Now comes Blindspot’s “Karaoke Dreams,” a new musical where workers and customers in a bar tell their stories through songs they perform on a karaoke stage.

Karaoke poses interesting questions about talent and authenticity, democratizing yet commodifying the former while drawing our attention to the way pop music teeters between art and commercialism.

Karaoke machine manufacturers and the distributors of karaoke CDs have had an uphill battle fighting copyright infringement cases brought by music publishers. One player in the karaoke business is ...