www.karaokehitnmiss

Keep an eye out any day now for a new app called Google Karaoke. Word in yesterday's Globe & Mail Business section is that Google has just teamed up with a Montreal digital media group to bring free karaoke to the internet. 

We're "Democratizing karaoke" says Eric Boyko, co-founder of Stingray Group. 

What?  You didn't know that karaoke was a repressed art form? Apparently it was until today, when the two companies  are expected to announce the launch of  The Karaoke Channel on YouTube.

Turns out  the major impediment to world wide karaoke has been someone to buy up tens of thousands of song rights and put them in one legal karaoke catalogue.  Most of the karaoke tracks you find on Youtube  are illegal, and this makes it hard for Google to sell advertising.  

 “We want to do for karaoke what Cirque du Soleil did for the circus,” says Boyko.

This is no idle threat.  Stingray is already one of the major sources of songs for American Idol and America's Got Talent. They own the rights to 18,000 songs, which saves the shows the money and time it takes to negotiate rights. 

Of course this might do something to change  AI as we know it. Who's going to stand in line for hours when they can just become the next viral hit from their living room?

Then again what viral hitmaker  is going to go through the whole AI process when they can just sign with a label right away? Maybe this isn't an Idle threat.  Maybe it's an Idol threat...