Good news from BMI and copyright laws for karaoke DJ's

[Ricardo L. Segarra]

I talk with stephanie and steven on the licensing department in BMI for the Jukebox license. I ask if the DJ's, Musicians & Karaoke DJ's had to pay for the license, and how much it cost. They told me that DJ's, Karaoke and Musicians don't have to pay for playing copyrighted stuff... the business owners have to have a license to play any kind of copyrighted material on their restaurants, stores, offices, night clubs, etc.

Law don't required you to pay for the license, but is in your hands if you want to help the owner of the store pay for that license making your self a discount in the price you give them for your show (yeah right!!!!)

If any bussines want to have karaoke on their place they have to pay US $75.00 per night to BMI to be licensed. They also calculate the amount by client capacity space and other rules.

Go to www.bmi.com and read more about this.

I ask for them to send me that written information and as soon as I receved it I'll post the textual news.

Let people know how do you feel about these good news, and post this messege to keep it on for everybody to read it. Your best karaoke friend
AMI Karaoke Staff

[[email protected]]

Why should you pay BMI anything? The copyright are owned by such companies as soundchoice,DK, etc. These are not origionals, but recreations, slightly different arrangements, made by different bands, then the origional. The companies such as Soundchoice either have the permission of the people that own the copyright, or they own the copyright outright. The same is true of bands that make covers of songs, and sell them under their name.

[johnnymegabyte]

Copyright is paid to the song writers, not the record company or manufacturers.
When a record company sells a CD, they have to pay the song writers their copyright ( aka mechanical ) royalties.
Example, Dianne Warren wrote I Don't Wanna Miss A Thing and Aerosmith recorded it.
The record company pays Aerosmith as an artist, and has to pay Diane Warren as the song writer.

Depending on what country you're in, contact the national copyright agency. In Canada, there is SOCAN or CMRRA.

In Canada, the club or bar has to pay a fee to SOCAN to have DJ, karaoke or live band where music is played. The fee is used to pay the song writers.