it, but I would speculate it's probably the owner of karaoke.com. I was once told that the guy has wheelbarrels full of money.

So it looks like 2008 is going to be a good year for digital karaoke.

That's awesome news, good luck to you Toqer!

Cool.

I just got back into the bar karaoke scene. I can see a scenario like this:

"Hey dude, I don't see xyz by abc in your book."
"Well, it is not, right now, but, let me check the web site and if its available, I'll have it for you."

Check the site, it is there, buy it, down load it through the lap top onto a thumb drive, copy it to the rig, slam, bam, thank you mam another satisfied customer.

The obvious question would be, should those of us that might want to go down that road charge a convienience fee? Let's say it costs you $0.99 to get it, do you charge the guy that wants instant gratification $2.00?

We have been doing that with the tricerasoft store for some time now. I just charge a flat fee of $5 @ download.

I think the real potential though lies beyond the digital downloads and convienience fee though if they can negotiate the rights.

For example.

What if the customer wants a copy of the CDG for himself. Pay the $2 burn fee to karaoke.com and you could legitimately burn a CDG for the customer, on the spot.

Also, what about extending that to burning DVD's of a customers performance? Pay the burn fee, and charge the customer $10-$15 for a DVD of thier performances that night.

End result of all of this is it's going to be a financial incentive for KJ's to stop pirating. One of many things i've been preaching for years.

What if the customer wants a copy of the CDG for himself. Pay the $2 burn fee to karaoke.com and you could legitimately burn a CDG for the customer, on the spot.

Also, what about extending that to burning DVD's of a customers performance? Pay the burn fee, and charge the customer $10-$15 for a DVD of thier performances that night.

I didn't think of that aspect. Cool.

Well, I kinda look at it the other way. I have been buying disc for 12 years. I have the largest library in my area. With 35,000 some tracks. I think 24,000 non dupes.

Now any low-ball KJ can compete with my library legally.



It's going to happen eventually. I'm one for licensing. I will pay a fee of $2000 every year to have access to every song made. The cheap fly by night guys can't afford that. I think it should be the same with music, and music videos. I think a flat fee of $5000 a year would be more than fair for all 3 DJ media formats.

They still gotta pay for thier library cam. From what I understand, it's not going to be a subscription based service. If they have to pay the same amount you did for content, how is that competing?

They still gotta pay for thier library cam. From what I understand, it's not going to be a subscription based service. If they have to pay the same amount you did for content, how is that competing?

They print a book with 100,000 songs in it and only own 3000. Anytime someone ask for a song they just download it there on the spot.

They still gotta pay for thier library cam. From what I understand, it's not going to be a subscription based service. If they have to pay the same amount you did for content, how is that competing?
The price level per song makes a difference. If you can on-demand most anything, you will optimize your investment. If the cost per track is $1.00, then you will spend much less than prior KJs. If the cost is $5.00 per track, it probably will come close as you will find at most 3 tracks per average per CD that get current play.

I have no sympathy for the people who have already invested. If you have been in business more than three years and purchased most of your content prior to then, it is long since amortized. That being said, I am an amateur who has invested at least $5,000 in content, just for karaoke tracks. (Much more if you count my music CDs, not that I really use more than a few dance tracks.) I have a pretty good mix of more than 5,000 unique tracks and rarely run into older stuff that people want to sing that I don't have.

They print a book with 100,000 songs in it and only own 3000. Anytime someone ask for a song they just download it there on the spot.

THEY CAN DO THAT NOW ON P2P NETWORKS NOW. JEESH. They can get a sprint phone with a USB cable, establish a dialup PPP connection by dialing *777, and they're on the net. From there they can use Kazaa, Limewire, Newsgroups, DC++, fileMX, and bittorrent just to name a few. I can say with 100% certainty that every song ever made is already in the pirate distribution chain.

It's an individual choice to pirate, that's never going to change. For guys like me, and Jokerswild, and a handful of other digital KJ's I know, this is like a dream come true.

It's going to give the pirates a financial incentive to stop pirating, every song they don't own is a potential few bucks in thier pockets. If I were pirating, and I was given a chance to make some extra money, and have clean karma i'd totally hop on that.

So, let's use mckyj57's $5/track as an a burn fee.

Now, let's say that you have a rotation 20 deep and you're doing this for four hours. That means that each person will probably sing four times. So that means the burn amount for the DVD is $20. If the bulk DVDs cost you $1.00 each and you put them in a jewel case with a standard label that says something cheesy like "Your Night at Bada-Bing's Karaoke House" and that costs you $2.00 each, the whole thing costs $23.

You could probably get away with selling them at $30 each. You'd be making $7 per DVD. Sell one to the entire rotation and you walk out with $140 extra.

I can live with that.

Now if we can just get that program approved here in Canada. Thanks for sharing the happenings Toqer.