Karaoke lawsuits pending

Karaoke is a lot like the weather -- plenty of people complain but no one does anything about it. Well, almost no one. Nashville attorney Linda Edell Howard has long championed the causes of songwriters, and in recent years that has pitted her against the karaoke powers, whom she says show rampant and casual disregard for songwriter rights.

This week, the heat Howard has aimed at the sing-along industry will go up a few notches.

Two major record labels, Universal Music and Zomba, are preparing to file lawsuits, and Howard is also hopeful that a federal judge in Nashville will rule on a motion for a summary judgment in the first lawsuit by an individual songwriter against karaoke companies. That $3.5-million suit is on behalf of Howard’s client Kristyn Osbourne, a songwriter and member of country-pop group SHeDAISY.

It’s meant “to be an educational lawsuit,” says Howard, who makes no bones about her desire to teach karaoke companies a lesson.

The crux of all the cases: the permission and payment due songwriters as the karaoke follows the bouncing ball in a business valued, by some estimates, at $25 billion worldwide annually.

Karaoke companies churn out CDs with versions of hit songs that are either instrumental or feature a sound-alike on vocals, and those tracks are played in clubs, saloons and homes as backing for amateur singers. The problem, Howard argues, is that many companies don’t bother to pay for the composition or the display or reprinting of lyrics.

There’s also the matter of permission. Artists such as Van Morrison, Sheryl Crow and Linkin Park, for instance, have taken a steadfast stand against any of their songs being used, but their wishes are widely ignored, Howard said.

“The good companies that do pay royalties charge $15.99 [for the karaoke CDs] and then the bad companies undercut them at $7.99,” Howard said. “The bad companies also say, ‘Oh well, too bad,’ when songwriters say they don’t want their music taken away. The good companies want a level playing field. And the songwriters deserve their due.”