What are the royalties and procedures involved in using karaoke CDs for a Broadw

Question:Hello. I am a college student in a choral group and we are planning to have a "Night of Broadway" fund raiser where the members of the choir will prepare Broadway hits to be performed on stage to raise money for an up-coming tour. We were thinking of buying and using Karaoke CDs because we don't have the money to hire a full or even a diminished orchestra. Does anyone know whether there are any special royalties involved because the CDs are being used, technically for profit, or can we just buy the CDs and use them as we please?

Best Answer - Chosen by Asker: Hello. I am a college student in a choral group and we are planning to have a "Night of Broadway" fund raiser where the members of the choir will prepare Broadway hits to be performed on stage to raise money for an up-coming tour. We were thinking of buying and using Karaoke CDs because we don't have the money to hire a full or even a diminished orchestra. Does anyone know whether there are any special royalties involved because the CDs are being used, technically for profit, or can we just buy the CDs and use them as we please?

about ten years ago they passed a new federal law prohibiting the use of coppywritten material in kaereoke. spelling , dont mind me. meaning they were putting regular CD's through a out of phase filter and it would remove the vocals but not the music.
What followed was a sound recording copyright. This means the actual recording is copywritten. you will notice on your CD's there is a "P" in a circle just like "C" in the circle for copyright. this indicates the sound recording copyright. what happened next was people started re-recording those songs for kaereoke use without the vocals. they now owned this copyright on the recording and just had to pay royalties on the music used. This makes them a " work for hire" meaning that you paid for their work asthey intended it for use with a kaereoke purpose and dont own the music. They already paid the record companies and artists royalties. They are merely selling you the finished product for an intended use. they dont own the music only the copyright to the recording in which they sold or licensed you to do anything you want with it. It's intended to be sold for commercial use and therefore legal for you to use it in your show.