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 that 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 your 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 us target the pirates.

This program is a "safe harbor." If you take the few steps we ask of you, we will guarantee you that Sound Choice will not sue you for infringement of its 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 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 CDs, that host is stealing from us. IF you hire a host who is a thief 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, Sound Choice has begun suing karaoke hosts and venues for infringement of our intellectual property rights. We don't want to sue, but we are out of other options.

To learn more about the safe harbor:

Venue FAQ
Information for Hosts | Host FAQ
Lawsuit Information

To sign up:

As a Venue
As a Host