Karaoke Forums

I seriously do too, but not enough to get involved in a possible lawsuit or be forced to give SC full access of my computers and drives. I know they have conducted some Skype audits, but Kurt has mentioned wanting to conduct more intensive in person audits.

If they saw me play 5 SC songs, they can feel free to approach and Identify themselves...I will gladly provide the discs containing their songs, but that is not how it goes is it?

Well, that's mighty thoughtful of you... thanks. And I certainly hope that with all that time you've been spending with private investigators, it will someday pay off with at least 1 new gig for your virtually unused system.

I would hate to have you feel like you were snookered into thinking you would actually get a bunch of new business if you worked as an unpaid informant.

It says nothing about a boycott, but then you list reasons the kj is boycotting them...

Actually, I can't find a KJ I can trust to fill up the rest of the week. Psycho Mike works a regular job & can only do Saturday's....

Just a refresher Manobeer if you remember, just copying the trademark off a disc to computer is an infringement. If one wants to run SC content on a computer, one opens themselves up to scruitiny.

I say everyone should go back to disc for awhile if they don't want their computers looked into to get a privlege to run SCs content on a computer.

Just like driving, it's a privlege, not a right....

Thanks... but no need that is understood 100%.

But a refresher to you as well, KJs have the RIGHT to choose.

They have the right to choose weather playing those SC tracks is worth the possible scrutiny. And they have the RIGHT to choose to buy discs from companies that dont involve the same risks.

B4 you go on about how Stellar is gonna do this and that... When that day comes, KJs wills still have that RIGHT to choose.


Yes some might have lots of SC discs, and are willing to take the risk... Their choice.
I know you probably wont understand the analogy, but...

If I give you my $3000 camera and a $2000 lens, will that make you a great photographer?

Let's be more accurate and change "scrutiny" to "a lawsuit."

"privilege to run SC's content?" You must be kidding.

It's an "option" and it won't make or break any show. You're proof of that. Despite your own efforts and private investigator assistance, you haven't been able to unseat "Boozy the karaoke guy" who's karaoke library "went from 50,000 down to 2,000 overnight" right?

So your "privileged discs" are doing nothing other than gathering dust and it really doesn't matter if you have 50k or just 2k of songs does it?... nope. All those SC songs are not helping you one bit.

I see your point...

Just want to point out that I do not see the KJ forums except when I am logged in, therefore probably a lot of people will not see this subject if it is moved to the KJ only forums.

While many on this forum may tire of the legality/piracy arguements, the fact is it is generating a lot of the discussion points on this forum, and threads are easy to ignore.

Moving to the KJ forums is just a way to kill the thread, and if we can get some real information on the practical details of the situation from the OP (before it is sidetracked with a 100 posts of sludge) it could be informative to many of us who are trying their best to be legit.

You need at least 20 posts in order to join the KJ forum.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Thanks Lonman, I'm in.

Also I see this thread remains in Open Forums. Once KJAthena posts 20 times will the thread be moved to private KJ Only Forum?

Hello everyone I am Kjathena and want to start answeing your questions if I can.

"So, in which state was the lawsuit that you were named in?

Also was a company name listed?

Is yours and/or company name still visable on the lawsuit filing on http://dockets.justia.com/ so we may take a look?"

My company Goodtime Karaoke Inc was named in the Florida suits. I haven't checked Justia.com to see if it has been removed yet.We received the intent "package" and were undestandably upset.

Our business is over 16 years old. We have 3 rigs Two rig are currently up and runnig and we are loading the third.and as a matter of horor chose to keep to the 1-1 ratio when loading. Each rig contains aprox. 24,000 songs. They are not identicl. We own over 70,000. original karaoke tracks from many manufactures .We never downloaded any songs because we could see on the site documentation that they were not for commercial use. (when you use them to run a show and are compensated that is the defination of comercial use) We remove dupes from our songbooks to keep the size manageable three inch D rings barely hold the books and we put out 10 or more at each show. We use a rating system to decide what "version" to include in the books. As a general rule Pioneer,SC,THM,DK,PHM and Chartbuster lead the pack, bring up the rear are Backstage,Nuteck,SGB, All-hits and Northstar ,the other brands we own fall in between. This is our personal opinion.

We contacted SC immediatly and requested an audit. We sent them copies of our songbooks and chose to grant them access to our disc, computers and hard drives.
After inspection we passed and they agreed to remove us from the suit. They were suprisingly plesent to deal with and apologized for the inconvenience(our discs were archived in a sepprate location and for 3 days my house was over taken by discs). We could have been pissed at that point but we realized along the way that SC was sincerly trying to do something about the piracy issues that are distroying karaoke.

In our area in the last 3 years pirates have become the norm, show quality and rates have dropped and this has hurt. It became harder and harder to explain to new venues why our company was worth our rates when ther were multiple pirates waiting in the wings willing to work for $50.00 and beer. My advise to anyone that is legal is to request an audit before being named. If you are not legal...get legal.

We are awiting the KIAA site to be rebuilt and have sent our master books to become members. A small membership fee is no diffrent to us than paying our Incorporation fees each year and are tax deductable

THE SKY IS NOT FALLING.....Your venues will not be sued if you are legal and in the long run we are going thru a process that is needed for the survival of karaoke.

I am happy to answer any questions
KJathena

Question...

Did they ask to see other manufacturers discs or only Sound Choice?

Thanks again for your post.


Jonn

They did ask for some other manus disc because we told them we were looking to join KIAA... We did not have to sign the form I have seen posted admitting guilt ect.

KJAthena

Nice to know. That form MAY be directed to those companies that did not have the originals & had to purchase the library - speculation on my part, but makes more sense to make a company that never bought a disc sign that form rather than one that actually purchases each & every disc PER computer.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!

Lonman
Thank you for allowing me to post here. I hope to clear up any misconceptions.

KJAthena

After occupying your house for 3 days on a false accusation (as they later determined themselves) it would seem that they owe you something for the inconvenience.


Yes sound choice has a right to protect their trademark and products, but they also do not have the right to just accuse everyone and leave the burden of proof on the accused.

Just as a matter of fairness they should reimburse you for all the time involved (even if they were nice) they did waste a lot of your time. An appology is not sufficient in my book. Compensation in the form of either cash or disks would be the only fair recorse.

Dr Fred
I can see where you are coming from however it was our Copyright/trademark Lawyer who explained we were guilty of the trademark infringement just by having converting the discs to hard drive. Our compensation was to be able to still use our computers and not be legally served and sued. $$ or discs would have been nice but this is better in the long run.

KJAthena

His take is contradictory to that from lawyers I have spoken with... You can have 10 million SC discs on your hard drive, that in its self is not infringement.






The format shift might be illegal, but until you use that trademark in commerce/public it has not been infringed. But it can be argued that if you have them on your hard drive on a mobile rig you INTENDED to use them in commerce.

I do agree that in your case the lawyer advised correctly to just get this done with.

I would too, and it would be an on the spot showing.

_________________
LIKE Lonman on Facebook - Lonman Productions Karaoke & my main site via my profile!