Elephant in the room: 99.5% of all tracks on Smule are illegal!

[[Member insp…]]

Fact 1: Smule states on its app store page - "millions of songs to sing". Let's assume it is just 1 million.

Fact 2: The licensed, legal tracks are those uploaded by Smule itself, by its Partner Artists (both listed in its "Official Songbook" page on its website smule.com/songs). Looking at Smule's profile itself, it appears there are 2582 or 2622 songs uploaded by Smule. (I don't know why these are two different numbers on the website, and in the app, but refer to the below 2 screenshots).

Fact 3: Smule follows 441 accounts, most of them appear to be Partner Artists. We could assume 1-3 tracks per artist.

Fact4: Also, any other songs that might've been composed by Smule users themselves and added by them here are also legal since the copyrights rest with the creator.

So, let's just estimate and round off the total figure (of tracks mentioned in Facts 2,3 & 4) to 5000.

So 5000 legal tracks, out of a total 1 million. (1,000,000)

So, 99.5% of the remaining tracks, uploaded by users, allowed by Smule, are unlicensed & illegal - copyright violations.

Now consider this "Karaoke Bar" analogy:

Smule the app is a virtual karaoke bar- the venue, and Smule the company is the owner of this karaoke bar. As per copyright laws, the venue owner is supposed to comply with copyright laws and pay for any copyrighted music being "exploited" in its premises. Visitors to the karaoke bar simply pay for food and drinks and enjoy the karaoke services. The more music available, the more attractive it will be for the visitors to justify paying and singing here.

But this karaoke bar owner has very few tracks. In fact, there were only about 1500 tracks till 22 July, 2015, as mentioned in this blog post on Smule official blog, when they decided to open up its "Songbook" to its users, so they can upload whatever they wish: https://blog.smule.com/add-a-song-to-sings-songbook-were-all-here-for

Going back to our karaoke bar example, this means that the owner thought to themself, "why worry about copyrights if no one is even looking? Let my visitors bring their own tracks, they'll continue paying me for using my venue, and be happy that they can sing any song of their choice. And I can write down in my rule books that the visitors are doing this "at their own risk" and they know their responsibilities about "copyrights compliance", I don't even have to specially tell it to them. If anyone with the copyrights to a song files a complaint, I can always point at the visitors being the defaulters, and act like I care about copyrights, and delete a track or take action of blacklisting a visitor, so that the copyright complainant is satisfied."

In the real world, the responsibility of complying with copyrights, and monitoring what happens on their venue, lies with the venue owner. An actual karaoke bar owner behaving like above will be called corrupt and unethical, and will be said to be doing piracy of music. The usecase of "visitors bringing their own set of pirated tracks" is something that the karaoke bar owner just cannot allow, since it is the venue owner's responsibility to be copyrights-compliant. The visitors are simply paying for coming here and being able to sing their favorite songs.

Today, according to Smule's page on Google Play app store, it has become a 50M + global platform. According to this Google snippet for searching "Smule active users", Smule has 50 million monthly active users and 2 million paying VIP users. (the article referred for the snippet is from July 14, 2018: https://www.cnet.com/news/smule-is-the-biggest-music-app-you-never-heard-of/).

This means we pay for using the venue, and also commit copyright violations knowingly or unknowingly (thus becoming pirates of music).

Surely, a global virtual karaoke bar having 99.5% illegal tracks, with 50 million monthly visitors, and 2 million paying VIP "subscribers", is not a trivial instance of copyright violations by any proportion, and the impact this must be having on the royalties of original creator artists & publishers/owners of the songs worldwide, needs to be considered seriously.

Unless Smule itself takes the initiative to be an ethical, law-abiding karaoke bar owner, this is what the users need to do:

1) More and more Smule users firstly become aware of this reality and inform other Smule users.

2) The uploaders stop uploading, and delete all of their illegal tracks.

3) The singers stop singing on the illegal tracks. They only use the 5000 legal tracks (or whatever that number actually is)

4) As many users as possible unite and demand to Smule that it adds more legal, licensed tracks to the app.

Otherwise there is no point in paying Smule for the subscriptions and still being held responsible as the violators of copyrights from a legal standpoint, and thus in effect, also denying the rightful royalties to the very creator artists whose music they love singing to!

The more consumers are well-informed, the more positive pressure will be put on satisfying their demand for content in a proper manner; a more stronger & direct link between music consumers and music creators can be developed, and this can boost the entire music scene. Such an "active" community can further go on to also speeden the much-needed but ignored or slowly moving changes/updations in copyright laws, in how the metadata of music content is handled problematically (leading to royalty accounting & distribution issues), and how the record labels have been bullying and exploitating the artists since ages under their "draconian contracts".

Who is still reading this? What do you think?

Edited February 5, 2020 by musiclover2020
Link was not posted, and a minor addition in a sentence.

[[Member open…]]

You are technically correct, but it’s an unfortunate byproduct of the entire internet. It is full of copyright violations and millions more are added each day. It can’t be stopped or prevented through boycotting something. Often the traditional practice (get a license before the use) is reversed, so that the violation happens first and then the copyright holders need to go after copyright violations and ask for their content to be removed from the various platforms. It’s unfortunate but almost unavoidable. 

If you want to improve the system, I believe the best option would be to get the various music rights associations involved. Here in Germany, the GEMA has been fighting Google/YouTube for years to get a proper deal for music copyright holders and succeeded. I guess in the US it would be ASCAP. Such organizations might be able to force Smule into paying royalties for community songs and/or add better filter systems. I don’t think your points 1 to 3 have any chance of getting traction. 

 

[[Member insp…]]

Sounds about right whatever you said @opentype! Being overly optimistic about the good in people and the power of awakened citizens is a personal character flaw. My motivation is: if we don't engage with each other and unite for this comparatively small experiment, what are our chances at poverty and climate change? Perhaps your response would be to think more top-down than bottom-up for such complex problems?

Meanwhile, a few users on Smule are writing to me that Smule pays various major record labels for user-uploaded tracks! I've never heard/read this one before, and I've looked and looked. The only record label deals of Smule are with certain songs with Disney for example, and that kind of per-song basis promotional deals that include the Partner Artists program.

Oh... although... as I typed this I realized that there might be the exception of when certain user-uploaded tracks get a 'Google Play' icon on the lower-right - you've noticed those?- so yeah there seems to be some kind of copyright management system (like Youtube's Content ID) being experimented with... I'm not sure how this works though, and whether it will be rolled out extensively in the future! Any ideas?

Others in the app have blocked me and abused me for disturbing their peace and fun.

One even called me a fake self-righteous hypocrite.

[[Member insp…]]

Just added this detailed response to another related post. Makes sense to link it here as well. Don't miss the fun "reverse karaoke" app LaDiDa by Khush:

Summary from that post: Smule's licensed songbook has gone from 1500 songs in 2015 to ~ 2600 songs today. And the "Song Suggestions for Smule apps" form for users is from 2013 most probably.

Thank you!

Edited February 6, 2020 by musiclover2020
mentioned LaDiDa by Khush, a reverse-karaoke app from 2009

[[Member Craz…]]

This also gets more complicated as rights to a songs can change hands over time. A singer does not necessarily write his or her songs (nor even a band preform songs they wrote). There is a lot of legality that changes over time and this can change whether or not a song has a copyright violation. However, Smule was smart in letting users "upload" content because it did not put them directly uploading anything that would be considered "copyright infringement." I think more people think they won't get personally caught, worst case songs get deleted and they do it again. @musiclover2020 you made a great analogy with they karaoke bar and @opentypeyou are right, can't really change it.

[[Member insp…]]

Just dropping a note to state that I just changed my handle here to be the same as my Smule handle @inspired_Dev

Turns out (i checked just now) that there is a musiclover2020 on Smule, and I wouldn't want to cause any confusions due to this. (i hadn't looked it up on smule when i registered here, and was only occasionally using the site to download recordings, so at that point simply chose to use a different handle from my Smule that I could randomly think of).

Edited February 9, 2020 by inspired_Dev

[[Member The…]]

So much wiped off Smule in the last few days. While I won't miss Coldplay or Adele, I'm sad to see Elvis Costello, Bruce Springsteen and particularly all my joins of their songs vanish into the ether. It's a cruel world and in its way an act of cultural vandalism! 

[[Member insp…]]

Hi! Sorry to read this:

5 hours ago, The Minty Clinch said:

all my joins of their songs vanish into the ether. It's a cruel world and in its way an act of cultural vandalism! 

This reveals the need for fan-made, non-commercial content (at least from the users' perspective) to be expressly defined and protected at least in the Smule terms, if not in the copyright laws, because otherwise the above scenario that you experienced is in compliance with current laws. But how will it happen? Users need to unite and demand this kind of guaranteed protection from Smule and/or lawmakers.

We don't even have a clear idea from Smule how many tracks are actually legal and how many illegal. My estimations of 99.5% illegal tracks above are made in good faith from all the publicly available info that I could find on this matter. As and when anyone else finds a new clue they should report it here. BUT, shouldn't this info just be made transparent by Smule? Or if they're unable to determine the proportion of legal vs illegal tracks, they should at least clearly educate their users about what could be considered a safe, legal track and what is clearly illegal, in their Songbook FAQ, and/or on the upload page (not merely as a link to their terms, which almost no one bothers to read), but user guides. They can also mark a user-uploaded track verified to be licensed/protected distinctly from the rest of unverified tracks.

Can you remember if these backing tracks were original arrangements, or vocal-removed versions of master recordings, because according to Smule, they only license the song (underlying melody and lyrics), and NOT the master recordings of it.

[[Member The…]]

Probably all sorts, I don't really know or remember, sorry. 

 

Nobody actually reads this forum, do they? 🤨

[[Member insp…]]

Not instantly perhaps, but people will find it. Most of them will only read. Much fewer will interact with it by liking or replying. Let's keep patience & hope for more insights, opinions, ideas, observations etc.

Meanwhile, if you have any such real & serious queries or doubts that you feel Smule Support should be able to answer, write an email to them [email protected]

We should all learn to respect and value both music and people better, much of the value they both create seems to be taken for granted today. 

[[Member Craz…]]

The people that create music..not just the artists that sing rely on royalties. I am guilty of singing illegally uploaded music and know if its not a "smule" upload it was not done so legally. Furthermore, encouraging people to upload tracks is basically the same as turning a blind eye. I am also not one to report it because I like the tracks better like most people. Legally its wrong, and people who upload for the most part are not stupid. Let me remind you of Napster. That's why again, artists have every right to remove and we have no right to complain. Smule would have to pay out major bucks to competing labels and people would complain about how much they would have to pay...OR take it as it is now...illegal uploads that may get deleted. Save your stuff.

[[Member The…]]

How do you save it?

[[Member The…]]

Smule support 😁😁😁😂😂😂😂🤣🤣🤣🤣

[[Member insp…]]

On 2/13/2020 at 8:53 AM, Crazyjster said:

The people that create music..not just the artists that sing rely on royalties.

YES, there are many people involved! And a lot of legal streaming services include the various artist credits (for a song, and for an album) - also known as metadata, about the different people involved, with the most commonly visible ones being: leading vocalists; composers and lyricists (together, songwriters); but may also include further additional credits like backing vocalists, musicians, music producers, sound engineers etc., to help with the accounting of royalties as the music gets used, and for fairly dividing the collected royalties in the end.

This system is NOT perfect yet. Metadata of music is in a mess. But wherever music is being used legally & a metadata system IS implemented in SOME form, it IS working to SOME extent. And things are being improved.

 

On 2/13/2020 at 8:53 AM, Crazyjster said:

Legally its wrong, and people who upload for the most part are not stupid. Let me remind you of Napster. That's why again, artists have every right to remove and we have no right to complain.

I would say it is wrong on ethical grounds. And I have every right to complain about this here, and by writing to Smule Support (which I also did) on ethical grounds.

Legally, it may be complex and messy, because everything in the music business seems to be complex and messy: copyrights, metadata, licenses, royalties, collection societies, publishers, record labels, deals, contracts etc.

 

QUESTION No.1 TO THE READER

Do you think most people, who upload or sing, have read the Terms of Service, Community Guidelines and Copyrights pages? And did they really understand and really agree to all of it?

 

Here's one sample reading of excerpts taken from those very pages, for everyone's benefit:

From the Copyrights page: https://www.smule.com/copyright

Quote

RESPECT OF THIRD PARTY RIGHTS

Smule respects the intellectual property of others and takes the protection of intellectual property very seriously, and we ask our users to do the same. Infringing activity will not be tolerated on or through the Service.

 

From the Terms of Service page (LAST UPDATED: JULY 15, 2019): 
https://www.smule.com/en/termsofservice

Quote

(10.a.)  "User Content" means any content that you or other Users upload, post, or transmit to or through the Service (collectively, "Post") ...

Quote

(10.e)  You Must Have Rights to the Content You Post. By Posting User Content, you represent and warrant that you own or are fully authorized to grant the license set forth in these Terms in all elements of the User Content. For example, if you only own the rights in and to a sound recording, but not to the underlying musical works embodied in such sound recordings, then you must not Post such sound recordings unless you have all necessary rights, authorizations, and permissions with respect to such embedded musical works that grant you sufficient rights to grant the license to Smule under these Terms. 

 

(note: The all-caps, or uppercase characters, are as they appeared originally.)

Quote

(17. WARRANTY DISCLAIMER) ... AS A USER, YOU AGREE THAT YOU USE THE SERVICE AND ANY CONTENT THEREON AT YOUR OWN RISK. YOU ARE SOLELY RESPONSIBLE FOR ALL CONTENT YOU UPLOAD TO THE SERVICE. ...

Quote

(18. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY) ... ANY DISPUTE YOU HAVE WITH ANY THIRD PARTY ARISING OUT OF YOUR USE OF THE SERVICE, INCLUDING, BY WAY OF EXAMPLE AND NOT LIMITATION, ANY CARRIER, COPYRIGHT OWNER, OR OTHER USER, IS DIRECTLY BETWEEN YOU AND SUCH THIRD PARTY, AND YOU IRREVOCABLY RELEASE THE SMULE PARTIES FROM ANY AND ALL CLAIMS, DEMANDS, AND DAMAGES (ACTUAL AND CONSEQUENTIAL) OF EVERY KIND AND NATURE, KNOWN AND UNKNOWN, ARISING OUT OF OR IN ANY WAY CONNECTED WITH SUCH DISPUTES.

 

(note: Edited to add emphasis, only using highlights, for clear and easy reading. Text is otherwise identical)

Quote

(9.b.) "Smule Content"   Except for User Content (as defined in Section 10.a below), the content that Smule provides to Users on or through the Service, including, without limitation, any sound recordings (and the musical works embodied therein), video, text, graphics, photos, software, and interactive features, is protected by copyright or other intellectual property rights and owned by Smule or its third-party licensors (collectively, "Smule Content") ...

 

Finally, from the Community Guidelines page (LAST UPDATED: MAY 23, 2018): 
https://www.smule.com/en/s/communityguidelines

(note: any typos in the quote are theirs. e.g. I'm not sure if "Serve" is correct, or meant to be "Service" or "Servers".)

Quote

THINGS YOU SHOULD NOT DO:

...

9. Don’t infringe copyrights or violate any other intellectual property rights

Smule respects intellectual property rights, and we expect you to do the same. If we become aware that you have used the Serve to infringe intellectual property rights, we will take steps to terminate your account.

...

 

QUESTION No.2 TO THE READER:

How well does Smule fare, in the matters of its responsibilities towards its users, and in its pledge towards copyrights, at least on ethical grounds? Feel free to inspect the quoted pages in their entirety before forming your thoughts.

[[Member Craz…]]

@inspired_Dev I think it's funny and hypocritical though that both here, the website, and the app it is encouraged to upload to the "community songbook"...I am sure that a response will be "original music" but lets be serious...it's a karaoke app...even original music would go straight to somewhere that paid not vice versa yet in the TOS it has a CYA (or theirs) in fine print. As I said in a previous post I have been waiting to see just how long it would take for this to happen and I am surprised it has taken this long. As for ethics, lets use the karaoke bar analogy...if the music stayed in the karaoke bar it would be for personal entertainment only. That seems fair. Once the music goes on social media, it becomes public therefore breaking every law and it starts with where the person obtained the music and the ability to publicly post. Facebook and Youtube have cracked down on copyright violations, but there are other violations as well posting to SM. Stuff kept "in house" and with the proper purchased rights is where it needs to start. I think people will always find ways to upload songs.

[[Member insp…]]

30 minutes ago, Crazyjster said:

As for ethics, lets use the karaoke bar analogy...if the music stayed in the karaoke bar it would be for personal entertainment only. That seems fair.

(FULL DISCLOSURE/DECLARATION: I am NOT affiliated to any of the mentioned companies. I am only an end-user of music and all information here is easily searchable and accessible publicly.)
 

A] For clarity on these matters, let's look at a real-world example of a well-behaved entity, selling karaoke tracks to end-users for personal-use.

1. Declaration on their home page itself (scroll down a bit and you'll see this text, above logos of publishers/labels) https://www.karaoke-version.com/
    

   Quote

   This website respects all music copyrights. All rights are reserved for the protected works reproduced on this website. Without permission, all uses other than home and private use are forbidden.

   All musical material is re-recorded and does not use in any form the original music or original vocals or any feature of the original recording

    

2. How they define/advise on private/public performance https://www.karaoke-version.com/help/use_33.html

   Quote

   In certain cases, authorization and usage of any and all music from our catalog during a public performance is subject to approval by the Collective Copyright Management Societies (PRS, Sacem, SOCAN, BMI, etc.) and Neighboring Rights Societies(SPPF, SCPP, Adami) and all rights and royalties relating thereto.

   In the context of a private performance (family circle) the use of our tracks is of course allowed without limitation.

    

3. How they deal with royalties https://www.karaoke-version.com/help/start_2.html

   Quote

   Downloading music on Karaoke Version is 100% legal and the result of license agreements with various authors and music publishers. Royalties are made to the various rights holders for any works that have been downloaded from our sites.

    

4. Copyright Page https://www.karaoke-version.com/copyright.html

5. Terms Page https://www.karaoke-version.com/terms.html

6. Feel free to go through rest of the info on their help page: https://www.karaoke-version.com/help/

 

B] Searching around for more info, here's another sensible advise regarding karaoke licenses for public/private performances, answered from a "user as a KJ" perspective. This also matches with the several things I've read/heard on the subject: http://www.karaoke-tutor.com/karaoke-license.html

Quote

Do You Need A License To Perform Karaoke?

...

When publicly broadcasting any type of copyright protected media, someone must either possess a license or pay royalties in some way. Karaoke is no exception. As a KJ, most of your performances will be in bars and clubs. In virtually all areas these businesses are required to carry a license to cover their entertainment. This includes bands, DJ's, karaoke, and even a jukebox. You are covered by this license when you perform in these places. It is the venue, not the KJ, who is responsible for providing the proper licensing.

For other public venues such as county fairs, street fairs, malls, etc., you should consult with the organizer on "per event" licensing issues. No license is required for private parties.

 

[[Member insp…]]

14 hours ago, Crazyjster said:

I have been waiting to see just how long it would take for this to happen and I am surprised it has taken this long.

"for this to happen": What is 'this' exactly?

 

14 hours ago, Crazyjster said:

Once the music goes on social media, it becomes public therefore breaking every law

Smule is a social platform and the recordings (including the saves made from Live Jams) are public by default, which hardly anyone bothers to switch to private.

 

The following questions might throw the reader off, but are quite relevant:

Would anyone report their supplier of pirated movie CDs to the local police, if they were getting their favorite movies at a very cheap rate?

And what if this supplier was also providing them drugs along with the movie CDs & now they were addicted? What would be the chances now?

[[Member Craz…]]

Sorry  “this” being well music being pulled, but now that I think about it the entire topic being addressed.

To answer your second question, You won’t like my answer but people don’t necessarily Do what’s legalLy or morally right. This instance I think people see as a victimless crime because it’s hard to picture how it directly impacts people”s livelihood. A bit different than your analogy.

[[Member The…]]

Drugs being illegal never stopped me from doing or enjoying them, as long as it didn't hurt anyone else. Singing along to a Gene Clark song with a pal in New Zealand for fun is hardly going to bring the music biz to its knees. Have a lovely day, music lovers xxx

[[Member Craz…]]

14 hours ago, inspired_Dev said:

 

B] Searching around for more info, here's another sensible advise regarding karaoke licenses for public/private performances, answered from a "user as a KJ" perspective. This also matches with the several things I've read/heard on the subject: http://www.karaoke-tutor.com/karaoke-license.html

 

So, I'm gonna be devil's advocate...I have argued both sides of this before...lets say we are talking about "Smule" songs only...because they have legally obtained rights to the song, if the song is not posted on social media and kept on the app only, the app being the karaoke venue (I would assume this would be the way it was supposed to be intended legally) then there isn't an issue.  There is no longer PC access to live jams, watch party and youtube live in live jams is disabled in the app.

The second they added share to FB, SC, Youtube...that broke any agreement. It  promoted taking content out of the private venue to public. 

That's my interpretation of it.

[[Member Miss…]]

Well Smule would suck for Musical Theatre singers on Smule, almost all of the boradway/other musical songs on there are fan uploaded. They won't stop it because too many people would leave. I'd stop paying VIP without those songs and fan uploaded songs. If Smule bothered to get the rights to pay for all the Musical soundtracks that people wanted and not just cater to the casual masses who just want boring pop, then our VIP would go to paying for it. If two million of us are paying VIP that's a lot to go towards royalties. They should also be making it possible to remove people who join and ruin recordings, or if you make a mistake, and making Android have the same features as us on iPhone. Also putting dynamic lyrics back into the app etc. They have better things to be doing that catering to some millionaire who doesn't need any more money but won't authorize their music for legal upload. #sorrynotsorry I'd be honored if they wanted to use my music on there. I'd not ask for a stupid amount of money for use either. Just a relative fixed amount. If the artists weren't always trying to extort exorbitant amounts of money for "copyright" when they could allow fair use for a reasonable amount. Sorry this stuff bugs the hell out of me, because it's us, the users who suffer for it, the app should pay its own copyright fees not us.

[[Member Craz…]]

3 hours ago, MissMalice89 said:

almost all of the boradway/other musical songs on there are fan uploaded. They won't stop it because too many people would leave. I'd stop paying VIP without those songs and fan uploaded songs. If Smule bothered to get the rights to pay for all the Musical soundtracks that people wanted and not just cater to the casual masses who just want boring pop, then our VIP would go to paying for it. 

I am going to guess...that that has to do with the fact that it is a separate union, unless the play has been made into a motion picture and there is a soundtrack released under a major record label, but that is my guess...

I agree that the company should just pay the rights and cover the royalties for fan uploads since it encourages it. It should discourage posting on social media to cut down on copyright violations or keep private for in-app use like the "kareoke bar" analogy and not allow people on who don't pay. One complaint Smule makes is that they don't profit due to free accounts...well don't let non-vip be an option. Use that to pay for royalty fees. 

I'm not addressing the android issue...I will happily discuss that somewhere else if you want to post it as a topic.

[[Member insp…]]

It is a social platform. Heard of network effect?

Quote

A network effect is the effect described in economics and business that an additional user of goods or services has on the value of that product to others. When a network effect is present, the value of a product or service increases according to the number of others using it.

So, they would want you to use it more and bring more people along, just for their profits' sake.

 

3 hours ago, Crazyjster said:

One complaint Smule makes is that they don't profit due to free accounts...well don't let non-vip be an option.

But, they do! They show ads to the free users (40-50 million monthly active users, right?). Look at all their "advertising/analytics/tracking" partners listed on their cookies page: https://www.smule.com/cookiepolicy

Did Facebook require selling VIP accounts to earn money (revenue, market share, investors etc.)? You use it for free, they get paid through the ads shown to you.

The more the user activity (and network effect due to this activity) on the platform, the better it is for the company.

 

Your security, privacy, safety etc. are not their topmost priority.

Forget about feature requests and complaining about recordings deleted due to copyrights (a big concern for users, given that most tracks are user-uploaded and not copyright-compliant -- something which everyone here has agreed on, whether they care about it or not -- and so liable to be purged in the future).

 

Quote

Designers who create sites and apps understand that their products vie for the limited resource of users' attention in a highly competitive market. [source]

Welcome to the attention economy, where your attention is the product being sold.

 

cc:

@Crazyjster, @The Minty Clinch, @MissMalice89

Edited February 18, 2020 by inspired_Dev

[[Member Miss…]]

11 hours ago, Crazyjster said:

I am going to guess...that that has to do with the fact that it is a separate union, unless the play has been made into a motion picture and there is a soundtrack released under a major record label, but that is my guess...

I agree that the company should just pay the rights and cover the royalties for fan uploads since it encourages it. It should discourage posting on social media to cut down on copyright violations or keep private for in-app use like the "kareoke bar" analogy and not allow people on who don't pay. One complaint Smule makes is that they don't profit due to free accounts...well don't let non-vip be an option. Use that to pay for royalty fees. 

I'm not addressing the android issue...I will happily discuss that somewhere else if you want to post it as a topic.

Sure. But there are so many Musical Theatre nerds on this app and we need more official stuff if they want to cut down on fan stuff. They promote it so they don’t care but our VIP money should be going to paying royalties to CW owners. Also I hate that non-VIP users always ask VIPs to post for them and are jerks about it. Some are nice but it’s an inconvenience. I pay for the app and I think non-VIP should be allowed but give them access to more than like 3 songs which is what they do. They can join all open calls which is often frustrating as I have had so many off key singers ruin my songs because they refuse to pay for the app and just join. I do competitions and cast shows that I have to make private just to stop people thinking they can just join. If I put DO NOT JOIN WITHOUT PERMISSION, that’s not something to ignore but so many non-VIPs are annoying and entitled. So maybe VIP should be the only option. They need to add settings to allow only people invited can join songs, or the ability to delete layers like I said. Smule infuriates me but I have a lot of followers and friends and love to sing so I can’t leave. 

[[Member Miss…]]

15 hours ago, MissMalice89 said:

Well Smule would suck for Musical Theatre singers on Smule, almost all of the boradway/other musical songs on there are fan uploaded. They won't stop it because too many people would leave. I'd stop paying VIP without those songs and fan uploaded songs. If Smule bothered to get the rights to pay for all the Musical soundtracks that people wanted and not just cater to the casual masses who just want boring pop, then our VIP would go to paying for it. If two million of us are paying VIP that's a lot to go towards royalties. They should also be making it possible to remove people who join and ruin recordings, or if you make a mistake, and making Android have the same features as us on iPhone. Also putting dynamic lyrics back into the app etc. They have better things to be doing that catering to some millionaire who doesn't need any more money but won't authorize their music for legal upload. #sorrynotsorry I'd be honored if they wanted to use my music on there. I'd not ask for a stupid amount of money for use either. Just a relative fixed amount. If the artists weren't always trying to extort exorbitant amounts of money for "copyright" when they could allow fair use for a reasonable amount. Sorry this stuff bugs the hell out of me, because it's us, the users who suffer for it, the app should pay its own copyright fees not us.

Also I meant Broadway lol. Stupid typo.